Imperfect Spiral (24 page)

“What I'm trying to say is that what Humphrey and I had—maybe I feel something like embarrassment about it. But mostly, I want to protect it. I feel protective of its … perfection. I don't want to say and show everything out loud about it to people. Especially people who didn't even know him.”

“Even Justin, a new friend whom you like and, presumably, trust.”

“Is that bad?” I ask. “Does that mean I don't know how to be friends with someone my own age? I did share
some
with Justin. More than usual. A lot more. Just not everything.”

“No, Danielle,” Dr. Gilbert says. “It is not bad. We aren't in the territory of good and bad here.”

No, we're not, are we. After all the times I've gone over the accident, I've got north, south, east, and west down pat. But I sure could use a compass to navigate whatever territory it is that I'm moving into—with Justin, but also, if it's not too strange to say this, with Humphrey. And with my ideas about what is and what is not too strange.

“This could be awkward,” I say to Justin.

We've just entered the nearly empty stands at the ice rink, and who do I see sitting there waiting for the game to start but Marissa.

“Awkward because …?”

How much do I tell Justin? Do I describe the original rift, where Marissa was angry about my rude behavior and I was angry about her attitude toward Adrian, only she didn't know I was angry about her attitude toward Adrian? Or the phone call, with the strain over her strong feelings about illegal immigration and my strong feelings about her trying to guilt me into having strong feelings? This relationship—or whatever it is—with Justin is nice. I like him. He's taller than me. He doesn't seem to think I'm incompetent or boring or clueless
about how you treat your friends. He doesn't need every sordid detail.

So I just tell him that Marissa and I were friends but have grown apart.

There are so few people in the stands at 7:15 on a Sunday morning that I would be making some kind of pointed statement if I sat apart from her and the clump of hockey player parents clustered around the center line. So we go over.

“Hi, Marissa,” I say.

“Danielle!” She hugs me.

“It's good to see you,” I say.

“Same here,” she says. “It's been way too long.”

Marissa is a hugger. But she also gives me an extra squeeze at the end of our hug, like a punctuation mark. If hugs could speak, hers would be saying “Starting now, let's not be mad,” and that works for me.

“Marissa, this is Justin,” I say. “Justin, this is Marissa.”

“Do you have a brother or someone in this game, Justin?” Marissa asks. “Because I can't imagine why else anybody would be here at this ungodly hour.”

We explain that we came for Justin's 7:45 a.m. game, but it's been pushed back an hour. Trouble with the Zamboni messed up the league schedule today, only Justin didn't know about it. So we're here early. The younger teams, who were supposed to play at 6:20 a.m.—welcome to youth hockey—will play their game first, whenever the ice is ready.

“Is Marco still playing?” I ask. Marco is thirteen.

“That's why I've been here since six o'clock,” Marissa says.

“Ouch,” Justin says.

“Do you play high school hockey, too?” Marissa asks Justin.

“No, just MHC,” he says. “I go to MacArthur. We don't have a hockey team.”

MHC is Meigs Hockey Club. And although my high school, Western, has a hockey team, not all the schools around here do.

“Too bad,” Marissa says. “Neither does ours. But I love watching hockey.” She looks at me. “We used to go to Adrian's games.”

There's nothing meaningful in her look. Just—
Remember. That was fun
.

“And Malcolm's baseball games,” I say. “And Manny's soccer matches.”

“And Matt's triumph last year as quarterback,” Marissa says.

“Wait a minute,” Justin says. “How long is this list?”

We explain about Marissa's five brothers and how they all play different sports—hockey, soccer, football, baseball, lacrosse.

“Who's the lacrosse player?” Justin asks. “I follow the high school and college teams.”

“That would be Martin,” Marissa says. “My twin. Who also plays basketball in the winter. I should say, he plays when he feels like playing.”

I look at her questioningly.

“Long story,” she says.

“Your twin, for real?” Justin asks.

“For real.”

“Do any of the older brothers play college sports?” Justin asks.

“Malcolm, who's the oldest, is a D.C. police officer,” Marissa says. “He didn't go to a traditional four-year college, so he kind of gave up baseball.”

“And he was awesome,” I say.

“A policeman?” Justin says.

“Yes, he is,” Marissa says proudly. She adds that Manny plays soccer at his college in Pennsylvania. Matt, who's a freshman at the community college—living at home, so he and Martin can torment each other over sharing the car—was a fine high school player but not athletic-scholarship material. He's playing club sports.

By now, the teams are on the ice warming up.

“How about you—do you do a sport?” Justin asks Marissa.

“Some tennis. I'm on my school's team this year.”

I didn't know that. “Marissa, you must have gotten really good!” I say. “We played a few times….”

“And you're thinking, how is she good enough to be on a high school team, playing a varsity sport,” she says.

“No!” I object. But, yeah.

“I'm reading your mind, Danielle,” Marissa says. “And you're right, and the answer is, when you go to a little private school, it's a lot easier to make the team.
Any
team.”

“Oh, come on,” I say. “You're being modest.”

“I'm better than I was,” she says, “but I don't think I could be on Western's team.”

“It's great you're on the team,” Justin says.

“Thanks,” she says. “It's fun.”

There's a face-off on the ice, and we watch the action.

“Marco is almost as tall as me now,” I say. He was always kind of little.

“Of course, three inches of that comes from his skates,” Marissa says.

“Even allowing for that,” I say. “He's taller.”

“Bantam level hockey is kind of freaky,” Justin says. “I mean, look at the players—their sizes are all over the place. There are thirteen-year-olds who look like babies. Then there are fourteen-year-olds who are bigger than me.”

It's true; there are guys out there who look like men, and guys who look like boys dressing up for Halloween in hockey uniforms. Marco is in between, but closer to the boy-boys than the man-boys.

Up and back they skate, chasing the puck. There are a few shot attempts, all failing. The first period ends with no score.

“Are your parents coming?” I ask Marissa. I like her mom and dad.

“They try to come to most games. But Manny has a match game up in Pennsylvania, and they left around the same time I did to come here, and it's still preseason here at the hockey rink, so …”

“Sounds like it's always game day at your house,” Justin says.

“Pretty much,” Marissa says. “Never a dull moment.” She stands and says, “I could use coffee. Would you like some?”

“I don't think the snack bar's open yet,” Justin says.

“There's the machine,” Marissa says.

“Right.”

Justin and I both pass on coffee.

“Are we coffee snobs?” he says after Marissa leaves the stands.

“Guilty as charged,” I say.

“She seems nice,” Justin says.

“She is nice,” I say.

“No awkwardness that I noticed,” he says.

“You're right,” I say. “I'm glad.”

Marissa returns with her steaming paper cup.

“Not terrible,” she says, and carefully takes a few sips. “Where did you say you go to school, Justin?”

“MacArthur,” he says.

“So how do you two know each other?” she asks.

“Well—” Justin begins.

“We met in the park,” I say. “The Quarry Road park.”

“Danielle can really toss a football,” Justin says.

“
Aww
,” Marissa says, “what a nice compliment.” She smiles and looks at Justin more carefully. “You remind me of someone I know from school,” she says. “He comes from South America. From Argentina.”

“Well, I'm not from Argentina,” Justin says. “And we don't have any relatives from Argentina. But maybe your guy from school is my doppelgänger.”

“Your doppel-
what
?” Marissa laughs.

“My doppelgänger. My non-twin twin. The double that everyone in the world may or may not have.”

“Great word,” I say.

“Agreed,” Marissa says.

Justin shrugs, like he's a little bit shy about showing off.

“So, but, Justin, is your family from here originally?”

I turn my head to look at Marissa more directly. This would strike me as a really strange question, except for Marissa's undying interest in everyone's heritage. So, instead, it strikes me as only a moderately strange question.

Justin pauses. “Originally … my family is from Colombia.”

Now I turn to look at him head-on. “As in, the
country
?” I say. “The country of Colombia? Or, like, a city in South Carolina?”

“As in South America,” he says.

“I didn't know that,” I say.

“I don't know where your family is from,” he says. “So we're even.”

“My mother's family is from some region of Eastern Europe that took turns being Russia and Poland back when they lived there a hundred years ago,” I say. “And my father's family is from Hungary originally. And we feel absolutely no connection to either of these places.”

“I've told you, Danielle, you're really missing out,” Marissa says. “Pierogi. Goulash. And let's not forget the polkas!”

“Yes, I would not want to forget the polkas,” I say. “Because embedded in my DNA is a girl who just wants to bust out and
dance the Polish polka.” I turn to Justin. “Marissa is unusually fascinated by the cultures and heritage of everyone she meets.”

“I am,” Marissa says. “So … Colombia. Fantastic prehistoric cave art. Home of Gabriel García Márquez. Two separate things, of course; I'm not saying his home was in a cave.”

Ha. Even I know who the famous writer is.

“Well, sort of the home of Gabriel García Márquez,” Justin says. “Since he mostly lived elsewhere once he was an adult.”

“Have you ever been there?” Marissa asks. “To Colombia?”

“Never traveled there,” he says.

“
Hablas español
?” Marissa asks.

“Some,” Justin says.

As we're talking, we're watching the ice. The second period has started. Justin hasn't asked Marissa about her own ethno-geo-anthro-cultural profile—because who but Marissa asks about these things—and I'm about to tell him about her Mexican great-grandparents as a way of explaining her questions, but we're all suddenly distracted by the game.

“Oh, look! Go, Marco!” Marissa calls out.

Marco just stole the puck from the other team, which is a good thing, since they're dangerously close to his own team's goal. He passes to a teammate, who heads toward the center line, but then the teammate stumbles and a player from the opposing team gets it. Marco is still back, a few feet in front of his own goalkeeper. The boy with the puck, who's one of the man-boys, turns and gets off a quick slap shot.

“Wide!” Justin says. The puck is airborne.

“Yes!” Marissa says.

“Breakaway!” yells a parent behind us as Marco recovers the ricocheting puck and makes for the other end of the rink.

“Go, Marco!” Marissa yells.

There aren't enough people here to say that the crowd roars at the goal that Marco scores, but there are cheers.

“Score!” Marissa cries. “Marco scored!”

“Great breakaway,” Justin says.

“Way to go, Marco,” I say.

On the ice, the players aren't lining up as usual for a face-off.

“Huh,” Justin says.

I look where he's looking.

“That ref is down,” Justin says.

“I think he might have caught the puck in the chest,” says the same person behind us who first cheered Marco's breakaway. “The puck from the other team's missed slap shot.”

“That can really sting,” Justin says.

There's another referee in the game; he's standing over the man on the ice. One of the coaches has slid out on the ice and is bending over the downed referee.

The other referee skates over to the stands. “Is there a doctor here?”

No, there isn't.

“Should we call 911?” someone calls.

“Everything seems okay,” the ref says. “Just want to be on the safe side.”

But now the coach is waving the ref over, and the coach does not look like a man who thinks everything is okay.

“Call 911!” the coach yells.

I see, or sense, a dozen hands reaching into pockets and purses for cell phones. But what I feel is Justin clambering over my legs to get to the aisle. He jumps over benches to get down on the ice. I watch him run-slide over to the injured referee, and practically fall on the ice next to him. Justin elbows the coach aside and starts pushing down on the referee's chest. I may not know how to do CPR (thanks to the Red Cross babysitting class that I did not take), but I can definitely recognize it. I turn to Marissa to tell her, but now she's down on the rink, too; she slips at first, but then gets the hang of running on a sheet of ice and is soon by Justin's side. I remember—she knows CPR, too. She took a class in it.