Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Chapter 3


Thanks as always 2 Shannon for being my sounding board


“Pancakes? The Creature I know doesn’t eat Pancakes,” Jordan stares at him in disbelief but he can’t keep the smile off of his face for long. “This is about Max isn’t it? You’re missing Talbo. Awww poor Creature is feeding his feelings,” he coo’s and reaches out to pinch his cheek. Sidney slaps his hand away and shakes his head. 

“We’re celebrating the day before camp,” he mutters and scowls at his friend and teammate. The fact is, what Jordan has said is closer to the truth. It feels strange knowing that when they get to the diner the energetic Frenchman won’t be there, cracking jokes and flirting with the waitresses. It is a fact of life in his line of work, that players get traded, they move around, but it’s a fact that he will never get used to. 

First it was Army and then Whit and Bugsy. You say you’ll keep in touch, and at first you do, but just like every long distance relationship, the time between emails and texts eventually gets longer and then, the next thing you know, the only time you see each other is out on the ice. 

This absence feels different though. Max is not dead but by choosing to play for the big orange birds, he might as well be. There are some guys on other teams, Ott, Avery, Carcillo that you just don’t like but the Flyers is a whole different animal. Playing the Flyers is like being forced to eat a week old popcorn ball full of razorblades. He’d given his consent to Max looking at other teams. He never imagined that he’d choose them.

Max joining the enemy, however, is just another irritating event in a long and highly uneventful summer. A summer filled with lying in dark rooms waiting for migraines to pass and trips to a brain injury specialist for lengthy tests. Not exactly the kind of ‘poking and prodding’ a young, single, good looking guy looks forward to in his months off. So when he says he is so glad to be back with his teammates that he has called a celebratory breakfast, he means it. 

“Look’s like the gang’s all here,” Jordy announces as they pull into the parking lot outside the old fashioned looking diner. The guys like it here but don’t eat here often. The food is comforting, heavy and greasy; definitely not the kind of carbs and fat content a professional athlete should be putting into his body during the season. Not that they can’t burn it off, but there are better, more balanced meals prepared for them by the team nutritionist or their wives and girlfriends waiting for them at home. This is a special treat that he, as their captain, springs for infrequently and ingests even less frequently himself. 

“I might eat all the bacon they have,” TK announces as he falls into step beside them, rubbing his stomach and licking his lips. 

“Maybe after I’m dead,” Brooks grins and gives the younger winger a playful push. Kennedy dead-arms the defenseman and then jumps, athletically, just out of reach. 

Everyone looks up when the door practically swings off its hinges as they enter, from the patrons turning on their barstools at the long counter and straining to see around and over the cheap robin’s egg blue leather booths to the staff, the mostly young waitresses in their matching blue knee length dresses and crisp white pinafores to the older, more experienced women behind the counter serving the pies and hot, bitter coffee. 

They don’t wait to be seated. They push together as many of the chrome and Formica tables as they can find empty and pull the chairs close together. After all, they have no concerns about personal space, they are used to brushing elbows and thighs and don’t feel the least homophobic around each other. White china cups are turned over and pitchers of orange juice are brought while the guys catch up, sharing stories about vacations, marlins and sail fishes wrangled, white beaches laid on, rollercoaster ridden. They are clearly the noisiest table in the place but no one, apart from one older couple in the corner, send evil eyes their way. They are the Pittsburgh Penguins. They won the Stanley Cup, albeit a couple of years ago now. Still, in this city, they can do just about anything they want. 

“Guys ready to order?” 

He waits for the lecherous remark but it doesn’t come, at least not immediately, because Max isn’t here. He knows exactly what the gritty forward would say; ‘an order of you right here on my plate’ or ‘how about you with a side of me?’ The waitress will blush and maybe pretend to be mad but she won’t be. Not when she’s already counted the tip they’ll leave her in her head. 

“How about your number, gorgeous?” Jordan pipes up and the momentary silence at the table is broken.
“Looks like you already gave her more than your number once,” Cookie pipes up sarcastically. He hasn’t even looked up from his menu, but he does now as a flurry of congratulatory remarks is offered from everyone near the end of the table. 

She’s beaming at them all, one hand on the note pad in her hand the other protectively covering most of the barely there tell tale bump of her abdomen and then her gaze changes to the same haunted mistrustful look he remembers. 

He knows that most if not all of them men at this table have long forgotten that night and the women that they were with. For himself, he has not been able to forget. In fact, he has often blamed himself and her for the multitude of setbacks he’s experienced since that night. A man compelled by superstition he has looked back on that night and what he did as the beginning of a string of bad luck.

He had been supposed to play in the playoffs and had developed an inner ear, sinus issue that had caused him to lose his balance. Bouts of nausea and vertigo followed that forced him to stop even the lightest of work outs. Even now, though he feels well enough to play he knows it will be weeks if not months before he is cleared to do so and hockey his life. He is not a happy young man. 

______________________________________________________________

Her hands shake as she takes their orders. She tries to tell herself they are now worse than the crowds of rowdy drunken college boys that come in the diner on a Friday night, but when it comes time to take his order her imagination and her courage fail her. Her knees give and she has to reach out for the nearest shoulder to stop herself from falling. 

A pair of kind eyes, heavily fringed with dark lashes and shaded by even heavier eyebrows, stare up at her, concerned in a fatherly sort of way. She flashes him a quick smile before regaining her composure, taking a steadying breath and, without looking at him, writing down his order of silver dollar pancakes, turkey bacon and scrambled eggs. 

She manages to keep her feet as she walks slowly back to the counter where the rest of the diner’s staff is waiting for her with quickly fading grins. They’d let her take the table, knowing that she will soon need all of her tip money, but they had not told her who was at the table. 

“Fernie? Are ya feelin’ a little light headed?” 

“Is it mornin’ sickness? I remember when I....”

“Do you need to sit down?”

“Here let me put the order in for you sweetie.” 

Fern tears off the sheet and hands it to one of the older women who shouts the order into the kitchen while one of the other waitresses helps her to a stool behind the cash register. Her entire body shakes as she tries to perch on the barstool. It’s been bad enough, hard enough, coming to terms with the consequences of that night without having to face him too. 

At first it was just the gut wrenching disappointment in him. But when she was the most honest she knew she was mostly disappointed in herself. She had never been that girl, the one to give herself away like cheap take out, but for him she had made an exception and she has spent every hour of every day since that night wishing that she hadn’t and no more so than the day that she realized that it wasn’t just her shame and disillusionment that she was going to have to live with. 

“Is this some kind of joke?” She knows his voice and despite everything whenever she hears it on the radio or even from a television in the next room the sound of it still has the capacity to make her weak in the knees. It is the last thing she wants to do but she forces herself to raise her gaze to meet his accusing one and shake her head. “It better be some kind of joke,” he hisses at her, narrowing his eyes, the ones she had always thought looked like they belonged to some romantic hero from one of those novels about men who literally sweep women off of their feet. She no longer harbors those delusions about this man, or any man. 

Getting uneasily to her feet she brushes past him, heading for the door and the warm late summer sunshine. She turns her face up to let it bathe her skin as she waits for the door to close behind him. She is, once again, alone with Sidney Crosby and an ironic smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. 

“That’s not mine, right? I mean, who knows how many other guys you’ve been with,” he snarls at her, pacing the sidewalk in front of the diner. Everyone can see them from the inside, a fact she knows very well, and so keeps still and keeps her face turned away from all of the windows. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders she shakes her head.

“I haven’t been with anyone else,” she answers quietly. Her reply stops his pacing and then he too becomes very still. 

“I know about girls like you. I know what you’re after. You won’t get it you know,” he snarls from threateningly close range. So close she can feel the warm spittle on her cheek. Despite her best attempt at remaining calm she begins to shake and tears form in her eyes. She’d done her best not to imagine some sort of fairy tale outcome where he would tearfully tell her that he was so happy and that they should get married immediately, if not sooner, but the viscous tone in his voice reminds her too much of a step father that doesn’t want her, a beloved teacher disappointed in her and a boss giving her hell for dropping a plate and so she does what she always does when faced with a person in a position of power over her – she cries. 

“I never...I won’t ever ask for...I don’t want anything from you,” she sobs, hiding her face and her tears in her hands. 

_______________________________________________________________


The right thing to do when a woman is crying is to console them but he can’t touch her; not in front of the couple just getting out of their navy blue Chrysler mini-van; not in front of the older couple exiting the diner, holding hands and giving him a disapproving look. If he touches her it is like admitting that he knows her and he’s had far too many warnings, sat in on far too many lectures from the team’s and the leagues legal counsels to do that. The first thing he’s been told to do – deny

“We used protection so it can’t be mine,” he states as if there is no doubt in his mind when that in fact is far from the truth. Looking at her now with her cute little pig tails, her soft petal pink lip gloss and those cats’ eye glasses he can’t imagine Fern having a line up of college boys waiting outside her bedroom door. 

“Condoms fail at least three per cent of the time,” she replies in a small but unemotional voice as if this answer has been rehearsed, “and I’m pretty sure that particular one had expired,” she adds in an even small mouse like squeak. He feels his blood boil and has to jam his hands into his pockets to stop himself from grabbing her and shaking her like a misbehaving child. He has never put his hands on a woman in anger but he is coming close right now. 

“So you did it on purpose,” he growls, rolling and unrolling his hands into fists. He’s been warned, time and again, that this might happen, that some woman would come along and try and trap him. He’d thought he’d been smarter than this. 

“No,” is her strangled but adamant reply. “I didn’t look...I didn’t know,” she tries to explain, keeping her gaze focused on the cement at her feet while she snivels like a child caught with her hand firmly in the cookie jar while denying it right to his face.  

“Well you have to get rid of it. That’s all there is to it.” It’s clear in his mind and he knows for a fact that both Max and Jordy have paid for terminations before. All he has to do is ask where and how much it this can all be taken care of, cleaned up, over, history. 

“It’s kind of too late now.” Up until this moment he hasn’t done the math but now he counts the weeks off in his head, twice, just to be sure. 

“There’s a fucking time limit?” he hisses, more to himself than her. There seem to be more rules to this than he was aware of. 

“Yeah, I think so but...not like it matters. I’m having it. I’ve already decided that,” she says in a quavering but still the firmest voice he’s ever heard come out of her mouth. 

“Well you can’t,” he says just as firmly, closing the gap between them and grabbing her by the shoulders, digging his fingers deep into her slight frame. “I don’t know what you’re gonna do but you’re not...you’re just fucking not.” Slowly she raises her gaze to meet his, tears streaming down her cheeks, her bottom lip trembling but defiance in her eyes. 

“You. Are. Such. A. Jerk.” The defiance is there and then gone as a sob he can tell she’s been trying to hold back escapes her lips right before she tears herself free from his grasp and runs back inside. He watches her go, part of him wanting to march after her and obtain her promise to do what he knows has to be done, to erase the evidence of this one, stupid mistake and yet he can’t make his feet follow her inside. He can’t face the guys, knowing that he couldn’t walk on the wild side just this once without fucking it up. 

He feels for his keys in his pocket and his entire body sags with relief when he finds them there. Jordy will get a ride home with someone else. Cookie has plenty of room in his SUV. Right now he needs to be alone to think and also because he’s scared out of his fucking mind.

______________________________________________________________


“You okay honey? You want me to look after your tables for a bit?” She shakes her head as she runs her glasses under the tap and then reaches into the cool water to splash her face. “You never told us you know...y’know, them,” the older waitress with the pen behind her ear wearing the concerned but eager expression adds as she glances towards the rowdy table. 

“I don’t,” she replies swiftly, holding her wrists under the running water and keeping her gaze turned away. If the woman starts asking why she’s been crying Fern knows that she’ll come apart completely.  

“Oh I just thought...it looked like...,” the woman sputters, clearly trying to retreat from her enthusiastic tone.  Fern tries her best to smile as she slips her glasses back on, though it takes nearly all of her energy reserves to do so and then slides past her and heads to the pass where plates are already stacking up. She takes a platter and slides three of the plates onto it, balancing it carefully on one forearm while she grabs a carafe of orange juice in her other hand. 

“Can I help?” she almost drops everything when she finds herself suddenly looking into the soulful brown eyes of the Penguins net minder. 

“No...I mean, you’re not even supposed to be back here,” she adds, flashing him a grateful smile. 

“Then we won’t tell anyone, d’accord?” he smiles and takes the carafe so that she can grab another plate. 
 “You’re her, aren’t you?” he asks quietly, leaning close to her as he grabs a pot of coffee, “the girl from the club?” She blushes to the tips of her ears and has to steady herself for a second time. She is about to deny it when she turns to find his warm and endearing smile shining back at her like a new penny. “Don’t worry,” he adds with a wink. “I won’t tell anyone.” 

“Ummm, thanks?” she squeaks, wondering exactly what he means by it. He doesn’t say anymore, just turns and heads back to the table. She follows him, taking deep breaths in and blowing them out until she feels her heart rate slow. She smiles when she slides the plates in front of faces that feel familiar and smile up at her so warmly that she can’t help but smile back at them. 

“Hey, where did Creature go?” Jordan calls out and immediately the warm fuzzy feeling is gone.

“He…he said he had to go, something came up,” she sputters an apology for him before she even realizes she’s doing it. Heads nod all around the table and even from the little that she knows of him she realizes that she’s given an acceptable excuse. Only three sets of eyes turn and stare back at her, disbelief clear in their gazes. Turning quickly on her heel she makes a beeline for the kitchen without looking back. 

5 comments:

  1. This is getting better and better!! So didn't see that coming at all! Can't wait for more!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had a feeling she would end up pregnant cause that always happens in your stories.
    Anyway, Sid was an asshole to her, and deservedly so. I mean, what else is he supposed to think when it's with a fan, someone who had his face plastered all over her walls? As readers we know her true intentions, but I don't blame him for thinking she planned it out. It takes two, so it's partly his fault, but I don't blame him for doubting her.

    I'm on Fern's side and I do hope she gets her happily ever after, just not with Sidney because I don't see it working out between them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. All I have to say is it takes two to tango.Sid is an unfeeling all about me A hole!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love where this story is going.
    I hope Flower, who seems to have it all figured out, gives Sid crap somehow.
    This chapter was great, hopefully you update soon!
    Team Fern all the way :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Didn't know where chapter 3 would go... I'm hooked! Of course I want them to end up together but major attitude and action changes are in line for a certain someone.
    Can't wait to see if this happens or if you have some other surprise ahead!!

    ReplyDelete