25. Jack
25
JACK
I used to think being in a hockey rink was the loudest, most chaotic environment I’d been in. And then I stepped into The Pottery Palace.
An onslaught of blindingly bright colors, peppy music, and kids speaking to their parents in the highest possible volume greet us upon entry. June and Annabelle acclimate right away, running into the fray to pick out the ceramic item they wish to paint.
I can’t imagine Griffin existing in a world this busy. I’m amazed he can fit inside at all. His bulky frame squeezes through the front door, whereupon his head hits a light fixture hanging from the ceiling. All of the tables and chairs are kid-sized. We are Gulliver in that land of Lilliputians.
“You okay there?” I ask.
“Fine,” he grumbles. Some of the other parents turn their heads, as if they’ve never seen a massive one-eyed father before.
“Hi! I’m Amy and welcome to The Pottery Palace! Name?” A young woman wearing a headset approaches us with a smile as bright as the wall color. Griffin gives his name, and she looks it up on her tablet. Her aura rests somewhere between camp counselor and ma?tre d’ at the hottest restaurant in Manhattan.
“I see one adult and two children here to create.” She glances at me, then back at her tablet.
“There’re two adults here. We have a guest.” Griffin nods at me. A slight hint of amusement perks up his lips. “Is that okay?”
“I’m not going to paint,” I throw in. “Just keeping this guy company.”
She drags her finger up and down the tablet, half-checking and perhaps half-wondering if she holds more power than God in this moment.
“There was only one parent on the reservation,” she says, her chipper tone belying a steely edge.
“Again, I’m not going to paint. Just hang. I won’t even use a chair.” I bat my eyes at her and use the full force of my masculine wiles. I may be dudes only, but she doesn’t have to know that. “The last thing I want to do is make your job any tougher, Amy. I haven’t seen my nieces in the longest time. I promise if I cause a ruckus, you can crack one of these pots over my head and toss me into the street.”
Amy giggles at that. Like tug of war, I pull her mood toward camp counselor and away from ma?tre d’.
“Okay. I’ll make this one exception. But I’ll be watching you. No sitting in a chair.” She holds the tablet against her chest, perhaps trying to draw my attention to her rack.
“You got it, drill sergeant!” I give her a salute, which elicits another giggle. Griffin rolls his eyes.
The girls run back to us, each holding an identical gray vase. An “artistic coordinator,” a guy my age in a magenta apron that gives me Ferguson’s PTSD, sets the girls and Griffin up at a table with paint. There’s no Frozen-themed vase. Instead, the coordinator tells them to use their imagination, which does not go over well with the girls. Tears immediately follow.
“I thought there were specific things you could paint of Disney characters,” Griffin whispers to the coordinator.
“No. I’m sorry. All pottery is a blank canvas to be filled by imagination!” he says, assuming that saying “imagination” over and over will trigger something in the girls.
“Crap,” Griffin mutters under his breath. “I thought you guys did that.”
The coordinator shakes his head no. The girls’ cries intensify, creating a huge spotlight on us. I can feel eyes on Griffin from other parents. Big hockey man has no idea how to handle children, they’re probably thinking. I turn to Griffin, about to suggest that we should go since the girls are so upset.
He squats down, rips a paper towel off the spool on the table, and wipes at the girls’ eyes, ignoring every single sideways glance.
“I wanted to make an Elsa pot,” June says between sniffly sobs.
“I know, sweet pea. But what about this? What if we paint a pretty vase for your ice castle?” He rests his hands on June’s and Annabelle’s shoulders. “You girls are going to have a massive ice castle, and it’s going to be empty. It needs to be furnished and decorated. I’ve seen Elsa’s ice castle, and she has no decorations. Nothing on the bookshelves or on end tables or window sills.”
“Why is it so empty?” Annabelle wonders.
“Do you want your ice castle to be empty like that?” Griffin asks, his voice animated like he’s giving the sales pitch of his life.
June and Annabelle shake their heads no.
“I want to paint a blue and purple pot to look like ice,” says June.
“And Annabelle, what if you painted yours with yellow and orange?”
“They can look nice next to each other.” Annabelle’s eyes shine with possibility. And just as fast as she and June devolved into crying fits, they sit down at the table, gather their painting supplies, and get to work.
Quiet takes over the table, and I’m quietest of them all. I am stunned into motherfucking silence. Did I just watch a guy nail a shot into the top left corner of the net from the center of the rink?
Griffin stands beside me, beaming down at his daughters.
“That was…incredible. You are Dad AF.”
“Thanks?”
“How did you do that? I was ready to bolt,” I say.
“Parenting is the act of subtly convincing kids to do things and getting them to assume it was their idea.”
It’s official. This man parents as well as he eats ass.
Griffin squats down to the kid-sized chair he’s forced to sit in. His big butt is no match for the furniture. It’s like balancing a basketball on a toothpick. He hunches over the pottery table with the paint supplies as if he could swallow them in one bite. It becomes quickly apparent that the girls don’t have the attention spans or artistic prowess to make their visions come to life. The adults will need to help out.
“Hey June, can Jack borrow your chair?” Griffin asks.
June hops off her stool and brushes it off with a clean paintbrush. She pats the seat twice.
The four of us work on painting their vases. Annabelle goes for yellow and orange stripes, while June is looking for something more chaotic, more Jackson Pollack-y.
“What’s this ice castle you girls keep talking about?” I finally ask. At first, I thought it was imaginary.
“Daddy’s building us our own ice castle in the backyard for our birthday,” Annabelle says.
“Like the one in Frozen ,” June says.
I look to Griffin who confirms it with a nod.
“You’re building them an actual castle?” Growing up, I never got anything like that. All my gifts were hockey related, no matter what was on my wish list. And here this guy is, building a freaking castle for his girls in honor of their favorite movie.
With each second that passes, it’s getting harder to want to kick Griffin’s ass on the ice, and even harder to pretend my attraction to him is purely for the good juju.
Griffin puts on a pair of black-framed reading glasses and rolls up his sleeves to get into painting mode. I, in turn, want to fucking melt. Beefy guys who wear glasses is an irresistible combo. And glasses over an eye patch? It hits the spectrum from nerd to badass all in one.
“You’ve broken out the glasses.” I scoff, because I don’t know how to handle his insane hotness, and so I must make fun of it.
“You’ll need them one day. All those hits to the head add up.”
“So far I’m still twenty-twenty.” I flick my paintbrush at the vase, following June’s lead.
Griffin helps Annabelle paint in a straight line, ensuring the yellow stripe doesn’t bleed into the orange one. I could watch him with his girls all day.
“Dad, what do you think of this?” June shows off her vase.
“I love it.”
She holds it up to me for approval. I give it a thumbs up.
“Thanks for spending your Saturday afternoon with us,” Griffin says.
“I like people who are no BS.” It’s fun talking to a kid with no agenda except curiosity.
Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I worry I’m being too loud. Another dad with his daughter stands over me.
“You’re Jack Gross.”
“I am.” I pray this isn’t a bill collector or process server.
“I watched you play for Wichita when I lived there.”
Now I wish it was a process server. A fan? I get a flash of nausea. I feel exposed in a way that’s hard to describe.
“Thanks,” I say quietly.
“I remember this one game, when you made this pass to Marceau, it flew across the ice right to his stick. The accuracy was amazing.”
I was never sure how to handle these interactions when I was active in the NHL, on the rare occasions they did happen. “Thanks for being a fan.”
“It’s a shame they didn't keep you on.” His comment hangs in the air as if he expects me to respond. My stomach only twists further into a knot. “Can I get a selfie with you?”
“Um, actually, I’m with my friends.”
“Yeah, but it’ll only take a second. Just one picture. Come on. I’m with my kid, too.” He points to his daughter as leverage.
“I get that. I can autograph something for you if you want. I just don’t feel comfortable with pictures being taken.”
“Don’t feel comfortable? What are you talking about?” He laughs it off. Fans can go from fawning to your entitled master in a finger snap. “Just take the picture.”
“Like I said, I can autograph something for you, but I don’t want to take a picture.”
“What’s your problem? You should be lucky someone’s interested in taking your picture.”
“He said he doesn’t want his picture taken.” Griffin yanks the phone out of the guy’s hand. He stands above both of us.
“Why not? I said you were good until they traded your ass.”
“Watch your language at The Pottery Palace,” Griffin growls.
They engage in a standoff that the guy knows he can’t win. He yanks his phone back and shoves it in his pocket.
“Let’s go, sweetheart.” He says to his daughter. “Asshole,” he mutters at me as he leaves.
Griffin watches him go, his eye narrowed in barely contained rage.
“That man used bad words,” Annabelle says.
“He did, love. That wasn’t nice of him.” Griffin returns to his little chair.
“The entitlement of fans. It’s a good thing you never went pro.” I sit down and laugh it off, a bit shaken.
“Does that happen often?”
“Every now and then. The fans are even more aggressive toward the star players. They feel like they have a hand in your success and are owed unlimited access to you. Usually, they don’t care much about a player like me. I’m not worth gushing over.”
“Why do you say that?” Griffin takes off his glasses, making me meet his eye.
“I mean, come on. I was a B-level player on a few teams.”
“So? You were a pro player. That’s something.”
“Maybe to some people, but it’s not as cool as you think.”
“Hey girls. Can you take these pots to the wall so they can dry?” Griffin points to the back wall of shelves filled with projects. There’s a little play area with a kiddie snack station where kids can wait until the paint dries.
Griffin scoots his chair next to me. “I didn’t want them to hear you talk shit about yourself. But why do you do it? Why do you downplay this incredible accomplishment?”
“Incredible?”
“Yes. Incredible.”
“I was a forgettable player for a few years. And now I’m washed up and broke.” I shrug, feeling more pathetic every time I hear it said aloud.
“You got the short end of the stick in the league, but that doesn’t change the fact you’re a great player. I’ve seen you. You earned your place in the NHL.” He stares at me, refusing to let me look away until I let that compute.
“Did you see the video of me crapping out with a game-losing turnover?”
“I did.”
“Wait. You did?” That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. Embarrassment swarms me.
“One of my friends found it online. I was going to share it around the league after you uploaded a video of toilet papering my truck onto YouTube. But I decided to take the high road.”
I nod my gratitude. I both love and hate the internet.
“It’s not that bad,” he says.
“Are you fucking with me?”
“Turnovers happen all the time. It’s not uncommon. I had one during a game in high school. Yours simply had higher stakes.”
Hearing Griffin acknowledge the moment with a shrug actually does make me feel better. The surge of mortification and frustration isn’t as strong this time.
“It was a hell of a first impression,” I say.
“If your coach hadn’t waited until late in the season to give you serious time on the ice, you wouldn’t have been in that position.”
I can hear the “Hallelujah” chorus. I’ve always felt screwed by that freshman season. Had I been able to play more in the season, one (admittedly bad) turnover wouldn’t have torpedoed my career. For the first time, someone is taking my side.
If these chairs weren’t so uncomfortable, I’d hug Griffin.
“Give yourself some credit, Jack.”
“Okay. What about you? Why do you crap all over yourself, huh?” I ask, wanting the spotlight off me and my career. “Why have your girls never seen you play? Why do they barely know you play?”
Griffin looks over at his daughters. “My ex-wife thinks hockey is too violent for them. She wasn’t at the game where your dad took out my eye, but she’s been haunted by the story ever since she heard it.”
“It’s a non-checking league. It’s family-friendly entertainment! I don’t think that’s the reason, though. You think because you never went pro, they wouldn’t care.”
Griffin shrugs. It’s one of the few things he doesn’t feel like fighting.
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Why do you say that?” When he doesn’t answer me right away, I dab his nose with orange paint.
“What was that for?” he asks, annoyed and also confused.
“Those girls are crazy about you! Trust me, they would love to know all about how Daddy played hockey.”
Griffin shrugs, and in response, I dab his forehead with yellow paint.
“Stop,” he says through laughter.
“Your girls are proud of you, Griffin.”
Something changes on his face at the uttering of proud. A quick, genuine smile beams on his lips.
“You should be proud of everything you’ve done, too,” I say. “You’re a success. And maybe, despite you being a sourpuss, I kind of envy what you have. It’s really wonderful.”
A spark of light dazzles in his eye as he nods. He might not believe the hype yet, but I’ll keep working on him.
The girls bring over fruit snacks for us. I rip open my bag and spill half into my mouth. June tries to copy me, but most of them fall onto the table.
“Are the pots ready?” Annabelle asks.
“We can pick them up in a week. They need to dry in the kiln.” Griffin walks over to the holding area where the two pots and other pottery creations from today wait for their turn to glaze. We all look at our pots in wonder as if animals in an exhibit.
A pang hits my chest knowing that this afternoon is winding down.
“There’s a gardening shop a few blocks down, if you guys are up for it. We can’t let these great pots sit empty.” Nobody says the day has to end yet. I can also put the gardening knowledge I learned at Ferguson’s to use.
I look to Griffin, hoping we get the green light. A big smile stretches across his face, a face I want to kiss so badly.
“Let’s pick out some flowers,” he says.