Face-Off. Nancy Warren
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up to the NBA.
He could think about his bank balance, but he knew he’d never be able to spend all his money no matter how long he lived, which for some reason made him wonder how old he’d be when he kicked it. Another uninspiring thought.
Most of his greatest moments had happened in hockey rinks, but his retirement was still too raw, too unexpected. His mind veered away.
Finally he moved back to childhood, settled on a memory of going to the pound and picking out a puppy when he was a kid. He and his sister both went, his baby brother not being thought of yet, and even though they argued about everything, they’d instantly agreed on the eager-looking young black Lab who’d squirmed and danced with excitement at their visit, licking their faces and making them all laugh. He’d wanted to call the dog Lucky, Samantha argued for Lucy and somehow they ended up calling the dog Fred.
Maybe if he thought hard enough about Fred he could forget that this shaving cream dialogue was butt-awful.
While Fred galloped through his memory, racing after a Frisbee, stick, ball, puck, rock, sock, pretty much anything that moved, Jarrad looked right into that big square camera, ignoring the camera operator, the beaming director, his hovering manager, the lighting guy, the sound guy and the gophers. He saw Fred leap into the air, teeth closing on a badly chewed and mangled red Frisbee, his black body wriggling in happiness and said, “A perfect shave is like a skating rink right before the action. Smooth, clean, cool. Like my shaving cream.” As instructed he now glanced at the blue canister in his hand and back at the camera. “Ice.”
He’d refused to let them film him anywhere near a hockey rink or the equipment of a game he could no longer play. Instead, they’d hired a good-looking female model and shot the pair of them supposedly heading out for a night on the town. They’d already shot all that stuff earlier. Once Todd was happy with his one line, he’d be out of here.
It took two more tries, and Fred dragged rocks out of the creek down by their old house before Todd called it a wrap.
He shook hands with everybody, flirted with the shaving cream girl a little bit more, and finally he and Les were free. As they hit the pavement both pulled out similar black shades and slipped them on against the glare of an endlessly sunny L.A. day. “Two days to film a thirty-second commercial?” he complained, as though he’d never done one before.
“I should make your hourly wage,” Les said.
“It was boring.”
Les patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “I know it’s tough now that you’ve had to hang up your skates. And stuff.” A delicate silence hung in the air, but they both knew that and stuff referred to his ex making a fool of him in public. “You have to do something with your time,” he reminded him.
And that was the problem.
He’d have countered with some smart-assed remark except that his new smart phone rang. And call display told him it was somebody he actually wanted to talk to. Unlike Les, on the subject of what he was going to do with his life.
“I was just thinking about Fred,” he said into the phone, waving goodbye to his agent as he did so.
Greg Olsen, his oldest friend in the world laughed. “He was the greatest dog. Except that he ran off with all our baseballs.”
Jarrad adjusted his shades against the neverending sunshine of L.A. He still missed real winters and, amazingly enough, he even missed the Vancouver rain. “So, what’s up? How’s cop business?”
Greg ignored the question. “I saw eChat Canada last night.”
“Since when do you watch entertainment porn?”
“Since your ex is making a fool of you with some seven-foot-tall ball jockey. She flashed a big engagement rock on TV.”
It wasn’t sadness or grief that made his teeth clench on his expensive dental work, it was the humiliation of being reminded he’d been that stupid. Dumb enough to fall for the face and body that were as fake as the nice-girl routine. “Don’t worry about it. I’m over her. And you never liked her.”
“Dude, nobody liked her.”
“Yeah, call it my L.A. phase, hang around movie stars, marry a swimsuit model, get a house with a pool, start—”
“I’m glad you said that,” his oldest friend interrupted. “L.A. was a phase. It’s not you.”
Even as he accepted that his friend was right, he wondered if he even knew what he was anymore. Or where he belonged.
“I need you to come home.”
“What are you talking about? Is somebody sick? In trouble?”
“No. But here’s the thing. I need you, man.”
“What, you’re gay now?”
“Funny. No. It’s the big league game.”
“Big league” only meant one thing to Jarrad. NHL. From which he was forever barred. He shook his head. His thinking was hardly ever muddled anymore. Mostly, the only effect of the career-ending hit he’d taken was that he’d lost his peripheral vision. He wasn’t Big J anymore. He was an unemployed thirty-five-year-old man who had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life apart from shaving in public on camera. “Big league?”
“The World Police and Firefighter Games hockey championship,” Greg said in a “duh” tone, as though there could be no other league of any importance.
“Right. Sure. Ah, if you want a ringer, I can’t play hockey anymore. You know that.”
“You can’t catch crooks or fight fires, either. I don’t want you on the team.”
“Then what do you want?”
Jarrad beeped open the doors of his overpriced luxury sports car.
“We’re the worst team in the league. It’s humiliating. We have this big rivalry going with Portland and what we need is a coach. They told me I was crazy to try, but me and the boys, well, we want you to coach us.”
Jarrad damned near dropped his fancy new phone. He’d thought shooting shaving cream commercials was as low as he was going to fall. But coaching a bunch of cops and firefighters for an amateur hockey league?
“I don’t know how to coach,” he said, playing for time.
“Sure you do. You can play, can’t you? So practice your coaching skills on us. We’re not paying you, so we can’t complain.”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty busy.”
“No, you’re not. You’re sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.”
He could argue the point, but Greg wouldn’t be fooled.
“I need to think about it.”
“Come home, do a good thing. Get your life back.”
“I can’t.”
“Think about it.”
“I’m heading out into traffic,” he lied. “Gotta go.” And he flipped shut the phone. Then he got slowly into the car, let the hum of the engine and the air-conditioning system—which constantly adjusted itself to his preferred temperature—soothe him.
As if he’d go home to his rain-soaked town and coach a bunch of amateurs. Home. He wasn’t sure if it was the images of Fred or the call from Greg, but suddenly he felt a twinge of homesickness. Which was weird. He used to go back a lot when his dad was alive, but Art McBride had died a couple of years back from a sudden heart attack. Shortly after that, his mom had moved to Vancouver Island. A nurse, she’d taken a demanding hospital position, which all the family understood was her way of dealing with the grief and loneliness.
Vancouver in February was cold, rainy and dreary, he reminded himself as the sun beat against his expensive shades