Page 4 of If All Else Sails
It’s a four-by-six index card with the illegibly scrawled name of a person who happens to play hockey.Notawesome. But I keep my disagreement silent.
“You’ll be back next season, right?” This question is from the older cop, the one with a mustache and thick, bristly eyebrows reminiscent of Bert fromSesame Street.
He glances down at my splinted foot, the one hovering just off the ground.
“I don’t know.”
Both men look as though a second head has just sprouted from my neck. I shouldn’t have answered at all because this only invites more questions. The arch of my foot gives a hearty throb.
“At least it was just your foot and not your knee,” the younger cop says, suddenly an expert in sports medicine. “When I tore my ACL in the championship football game—”
He’s winding up to tell me about a game that probably happened in high school, but thankfully, my phone buzzes in the pocket of my baggy athletic shorts. It’s been buzzing, but I ignored it, choosing the autographs as the lesser of two evils. Also, I’m on day six of avoiding my mother’s calls. I am simply not in the frame of mind for her kindness and her...mothering.
Now, I slip the phone out of my pocket and hold it up, not even looking to see who it is. “I need to take this.”
I try to force the wordsIt’s been a pleasureout of my mouth, but they’re logjammed inside me, never to emerge because they aren’t true.
“Thanks again,” the older cop says, hesitating as he backs down the front steps. Like he’s hoping I’ll change my mind and invite them in for coffee. I wave and let the cheap screen door slam as I reach for my crutches, hobbling over to slump on the couch with my foot up on the wobbly coffee table.
I frown down at the phone screen. It’s not my mother. But it’s another person I’ve been avoiding. He’s called three times in the last ten minutes. With a sigh, I answer.
“Jacob,” I say dryly. “Color me surprised to hear from you.”
My agent and best friend skips the pleasantries. “Color me surprised to hear your voice. I wasn’t sure you still knew how to operate a phone.”
“Muscle memory.”
He chuckles—not a real laugh because I know those. This is a Professional Jacob laugh. I almost cave and tell him right then that I miss Friend Jacob. His job has fully polluted his personality, like he stepped into a sports agent skin a few years ago and now it’s fused to him.
“Look, I know you’re not thrilled with me. I get that you’re tired of my calls. Even if I care and just want what’s best for you,” he says.
“Debatable,” I mutter.
“But you don’t have to take it out on Josie.”
The mention of his younger sister throws me. My brain shifts into spin cycle as I try to make sense of the context. But it’s a spin cycle with a down comforter and two towels, making my thoughts off-balance and wonky.
“I— What?”
“A few minutes ago Josie and I were on the phone, and she said the police pulled up. I assume you called them.”
My eyes flick to the front window where the cops are just now climbing into their cruisers. “Are you sayingJosiewas the one creeping around my yard taking photos?”
“I seriously doubt she was ‘creeping around’ your yard. You didn’t recognize my sister, man?”
No.
I didn’t. And it floors me.
I remember the last time I saw Josie—of course I do—two years ago at dinner with Jacob’s family when I was fresh off the worst personal and best professional year of my life.Josie’s hair was the shortest I’d ever seen it, the brown waves just barely dusting the tops of her freckled shoulders. Her eyes barely skimmed over me when she said hello. And I stared too long and too hard, hoping she might notice me.
She said two words to me that night:That’s good.It was after Jacob spent far too long bragging about me moving from the Appies, a beloved AHL team in North Carolina, to the even more beloved and higher-paying NHL team in Boston.
Josie’s tone was polite but cool, tempered with years’ worth of mistrust and dislike. Same as always.
And I remember every word she’s ever spoken to me. Just like I remember every one I’ve said to her, all of which somehow came out of my mouth wrong.
I’m aware people call me a grump—both the ones who know me personally and the ones who interact with me professionally. I guess the description fits, though I’d say it’s more that I’m a very reserved guy in a very public profession. I just want to skate. But you can’t play hockey at the highest level without dealing with the press and fans and people.
