Center Ice (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

- Karen -

“You’re back early,” Natalie said when I slipped through the back door into the kitchen. “Matt just left, and you’re already home? Was it not fun?” The words were light, but she was watching me closely, as if she expected something much worse than just
not fun
.

Miranda was sitting with her at the table, and they both had bowls with the remnants of what looked like ice cream sundaes in front of them. Apparently when these girls had a heart-to-heart, they didn’t mess around. Miranda kept her eyes on her spoon.

“It was okay,” I said noncommittally. “But I didn’t know anyone, and it got to be a bit much.”

“You want to sit down with us? Have some ice cream?”

Miranda’s glare at her mother was hard to miss.

“No, thanks. I’ll just go to bed, I think.”

“Karen…” Natalie started. She looked at Miranda, then back at me. “I think we need to talk about Tyler.”

“Because Miranda doesn’t like him? He
’s been nothing but sweet to me.
” It was strange how fast my own hesitations were overwhelmed by my urge to prove Miranda wrong.

Natalie nodded slowly. “That’s important. And good to know. But you’re new to town, and I just want to make sure you have all the facts before you make any decisions that could affect your time here.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Miranda stood abruptly. “I don’t need to be here for this,” she said. It looked like her eyes were filling again.

“Okay,” Natalie said slowly. “But it might be good if you and Karen talked about it at some point.”

“Like she’d listen,” Miranda sneered. “She thinks—”

“Stop,” Natalie said firmly. “We’re not doing that anymore. No more talking about other people, no more saying what someone else thinks when you don’t know for sure.”

Miranda glared at her mother, then shrugged. “Fine. I’m going to bed, then. Have fun with your talk. I’m sure it’ll go
really
well.”

She stomped out of the room, and Natalie looked up at me with a tight, tired smile. “Sit?”

I sat. “I’m not even your kid,” I said. “You’re stuck sorting through all this crap, and Will isn’t even helping. Doesn’t that piss you off?”

The smile shifted from tight to absolutely rigid. “Let’s focus on you, for now.”

“So, you can poke into my business, but I’d better stay the hell out of yours?” It wasn’t like I was actually interested in the intricacies of her marriage, but the double standard seemed like something we could acknowledge.

And she did just that. “Exactly,” she said. “So, Tyler. I don’t really know him. I know he’s a star player and everyone thinks he’s heading for the big leagues, and I’ve met him at a few team functions, but that’s about it.”

“He’s nice,” I said defensively.

“And cute,” she added.

I decided it might be time for a little pushing. “Cute is for puppies. Tyler MacDonald is hot.”

“And from what I’m hearing, he takes advantage of that fact.” She didn’t sound judgmental, exactly, but it didn’t feel like she was celebrating his resourcefulness, either.

“From what I saw tonight, being good looking is just the icing. The cake is being a hockey player. This town is kind of insane about that team.” That was true. There had been quite a few guys around the team keg who were no kind of handsome, and they’d still been getting plenty of attention.

“Either way,” Natalie said carefully, “Tyler’s had a lot of experience with girls. He’s been seen with a lot of girls.” She seemed to be searching for the right words.

I decided to help her out. “He’s had sex with a lot of girls.”

“Sounds like it.” She looked down at her bowl as if she wished there was still ice cream in it.

“So?” I made it sound like a challenge, but really I think I was asking for her opinion. What
was
I supposed to feel, now that I knew this about Tyler?

She looked up at me, her expression sincere. “So is that the kind of boy you want to be with? To be
seen
with? You’re new to town, and the situation is unusual enough that people are curious. If they see you with someone like that, they’re going to make assumptions about you that may not be accurate. But the opinions can last a long time, even after…”

“Even after Tyler dumps me?”

“Or you dump him, or whatever happens. It sounds like he’s not much good at long-term relationships. And maybe that’s fine. He’s a teenage boy, and he’s probably dazzled by the bright future everyone is promising; I’m not expecting him to be settling down and getting serious. But it’d be a shame for you to ruin your reputation over someone you might not even be talking to next week.”

“
Ruin my reputation
?” She’d been trying to be tactful, but she’d taken it too far. “What is this, the fifties?”

“It’s a small town, Karen. You don’t have the same kind of anonymity that you had in Toronto. Your reputation is a real thing up here, and it’s fragile.”

“Wow. It’s nice to know your family cares about that. Except Miranda’s already told the whole town I’m a bitch, so I guess my reputation’s already in trouble; they might as well think I’m a slut, too.” And since Natalie wasn’t quick to respond, I added, “Is all of this crap that you’re hearing about Tyler coming from Miranda? What is her problem with him, anyway?”

Natalie didn’t answer, but there was something about the
way
she didn’t answer that suddenly made things clear.

“She slept with him,” I said. It felt like the words were coming from outside of me. “She’s been going around calling
him
a slut—”

“We don’t use that word!” Natalie almost yelled. She looked toward the front hall, where the stairs led to the upper floor. Luckily, there was no sign of Miranda. “Nobody’s a ‘slut’. It’s an ugly word, and there’s no need to judge other people based on personal decisions they’ve made.”

“Unless it’s Tyler. It’s okay to judge him.” It was easier to be angry than confused.

“If someone’s made the same decision, time and time again, it would be naïve to expect them to make a different decision at the next opportunity. That’s all.”

“Maybe it’s the same decision
I’ve
made. Maybe it’d be fine for the town to think I’m easy, because maybe I am.”

“I’m not sure ‘easy’ is any better than ‘slut,’ really,” she mused. I guess it was simpler to worry about the words instead of the idea of what I’d said. She seemed to realize she was wimping out and shrugged her way back to the topic at hand. “You’re here. School starts in a few days, and you’ll meet all kinds of new people. I’m not going to try to tell you what to do, but I hope you’ll think about it. I’m sorry Miranda has said things about you that you don’t like, and—”

“Wait a second.
That I don’t like,
as if I’m being oversensitive or something? She totally slammed me. And that wasn’t enough, so now she’s got you picking on Tyler. It’s bullshit to call me naïve for thinking he might make different decisions; sometimes, people change, and it’s not
naïve
to give them a chance.” I stood up. “I don’t give a shit what your precious town thinks about me. The only person in this whole place who’s been nice to me is Tyler. He’s given
me
a chance, and I am absolutely going to do the same with him.”

Natalie nodded slowly. “We’ve made a mess of this,” she said, almost to herself. She looked up at me as if I had something she needed. “We had the best of intentions.” She frowned. “
I
had the best of intentions.” Another frown, before the last one had even faded away. “For Will. For me, and the family.” She looked up at me again. “I thought he needed to take responsibility for you. Before the accident, he’d always sent child support, but that was just…it wasn’t even a check, just an automatic withdrawal from the bank account. I used to think of it as an irresponsibility tax. I wanted him to get to know you, as a person, and to be a better father. To realize that he’d created a life and should be involved with it. But I didn’t give enough thought to how all this would affect
you
.”

It should have been a moment of victory for me, but it didn’t really feel that way. I sat back down. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s not like I had anywhere else to go.”

“Not boarding school? Or staying with friends? I recall you suggesting both of those options.”

“Staying with friends?” I have no idea why, but apparently I’d decided to be honest. “I only had one close friend, and she’s in Israel for the year, living with her dad. Her mom’s taking most of the year to travel. So, no, I couldn’t actually stay with friends.” Natalie’s face was carefully neutral, and I couldn’t tell what she was hoping to hear me say. “It might not be too late for boarding school, though, if you want to get rid of me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t. At all. But I’m sorry things aren’t going more smoothly for you here.”

Damn, the woman was going to have me serving up ice cream and caramel sauce to go with our salty tears, if I wasn’t careful. So I smiled brightly. “No worse than anywhere else. Boarding schools have a lot of rules, I think. And no hot hockey players.”

She returned my smile, although hers was more subdued. “I asked Miranda if Tyler had forced her, or pressured her.” Her hand was shaking a little as we both stared at the spoon she was toying with. “She said no. She said she’d never heard that about him. Apparently…” She took a deep breath. “Apparently my precious daughter was all too willing to give up her virginity to a one-night-stand.” She set the spoon down and looked at me. “Although, of course, ‘giving up virginity’ is also an outmoded expression, and I should celebrate my family as they blossom into their adult sexuality…” Now it was her turn to stand abruptly, and she scooped the bowls off the table and carried them purposefully to the sink. “Sorry. That was more than you needed to hear.”

“Did he lie to her?” I wanted to know for Miranda’s sake, but also for my own. “Did he make her believe it was something more? Like, did she think they were dating?”

The bowls hit the stainless steel sink with a clatter. “No,” she said without turning to look at me. “Not from what she said tonight.” We were silent for a while, and then she came back over and sat down. “But I think she wanted it to be more,” she said softly. “I think she thought…you know. That it was a logical step toward their happy ending. I think that’s why she reacted so poorly to your relationship with him.”

“We’ve never even kissed,” I said quickly. I wasn’t sure why it was important, but I wanted her to know. “He hasn’t… He held my hand tonight, and it was like he was
nervous
about just that.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. Look, Karen, I know I’m not your mom, but I feel like I kind of screwed this up with Miranda, and I really don’t want to do that with you. Keep me informed, okay? I don’t mean details, just… I don’t want to find out about these things six months after they happened, if I can avoid it. And I’m reasonably good to talk to, I think. I hope.”

“You’re good,” I agreed. “But, look… I’m not a virgin. We don’t have to worry about that big conversation, or anything.”

“And did you talk to your mother about that decision, when you made it?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“I’ve been angry at her for a long time, you know.” God, once this woman got started with the soul-searching, she kept going. But it wasn’t like she didn’t have a right to be pissed. “I shouldn’t have been,” she said, contradicting my internal reaction. “I should have been angry at Will. And I was. But I had to forgive him in order to make our lives work, and I didn’t have to forgive her. So I didn’t.”

“I know she felt bad about you. And the twins. She didn’t know about any of you, at the time. He told her he’d left his wife, but he didn’t say you were pregnant.”

“I know,” she said. “I hadn’t told him before he left, but even after I did tell him, he still—” She stopped, as if realizing who she was talking to, and shook her head to get back on topic. “It sounds like maybe Tyler is trying to grow up a little. But some boys never really do.”

It wasn’t my place to comment on that, and I wouldn’t have had any idea what to say if she’d asked me to. So I stood up. “I’m going to bed. I’ll try to… I have no idea where things are going with Tyler. Maybe nowhere. If something
does
happen, I can try not to rub Miranda’s nose in it, but I don’t want to be sneaking around.”

“You should do what’s best for you, with Tyler. I expect he’s pretty busy with the team, but if this seems like it’s going somewhere, I’d like to get to know him better. And Miranda—she’ll have to…” Natalie shook her head. “I’m her mom. I want to shield her from all this. But I guess she’ll have to learn to deal with the consequences of her decisions.” She didn’t sound too satisfied with that resolution, but she didn’t say anything to indicate that she was going to reconsider it.

I didn’t think I needed to stick around and ask too many questions. Persuading Natalie to give Tyler a chance had helped soothe my own doubts, and I wanted to see him again. Immediately. Natalie busied herself tidying up the ice cream, and I sat there at the kitchen table, wondering what came next.

I thought about finding my way back down to the party, but it didn’t seem like a good idea. I remembered what he’d said about drunk assholes being out in force, but I also thought about the girls in the bathroom, talking about hooking up with him like it was no big deal. He didn’t owe me anything. If he’d walked me home and then gone back to the beach to find one of them, there was nothing I could say about it. But I didn’t want to see it, or think about it.

That was when it hit me. Tyler was notorious for sleeping around. Just like my dad. And I was planning to overlook it, ignore it, just like Natalie did.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. I wasn’t exactly a Natalie fan, but I had to admit that she’d been making an effort to be good to me, in spite of all the things I’d said to hurt her. So maybe she was just a forgiving person, and I shouldn’t be too judgmental since I was one of the people benefiting from her cheek-turning ways. But then I thought of how tight her face had been when I’d repeated what I’d heard in the drugstore. I thought about the whole town knowing that my father was cheating on her. They laughed about it; did they laugh
at
her? Some of them probably did.