“Whoa!” Dani jumps out of the way right before I sideswipe her. “Watch it!”
“Ow!” I shake a splash of hot coffee from my hand, recoiling from the sudden sting. “Sorry. Didn’t see you.”
“You’re not paying attention.”
“I’m busy!” I reach behind her and grab a clean towel from the shelf.
“Hud, listen to yourself.” She sets her tray down on the counter, louder than necessary, if you ask me. “You sure you know what you’re getting into with all this?”
“I said I can handle it.” I toss the towel over my shoulder and scoot around her, marching off to greet the Karens et al with my best birthday grin.
Two, three months tops.
Chapter Nine
Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Falling Down Hurts Real Bad, Too, Cupcakes
Red velvet cupcakes with warm raspberry center and cream cheese icing, topped with mashed mixed berries and served on a chocolate-drizzled plate
Tuesday afternoon. Four p.m. Four below zero.
I bombed my eighth-period government quiz.
I’m behind on the reading group questions for The Scarlet Letter, and Hester Prynne is totally mad at me.
My tray-carrying shoulder is about to go on strike.
And twelve seconds into Will’s emergency extra practice, Chuck Felzner’s already starting with me.
“Aw, man,” he says when I skate forward. “She’s here again?”
I take in an icy breath and yank my gloves off. Sure, I could definitely do without the whining, but I’m not here to be anyone’s bestie. I just need to show up, get them to improve their game. Show them how much they need me, just like Will says. In exchange, I get the ice time. Quid pro whatever.
“Stuff it, Felzner,” I say. “We don’t have time for your antics today.”
“Ooooh!” Brad Nelson whistles from the front of the line. “Looks like Princess Pink got her balls back. Bring it, baby!”
Josh elbows him in the ribs, which I totally would have done myself if Brad would kindly stop looking like Tyson. Refreshingly, Felzner takes the hint, and in the momentary silence, I plow ahead.
“The other day, you guys asked me if I had a point,” I say. “Here it is: Somewhere under all that trash talk, you love this game. You’ve got a crazy losing streak, but there’s no reason you can’t end it. Josh and Will say you’re good. You could be better. You will be.” The boys are so quiet I can hear the hum of the cooling machines under the ice, ticking and whirring.
“I know skating,” I continue, “and I know I can help you. But you need to let me. And I need to see what you’ve got.”
I take a chug of water. When no one protests, Will smiles at me and I press on. “We’ll start with drills. Who wants to go first?”
Silence. Eye rolls. One sneeze, two spits, and a cup-adjust.
Just when I begin to sense that my ability to “bring it” has been severely overhyped, Will skates forward.
“Since none of you wolf pups wanna man up,” he says, “I’ll go.”
I send him up and down the rink twice, goal to goal with his stick and a puck. It’s like there’s an entire eighties Jock Jams soundtrack pumping through his head—all those songs the cheerleaders play at the basketball games to psych up the crowd, electrifying his stride. He’s hard, fast, and more than a little showy, and the prone-to-swooning part of me flashes back to that kiss in the closet all those years ago. I shudder. He’s good. Really good.
Thankfully, the objective, focused, professional-skater-type part of me tips her head sideways and dumps that dirty little thought right out on the ice, stabbing the life out of it with a toe pick. Aaaand, movingrightalong.
“Aggressive,” I tell him on his last return. “Looking good, especially on the straightaway. Watch the right foot near the net—it drags a little on the hard turns in the goal crease.”
“Goal crease?” Josh asks as Will skates to the back of the line. “Where did you—”
“YouTube. And Google.” I don’t admit how many hours I logged on the sites last night, totally blowing off my homegirl Hester Prynne and all that government class stuff about how a bill becomes a law, but that’s not important. “Oh, the NHL site, too.”
Josh laughs. “You probably know more about this sport than most of us put together.”
“Probably. But hey, the Internet is a democracy. Check it out.”
I call on Micah Baumler next. Issuing only a minor protest growl, he pulls a pair of goggles over his glasses and follows my instructions. Then DeVries. Nelson. Jordan. Torres. Even Felzner. One by one, they do as I ask. Not without a lot more eye-rolling than should be legal for a boys’ varsity team, but somehow we get through it, and I wave them back to the sidelines for a water break.
“Nice work, guys. Looks like we can skip the basics and start with—”
“You do figure skating, right?” Nelson again.
I think I liked him better when he was just grabbing himself and winking at me in silence. “That’s right.”
“I’m not trying to be a dick or anything—”
“Not trying? So dickness just comes naturally for you?”
For a second nothing happens. I cross my arms over my chest, bracing for his next comeback, but he doesn’t say a word about it. Suddenly he doubles over, a smile splitting his formerly too-cool-for-school face.
“Damn, I like you. For real.” He holds up his hand for a high five, and I concede, smacking his palm.
“You’re starting to grow on me, too.”
“Look,” he says, softer this time. “I’m not saying your kind of skating isn’t hard work, but twirls and jumps can’t help us against a bunch of Sharks or Bulldogs or Hawks. We need speed, strength, balance, raw stuff like that. So unless you know how to dodge a two-hundred-pound center comin’ at you like a freight train, you’re wasting your time.”
I consider his point. Ten percent valid. Ninety percent I-spent-too-much-time-watching-Rambo-as-a-kid macho bull—
“You guys aren’t giving this a chance,” Will says. “All those other teams got the same basic training, right? The same stuff Dodd used to give us when he was still around. But who else has a secret weapon like this? She can teach us tons of crazy stuff. They won’t even see it coming.”
I skate to the center again, buoyed by Will’s vote of confidence and the fact that no one has called me Princess Pink for at least five minutes. These practices will be a lot more productive for all of us if I can just get them to see what I’m made of—to see that they really can trust me on the ice.
“Will one of you guys try something with me?” I ask.
“I’ll try something with you.” Luke Russet, number twenty-two, defense. Dangerously good-looking in that my-motorcycle-will-definitely-piss-off-your-dad kind of way. He rubs the stubble along his jaw and wiggles his eyebrows at me. Will claps him on the shoulder before his hands complete whatever lewd gesture they were about to make, and I continue.
“Give me a helmet,” I say.
Will passes his helmet and skates up behind Luke, nudging him forward. “Go on, Russet,” he taunts. “Show her what’s up, dude.”
I tighten Will’s helmet under my chin and point to the net at the other end of the rink. “I’ll start down there. Luke, pretend you’re the two-hundred-pound center and I have the puck for the opposing team. What do you do?”
“I steal it from you or knock you down trying. Not that I’d mind knocking you up. I mean, down.” His eyebrows are still propositioning me, but I ignore them. Honestly, my father is clear across the country—way out of pissing-off-with-a-motorcycle range. Luke’s particular charms are lost on me.