2. Robbie
If I had a dollar for every time someone assumed I grew up in New York City, I’d have more money than my current NHL contract. That’s not an exaggeration. Only about a quarter of the players in the league are from the US, when I combine that with the fact most Americans haven’t heard of Kimmelwick, it’s no wonder that the minute I mention my home state, I am greeted with the follow up statement, “oh the Big Apple!”
It used to bother me, but sixteen years away from home has a way of tingeing both my memories and the place with a nostalgic rose pink. I’m no longer desperate to leave, no longer have the itch between my shoulder blades that most small-town kids feel at some point. I don’t talk about my childhood much, not in interviews, but it was a good one. I was an average student and an above-average hockey player in a town that revered the sport. My on-ice prowess got me out of any trouble I could find, not that it was much.
All my free time, all of my goals, circled the rink. They drew me to the ice with a gravitational pull. Vic, Erik, and I spent hours carving lines into fresh ice, hauling trash out to the dumpster and mopping the concession stand for extra ice time, driving from town to town for tournaments.
Unlike the twins, whose Mom left town as soon as they did, my parents still live in the three-bedroom split-level I grew up in. The one with my heights etched into the bathroom doorframe. My old hockey gear stashed in the unfinished basement next to the washer that needs to be smacked to turn on and the dryer that takes at least two cycles per load. The same paint-by-number still life my mother hung up on the living room wall to disguise the hole I put there in middle school.
I’ve been offering to move them into a new place or fix it up since I inked my first contract with Atlanta—back before the team moved up north to Winnipeg. It’s like arguing with a set of brick walls and even I can admit I come by my stubbornness from good old-fashioned genetics.
They’re supposed to take care of me, not the other way around.
Yes, but I’m the one with money to burn.
It suits their needs just fine.
Risking toe fractures every time they need to throw in a load of laundry is hardly suiting anyone’s needs. Not really.
They don’t want to cover up memories of my youth.
Well, I already fixed the hole in the wall, even if there’s still a raised patch painted a different shade of peach from the rest of the room.
If they won’t let me use my money for them, at least I can come home to visit. I try to make it back every offseason. Sleep in my old bed, offer my experience to the local youth teams, and try to give my parents time off from the kitchen. This summer I’m even bringing them a gift: Jack Spaeglin. Hopefully, having the teenager underfoot for the next week will ease some of my mother’s empty-nest syndrome. He’s the closest they’re going to get to a grandchild for the foreseeable future.
Mom’s been careful not to ask, but I know she’s ready for me to settle down. She wants me to come home for a wedding in the gazebo my dad built underneath the giant oak tree in the backyard. It’s an image that was tattooed on her brain when I was a kid and she caught me wrapped in a dark throw blanket, pretending to get married to the freckle-faced neighbor girl. She’d wrapped a faded white bath towel around her skinny shoulders, another draped over her dark red hair because “every bride needs a veil.” The problem is that image never left my mind either, even if Vera hasn’t crossed my mind in years.
That’s a bald-faced lie.
I’ve tried not to think about Vera Novak, but it’s hard to avoid her when she’s everywhere.
My mom’s magazine has an article about new skin care routines? There’s Vera’s sienna-freckled skin showing off her genetic gifts under the guise of selling moisturizer with gold and snail mucus. A teammate’s girlfriend gushes about the invite she received to fashion week? She comes back with stories about seeing Vera’s forever-long legs strutting down the runway. The Arctic bans nudie mags from the locker room—and in theory, on any team property—but find a group of guys pouring over the glossy pages of a magazine and cackling like drunken hyenas accidentally initiated into the closest frat? There’s Vera in a tied up tank top and the tiniest bikini bottoms known to mankind. Her face tipped back so the sun can kiss the top of her ski-slope nose.
And then maintenance needs to come down because someone, don’t look at me, used a little too much force while trying to hang up his shoulder pads and ripped the pegs off his cubby. I swear it was an accident.
I push the woman from my mind and flip on my blinker, turning my dad’s ten-year-old Volkswagen under the clearance sign for the drive-thru. If I have to spend the next week babysitting, at least I can do it caffeinated. And I am babysitting. Some nineteen-year-olds with million dollar contracts focus on skating, conditioning, and the banality of adult life—laundry, groceries, vacuuming, etc.—others almost get arrested for solicitation after chatting with women they say they didn’t know were undercover cops posing as prostitutes. The latter require supervision.
My phone buzzes as I pull up to the window.
Vic Varg:
He just touched down but still has to pick up his gear. Best guess… forty-five minutes.
The perk of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere? I can rock right up to the airport. Zero wait. Zero traffic. Sure, the drive is almost an hour, but I’m already at the halfway point—Kimmelwick doesn’t have drive-thru coffee, it barely has a stoplight—and I’d rather spend sixty minutes driving past farmlands and Amish buggies, then spend it sitting in stopped traffic or navigating a million underground tunnels where the lanes vanish without warning. Always just as the GPS signal cuts out.
The teenager at the window has bright green hair and a gauged ear. They don’t even glance in my direction as I hand over a twenty and take the brown bakery bag and the white cup. Their “ thank you ” comes in a monotone voice as they give back my change, not glancing up from the register until I’m about to roll up my window.
The double take is almost comical. Almost.
“Holy shit.”
Here we go.
“Oh fuck. Oakes.” The swallow is audible. “You’re Robbie Oakes.”
Another perk of visiting my hometown? Everyone might recognize me, but the star-struck treatment has worn off. I can buy toilet paper and coffee in relative peace. Back in Quarry Creek, I hired an assistant to handle grocery deliveries and anything else I might need so I can limit my time in public. Some guys dream of the fame and money that comes with professional hockey. They thrive on the recognition, the connection. I just love the game. The rest is something I have to tolerate if I want to keep hitting the ice.
I could just drive away, but they’re just a kid and so I dip my chin in a brief nod, stuffing my change back into the pocket of my athletic shorts.
“You’re like my idol! That overtime win against Tampa? That goal you pulled out with seconds to spare? You ate dude. Left zero crumbs.”
I’m not sure what any of that means, but I know ESPN featured that goal over and over on a bunch of highlight reels. Not that I’ve seen them. Tristan, one of the team marketing gurus, told me all about the publicity I’d racked up when she corned me for an interview. I have no moral compunctions ducking reporters, but Vic would beat my ass if I did that to his wife.
“Thank you,” I say, flexing my fingers around the steering wheel. “You play?”
The teen shakes their head, green strands flopping into dark-smudged eyes. “Me? No. My girlfriend does, and she says you’re everything.You got out of this place. You left this dump and got famous. That’s so cool.”
Right. Cool.
“Can I get your autograph or something?” Marcy—at least that’s the name printed on their name tag—shoves a wad of napkins through the window at me and my hand reaches for them on instinct. Just a teenager. Just a kid. I can sign something for a kid.
There’s a pen in my dad’s cupholder and I uncap it with my mouth, holding the plastic between my teeth as I drape one napkin over the steering wheel. It’s harder than it sounds, autographing a thin drive-thru napkin with a gel pen. At first, I push too hard and stab right through the paper, honking the horn. I turn and prop the napkin on the car door, but it still isn’t working.
“Hand me a bakery bag,” I say, and when the cashier passes one out the window, I’m able to scribble my name and jersey number in semi-legible letters. “Want me to do one for your girlfriend, too?”
“Holy shit. Yes.” Marcy passes over another bag. “Brigit’s going to think I’m the best girlfriend ever.”
I scratch out my name again and hand the waxy paper back through the window. Marcy folds both into careful squares and slides them into the front pocket of the uniform shirt.
“Have a great day Mr. Oakes.” The change in attentiveness almost makes me smile. I guess I’m more exciting than a minimum wage service job, even if any of my teammates would fall over themselves to inform the kid of all the ways I’m not. “Thanks for stopping by.”
I roll the window back up and slide my right hand into the bag on my lap, turning back onto the main road. I have one more month before I’m due back in Quarry Creek to condition for pre-season and another thirty minutes before I hit the Genosa County Airport. I will not waste a single second of the silence or a single crumb of pastry.
Radio stations in this neck of the woods are few and far between. I scroll through the static, past two men sharing an off-color joke, and settle on classic rock. Led Zeppelin pumps through the old speakers, tinny and too-bright. Next time I come home, I’m going to drive my truck and be able to stretch my legs. Even with the driver's seat pushed all the way back, my knees almost hit the steering wheel.
The drive is as easy as they come. A straight shot down an empty two-lane highway. I pass field after field, the occasional band of cows meandering through the grass. They’re oblivious to the sound of the motor, and for a fleeting moment, I have the urge to press my palm against the center of the steering wheel. Lay on the horn. See if something, anything, would make them to lift their heads from their mid-day snack.
I fist my hand against the top of the wheel. The cows get smaller in my rearview mirror.
Genosa is barely larger than Kimmelwick in square footage, but double the population density. That means it can boast about its international airport—international only because of the flights to Toronto—that sits on the edge of the sprawl of subdivisions and strip malls.
Despite being the only airport in this area of the state, it’s still small and unassuming. The only people flying in and out are intending to stay in the area. There’s no cell phone lot to sit in, no circling the arrivals lane fifteen times waiting to spot Spags’ shaggy blonde head. He’s only six feet tall—shorter than a good number of our teammates and something he’s teased about in the locker room—but still easy to spot in a crowd of non-hockey players. There isn’t even a parking garage at the Genosa Airport, just a regular lot boasting reasonable rates for long-term stays.
Quarry Creek isn’t an enormous city by any stretch of the imagination—I would know, I’ve played in several—but it’s still bigger than Genosa. I think everything is.
I park the old car into a spot near the front gate and unfold myself from the passenger seat, pulling my toes up to stretch out my calves. Even in the offseason, I can’t quite shake the muscle aches. It’s a catch-22. During the height of our regular season, my body takes a serious beating, but the constant use also feels like the norm. Pop a handful of ibuprofen in the morning, stretch out the hurt with the training staff, massage away the pain. The tightness in my limbs has been lingering, though. It might just be a part of my thirties, but I suspect it’s more than that. I’m not young anymore.
It’s not a secret that at some point my body is going to give out. I’m already a good four and a half years older than the league average. There’s a year left on my Arctic contract. Maybe it’s time I consider what I want to do at the end of next season. Maybe it’s worth it to go out on my own terms, before I can’t lace my skates anymore, or keep up with the rookies. Before they send me down to the farm team or trade me off like a broken down work horse.
I lock the car doors out of habit more than necessity, and start for the stark-white crosswalk that will lead me to the lower level of the Genosa International Airport and baggage claim. There’s no way Spags flew without checking a bag. Not when he needed to bring his sticks and pads and gear. At least, I hope he brought them. I didn’t text him a reminder. I bet Tristan did.
I spot his flyaway hair just as I step out of the direct line of the sun. He has a bag slung over one shoulder, his hand wrapped around the strap. A larger duffle and his stick bag rest at his feet. He’s wearing in a suit despite the heat, and I feel the corners of my mouth twitch. It was probably Tristan, our social media manager and my best mate’s wife, that beat that little detail into him, one smack of her hand at a time. We have to dress up to travel with the team. Apparently, Spags took that to mean he had to dress up to fly every time.
It’s a good thing the kid’s a damn talented hockey player because otherwise he’d be a disaster. Okay, a disaster who’s better with women than any other guy I know. They must love the clumsy puppy look. That, and because even with a single season under his belt, the kid still has all his teeth. Although that’s because Vic and I make him wear a mouth guard to every skate, practice, and game. When he hits my age, with limited dentures, he’ll thank us.
He’s already found a woman to chat up, leaning one shoulder against the concrete wall. Even from across the street, I can see his dimples grow as he meets my eyes over the top of her head and then turns his smile back on her upturned face. A wave of annoyance washes over me. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t help the hot slide through my veins. It’s a visceral reaction, one I can’t explain, even if all I can see of the woman is the back of her head, red-brown hair flirting with the tops of her pale shoulders.
That shade is distinctive. It reminds me of the one woman I try to push from my thoughts. Brown at first glance, but the sheen of cherries in the sun. Dr. Pepper hair, she used to call it. Cherry coke with ice. She got frothing mad when people called her a ginger. She’d grip the silky strands between her fists and shake it at whomever had the misfortune of singling her out.
“Does this look orange to you? ” she’d yell, green eyes flashing. “ I’m a brunette, not a red-head. ”
I never had the heart to say it was the freckles that prompted the names. I love her freckles, loved using the tips of my fingers to trace patterns between the tiny spots, like I was drawing constellations in the sky, but also because her hair was red. Not copper, but still red. Last time I checked, she was still sporting the same unique color. Not that I keep tabs on her or anything, I just have a google-alert set for her name, but I don’t even check all the notifications. Not anymore. I’m not creepy, I just…care.
That has to be the reason for the lead weight in my gut. The woman talking to my teammate has a similar color and cut to her hair, and for a moment my brain must have glitched. It wasn’t frustration so much as a pang of jealousy, an aching clench in my gut. As if the woman standing there in a light blue pair of leggings and a gauzy top slipping off the curve of her shoulders was mine. As if Spags was some kind of threat.
He isn’t.
She isn’t.
I drop my eyes away from them as I cross the last street, trying to appear unconcerned with the kid’s new friend. I bet they came in on the same flight—there aren’t a ton of options—and they’re just passing time while waiting for a ride. She’s probably not headed to Kimmelwick, and she’s definitely not in any way, shape, or form, mine.
Besides, Vera was photographed with a blonde girl ducking into a store on Rodeo Drive just the other day. Rodeo Drive as in Los Angeles. As in across the country. Not in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, New York. Not that I believe this woman is her, or read the gossip article that popped into my inbox. I’m just tapped out from the drive over, and the prospect of babysitting the human equivalent of a teething puppy for the next week.
I don’t think the woman talking with Jack is Vera Novak. I don’t.
Except I’m only a few feet away from them now and Spags looks smug and self-satisfied, like he just pulled off the heist of the Millennium. There’s a riot of pale brown freckles spilling over every exposed inch of the woman’s smooth back, and when she turns to see whoever is walking up behind her, I recognize the pinpricks of brown in the grass green of her eyes. Those same eyes widen, pink lips parting on a sucked-in breath. It feels like she pulled it from my lungs instead of her own.
“Vera.” My voice chokes, strangling on the word. There isn’t enough air out here. There isn’t enough air anywhere. She’s staring up at me like she’s suffocating, too. It’s been sixteen years.
I do the only thing that feels natural.
I slide my arm around her waist and press a kiss to her temple.
“Welcome home.”