On the Fly (37 page)

Jim beat me into the office. His door
was open, and he was going through a stack of files at his desk,
occasionally taking a sip from his coffee cup. “Morning,” he called
out when he saw me at my desk. “How’s Maddie’s head?”

“
She’s having some
headaches and light sensitivity, a little dizziness. We’re taking
things a day at a time.”

“
That’s all you can do with
a concussion.” He moved the top file to a new stack and opened the
next one. “Doc is supposed to send Brenden up to see me when he’s
done down there. Send him in when he gets here, and then call down
to let Scotty know that he’s arrived.”

“
Of course,” I said,
forcing myself to speak as normally as I could despite the fact
that I felt like I was choking on my own tongue. I wasn’t privy to
what went on during Jim’s meetings with his players, usually. They
tended to close the doors, and I would only find out bits and
pieces afterward—usually when I helped deal with the paperwork
aspects related to whatever was discussed.

But a meeting between Brenden, the
head coach, and the general manager? After that last game, and with
the way Brenden had been so worried over the holiday, I doubted it
would be good.

I busied myself with my work,
answering emails and phone calls and dealing with memos and mail
that came through. Martha had cut back to only half days for the
end of her employment, only coming in for a few hours a day to help
me in case something came up that I hadn’t already learned how to
handle. She wasn’t in yet, so that was one less distraction than I
would normally have, one less thing to help me keep my mind from
racing to all sorts of possibilities that I didn’t want to
consider.

The longer I had to wait, the more
anxious I got. If he would just hurry and get this meeting over
with, even if I didn’t know what happened in there, at least I
would know it was done.

The team’s practice ended, and there
was still no sign of Brenden. Cam Johnson came up and asked for a
few minutes with Jim. He went in and was gone again, and I still
hadn’t seen any sign that Brenden would be here soon.

Nicky Ericsson stopped by my desk for
a few minutes to ask me how Maddie was doing, too. He gave me a
pair of kid-sized sunglasses with extra-dark lenses to take home to
her. “They helped me when I was dealing with light sensitivity,” he
said. “Without them, I couldn’t look at a sheet of ice.”

“
Thanks, Nicky. I’ll have
her try them.” I put them in my purse, and after a few more minutes
of small talk, he left.

It was almost time for my lunch break
by the time Brenden came around the corner from the direction of
the elevator. I tried to smile, but I was so nervous for him that I
doubted it was very convincing. He came behind my desk and kissed
me on the forehead.

“
Jim said to go on in,” I
said.

“
Okay. Stop worrying.” He
gave me a heated look that made me remember last night.

I blushed like crazy, thankful that no
one was here to see it but him. I nodded, and he went in. I picked
up my phone and dialed the extension for Scotty’s office. “Jim’s
ready for you,” I told him when he picked up.

“
We’ll be right
there.”

We’ll
, he’d said. Not
I’ll
. That only served to increase my
anxiety.

Two minutes after I hung up the phone,
Scotty and his two assistant coaches were heading my way. They each
nodded at me as they passed my desk and went inside. Daniel Hamm
closed the door behind them.

Martha arrived not long after that,
and so I left for lunch. I couldn’t enjoy my meal, and I felt
nauseated after I ate, so I wished I hadn’t even bothered. Not
until I knew how Brenden’s meeting had gone.

But they were still in there with the
door closed when I returned.

Martha caught my eye and winked at me.
“Jim had me order lunch for them. This could be a long
one.”

I didn’t know if that was a good or
bad sign.

“Doc tells me
the contusion happened when we all thought—when
Bieksa slashed you.” Jim took off his glasses and folded in the
earpieces, setting them next to the computer monitor on his desk.
“But he says you sprained your ankle before that last
game.”

I felt the heat of their stares, Jim
and all the coaches, burning through me. This wasn’t the time to
hide from the truth, though. I had to be as transparent and honest
as I could be if I was going to dig my way out of the hole I’d
buried myself in. Hiding things was what had gotten me
here.

I nodded. “Yeah, I hurt it in the game
against LA when I crashed into the boards. I didn’t tell Eddie or
any of the medical staff about it because I didn’t want to have to
sit. I tried to hide it from Scotty and the coaches, tried to keep
the boys from realizing I was hurt again. I thought it wasn’t too
bad and I could play through it, but I made it worse during the
Christmas party, and then it got a lot worse during the Canucks
game.”

“
Fuck me,” Scotty said. “If
you’d just told someone what had happened, you could have sat out a
week—a week with the Christmas break, for fuck’s sake—and then you
would have been back in. But now Doc says you’re going to be out
for several weeks, and I’ve got to find someone to put on a line
with Zee who can fucking play with him.”

“
We’ve already been trying
to find someone to fit with the two of you all season,” Bergy said.
He was always a lot calmer than Scotty, other than when Zee needed
a good kick in the balls. Somehow Bergy could always push all the
right buttons with Zee to get him going. With the rest of us,
though? He was as calm as a lake on a wind-free day. “Gags isn’t
really working out there. Now Zee needs two wingers, at least for a
while.”

Hammer looked down at a clipboard and
made a few notes on the top page, scratching things out and writing
over them. “We can move Babs back down with him to spread the
scoring around some, but who can we put with Sarge and Pasha if we
take Babs away from them? Hank didn’t look good up there in
practice today, and Pepe would be lost.”

To play well with Sarge, you didn’t
need to be the best offensive player. You just had to have really
good hockey instincts and be able to read what Sarge was doing. Not
everyone was cut out for it, but if you could figure out his
thought process, he made you a better player.

“
I’ll have to see who’s
playing well in Seattle and bring someone in,” Jim said.

“
I need someone who can
play in the top six,” Scotty said. “Another checking-line forward
isn’t going to do me any good trying to keep this team in playoff
positioning.”

“
Bring in Luddy,” I said.
Aaron Ludwiczak had just joined the Seattle Storm this season after
spending a few years playing college hockey. I’d played on a line
with him when I was there earlier this season. “He and I worked
well together during my conditioning assignment. He can read off
anyone. You could put him with Sarge or with Zee, so you’d have
more options.” I doubted Luddy would be staying in the AHL very
long, considering the hockey smarts he had and his ability to get
to the front of the net. It didn’t matter that he was a little
undersized. He used what advantages he had, and his size didn’t
matter anymore.

Jim hummed and jotted some notes on a
legal pad in front of him. “Let’s talk more about you now,
Brenden.”

This was the part I’d known was
coming—the part I’d been dreading. I nodded for him to go
on.

“
I brought you into this
organization because I’ve followed your career for years. I’d seen
some of your dad’s spark, and anyone who watches you for even a
single shift can see your determination.” Jim leaned back in his
chair, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. “When you came up
last season, you showed us more of that at this level. That’s the
reason I offered you the contract I did over the summer. But while
you’ve shown bits and pieces of that spark this season, for the
most part it’s not there. Your play has been uneven and disjointed,
even though I believe we’ve put you in a position to succeed.
What’s going on?”

Here goes
nothing
. “Ever since I first turned pro,
I’ve been fighting to prove I could hack it. That I belong. There
were always such high expectations put on me because of who my dad
is that I felt like I had to live up to them, but then I fight so
hard for it that I end up doing something stupid.”

Scotty snorted, but I had been
expecting some reaction or another from him.

I tried not to let it get to me. “I
have a bad habit of pushing too hard to prove myself, even if maybe
I don’t need to. But it’s always at the back of my mind that I’m
one boneheaded play from ending up back in the minors. Because I’m
thinking like that, I tend to make the boneheaded play instead of
the right one. Sometimes it screws the team. Other times it just
screws me because I get hurt again.”

“
You know I don’t expect
you to be your dad, right?” Jim said. “None of us do. Maybe some
fans out there have unrealistic expectations, but all I want is for
you to play the game that we know
you
can play.”

“
I know that.” There was
some part of me that had always known I’d never be the player Dad
was, but I still tried to emulate him. Dana was more like him. She
had his foot speed and soft hands, the sort of high-end playmaking
skill he’d been known for. I had worked hard for years to be more
like him, but the only thing I really took from his game was an
ability to snipe a few goals. I was the guy coaches would
put
with
the
players like Dad—guys like Zee—because they created offense and I
capitalized on it. I was a finisher.

I couldn’t finish if I wasn’t even out
there, though.

“
Look,” I said, “I know I
haven’t lived up to expectations this season. Not yours, not the
coaches’, not the team’s, and definitely not my own. But I realize
what the problem is, and I think I can fix it.”

“
You
think
you can fix it?” Scotty said.
“What if that’s not good enough? What if I don’t want to let you
try?”

I was about to answer, but Jim
interrupted me. “What do you think the solution is,
Brenden?”

“
I have to stop trying so
hard to prove myself. I just have to play my game and trust it’s
good enough because it’s what got me here in the first
place.”

“
That’s all I want from
you,” Jim said.

Scotty scowled at me like he always
seemed to do lately. “It’s what I want, too, but I don’t fully
believe I’ll get it. We’re right in the thick of the playoff chase
right now. That’s not thanks to you. That’s in spite of
you.”

“
I want to help,” I said.
“I know I can help. Once my ankle has healed, I know what I need to
do, and I can do it. If you’ll let me.”

Rachel knocked on Jim’s door. He
smiled at her through the window and waved her in, and she opened
the door to let the caterer in with the lunch he’d ordered for us
all. I caught her eye. She still looked worried. I wished she would
stop worrying, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that
other than convince Scotty and Jim I could do what I said I
could.

The caterer finished setting
everything up on the table and left. Rachel asked, “Do you need
anything else right now, Jim?” She was already pulling the door
closed behind her, clearly expecting him to say no.

“
Actually, yes. There is
one thing,” he said, prompting her to freeze where she stood.
“You’re getting to know Brenden pretty well, aren’t
you?”

Her eyes blinked in surprise. She
definitely hadn’t been expecting that one. Hell, I hadn’t, either,
and I doubted any of the coaches had been.

“
I’m starting to, yes,
sir,” she said. “At least I think so.”

“
How likely do you think it
would be for him to reach a goal he’s set for himself, even if it’s
not an easy goal to reach?”

Rachel thought about it for a second,
but then she gave a shy smile, her eyes fluttering over to me for
just a second before going back to Jim. The beginning traces of
another blush were pinking up her cheeks. “If it’s something he
really wants, then I doubt there’s much that could stop him from
getting it.”