Page 10 of Taking It To Overtime
“What kind of dog do you think I’d be? If I was a dog.” Jack’s question breaks the silence sitting over all of us like a musty seat cover. “If Iwerea dog?”
My tenuous grip on alternate reality slips away—to be fair, I wasn’t doing all that great with the distraction anyway—and turn to raise an eyebrow at him over the side of my seat. He wiggles his phone at me, the grin still permanently etched across his face.
“Gagey sent me this quiz thing. He got a Doberman, but I don’t think this is right, so I’m using a lifeline to poll the audience.”
I roam my eyes over the folded body of the hockey player. Just going on vibes alone—I have nothing else to base my guess on—he reminds me of a hyperactive puppy. The kind that steals socks, pisses in only the most expensive shoes, and then falls asleep in a tangled heap somewhere totally in the way.
“Uh,” I stall. Do I know dog breeds? Cooper Wells likes to watch the American Kennel Club dog show instead of the Macy’sThanksgiving Day Parade. When was the last time I spent the holiday with him?
“I don’t know you that well.” What’s the least offensive dog breed I can come up with?
“That’s fair. We can start easy.” He lifts his hips to slide the phone back into his pocket. “What kind of dog would Robbie be?”
This is what he considers easy?
“I’m not sure. I could tell you what teenage Robbie would have been, but it’s been—”
“Sixteen years, I know.” Jack’s head tilts in a way that is utterly canine. “Was that when heleftleft? Or after he came back for…”
I open my mouth to—I don’t know—cut the kid off, but music blasts out of the radio, loud enough to make my whole body flinch. Jack slams his body into the back of his seat and raises his hands to his ears.
“What the fuck, Dad?”
“Sorry. Crappy signal,” Robbie says, and I watch his fingers curve into a fist where he rests it against the gearshift. This car is an automatic transmission, but it’s clearly an old habit, and the urge to slide my fingers into his is tempting. It must be an old muscle memory, flexing her claws as she finally sees the light of day.
It’s been sixteen years since Robbie Oakes left me for real, headed to the juniors and his budding hockey career. I don’t count the one night he came back the following year. It might have been prom, and my first sexual experience, but I couldn’t enjoy it, not with the entire spectrum of emotions flooding my entire system. I didn’t know Robbie would show up. Didn’t know he even kept track of my prom, or that I was dateless. It’s a wonder I didn’t stroke out from the stress of seeing him again, with a looming countdown hanging over our head. It’s part ofthe reason I keep that memory locked deep inside the recesses of my mind. Something I dreamed up.
I guess Jack’s knowledge of my junior prom means Robbie has some stories he’s shared with the team. That thought never occurred to me before. I wonder if I’m the party trick he pulls out of a hat. Fun fact about Robbie Oakes, he once dated Vera Novak. Two truths and a lie: Robbie’s eyes are slate blue, he grew up a few houses down from Vic and Erik Varg, and he took the virginity of the most successful American-born model of our generation. That thought hurts even more than the idea that he forgot about me.
Robbie glances over at me, dark eyes shining like raw honey in the sunlight streaming through his windshield.
I turn away, swallowing hard. I need to get out of this car.
I openthe door to the extra bedroom and gesture to the queen sized bed in the corner. The blue striped comforter is new, and someone patched over the holes left behind from everything I tacked to the walls growing up before adding a coat of sky blue paint. It doesn’t look likemyroom anymore. The bed is new. The rug swapped out for something covered in dark triangles and lines. The only hint that this space was once mine are the framed photographs standing at attention on top of the dark wood dresser.
I’m going to ask my parents why this room was okay to change, but why I’m not allowed to replace the washer. I suspect the answer has something to do with the name is on the deed. And the credit card.
“Are these you?” Spags steps forward to get a better look, squinting his eyes just the tiniest bit. He needs glasses. It’s something every single person on the team is aware of, but he just won’t give in. To be fair, it hasn’t affected his game much. Up close, he plays by feel. At a distance, he can see roughly ten steps ahead of the other team’s defense. If he keeps his head on straight, this kid will be the future of the league. The old-timers like me just need to get out of the way.
“Don’t tell me this is Varg.”
The picture in question is indeed Vic and his twin brother. I’m there too, standing between the tall blond bookends. We’d just won our first AAA game and our arms loop around each other’s shoulders. My helmet is askew. The twins are still clutching their sticks. All three of us are sweaty and red-faced and grinning like we’d just won the lottery. It definitely felt like we had.
“He was number twenty-five even then?”
I nod.
Twenty-five and twenty-six for as long as we’d played together. Until Erik quit. Sometimes I’m surprised Vic never picked another number. It might have been easier to reinvent himself as a solo player if he had. To leave the matching numbers behind and choose something new. Different. Then I think that it might have been the only connection he still had to a brother that had effectively cut out the rest of the family after his diagnosis and surgery. Trauma and fear and loss can do that to anyone.
At least it all worked out in the end. The brothers are back together, even if only one is on the ice, and they’re both happily married. It’s the whole reason I’m babysitting this week.
“This Vera?”
My mom took that photo at the local playground. Back when it was still the red and yellow metal monstrosity that scalded the skin off your thighs if you tried to slide in the summer heat, and melted your palms down to nothing if you tried to climb. The same playground where we got Vic to stick his tongue to the tetherball pole because we’d seen it in a Christmas movie, and Vera’s dad had to come get him unstuck.
It was right after she moved here at eight. I recognize the overalls and pigtails. I remember the crunch of bone after throwing my first punch into one bully’s nose. The way her pigtails swung as she sized me up.
I grunt an affirmation. Downstairs, a door slams closed and footsteps tread into the kitchen.
