Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Varga
Rook was on the phone with Mark, and he had it on speaker.
In the past, he made every hard call with the phone to his ear, standing in the office or by the back door. Now, it was out in the open, like Mark was in the room with us.
“Yeah,” Rook said. “We want to get ahead of something.”
“Okay.” Mark’s voice was dry, and I saw the clipboard beside him in my head. “Get ahead of what? Help me out, Rook, because something is the word guys use right before I find out from a viral Instagram post.”
“It’s not that kind of something.”
“Is it a hockey thing or a not-hockey thing?”
“Not hockey.”
A pause on Mark’s end. ”Is anybody hurt? “ Is there a—do I need to call legal, is what I’m asking. Tell me now, and it’s still a good day. Don’t tell me, and I’ll worry.”
“Nobody’s hurt.” Rook glanced at me. “Nobody’s in trouble. It’s nothing like that. It’s good, Mark, and it’s just ours. We want to do it right.”
“Ours.” A beat while Mark sat with the pronoun. He decided not to touch it. “All right. What do you need from me?”
“Time. A few days before anything moves. PR ready, not surprised. And I need it to stay in your office until we give the word.”
“That part’s easy.” Paper shifting. “When you say a few days, are you building toward something with a date on it, or am I just supposed to sleep badly until you call?”
“There’s a date. You’ll have it before you need it.”
“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.” His voice was slow and careful. “Okay. I’ll get the room ready on my end, and I won’t ask the question I want to ask. Whatever it is, you’ve got the runway. I’ll protect it.”
“I know you will. Thank you, Mark.”
“Have a good day, Rook. Tell—“ He stopped himself. “Take care.”
He hung up. He set the phone down, and I understood that we’d crossed a line. We couldn’t undo the conversation with Mark.
“That’s the first one,” Rook said.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I jumped off something.” He briefly smiled. “Before I checked for a safety net.”
“There’s a safety net.”
“I’ll do my best to believe you.”
I walked around the island and put my hand on the back of his neck. His shoulders relaxed. I kissed him.
“Two more,” he said.
“Two more what?”
“Names today.” He pulled back to look at me. “Heath and Kieran. I want them in before the post-Thanksgiving break.”
I called Heath, and he was on the doorstep with Kieran within the hour. Kieran was wearing his Shedd fleece. We sat in the living room. I made coffee.
“We’ll get ahead of him,” Heath said. “That’s the plan. You two decide on the story you want to tell—your words with your timing. Kovac doesn’t get to run the show.”
“And you think he’ll hold off?” I asked.
“He will,” Kieran said. “A reporter like Kovac would rather have your cooperation than scoop you. If you give him the real piece, with your boundaries, he’ll be happy to have the access.”
“I’ll handle the room,” Heath said. “I’ll talk Mark off the ledge, and I’ll keep the beat guys looking the wrong way. That part I can do in my sleep.”
I believed him. I’d watched him settle in during his second year, and now he handled logistics like a pro.
“One thing,” I said. “And it’s dumb. It has nothing to do with anything.”
“My favorite kind of question.”
“The travel stuff. The hotels. How do you—“ I stopped and started over. “How do you even check the blocks? Do you call the coordinator, or—”
He took the question seriously. “Coordinator sends me a draft,” Heath said. “I flag the geometry and swap a couple of rooms before it goes out. Takes ten minutes. Nobody’s ever once asked me why.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I’ve got a system.” He sounded a little proud, daring me to make fun of it. “It’s color-coded. Kieran thinks I need help.”
“You do need help.”
“Probably.” He grinned. So did I, and it had nothing to do with hotels. It was just that I’d wanted this for three years—Heath hanging out, telling me about his color-coded room charts—and the only thing that stood in the way was gone.
“You’re a freak,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
They left through the front door, and I was getting used to it.
***
We didn’t treat actual Thanksgiving like Thanksgiving. Games bracketed it the day before and the day after. Our hockey Thanksgiving was a three-day break beginning with the Saturday after. Markel scheduled a morning skate on Saturday and then gave us the following two days off completely.
The night before, my teammates shared their plans in the group chat. Trier was flying out to family, and he’d rehired his cat sitter. Rafe asked what time the building opened the morning after the break, and he got three different wrong answers. He answered each with “Okay, thanks.”
The office door was open a few inches when I went looking for Rook. I couldn’t remember the last time it was open when he was working. It was an invitation for me to join him. I pushed it open the rest of the way with one knuckle.
He was at the desk with the lamp on and the laptop open, and on the screen was a website for a community rink somewhere with pine trees framing the header photo.
A banner read “Learn-to-skate Saturdays. Beer league Tuesday and Thursday nights.” It displayed a phone number with an area code I didn’t know.
A blank message box was open on top of it, with the cursor blinking in an empty white field.
I knew without being told. It was Alan Easton. He’d found the man who told the room that a terrified kid from Maine belonged.
The old me would have pulled the other chair around and said okay, what do we know? what’s his email? is there a contact form? give me the laptop. I would’ve noisily turned it into a project. I would have taken the hard thing Rook did privately and turned it into a joint project at full volume.
Instead, I stood in the doorway. “Him?” I asked.
Rook didn’t look up. “Him.”
“Where is he?”
“British Columbia. He runs this rink.”
That was all. I didn’t ask what he’d write. I didn’t ask if he’d send it tonight or whether Easton would even remember a longshot kid he’d vouched for fifteen years ago. Still, I was dying to know.
I went to the kitchen and made the coffee he hadn’t asked for.
Rook had a preferred way to take it at night.
It was barely coffee at all, mostly milk, and he’d be embarrassed for the room to know.
I set it by the laptop where his hand would find it.
I kneaded his shoulders for a moment and then left.
I pulled the door to behind me, leaving a four-inch gap.
I had one other person who needed to know what was going on, and I knew it would change our break plans.
Rook surprised me and entered the kitchen while I had my phone in hand.
I almost waved him off, but then I didn’t.
The two of us together were the whole point of it.
“Stay?” I asked before punching the call button.
He sat at the island and waited.
I called Mom.
She was already talking when I picked up the phone.
It was like catching a moving train. ”—because your sister says it’s fine to drive in this, and I told her, the lake road is ice by four, but does anyone listen to me?
Luki, the dog will not get in the car now.
He sat down in the driveway like a—are you there? ”
“I’m here.”
“You’re coming up tomorrow? Before dark? Tell me you’ll get here before dark.”
“I’ll be there before dark.” My pulse pounded in my throat. Rook reached out to take my free hand. “Mom, I have to tell you something.”
“You’re hurt.” That was her instant response. “Your ankle. I saw you favor it on television in the Buffalo game. Don’t tell me it’s nothing—“
“It’s not the ankle.” I didn’t dress up the news. I said it plainly, while I held the hand of the man I love.
“Mom, there’s someone.”
She was silent for a moment. “Someone?”
“There’s a man. For—“ My throat closed, and Rook gripped my hand tighter. “There’s been one for five years. He planted your tree. The maple you sent, even though you thought I was in an apartment and it would need an enormous pot. It’s eight feet tall now, and I can see it from the kitchen window.
He keeps your postcards on the fridge. He can’t read the Hungarian, but he won’t let me throw them out.
” Tears were leaking out of my eyes, but I wasn’t fighting it.
“I’m bringing him tomorrow for our Thanksgiving dinner. I’m bringing him home.”
She started crying. I heard the sound. ”Kisfiam,” she said, my little boy, a word she hadn’t used since I was small. And then, because she is who she is, she asked, “Does he eat?”
I laughed. “He eats, Mom.”
“What does he eat? Is he too thin, like you? Tell me what I need to make. American turkey? Or duck? I’ll ask at the meat—“ She was already making a list. “Fish? Does he eat fish?”
“He’s from Maine. He eats fish.”
“Maine.” Her voice changed. It dropped low. “Luki, every Christmas I ask, and you tell me nothing, and I let it be. I think you’ll tell me when you’re ready. The bed’s always made. Anyone you bring, there’s room.” She exhaled. “The big guest room. I’ve been keeping the room.”
That took the wind out of me. She’d been holding a room ready for years. It was the guest room we never used, except for the time relatives came from Slovakia. Anyone you want to bring, there’s room. She’d kept it for Rook and me for five years, without knowing who he was.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry it took—“
“No sorry.” Her voice was sharp again. “You’re coming home, and you’re bringing him, and I’ll make everything.
He’ll leave too thin on purpose, but I’ll send containers.
” She was crying and planning all at the same time.
Her voice dropped again. “Drive before dark. Both of you. Tell him I said bring you home.”
And she was gone before I could say any more. I looked at Rook with the phone still in my hand.
“She said you need to take me home,” I told him.
“I heard. She’s loud, like her son. She asked if I ate fish.”
I laughed.
***
Rafe was already dressed when I walked in. He had his skates on and gloves in his lap.
“Morning.” He sounded like he’d been awake for hours.
“Did you sleep over here?”
His voice was perfect Saskatchewan deadpan. “Wanted to beat the traffic.”
“It’s Saturday. The city’s asleep.”
“Then it worked.” He almost smiled. The kid was settling in, giving back a third of what he took.
Markel ran a short session. Edges, a breakout drill, and a flow rush he killed the second it got sloppy. Nobody’s legs were in it and it showed.
Half the room was already with family in Michigan, or wherever, mentally. Coach didn’t fight it. He stood at the hash marks with his arms crossed and let us get the work done so he could give us the two days off.
I muffed a pass and Rook gave me the flat look across the blue line that the team reads as Rook being tired of Varga. I gave him back the grin the team reads as me not caring. The Rook and Varga Show was running on schedule.
The difference was, someday soon we wouldn’t need the flat look or the grin at all. Today we were performing a show with a shelf life.
Markel blew his final whistle before eleven. “Go home,” he said. “Be real people for two days.” His eyes landed on me half a second longer than on the rest. Or I imagined they did. Everything looked like that now.
My bag was already in the truck. So was Rook’s. We just had to drive.
***
We were two hours up I-94, and I was still talking.
“I’ve played the May playlist so many times I’ve started hearing the stuff underneath.” I held up my phone. “There’s a cowbell in the third song; you probably don’t know about it. I can’t unhear it now. It’s in my head forever.”
“Okay.”
“Waterpark.” I pointed at a billboard. It promised indoor water slides. “Water in late November in Wisconsin. Somebody’s getting in that water. I respect and fear them.” I drank from my travel mug, which dribbled. “This thing leaks, by the way.”
“Get a new one.”
“I’m not getting a new one.”
“Then stop telling me about it.”
“Yours doesn’t leak. It fits your personality, Rook. You buy a functional object once, like you choose a—“
He dropped in a word every few miles to prove he was listening. Otherwise, he let me run.
The land flattened out north of a town named Tomah. I told him about the dog.
“Okay, the dog. His name is Medve. That’s Hungarian for bear. He’s going to lose his entire mind. I need you to be ready for that. He’s a golden retriever, so he won’t hurt you; he’ll just love you so hard you’ll go down. That’s the price of entry with my family. You only pay it once.”
Rook nodded at the road.
“My mother will put a plate in your hands within ninety seconds. I’ve timed it before. It’s not a hospitality thing; it’s a reflex. Don’t try to stop it. And my father—“
I held up a finger.
“My father shakes your hand and says one sentence. Only one. It will either be nothing, like a comment about the weather, or it will destroy you. There’s no middle ground. That’s Hungarian fathers, and you won’t know which one’s coming.”
“What do I say back?”
“Nothing. You’re a Maine guy; you’ll be fine. Your people don’t talk either.”
Rook’s phone lit up in the cupholder.
I saw the name before he did, and I resisted doing the old thing, grabbing it and saying I’ll get it.
The screen said EASTON.
Rook glanced at it and then looked back at the road.
“You want me to—“ I started. “I can read—”
I stopped and put my hand back in my lap.
He reached down with his right hand, picked it up, and held it out across the console to me without looking away from the road.
“Read it to me,” he said.