“The next four weeks are crucial.” Coach Foster leaned forward in his chair. Antony discretely looked around his office; there was a framed vintage Toronto jersey, and probably a thousand sticky notes with unreadable messages.
“I liked what I saw in practice today,” he said. Coach Foster picked up a pen and started clicking it. “From now on, every game is like a playoff game. We can’t afford stupid loses like last night.”
“Yes, Coach.” Antony’s hair was still wet from the post practice shower. A drop of water trailed down the nape of his neck, then traced his spine.
“You played good, Laurent, you’ve really stepped up with Sullivan gone. Not many guys can take the place of the assistant captain. You skated well with him in practice today. I think he’s ready to come back.”
A chill settled over Antony’s skin. Sullivan had been off with a knee injury since before Christmas. That coupled with another top forward all but guaranteed Antony’s ice time would be cut in half.
He could hear Jax’s voice snarling at the circumstance. “We were that close to a five-million- dollar deal and those nitwits had to get healthy.”
“…so you’re moving to the fourth line,” Coach Foster said. He paused and Antony tried to harden his features, become stoic. “This is not a demotion. You
took chances with the puck, I like that, but we’ve got Sullivan and Kaizer back and injury free. They’ll be driving scoring changes through the neutral zone. You’re the biggest guy on the team—you’re the enforcer. It was great the way you stepped up, providing goals when we needed them, but a good defense will make us impenetrable.” He paused and pressed his lips into a hard line. “You can do that for me, right?”
Antony had the odd sensation he was being cajoled. “Oui, of course, Coach. Anything for the team.”
He didn’t bother turning on the radio for the drive home. Along the street, gray snow banks dotted the sidewalk. Since the storm two weeks ago, the temperatures had risen, melting the fresh layer off the older mounds of snow. He fought the urge to drive past her apartment building. That’s not your style, he kept reminding himself.
After a quick trip to the corner grocery mart, Antony made his way home. When he arrived at his apartment, Marc was working with free weights in the spare room they used for the home gym. Antony put the bags of food on the counter and poured a glass of orange juice. As long as he went through the motions of everyday life, the void she’d left behind would grow smaller until one day, the finiteness of the memory would merely quirk an eyebrow, like a footnote to a favorite movie.
But not tonight, not yet.
Antony made his way down the hallway to his bedroom. The clink of weights stopped. Marc wheeled around to face him; sweat was running down his red
face. A cautious smile slipped into place. Antony realized it would be as close to an apology as he’d ever get from Marc. “How was practice?” he asked. “Sullivan cleared?”
“Oui,” Antony gripped the glass. “Kaizer, too.”
Marc’s half smile melted. “Ah,” he said knowingly. The return of the assistant captain and the star forward meant fewer chances for Antony to prove his worth on the team. “Any headaches today?”
This topic, his possible concussion, was the only safe ground they could talk about these days. The buffering shield had been built up between them long ago, first as rivals on the ice, and then as secret enemies, bonded to each other by an unspoken vow of survival.
“Non.” Antony kept walking to his room. “Dizziness? Fainting?” Marc called to his back. “Non. Je vais bien…I’m fine.” Antony had been
riding a crest of headaches but hadn’t passed out since the night of the storm. The dizziness had stopped, and he felt good on the ice today. Antony closed the bedroom door behind him and closed his eyes.
I will never be happy kissing you again because I’ll always be wondering if it’s real.
The thoughts he kept at bay in the daytime, now flooded his consciousness, torturing him.
You were my rebound.
With the lights off, Antony wandered to the window, keeping the vertical blinds open. He stayed there watching the sky darken. His breath fogged up the window. Using his finger, he wrote her name on the glass. Then he called her.
After five rings, her voice mail message came on, and he readied himself for the beep.
“Bonjour, Maxine,” he started. “Voici, Antony. Je t’aime…et je pense que vous me aimes aussi.” He took a drink of juice and leaned against the cool glass. “Today I buy cilantro for chicken avocado soup. Mint was on sale in little pots. You should buy one. That way you could always have fresh mint when you wanted. Room temperature, remember?”
He smiled into the phone. It was almost like talking to her.
“I won’t call again,” he said. “This is last message from me, ever. You won’t trust me and I can’t change what happened. And Johnny is still—” He took a few breaths wishing he’d taken English lessons because everything in his heart wouldn’t translate. “Before I met you, I was lonely.” Antony began to regret making this call, he sounded stupid, a dumbass muscle head. Still, he was telling her the truth, and he hoped she’d at least understand. “But this is worse,” he continued, “because now I know what I’m missing. “Tu me manques…I’m missing you.”
He ended the call and stayed at the window, watching the lanes of traffic stop and start below.
Where can Antony Laurent go from here?
The cruel irony of the past two weeks was unrelenting. He’d played seven games since he last saw Maxine, in total he’d gotten four assists, and three goals. It seemed Maxine wasn’t his good luck charm after all.
The first week after they broke-up the team was in Montreal and he’d spent all his time either practicing or in the gym, using any activity to take away the rage, expend the energy, to help rid the constant deep ache in his chest.
Then, after the last two games at home, he broke down and called her from his car still in the Air Canada Centre parking lot, but he hung up after two rings. He knew his number would show up on her phone, he didn’t care though. If she was looking for an excuse to call him, he’d given it to her.
He’d come to depend on her presence to give him some semblance of romance, to believe that anything could happen—that he deserved to be happy.
When he looked at the patio window, he remembered making love to her for the first time and how her breath had left patterns of frost on the glass. When he first woke up in the morning, he reached to the other pillow where her red hair had once cascaded over the edge in thick waves.
He was doing all right today, keeping up appearances, disguising the hole that had ripped through his heart. But then at the grocery store, beside the cilantro, he saw the potted mint.
Damn.
In the backseat of that fateful cab ride, Maxine had reached between her breasts picked it out and said, “I prefer my mint room temperature.” Antony reasoned he probably fell in love with her at that moment.
And that’s when it hit him.
She’d pulled him into a kiss at the club.
Right after she’d plucked the mint so seductively, she’d invited him up to her apartment.
She was the one who asked him to kiss her.
She was the one who went up against the wall in the park, crooking her finger, asking him to join her.
Venez ici.
Maxine invited him to Carmine’s shop, they’d started to kiss, then she’d pulled him to the back room! She was the one who was doing all the seducing for Christ’s sake!
Antony glanced at his phone, buoyed by this latest epiphany. No, he reasoned, he already told her he wouldn’t call again. This conversation needed to happen face to face. But this time he’d have an ally with him. Antony walked over to his closet, running his fingers along the hangers. He suddenly had the need for a new suit—a trip to Henry Roman’s might be the perfect solution.