Chapter Thirty-One
Starting with Tommy coming to her house to pick her up, JT felt unsettled.
He apologized thoroughly for being a tool about her and Ali, but JT couldn’t tell why he was lingering at her house.
He asked her to come to the girls’ hockey game with him.
She agreed even though she wasn’t sure how she’d feel walking into the rink and watching a girls’ team that didn’t exist when she was in high school.
On the one hand she was thrilled for the girls.
It had to be easier to play on a team of girls than to do the combat it took to get a spot on the boys’ team the way she’d had to do.
But all that fighting and scraping to get her roster spot only to suffer ugly cheers and sexist and homophobic behavior from opposing fans (as well as a few from her own town) left her with a lot of conflicting feelings about her high school hockey career.
She didn’t know what emotions to expect when she walked into the rink.
Her senior year, she’d been voted captain by her teammates, and she’d led the team to the state championship.
But they never had a ceremony for the state championship banner.
Or, more accurately, they didn’t have her at the ceremony.
She’d been invited, they hadn’t been that cruel, but they’d made no effort to accommodate her college hockey schedule.
So, she’d missed it. And she hadn’t returned to the rink since then. It was too painful.
So when she saw where they were, she was flooded with anxiety and discomfort. “Tommy, what’s going on?”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I promise it will be good.”
JT didn’t feel like his promises were worth a hell of a lot at the moment, but she walked into the rink lobby anyway.
She was transported by the smell, a mix of the scents of the rubber floor mats, sweat, and whatever they were heating up in the snack bar.
When Ali met her at the door, she got suspicious and her emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
“Ali, what is going on?”
Ali showed her the T-shirt she was wearing. “It’s your day!”
After asking Ali what was going on, she allowed Ali to bring her into the rink, mostly out of politeness and a desire not to cause a fuss.
“Ali, really, what is all of this?”
Ali looked scared for a fleeting second. “Everyone in this town is proud of you. And we all wanted to show it. So, I asked around, and we made today’s game the JT Cox game and, well, come with me.”
Ali pulled JT by the arm to the glass doors leading to the rink. “See?”
JT peered through and saw the stands full of people in blue T-shirts with her name and jersey number on them. She looked to the end of the rink where the banners hung and saw one covered in a tarp.
“It’s not perfect, but we want to give you the recognition you deserve. Is that okay?”
JT’s eyes hurt from the pressure of the tears that surprised her by appearing.
She looked at the stands. She didn’t know most of the people.
There were a few familiar faces, but so many people she didn’t know or didn’t recognize anymore.
She didn’t know what to say to Ali. She felt anger and anxiety, and she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other started.
She was angry to have been tricked into this, and anxious that she’d had no time to prepare, and angry that Ali had done all this without asking, and so scared it would go horribly and she would embarrass herself in front of most of the town.
When she’d been on the team, people had laughed and pointed and yelled rude things.
She’d hated it. She’d played through it because she’d wanted to prove them wrong and because she loved playing more than anything else in the world.
That spite, her all-consuming drive to prove them wrong, had gotten her all the way to the gold medal stand at the Olympics.
And now this town that had been so cruel wanted to celebrate her?
Fuck that. For a second, she thought about running out of there.
But then she looked at Ali, whose face was all concern for her, and who had the kindest eyes JT had ever seen, and she let herself relax for a second and let herself believe that this time it would be different. So, instead of running, she did the brave thing and opened the door.
Ali led her to the door to the ice. “I’m sorry if you hate me for all of this, but please give it a try.”
JT clenched her jaw and shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat.
Ali waved to someone and music started playing.
It was the Olympic theme, the song she used to sing at the top of her lungs when she was a kid dreaming of making the team.
It never failed to make her emotional. But that was only the beginning.
Once the music started, the crowd erupted.
They screamed their cheers and chanted her name.
She heard loud whistles and screams and the squeals of little girls wearing her jersey. It was too much.
She waved and let Ali lead her onto the ice, where her old coach, Mr. Hannings, was standing on the center dot waiting for her.
“What are you doing here?” She hugged him, not realizing until she saw him how much she’d missed him.
Mr. Hannings had been her coach for four years.
He’d been the one to take a chance on putting a girl on the boys’ team, and he’d done what he could to protect her, even getting thrown out of a game for screaming at the refs for failing to call penalties when the other team took cheap shots at her. Seeing him brought a wave of emotions.
He smiled. “Waiting for you. I didn’t realize old age would make you so damn slow. You know I have a game to coach after this, right?”
JT laughed. His voice, gravelly from years of yelling on the bench, was still the same. Still rough and easy to mistake for harsh, but he was an absolute marshmallow of a man who cared for his players more than he cared about winning.
“Since when do you coach girls?” she asked.
“You started it. Once I coached you, I thought, ‘What am I doing coaching these boys?’ As soon as they made a team, I told them I wanted to coach it.”
JT looked around at the stands. People shouted louder. She gave a nervous wave. Was this really happening?
Ali handed her coach a mic.
“Good afternoon and welcome to the long-overdue JT Cox celebration! I am going to read off a bunch of JT’s accomplishments in a second, but before I do, I want to say a few words about what an incredible player and person she is.
When she came to try out for our team, I was skeptical.
I wasn’t sure what having a girl on the team would mean, but she showed me that having JT on the team would mean we were good for a change. ”
The crowd roared as JT laughed. The team hadn’t been bad before she made it, but she appreciated the sentiment.
“From the beginning no one worked harder, played more shifts, or took more cheap shots from the other team and their fans. JT endured a lot over those four years.” His voice softened.
“I hope I helped, but I’m sure I didn’t do nearly enough.
JT took all of it with more courage and strength than folks twice her age.
And in her senior year, she led our team to its first, and so far only, state championship. ”
JT’s eyes were streaming now. She wiped at her cheeks, mad that she was crying in front of all these people.
Her coach clapped for her along with the screaming crowd.
“Now, we should have had her here years ago for this, but she was too busy being the best damn hockey player ever to come out of the state of New Hampshire. So, to honor you, JT, we want to unveil the championship banner you brought to this team and this town and give you your due.”
JT hadn’t noticed, but Ali had made her way onto the lift at the end of the rink, and she and Charlie pulled down the tarp covering their banner.
When it dropped to the floor of the lift, JT could see the words only through a curtain of tears.
She never imagined this day, with this many people cheering for her, in this rink, all for playing on a team no one had seemed to want her to be on.
She wiped her face and waved to the crowd as she tried to compose herself. Her coach gave her a hug.
“JT, I hope you’ll come back to visit us again. We’d like to retire your jersey, but maybe we can give you a little more notice of that one.”
JT nodded, completely overcome.
He handed her the mic and she laughed. “God, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to talk.
I can’t put into words what this means to me.
It wasn’t always easy being the only girl in the league.
” She paused to collect herself. “But it was worth it. The support I got from coach and the guys on the team.”
“Eventually,” her coach said into the mic.
She laughed. “The guys were quicker to embrace me than you might have thought. But a lot of the teams we played weren’t happy to see me.
But being here, knowing that girls have a team of their own now, it makes me so happy.
I hope some of these girls will be my teammates one day.
It would be nice to have another kid from Hart’s Landing out there with me.
Thank you, everyone. This means the world to me. ”
After the ceremony, JT and her coach walked off the ice together. “You okay, kid?” he asked with his gruff voice.
“Yeah. I’m all right. This was really nice.”
He nodded in Ali’s direction. “She put it all together. You probably know this but when Ali Porter gets an idea in her head, you better get on board. She’s only been at the school a little while, but we all figured that out.”
JT smiled and tried to keep her feelings about Ali off her face.
“Something tells me you already knew that, though,” he said with a gravelly laugh. “Stick around after the game if you can. I know my players will want to meet you and I want to hear where you’re playing this season. I’ll travel if I have to, but I hope you put in your preference for Boston.”
JT had not, in fact, put in her preference for Boston.
She didn’t speak French, so she was hoping for New York or maybe Toronto.
“I’m not sure how much pull I have, but as soon as I know where I’m playing, I’ll let you know and get you a game schedule.
If you ever want to come to a game, let me know and I’ll be sure to leave tickets for you. ”
“I can buy my own damn ticket, JT.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you can, Coach. But think of it as a long-overdue thank-you gift from me.”
He patted her shoulder and walked toward the home team locker room. “You want to talk to the players?”
JT shook her head. “I would never want to deprive anyone of your trademark pep speeches.” She cleared her throat and tried to lower her voice in imitation. “You’ve had a terrible week of practice and warm-ups looked embarrassing, but maybe you’ll surprise me by not sucking today, boys.”
He laughed. “I’ve mellowed. And I’m not that mean to the girls. They don’t need it.”
JT didn’t stand alone for long once he left. She was swarmed by a team of girls, all wearing matching jerseys and asking her to sign them.
JT bent down and talked to each girl as the teams warmed up for the game in the background.
There were a couple of kids who were clearly the ringleaders of the gaggle.
JT asked them about their season and what positions they played.
Once she’d signed their jerseys, a few of them skittered off to find their parents.
One girl lingered after the others had gone.
“Hi, what’s your name?”
The girl smiled, showing a few missing front teeth. “Hazel.”
“Nice to meet you. What position do you play?”
Hazel, wearing a very serious expression, said, “Goalie.”
JT lit up. “You must be very brave! Do you like being goalie?”
“Not at first. I got stuck playing because no one else wanted to. But now I really like it. I never have to come off the ice. I get to play the whole game!”
JT nodded solemnly. “That’s pretty great. I never want to get off the ice either. And you know, the goalie is the most important position.”
Hazel shook her head. “The other kids say it’s where they put kids who suck at everything else.”
JT laughed. “Well, don’t listen to them. It’s where they put the smartest, bravest, quickest players. If anyone says otherwise, we’ll know the truth.”
Hazel narrowed her eyes and clutched the photocopied program for the game. “If it’s the best position, how come you play forward?”
JT thought for a second. “I’m only pretty smart, and a little quick, and I’m not the bravest. So, I had to play somewhere else.”
Hazel nodded like this made sense to her. “We watched you score in the Olympics. That was really cool.”
JT grinned. “Thanks. The Olympics are cool, but so is being here. Thanks for coming over to say hi. I hope you’ll come to one of my games this season if you can.”
Hazel nodded and then hurried to catch up with her teammates. JT watched her. She wished she’d had that as a kid, a team full of other girls, instead of boys who were hit-or-miss and parents who often despised seeing her on the ice against their sons.
“Will you sign my program?”
JT turned to find Ali staring up at her with a pen clenched in her teeth, her lips curled into a smile around it.
“For you? Of course.” JT took the paper and waited for Ali to hand over the pen.
“I can’t believe you did all this.” She blinked and stared at the paper.
“I was scared when I walked in, but this is amazing. Thank you.” JT’s voice fell to a gruff whisper as her words trailed off.
Ali put her hand on JT’s arm. “You deserve it. It shouldn’t have taken this long to celebrate you but, honestly, you don’t come home much.”
JT sniffed. “Didn’t have much reason to come home.
” She held Ali’s eyes with hers, not saying the words in her head.
Now she did have a reason. A reason who was only supposed to be a friend.
A reason no one knew was more than that.
A reason who JT knew never would be. Not as long as JT lived somewhere else and Ali lived in the cute house near the Coxes.