“He’s color-blind, so he thinks it’s blue.”
“Circle time!” I call, frazzled. Most of the guys are still staring at the posters.
“See,” Granny Murray tells me, “motivation.”
The rookies all sit on the floor around me as I run through the plays. Unlike yesterday, Fletcher and several of the other older players seem to be absorbing and buying into the plays, asking questions and acting them out to the younger players.
Harlowe walks in and blinks up at the posters. “Um, whoa. Um, the press is outside, sooo…”
“Get your last looks in, boys. Seems like communism’s come to the NHL.” Granny Murray sighs and starts taking down the posters.
I turn to the players with a big smile. “You’re in the NHL. No matter what, you’re still winners.”
The players head out for warm-ups. A giant inflatable orca in a Santa hat swings from the ceiling. The stadium’s filling up.Mostly with the blue-and-silver Orca colors, but there’s a large chunk of seats where I see Rhode Island burgundy.
My family cheers when they see the bright-pink suit. I give a weak wave. Then I head to the media scrum.
There’s laughter when I stand in front of the bank of microphones; the light bounces off the rhinestones on my suit, dazzling over the media.This isn’t worse than dealing with entitled daycare parents, I tell myself.No one is trying to get every food known to the natural world banned from my classroom because their tarot reader thinks it’s going to make their precious child an educational failure.
I take a deep breath and smile. “Welcome to a bright and beautiful day in Seattle, everyone,” I say with as much cheer as I can. “I’ll take questions.”
The first sports writer pipes up. “Do you have a statement about the Orcas players throwing tampons at your players?”
18
FLETCHER
You’re not supposed to cross the center line during warm-ups. Guess the league doesn’t want people fighting. They apparently don’t have any rules about throwing things at people, however.
The first tube hits me in the back of the neck. Any lower, and I probably wouldn’t have felt it through the jersey.
“What the hell?” I turn to the rookies who are tossing pucks back and forth. “Did you hit me?”
Cookie points.
I stare at the ground then across the ice to the smirking Orcas player. “Motherfucker.” I slap shot the wrapped tampon back across the ice toward them. “Are you that worried about losing to a girl?” I snap at the alternate captain of the Orcas, Alexei Vidic, a big guy with a flat face and a buzz cut.
“Just thought you might need them when we bleed you out.” He gives me a lazy smile.
The other Orcas players snicker.
A wiry forward pitches a handful of more plastic tubes at the rookies; they patter onto the ice. The fans who have shown up early for warm-ups hoot and shout, jeering as the cameras zoomin on us. Several fans start throwing boxes of tampons onto the ice.
Ren, furious, sets his feet like he’s about to rush across to fight.
“Dude, just ignore them,” I hiss at our players and grab the back of Ren’s jersey. “Fuck these guys.”
“I’m gonna bash their heads in,” Ren spits.
“I don’t feel well,” one of the rookies croaks as more tampons rain down on us while the Orcas players chirp at us from the other side of the line.
I keep waiting for Zayne to do something—he’s the captain, goddamn it. He could at least cuss out Emil Maynard.
The Orcas captain, Zayne’s old rival, is cold and aloof as he warms up, puck handling over the logos under the ice even better than the day he came into the league at eighteen.
“I thought he’s supposed to be old,” Jovi whispers to me as we watch him. He’s like the Orcas’ namesake—apex predator, a silent, ancient killing machine.
“He’s like thirty-seven-year-old cognac, somehow even better than when he started.”
