Rafe
Chapter fifteen
Coach Markel had three cones out for a new wrinkle in the bump-back.
I hugged the wall and hit the line, while Rook covered Heath. I held the puck a half-second longer, let the defensive pressure declare itself, and slipped it back through my feet to Varga trailing late. He walked into the space everyone had vacated and sent the puck past Pratt, under the crossbar.
“THAT’S the play,” Varga announced. “That’s the best play all season. I’m finally seen.”
“He didn’t see you,” Heath said. “He saw Rook.”
“He saw the absence of options and knew I was the remaining smart choice. That’s vision.”
“Gather in for water,” Coach Markel said.
At the boards, Trier glided in beside me with his bottle. “Peaches has her follow-up in two days. It’s just blood work.”
“You need me to take her?”
“No, but I’ll tell you the results when I get them. I want you to have the context. You’re on the distribution list now. It’s not a small thing. Cross isn’t there.”
“I asked to be removed,” Cross said, skating past.
“He asked to be removed,” Trier agreed. “It’s a curated list.”
We ran the new play four more times. The last time through, Rook jumped the fake bump, and the door behind him stood open. I went through it, and Pratt had no chance.
“Okay,” Coach Markel said. “That’s it. Video at eleven.”
The horn sounded, and we skated toward the gate. My legs and hands both felt good.
Then the hallway was wrong.
There were too many people standing around. A trainer and one of the equipment guys were shoulder to shoulder by the sponsor board, both looking at the same phone. Jenny from PR turned toward the offices, walking fast with her phone against her ear and her free hand pressed flat on top of her head.
“Something happened,” Varga said quietly. It was a voice he rarely used.
We walked down the tunnel toward the locker room. It was quiet with nobody speaking.
Half the guys were undressed, and most of them had their phones out, which wasn’t unusual after practice, except that nobody was showing anybody anything. Heath stood in front of his stall with one skate off, looking at his phone.
I sat down at my stall and started on my skates.
Kieran glanced at me, just once, from across the room.
I pulled the first skate off.
“Hey.” It was Cross. He’d crossed the room in his base layer, and he crouched in front of my stall the way he crouched in front of a rookie who got cut in the fall. “Don’t read anything yet. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it as a team.”
“Okay,” I said.
Four seconds later, Varga sat down in Pratt’s spot while he was in the shower. He said nothing at all.
He looked at his phone and then turned it face down while he looked at the far wall.
“Somebody should tell me,” I said.
“Rafe.” Mark was in the doorway. He had his jacket on and tie loosely tied. He held a phone in each hand. “Walk with me.”
I took off my other skate and followed Mark out.
He walked fast, past the video room and the framed photos of traded guys. I followed him into the small PR office. He shut the door behind us.
“It’s out,” he said. “The arrangement. Somebody put it up this morning with enough detail that we can’t deny it. It’s moving fast with no obvious original source.” He set both phones on the desk, side by side, and looked at me. “Do you know where this came from?”
I heard accordion music in my head and saw Marta’s glasses on a chain. “No,” I said.
It came out smooth and sounded honest. I didn’t know I could do that with a lie.
Mark nodded, already moving on to the next thing.
He didn’t make it dramatic. The team’s statement would go out within the hour. It would acknowledge that the story was out there while neither confirming nor denying it. That would buy them several hours, but the evening would heat the story up again.
Mark told me how to handle social media. He insisted on no posting, replying, liking, or unliking. He told me I could leave, and when I reached the door, he called to me, “Rafe.”
I turned.
“Third thing.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. I’m taking responsibility. The arrangement was my idea; I brought it to you, and I told you nobody would get hurt. I believed it when I said it.”
“Nobody lied to me,” I said.
Mark picked up a pen from the desk and set it back down in the same place. “Talk to Hal today,” he said.
He had already called while I was in the office. I’d missed three calls from him, and there were already thirty-eight team chat messages in a thread about Max and me. I didn’t open those, but I opened two from my mom.
One was a photo of frost on the kitchen window. The second was more urgent, sent fifteen minutes ago:
Mom: Call when you can. No rush. We love you.
I called Hal from the truck. He picked up immediately.
“There he is.” His voice was calm. I heard a drawer shut on his end. “First. Are you driving?”
“No, I don’t look at messages when I’m driving.”
“Good. Then here’s the whole thing going on.
This is a bad day, and it’s going to be a terrible week, but it’s not more than that.
The contract you signed protects you. There’s no misconduct anywhere in this.
Legally, this is a nothing sandwich. It is a story problem, but they end. I’ve seen worse and handled worse.”
“Okay.”
“The walk-away clause is live, obviously. One word from you and the arrangement’s over, but I think there’s no rush—“
“It’s already over,” I said. “Isn’t it? It ended this morning without me saying anything.”
Hal was quiet for a second.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s about right.” His end of the call was silent.
“Reporters will show up tomorrow. I’ll send you talking points tonight.
They’ll be true ones, and you’ll say them better than I write them.
Before that, if asked, you don’t know who leaked it. I’m not saying you do, but in case.”
I heard Marta’s voice again. And is there a real one?
“Rafe. You with me?”
“I’m with you.”
“The last thing: How are you doing? I mean the real you, not any media version of you.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s a lot, but I’m fine.”
“Eat something,” Hal said. “Call your parents. Also, when Max surfaces, whatever’s going on in his camp isn’t about you. Sympathy traffic crests like a tidal wave. It carries people along. Give him room.”
We hung up. I texted Max before I put the truck in gear:
Rafe: you okay?
It said delivered, but there was no response.
On the way home, I sat through a light change without moving. A guy behind me honked. I raised a hand and moved at the next opportunity.
My apartment looked the way it always did. I’d made my bed and wiped down the kitchen counter. After pacing one circle around the living room, I sat on the sectional and did what Varga told me never to do.
Nobody reads their own coverage right. They read the one bad comment, and then they miss the big picture.
I did my best to read it the way Varga would. I went through all of it, top to bottom, before deciding anything.
The story itself was short. Every outlet said the same things. They showed the January photo outside the restaurant and used the word fabricated.
Then they chose sides. According to the media, it was all happening to Max. He was an influencer used by the hockey PR machine.
I was the man who agreed to be in on the deception.
Nobody wrote it that way, but they didn’t have to. Social media figured it out on its own.
They said the Saskatchewan farm kid idea was a ruse. I’d been trained by the media to be polite. They said Varga and I cooked up me giving the hat trick away to pass to him. Running along the bottom of the TV screen, I saw the phrase that would be repeated over and over: calculated humility.
Nobody found any evidence I was lying about anything. They assumed I was. Without it, their story wouldn’t work.
The truth was that everything that happened was true. We didn’t lie about the dinner, and the pass to Varga was genuine. Max was hilarious, and I did like him, but the definition of the relationship was the fake thing.
My phone buzzed. It was the latest post on the team chat. I opened it to see a photo of Peaches asleep on Trier’s lap. Seconds later, someone shared Mark’s statement from the team, as vague as he said it would be.
My phone rang. It was Mom.
“You’re there,” she said. “I told your dad that you’ve got practice, and you’ll call when you’re done. Are you home?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Marlene sent me something this morning. I didn’t read all of it, but I read enough.”
“Mom—“
“I’m not asking you to explain anything,” she said. “That’s why I’m calling, so you’ll know I won’t ask you. Rafe, hold on.” A clatter. The phone was changing hands.
“Hey,” Dad said.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Cold down there?”
“About the same as there, probably.”
“Huh. I watched the Nashville game again. Their D pair tries to look better than they are. You’ll get behind them once a period if your guys are patient.”
“That’s what the video said this morning.”
“There you go.” The line was quiet for a moment. “These people writing things. They don’t know anything about you. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“They never met you. It’s a lot of people talking who have never met you.” A stool creaked. “Your mother wants the phone back.”
“I do not want the phone back; I’m right here. Rafe, we’re coming to the March game in Winnipeg.”
“I’d like that.”
“That Max seems like a nice boy, whatever you arranged. You can hear it in the interviews, and how you get along in the video of both of you. I told Dad nobody made that up.”
“No,” I said. “We do get along.”
“Okay,” she said. “We love you, Rafe.”
“Love you too.”
She was gone.
I got up and walked around the room, straightening things with shelf and table edges. On the console, I’d already sorted the mail into two piles. I looked through it again to make sure: personal in one pile and ads in the other.
My phone buzzed. It was the team chat again. Varga had posted a link and added: nobody click this. I already did so you don’t have to. it’s garbage. we say nothing to the reporters. we say everything we have to say on the ice. Heath added: what he said.
I still had nothing from Max.
I checked his website. There was something new. It was a kitchen he’d shot in Wilmette, and the caption was about grout lines. The comments were shut off. It was smooth and dignified, but I couldn’t find him in it anywhere.
I put the phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys. Seconds later, I was in the truck. I didn’t know where I was going, but I put it in gear anyway.
At the first light, I knew where I wanted to go. The turns were deliberate. If Mark had called at that moment, I probably would have told him I was just driving, but that wasn’t true.
The old brick buildings rose on either side of the street. A guy entered one of them carrying a six-pack.
I parked across the street from Niko’s shop, half a building down. The truck sat in the dark patch between two streetlights. I turned the engine off.
The light was on in the shop. The blinds were shut, but every seam glowed. Above it, the apartment windows were dark.
Niko would know by now. Everybody knew by now. He’d have seen it, and he didn’t text me either.
Behind the blinds, a shadow moved and stopped somewhere near where I knew the bench was.
I was across the street before I heard the truck door shut behind me.