“I am not a naturally patient person,” I admit.
“None of us are!” Rebecca admits cheerfully. “But sometimes patience is all we’ve got.”
Now there’s a lesson I never wanted to learn. Thanks, Dad.
36
Jason
“Did she return your text?” Leo Trevi asks me. He has to shout, because the stadium is echoing with music.
“No!” I yell back. We’re suited up and standing on the blue line, facing the other team. The lights are down, and spotlights crisscross the surface of the ice.
“Did you leave her a voice message?” Silas asks from my other side.
“Did you do a really good grovel?” someone else wants to know.
The game is supposed to start in less than a minute, so at least I know when my friends’ scolding will end. “Why are we still standing here, anyway?” The starting lineups have just been announced. Now is the moment when the lights should come up for the national anthem.
But they don’t. It’s the weirdest thing.
“Hey—look,” Leo says. “Somebody had a warmup cocktail.” He lifts his chin toward the red carpet that’s been rolled out onto the ice. I follow its path to the end, where there’s an aging pop star in a leopard-patterned jacket holding a microphone.
The hockey franchise asks someone new to sing the anthem at each game. Various has-been singers show up for this honor. It’s never Rihanna or Bono. That’s not in the budget.
And this guy isn’t doing so well. He’s supported on one arm by that prick who runs the Ice Girls crew, and on the other arm by Jimbo. But it’s not enough. As I watch, he doubles over and collapses onto a heap on the red carpet.
“Now what?” Silas asks. “We could be standing here all night, right? It’s in the league rules that the national anthem must be sung.”
Maybe he’s right, because there’s a frantic commotion on the sidelines. The pop star is scooped up and carried off by Jimbo and another guy from logistics. And now the officials are involved, their black-and-white uniforms converging in a huddle to discuss what to do.
“We could do this singalong style,” Trevi suggests. “Who has a karaoke app on his phone?”
“My muscles are gonna tighten up from standing too long,” Silas complains.
But now the referee is holding up the microphone, and they’re escorting someone down the chute toward the red carpet.
“Please rise for the national anthem,” the announcer says again as the lights finally come up.
I blink. And then I blink again. Because it’s Heidi who is stepping out onto the red carpet. She’s wearing a Brooklyn jacket over her tiny Ice Girls’ skirt, and she’s frowning as she whispers with the official. He says something I can’t hear and then points at the microphone.
Heidi’s reply—if I’m not mistaken—is: “Do I have to do everything around here?” She takes the microphone and walks further onto the carpet.
In spite of everything that happened today, I smile. With Heidi, it’s impossible not to. Singing the anthem to twenty thousand people would terrify most people. But not Heidi. She lifts the microphone, as well as her perfect chin.
“Oh say can you seeeeee…” rings out a clear voice. Chills run through my body immediately, and a glance around the stadium fills me with uncharacteristic awe. “By the dawn’s early light…” sings the incredible girl on the carpet. Twenty thousand people lean forward, hands on their hearts. Heidi sings the anthem in tune. It’s not Rihanna, but it’s competent.
And it’s so fucking brave.
I can feel Leo watching me, wondering what my problem is. There’s no denying it. Heidi is incredibly special. She’s probably the coolest person I’ve ever met. And if I’m honest with myself, I love her.
But when I close my eyes tonight, I’m going to see her go down in front of that taxi again. That fear will never leave me alone. Every day is a day when your coach can pull you aside and say, “Come here, son. Sit down. There’s been an accident.”
I know it. And I can’t unknow it. I’m like a burned-out lightbulb in the middle of the row. I can’t be lit up anymore when I’ve already seen the darkness.
Heidi doesn’t deserve that. She needs someone who can love her without reservation. She wouldn’t even want a guy who’s as dark inside as I am right now.
She nails the high note and then finishes the song to applause and also to catcalls. And she doesn’t glance my way as she exits the red carpet.
When I walk into my bedroom four hours later, I know immediately—all of Heidi’s things are gone. The place looks utterly sterile. I open a dresser drawer, even though I already know her lingerie has disappeared. I wander into the bathroom, and it looks completely lifeless without fifty-seven different beauty products on the counter.
It’s all gone. Everything is right back to the way it was last summer. Empty and quiet.
Except those goddamn flowers. When I walk into the living room they’re still centered on the coffee table looking way too bright and cheerful.
Just in case I wasn’t convincingly crazy yet, I seal the deal by lifting a foot and kicking the arrangement—and its glass vase—right off the coffee table, where it shatters on the wood floor.
A Delilah Spark tune abruptly cuts off in Silas’s room. His door opens a second later. I hear him pace toward me and then stop, just taking in the scene. “So we’re not being robbed?”
Slowly, I shake my head. Getting robbed would be less awful than I feel right now.
“Do we have a broom?” He disappears into the hall closet and emerges a moment later to hand me a broom and a dustpan.
I start sweeping up the mess.
Silas appears a second time with a roll of paper towels, a garbage bag, and two beers. Then he watches me clean up the mess, one wet stem at a time. I’m wiping up water and tiny bits of broken glass by the time he says, “Want to talk about it?”
I turn and give him an evil look over my shoulder. “What good would that do?”
He takes a swig of beer and studies me. “See, there are some problems that talking about won’t help. Sometimes you’re in love with the wrong girl, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He takes another drink. “Your thing is different, though. You could have everything, man. You really could.”
I pick up another bit of glass and throw it in the bag. Silas is wrong. Nobody can have everything. They only think they can. And I’m like the guy who already knows the awful truth.
So I don’t spoil it for him. I just clean up my shit and then drink my beer.
“She’s staying at Bayer’s, still,” Silas says as we wait in the charter terminal at LaGuardia a couple days later.
“Awesome. Thank you for checking.” I’m incredibly relieved to hear it. We’re leaving town again, and I was awake in the night wondering if Heidi had finally rented some shithole in a bad neighborhood. I texted her at four a.m. to ask if she was okay, just because I had a bad feeling.
There was no reply. She’s avoiding me. Smart girl. I made a few overtures to apologize to her. I left her a voicemail saying how sorry I was that I flipped out at her. And how sorry I was that she’d left.
I didn’t beg her to come back, though. We both know I’m not in a good place. That means I owe her one more giant apology. I’m sorry that I asked her to be with me when I clearly wasn’t ready. That’s something I want to say in person.
And here I am at the damned airport.
“So you don’t have to worry about her this week, okay?” Silas adds. “And—bonus—you can turn in a shopping list, and she’ll deliver before we touch down on Wednesday.” Silas rubs his chin. “I expect we’ll get billed for her time, though. No more free stocking of the peanut butter, dude.”
“Shit!” I say suddenly.
My roommate’s eyes widen. “Dare I ask what the problem is? You didn’t forget your sandwich, did you?”