10. CHAPTER 10
Livia
I’ve worked with many professional sports teams in my career, been inside many multimillion-dollar facilities, but I’ve never seen one have a full-service restaurant for its players.
The Blue Line is never fully quiet, even mid-morning when it’s too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.
The space itself is astonishing in its décor—high ceilings with matte-black beams running the length of the room, hardwood floors and the centerpiece, almost like a work of art, is the open chef line running down the middle.
A gleaming stainless steel station facing outward so you can watch the whole operation—grills throwing heat, wok burners flashing when someone tosses vegetables, flat tops working whatever the morning calls for.
At least three chefs on at any given time, which sounds like overkill until you remember there are over a hundred athletes and staff in this building who eat for the health of their job.
The dining floor is fitted with round wood tables to encourage conversation as well as long rectangles for the ones who want to spread out and watch film on their tablets.
Banquette seating flanks one wall, deep and comfortable enough that people linger to relax.
Alternatively, high-top counters sit along the chef line with built-in power outlets for folks who want to keep working.
Digital menu boards rotate through the options—salmon, steak bowls, chicken, turkey burgers—nothing heavy, nothing that’s going to wreck an afternoon practice.
And if you want to take it home, the to-go situation is apparently unlimited, which I discovered on my third day when one of the veteran defensemen walked out with what appeared to be an entire roasted chicken in a paper bag.
TVs are spaced along the perimeter of the restaurant, cycling through game footage and other sports channels. One screen has a gardening program on. The smell of the place alone is enough to make you want to eat even when you’re not hungry.
I’ve claimed a corner booth along the banquette wall, which gives me a sightline to the entrance. The seating is upholstered in neutral linen, deep enough to be genuinely comfortable. I have a coffee in front of me and a mostly ignored yogurt parfait the kitchen sent out without me asking.
Juno drops into the seat across from me and steals a strawberry off the top of the parfait before she’s fully settled. I like that even though we’ve just become friends, she feels comfortable enough with me to pilfer. I would do the same thing.
“Sorry I’m late.” She doesn’t look sorry. “Crosby wanted to talk and Crosby talking is a whole thing.”
“How so?” I ask.
“He’s very deliberate.” She wraps both hands around her coffee cup. “Every word considered with very few wasted. It’s either incredibly sexy or incredibly maddening, depending on the topic.”
I find myself smiling. “Which was it this morning?”
“Fifty-fifty.” She takes a sip. “How are you settling in?”
“Great.” And I mean it. The first few weeks in a new organization can be overwhelming from the learning curve of a hundred small things hitting at once.
You’re trying to figure out everyone’s name and navigate the politics you can’t know until you’ve been in the room enough times to start reading them.
“This place makes it easier. I’ve never worked somewhere that thought through whether the people in it would feel taken care of. ”
Juno glances around the Blue Line with an expression that says she knows exactly what I mean. “Patrick doesn’t do things halfway. I think when the documentary comes out, the public will be shocked by his thoughtfulness and other team owners will scramble to match his energy.”
“I bet.” I chuckle. “Speaking of documentaries, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.”
“You want to ask me about Sanctuary?”
Bingo. Juno has a fascinating history growing up in an abusive church community and she used that experience to expose and take down another church in rural Alabama. “I hope I’m not being too nosy.”
“Not at all,” Juno assures me. “I mean… I’m public about my childhood traumas.”
“I watched it the other night and it was really moving.” I pause, trying to pull on the feelings it provoked. “I can’t even imagine growing up in that kind of environment.”
“It’s hard to understand.” She sets her cup down and there’s a stillness that moves through her that tells me this isn’t a topic she takes out casually. “It wasn’t a church the way most people think of a church. It was really a cult, although it took me a long time to be able to say it.”
“What was it like?” I can’t help but ask.
“It was brainwashing at its finest. Children were praised for obedience. Questions were not welcome. Curiosity was treated as a sin.” She looks at her coffee and smiles with a tinge of bitterness.
“But you left?”
“Escaped.” She nods. “When I was thirteen, I found out I had been promised to the head pastor. He was sixty-two. He already had four wives.” My stomach drops. “I was supposed to become the fifth on my fourteenth birthday.”
The matter-of-fact way she says it is devastating.
“But you got out,” I murmur thankfully.
“The last night of my thirteenth year.” Her smile turns almost mischievous.
“It was a grand and daring escape in the middle of the night. I went to the police, and you should have seen their faces when I told my story. There was an investigation, of course. Arrests. The whole thing came down.” She pauses, a satisfied gleam in her eyes.
“My parents were part of it. They’d agreed to the arrangement.
They believed they’d receive eternal glory in exchange.
” A look crosses her face that isn’t quite bitterness and isn’t quite grief.
“They never forgave me for bringing it down. Never wanted me back.”
“Where did you go?”
“Foster care. Eventually landed with a good couple in Ohio who gave a damn.”
“And your parents now?”
“My mother contacted me not long ago. My father died and she was lonely and needed help.” She says it without inflection. “We didn’t reconcile.”
I grimace at the woman’s audacity. “I don’t blame you for that at all.”
“I considered it. I was going to go see her, and maybe one day I will, but I just don’t have any desire to do so. Is that bad?”
“Not at all. We deal with our traumas in ways that protect our souls. I’d lean into that if I were you.
” I smile at her with encouragement. “And look what it brought you? You turned that into a powerful narrative for the entire world to see. You took down another church. Imagine all the girls you’ve saved between your own experience and those from the documentary. ”
Juno blushes. “I never think of it like that, but yeah… I guess I did.”
“And look at me… now friends with an Oscar and Golden Globe nominee. I feel special.”
“You’re hardly special for knowing me for that,” she quips.
“Okay,” I say, lowering my voice as if I need all the tea. “Tell me a little about the glitz and glam of it all.”
Juno snorts. “I am so not glitzy or glamorous. The film festival circuit is a world away from my own reality.”
“Like how?”
She laughs. “I showed up to Sundance in a dress I borrowed from a friend and spent three days pretending I knew what I was doing. The film won the Documentary Short Award, and I stood at that podium and thanked my family and meant it. What they did to me made my success possible. It was the best and worst week of my life.”
“And then somehow you ended up here.”
“And then somehow I ended up here.” She tilts her head with a particular warmth that I’m starting to recognize as distinctly Juno. “Documenting a hockey team. Which is not what I saw coming.”
“How did Patrick find you?”
“He watched the film,” she says simply. “He reached out through my agent. Said he wanted someone who would tell the real story of this team’s first season—not the PR version, not the highlight reel.
The actual thing.” She pauses. “I told him I wasn’t a sports documentarian.
He said that was exactly why he wanted me. ”
“And Crosby was—” I start.
“An unforeseen complication,” she says dryly, but the affection under it is unmistakable. Her face softens when she says his name, and she probably doesn’t even know it. “He didn’t want to be filmed. Made that clear from day one. And then somehow, he became the central story, at least in my world.”
“I love that you fell in love with one of your subjects.”
“It’s surprising to me it even happened,” she says, shaking her head as if caught in a fond memory. “He wanted nothing to do with me at first.”
And completely unbidden, Locke’s face takes center stage in my mind. The way he looked confused when I sat him down for wine and cheese in Newberg.
Like Crosby with Juno, Locke wants absolutely nothing to do with me.
“Crosby seems to be the glue that holds this team together,” I muse.
“He really is.” She’s quiet for a second. “He’s a good man. A very private, very guarded, very good man and I am—” She stops. Shakes her head once. “Anyway.”
She doesn’t need to say the words. I can see she’s head over heels for him.
“Was Patrick upset that you developed a relationship with one of the players?”
“Not at all. He’s kind of the ‘go with the flow’ type. Plus, I think he’s a secret romantic.”
“I can sort of see that,” I muse, thinking of how he’s giving Locke a shot even though most team execs probably would have discarded him by now. Perhaps it speaks to his belief in the goodness of people.
I also find myself with a smile on my face stemming from the easy conversation with a new friend.
It occurs to me that I haven’t had enough of those.
I’ve been so driven in my career that the friendships I’ve made have been good but long-distance, maintained in texts and occasional visits.
Molly is the exception and I would be a significantly worse person without her.
“We should do a girls’ night,” I say. “My best friend Molly lives in Portland.”
“That’s convenient,” she says, eyebrows lifting.
“It’s my hometown.”