Page 78 of Pucker Up
Three hours later, we were sitting in the Gold section next to some stuffy old businessmen. Fern kept pestering them, offering them dried fruit and kale chips, but they didn’t take her up on it. The first two periods of the game had been tense, but no one had scored.
“Your brothers are good.” Fern pointed as number eight outskated the members of the Montreal defense team.
“Did you notice Dad doesn’t put them on the ice together at the same time?”
Mom spun her ring around her finger. “I noticed. I told him to play them together in the last five minutes of the game.”
“You did what?” I gasped. “What did Dad say to that?” I couldn’t imagine my father taking coaching directions from his kale-chip-eating ex-wife.
“He saidthank you.” Fern popped a chip into her mouth and smiled. “You’re not the only woman in history who has whispered hockey secrets to a man. I told you, after your father cheated on me, I started to see things.”
“What else did you tell him?” My eyes were wide. I still hadn’t told my dad that I started sleeping with one of his players.
“I hinted that you might be able to help him with the team, but he said he already knew that.”
My snack of choice was popcorn, and I popped a couple of kernels in my mouth and crunched as I thought about everything my mom said. “I wish you wouldn’t eat that stuff. They cook it in terrible oil.” Fern set a dried fig on top of the popcorn and I proceeded to eat around it.
Number eleven, Ace, hopped onto the ice and took his position on the left side. He didn’t look up at the stands once. “He’s really mad at me.” I was able to miss the fig with mynext handful of popcorn. “Maybe it’s better this way. If we were together, he would have to choose between being in love with me, or his career.”
“What makes you say that?” Fern furrowed her brow.
The crowd cheered as number four, Mikey Holmes, raced down the ice on a breakaway. His shot went wide deep into the far corner, but was picked up by number twenty. I followed the action as I replied to my mom, “He’s doing so well because I told him what to do on the ice. The team was in last place and he has brought them way up in the standings.”
Mom put her hand on me. “Sweetheart, that’s not how it works.” She pointed to the ice. There was five minutes left in the game and Gideon stood at center ice. Ace to his left. “Scott was going to play those two whether or not I put that bug in his ear. Gideon was going to pass the puck to Ace and he was always going to do a slap shot and win the game.” As she spoke, the game played out like she was the commentator. I held my breath as Gideon passed the puck to Ace. He was preemptively raising his stick and it met the puck at exactly the right moment. It was too fast to see in real life, but the water bottle on top of the net launched into the air as the puck hit the back of the net.
Everyone in the stadium was on their feet. Relief flooded over me like a tidal wave. That cooperative goal couldn’t have been scored by two players who hated each other. Tears streamed down my face as I watched the replay. It was magical; the two men played as though they were operating on one stream of consciousness. Then something happened that I never thought I’d see. Ace and Gideon slammed into each other, but instead of pushing each other down, they embraced. Gideon patted the top of Ace’s helmet. The camera man was zoomed in close enough that I could see their mouths. It didn’t take a lip reader to decipher Gideon’s words.
“I love you.”
Beside me, Fern sniffled. “That was beautiful.”
“It was.” I didn’t try to stem the flow of tears streaming down my face. They were tears full of both joy and sorrow. I was incredibly sad I wasn’t Ace Bailey’s girlfriend, but at least I had brought Gideon back into his life. He deserved that and so much more.
The standing ovation lasted a good minute and then the game played out. The Toronto Tigers won one to zero. Mom and I sat and waited for the businessmen to clear out before filing out of the arena. Mom’s cell phone rang. She plugged her ear to hear the caller and then barked into the phone, “We’ll be right there.”
“Who was that?”
Mom put her cell phone back in her patchwork bag. “It was Scott. He wants us to go to his office.”
“Really? Why?” I asked.
Fern shrugged. “He didn’t explain.”
Something was up. Mom wouldn’t have agreed to navigate through the busy stadium without a damn good reason. It took us at least twenty minutes to make our way to the executive portion of the arena. “Go in, dear.” She opened the door to Dad’s office and then shoved me inside.
“What? Mom?” I rubbed my arm. The woman needed to learn the boundaries of her own strength. After the harsh fluorescent lighting from the hallway, it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the soft lighting in Dad’s office.
It wasn’t my father in the room; it was number eleven, Ace.
“What are you doing here?” He was still wearing his hockey uniform, his hair plastered onto his forehead with sweat.
“Goldie.” He stepped toward me and reached out for my hands. I let him hold them. “I wish you had told me you were Goldie Swanson, but fuck, I’m glad you didn’t, because we wouldn’t be here right now.”
I was stunned and didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. “Your dad pulled me out of the dressing room and told me it wasn’t your idea to keep your last name a secret. He also told me that as long as I don’t hurt you, I can date you. I think hell has frozen over. Coach gave me permission to date his daughter.”
“He did?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Ace, I wanted to tell you, I really did.”
“I know.” He rubbed the back of my hands with his thumbs.
