Chapter Four #3
Even from that distance, he recognized the dark hair pulled into the same tight knot at the back of her head. She held a pen above an open notebook, then lowered her gaze to write something.
Matvei looked away before she could notice him staring.
The locker room opened to the media twenty minutes later.
Matvei heard them before he saw them. The sound changed as soon as the doors opened: shoes against the rubber floor, equipment shifting, the low murmur of people deciding which player to approach first.
He kept his attention on untying his left skate and waited.
A television reporter arrived first, flanked by a camera operator who positioned himself close enough that Matvei could see his own reflection in the lens.
“How are you feeling after two days?” the reporter asked.
“Good.”
“Do you feel like you're ahead of where you were at this point last year?”
“It is second day.”
The reporter smiled as though Matvei had made a joke. “Sure, but physically, with the knee and everything—”
“Knee is good.”
“Any limitations?”
“No.”
The reporter waited for more. When none came, he asked whether Matvei had changed anything in his offseason preparation. Matvei gave him nearly the same answer he'd given the day before.
“Worked.”
It continued that way for several minutes. Questions about confidence. Questions about the previous season. Questions about whether he felt pressure to prove he could still be the Convoy's unquestioned starter.
Matvei answered each one with as few words as possible.
He knew how the game worked. The questions would continue until someone found a sentence useful enough to become a headline. His job was to avoid providing it.
Eventually, the television crew moved away.
A radio reporter stepped in to ask about one of the younger defensemen, which Matvei answered more fully.
He didn't mind talking about teammates. There was less danger in praising someone else, and he liked the rookie enough to explain how well he'd handled traffic around the crease.
When that conversation ended, Matvei looked down and reached for the laces of his right skate.
A pair of black shoes stopped several feet in front of him.
He knew who it was before he lifted his head.
Tessa stood outside the circle of equipment scattered around his stall, waiting rather than stepping over it.
Her credential rested against a dark sweater, and she held the same small recorder from the day before.
She looked less nervous now, though the fingers wrapped around her notebook tightened when their eyes met.
“Hi,” she said.
Matvei nodded once.
She turned on the recorder. “I noticed you and Pat stayed out to repeat that low-to-high sequence after practice. Were you working on tracking the pass or controlling the rebound?”
The specificity of the question caught him off guard.
Most reporters would have asked why he'd stayed late, as though extra work at training camp required an explanation. She had noticed the drill itself. More than that, she had apparently understood what it was designed to address.
“Both,” he said.
She waited, but only for a second.
Matvei looked back at the skate in his hands. He could have left the answer there. He should have left it there.
Instead, he added, “First save is not problem. Second puck was coming up the middle.”
“So you wanted to direct the first one outside the dangerous area?”
“Yes.”
“Did it feel cleaner by the end?”
“Better.”
She nodded and clicked off the recorder. “Thank you.”
That was all.
She didn't mention the story. She didn't ask whether he'd read it or whether he agreed with what Pat and Viktor had said. She didn't try to turn the two real sentences he'd given her into an invitation for five more questions.
She simply stepped away and crossed the room toward one of the defensemen.
Matvei stared after her for a moment before catching himself.
Pat returned to the stall carrying two practice sticks and leaned them against the wall.
“That looked painless,” he said.
Matvei resumed unlacing his skate.
“She asked hockey question.”
“Reporters tend to do that.”
“Not always.”
Pat looked toward Tessa, who was now listening while the defenseman demonstrated something with his hands.
“She wrote a good story.”
“It is one story.”
“True.”
“If I am bad tomorrow, she writes bad story.”
“If you're bad tomorrow, she might write that you were bad tomorrow.”
Matvei pulled off his skate and placed it beside the other.
“That is different?”
“It can be.”
Matvei didn't answer.
He thought of the newspaper folded inside his bag. He thought of the headline from his rookie season and the word lazy printed beneath his face. He thought of all the reporters who had been polite in September before becoming merciless by November.
One article did not make her different.
One informed question did not make her trustworthy.
Across the room, Tessa laughed quietly at something the defenseman said. Then she wrote another note, thanked him and moved toward the door without looking in Matvei's direction again.
He told himself he was relieved.
For reasons he didn't understand, it felt more like disappointment.