“I’ve got something to offer you for the next few months, if you’re interested in hearing about it.”
A few weeks later, I was back on a train to Westchester. I had to call my parents and get them to ship my hockey stuff back to New York. I was going to work as an assistant coach at a summer hockey camp for middle schoolers up in Westchester. Donny needed someone to help with his program, running drills and reffing games. I got to the rink early on the first day, before any of the campers arrived. After the first lap around the glassy ice, I felt dizzy and short of breath. I had to pause and lean against the boards. The sound of my blades against the ice, the smell of the cold air, the mustiness of the rink—it was almost too much to bear. Hockey had always been more than a sport to me. It had been the thing that rescued me from the suffocation of a small town, and when I escaped it, it was the thing that I clung to in a strange new world. But I realized—chest heaving, heart aching, my breath escaping in curls of white fog—that it wouldn’t work this time. I couldn’t hitch my dreams to it anymore. I couldn’t love it the way I used to.
Donny dropped me off at the train station at the end of the first day. We chatted during the drive about the kids and how the day had gone. I had to stifle a yawn when we said good-bye—I hadn’t worked so hard in months. Before I closed the car door, he asked, “You gonna be back tomorrow?”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
The week went fast. That Friday night, I called Maria.
“Hey, stranger.”
“Hey, I know. I’m sorry.” All week I’d been coming home, making dinner, and going straight to bed. My new routine was already digging grooves: apartment, Metro-North station at 125th Street, grocery store. McGuigan’s felt like another universe.
“Yeah, I know how it goes. First week on the job and all.”
“Can I see you tonight?”
“I’m off at midnight. Come over then?”
A few hours later we lay in her bed after having sex, the sounds of the street floating in through the open window. Maria had turned on the fan, which rotated toward us every few seconds. There was something different that night. The way she lay there with her eyes open, when normally by then she’d be drifting off, or back at her desk. Her silence had an alert quality. I could sense her thinking.
“Hey,” I said, running my hand along her arm. “Is everything okay?”
She turned to face me, resting her chin on my chest. A serious gaze.
“Evan, you know, we don’t need to keep pretending for no good reason.”
“Maria.” I swallowed. A lump formed in my throat.
“This has been fun. I’m going to miss you,” she said.
Something within me was finally falling. My fingers were being pried away when I wasn’t ready to let go.
“Can’t we just…” I said. “We don’t have to do this right now, do we?”
She propped herself up on one elbow, rested her hand on my chest. Her palm covered my heart. “It’s time.”
Maria stood up and padded into the bathroom. I heard the sound of the bath running. Her cat was atop the refrigerator, purring loudly in her sleep. I got dressed and hovered outside the bathroom door, my hand almost touching the doorknob. I could smell the candle she liked to burn while she was in the bath. And then I stopped. I withdrew my hand. I let myself out, looking around the apartment one last time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.
Arthur was passing through the city the following weekend. He had been accepted to all the top law schools in the country—no surprise there—and was making up his mind about where to go. He was in town to visit NYU and Columbia before swinging up to see Harvard and Yale, and he was staying with me for the night.
“This is weirdly good,” Arthur said. “I had no idea you knew how to cook.”
“I’m learning.” Enchiladas, nothing special. It was Friday night, a week since I’d last seen Maria. I thought about her, but only occasionally. She had been right. Arthur and I sat on the futon, plates balanced on our knees. “So you’re really up for spending another three years in New Haven?”
“There are worse things. I don’t think it would be anything like undergrad. It would probably feel like a totally different place. Different people. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“You going to be ready to go in a minute?” he asked. Arthur’s phone kept buzzing. A friend from college was throwing a party that night in her Williamsburg apartment. Really more Arthur’s friend than my friend. He had a lot of people to see during his short visit to the city. “What’s the best way to get there?”