Picks and Sticks Page 18

  “But they mention you as Canada’s number one figure skater.”

  “Well. Exactly. That’s the news.”

  “Your mother will have a conniption.”

  “Let her. Let them all.”

  Jane got up, went into the kitchen, and started stuffing her usual ingredients into the blender. George followed her. “Have you spoken to your father yet, George?” she asked.

  “Kinda,” he said, looking down. “Hypothetically.”

  “What?”

  “I floated a hypothetical situation past him when I got home.”

  “Did you tell him where you’d been?” Jane interrupted.

  “I lied rather ineffectually — said I’d been to Toronto to watch a show for English.”

  “That’s kinda true … we kinda put on a show …”

  “… I said — hypothetically — that if we could get a game together, you girls against the Junior C guys, and the girls won, would he give you ice time?”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘When hell freezes over, the girls can have ice time down there.’”

  “You had one job to do. One.”

  “I know.”

  “As hard as Mr. Starr and the rest are trying, the ice behind the school sucks.”

  “I know. But then I asked, ‘If they won, could you just try it for a week?’”

  “And he said?”

  “‘They can have the figure skating ice time for drawing those stupid figure eights.’”

  Jane blasted the blender in disapproval. “We need equal access to ice time. We have to get serious here.”

  “He’s hard to talk to,” George said.

  “No kidding.”

  “I … I can’t talk to him. He has his own ideas.”

  “‘Breaking down prejudices …,’” Jane quoted Mayor McCallion. “We’ll just have to get in his way.” Jane started to pour the smoothie into her usual glass. George watched as the delicious mixture settled into the container.

  “Can I walk you to the arena? Watch you skate?” he asked, longing in his voice.

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Jane. Don’t be mean.”

  “Sorry.” She stopped in the middle of pouring. “I’m just tired. Sure. Come along with me. Want some cold, nutritious smoothie?”

  “Definitely.”

  As the two of them wandered into the never-­ending blizzard, George silently took Jane’s figure skating bag and shouldered it.

  “Been snowing for days,” he observed.

  “Yeah. Cold again, too.”

  “We’re lucky we had a good bus driver yesterday.”

  “Yeah.” They jumped the snowbanks and entered the park by the library.

  “This is a lot lighter than your hockey bag,” he said.

  “Just two pairs of skates, a scribe, a chamois, a sweater, and a flimsy dress.”

  “In which you look — ”

  “Exquisite,” they both said at once, and laughed. In the middle of the park, in front of the war veterans’ monument, George stopped her.

  “Is it tomorrow yet, Jane?” His voice cracked. Fat snowflakes landed on their faces.

  Jane regarded him seriously. “You’re not just supporting us because you like me?” She had to ask.

  “I love women’s hockey!” George enthused.

  “Then I think it could be,” Jane said. “You’re so sweet … I think it is.” Jane took his smoothie glass, tucked it into the crook of her arm, and took his hand. They continued their journey to the arena in silence, wrapped in their own private worlds. They entered the building, cloaked in snow. Jane took him to the elite skaters’ dressing room, sat him on the bench, and kissed him.

  “Tomorrow has definitely come!” George exclaimed, and kissed her back.

  Leonard and Gerald Finch found them there at six a.m., locked together, still shivering in their wet coats. Jane’s figure skates remained in their bag. Leonard brandished a wet newspaper open to the back of the sports section. He was spluttering, trying to articulate his rage. Mr. Finch’s skinny frame was shaking, too. He spoke first.

  “You have … flagrantly … mocked the decisions of the Canadian Figure Skating Association … A governing body that made you a champion, nurtured you, provided you with a coach — who nurtured you — ”

  “A mother — who nurtured you — ” Leonard added. Bizarre, Jane thought. The Canadian Figure Skating Association did not provide me with a mother.

  “ — You have flagrantly gone against our wishes, our rules governing amateur status, disappeared without a word, done your own thing, continued to flout our expectations and wishes for you — ”

  Gerald Finch was gathering steam as Jane nodded encouragingly.

  “ — You are the most unappreciative, selfish child I have ever met!” Leonard blasted. They were like two spinning tops with no space to topple over. Jane watched them spin.

  “That you have so publicly announced your activities, when we were trying to keep them under wraps — ”

  “Trying to humour you, give you ‘time’ — ”

  “Speaks to your true nature,” Mr. Finch finished.

  “Humour me?” Jane said, risking a finger by poking the spinners. She guffawed. “Oh, Leonard. Humour me? That’s rich.” She got up and took off her wet coat.

  “Sit down!” Mr. Finch roared. She did so. “I cannot make this right,” he said. “You have blown this for yourself. You have completely and utterly buried your hopes for a chance at Worlds. By putting yourself in the newspaper as a hockey player … don’t you see … it will cause an uproar in the figure skating world. Not only that, but you accepted gifts! Gifts! A substantial cheque and a bunch of jerseys! You have effectively ruined your amateur career and made me look like an idiot in the process — ”

  “No one will support you — ”

  “You’ve blown it. It’s over.”

  Jane could only think of one word to say: “Good.”

  “Gentlemen. Can you leave us alone, please?” George asked politely. “You kind of interrupted something here.”

  “Mind if I interrupt?” The four of them looked to the doorway. Deb stood swaying in her nurse’s aide uniform, a newspaper in her hand. Jane’s trapeze heart did a curious leap. There was a sensation that the circus tent was collapsing above, threatening to crush her. She tried to push the feeling away with flippancy. “I didn’t realize Toronto newspapers arrived in Parry Sound so early,” she said in jest, “otherwise, I’d still be sleeping.”

  “No! You’d be skating!” Leonard shrieked. “You’d be skating! It’s six o’clock. You’d be skating! You’d be doing your patch. You would be tracing out your circles with your scribe, you would be practising your figures, and then we would work on your long program like we planned!!!” Jane could never get used to the fact that his coat was like a live animal. She focused on its movement, fascinated, trying to send her mind elsewhere. She heard her mother say, “Gentlemen. You need to calm down. Leonard. Give me some time with her alone. Please. Go for a walk uptown.”

  “It’s snowing!” Leonard yelled. “I had to sleep at the Kipling Hotel. Listen to banging, hammering music until one in the morning! Listen to the drunks puking in the snow! I did not go home in this weather. I stayed in this rinky-­dink town for you!”

  “Yes, Leonard. I know,” Deb soothed. “You’ve done this for years. Please. Gentlemen. Go for a walk. And George,” she said, looking at him, “go find your father. He’s looking for you. He has a few words he wants to say to you.” Jane grabbed George’s hand.

  “No, thanks, Mrs. Matagov. I’m gonna stay right here for the moment. Jane wants me to stay.”

  “Jane?”

  “Please, Mom. Let him stay.”

  The spinning tops sped out the door, and the tiny room sett
led for a moment. Deb wearily entered and sat beside Jane. Their hips were touching.

  “Well. This is rather serious, Jane.” Deb took Jane’s free hand.

  “Yeah,” Jane agreed.

  They sat in silence, staring at the newspaper in Deb’s other hand. There was so much to say and Jane didn’t know how to say it. “You leave work early?” she asked.

  “Yeah. It’s not good. I’ll be docked pay. But at least they called me back in. Short-­staffed.”

  “Oh. I wondered.”

  More silence. George kneaded Jane’s fingers. They listened to the clock ticking in the quiet dressing room. In the distance, the Zamboni sputtered to life, Al Leblanc doing George’s job.

  “You know the strangest thing?” Deb said.

  “What’s that, Mom?”

  “When I got out of Mike where you’d gone — ”

  “I figured he’d tell you … he’s hopeless at lying …”

  “I realized … I was the most hurt that you didn’t ask me to come along.”

  Relief flooded Jane’s heart. “Oh, Mom,” she said as Deb closed her eyes. Her hand went slack in Jane’s and the newspaper fell to the floor. Jane looked to George and said, “We’d better get her to bed.”

  11

  Boys Versus Girls

  BY SEVEN A.M., Jane had her mother tucked in. She woke Mike. She made some whispered phone calls. At quarter after seven, she, George, and Mike met Irina and Susan in front of the local radio station, and the group entered en masse. Two men at their desks listened in disbelief as Susan fed them the necessary information. Jane noted their mute, dumbfounded reactions.

  “Did ya hear me?” Susan enunciated her words precisely. “At the arena. Four o’clock. Today. Be there. And announce it a lot.”

  “Yep, yep.” The men shuffled the forgotten papers in their hands. The fatter one looked to Mike.

  “Mike? Is this for real?” he half-­whispered.

  “What am I, invisible?” asked Susan. “Do I have to spell it out? Announce it to the town. Over and over again. Please. Just do it.” They bobbed their heads at her. Frustrated, Susan banged out the door. Mike nodded assent at the radio broadcasters and he, Jane, and Irina stood their ground. “Is true,” said Irina, flicking her hair. “You should call CBC. Is big news.” The fat man snorted. Irina stared him down with her faded, fatal eyes. Only when the thinner man reached for the phone in slow motion did Jane, Irina, George, and Mike depart.

  The group of plotters banged out the door and caught up with Susan striding along James Street. “You sure you can get Bobby to come?” Jane delicately asked her heated friend. “I’d better find out,” Susan said, and started to run. She flung back, “We’re lucky he’s recovering from his knee operation at home!”

  “I better go with her,” George said, and followed.

  In silence, Irina, Mike, and Jane carried on past the Brunswick Hotel and up through the library park, over the snowbanks, toward Church Street. As the Matagovs passed by their house, Mike said, “You gonna tell Mom about this one?”

  “No. You?”

  “No. It’s your thing.”

  “She’s gonna find out anyway,” Jane said, “what with the radio announcements and everything. She’ll hear them when she wakes up.”

  “If she wakes up. She was a mess yesterday when she found out you’d left. She didn’t rest at all. She could sleep through all of it today.”

  “That might be a good thing.”

  “Just don’t expect her to come.”

  “Lay off, Mike. I don’t.” But Jane could hope.

  Irina took Mike’s hand. He continued to focus straight ahead, striding in front of Jane. Jane wished he would just tell her what he was thinking. She knew he was all mixed up with feelings of protection for her and their mother. He couldn’t make both of them happy for the first time in his life and it was killing him.

  “You gonna play, Mike?” Jane pressed. His presence at the game would legitimize it and he knew it.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” he said, gaining distance between them, dragging Irina along. Jane doubted he’d even come. “What are you going to do about Leonard and Mr. Finch?” he snapped back at her.

  “Well, I doubt that the radio is working in Leonard’s car, but he’ll be at the arena anyway since we’re taking over figure skating ice time. I’m sure by now Gerald Finch has returned to Toronto or is driving to Québec to knock on Geneviève’s door, so it isn’t likely he’ll hear, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “You don’t know that. He might still be here. You could still make amends!”

  “No, Mike. They stormed out. We left. Mr. Finch hasn’t called in the last hour. What can I possibly do? It’s over.”

  “Find him and make him see, Jane!” Mike seldom exploded. It was shocking. He turned on her. “Make them all see that you can do both! Convince them that unless you get to play hockey, you can’t figure skate. It’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’ve been telling us all along?”

  “That’s exactly it. But I’m pretty sure they don’t care anymore.”

  “What did you say just the day before yesterday? That Finch is here ’cause he needs you. If that’s true, then you need to make him come. He needs to see it to know it. And so does Mom.”

  “It’ll kill Mom to watch me play.” Even as she said it, she hoped it wasn’t true.

  “Jeez, Jane, you’re so dense sometimes. You need to force them to see. I know you don’t want to quit figure skating. You can’t possibly want that.”

  “How about if you play against us, I’ll figure skate?”

  “Aaahhhh! You’re such a brat!” Mike dropped Irina’s hand and catapulted ahead, his rare anger propelling him beyond them.

  Jane looked at Irina. She was nodding. “It is true, Jane,” Irina agreed. “You must think about this. Where’s your true soul?”

  That stopped Jane up short.

  At lunchtime, the girls’ team gathered in the high school cafeteria. A hum of excitement and gossip buzzing around them. A few Junior Cs walked by, checking out their competition, scoffing at the scrawny lot. Only George and Trevor exhibited signs of respect, sitting with the girls in pre-­game camaraderie.

  Irina sat beside Jane, grunting inaudible replies. “Pre-­game nerves?” asked Jane, after her third attempt at conversation. “Is only …” Irina paused, unable to articulate her feelings. “There will be cameras … Now it begins … all of it. For my father and me as well as you and team. We will all be discovered.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Jane. “Today marks a turning point in the history of Canadian hockey.” Irina flung her arms around Jane and held her tight. Then she kissed her on the cheeks three times. “And in the history of our lives,” Irina said.

  When they looked up, Mr. Marsh was standing above them. “Shall I take Brenda and Valerie out of school?” he asked, excitement glowing in his eyes.

  “No. It’s okay, Mr. Marsh. But can the rest of us play hooky this afternoon? Go out and warm up a little in the back?”

  “The blizzard, Jane … I don’t think the janitors have been able to keep up … But you know what? I’ll go clear the snow myself. Girls, go home and get your equipment. George? Trevor? Come with me.”

  After a disastrous hockey practice — peppered by Mr. Marsh’s comments and sidetracked by girls sick with excitement — Jane gave up. She sent the team on ahead and grabbed Brenda and Valerie from their grade eight and six classrooms on her way past William Beatty School. She stopped on the street outside her house and stared at her mother’s darkened bedroom window. She couldn’t bring herself to wake her.

  She rushed to the arena, desperately afraid she was late. People were pouring down the hill, walking or sliding down the icy slope in their cars. The radio announcements had had an effect! Inside, the arena was a hive of activity. A few memb
ers of Jane’s team were already on the ice, mixing it up with some Junior Cs. There was Mike! He was going to participate after all!

  No sign yet of Al Leblanc. Tiny young figure skaters stood to the side in their dresses, their ice time usurped. Leonard stood by, incredulous, as girl hockey players whizzed in front of him, multicoloured helmets on their heads, long hair flying out the sides, passing the puck back and forth. At least Wendy and Barb weren’t out yet. Give him one shock at a time, Jane thought. Up in the stands, some yahoo howled. Rewarded by the sight of pigtails, audience members felt entitled to catcall and hoot. A celebratory air settled among the boisterous crowd.

  Unbelievably, a CBC cameraman was setting up to record the event. Jane recognized the Canadian sportscaster, Jonathon Keegan, standing by with a microphone. Then she saw Al walk in with a half-­eaten piece of hotdog in his mouth. He stopped in his tracks, his mouth wide open. It took him some moments to process the scene, then he marched to the boards beside Jane.

  “Mike!” he blustered through the glass, hot dog spewing everywhere. “George! What the …! What’s goin’ on? What is IVAN doin’ here?” For Ivan had just waved at Jane from the bench and was urging her to hurry up.

  The boys on the ice ignored Al. Leonard spotted him, and started screaming, “AL! AL! Get these people off the ice!!” Then Leonard saw Jane standing near Al. “Jane! Are you responsible for this? Get these girls off the ice!! Get over here!” Jane shook her head at him. “You can’t order me about any more, Leonard,” she murmured aloud. Leonard skated to the boards, left the ice, and bore down on her. Al bumped her on his way to get to Ivan. The full force of their anger surrounded her. She froze, then stuttered to the towering power that was Leonard, “I … I have to get out there …” She waited for the blast.

  “Darn right, if you’re a hockey player worth your salt! You’re late! Your team needs you,” said a voice behind her. Bobby Orr came limping forward, brushing the snow from his Boston Bruins jacket.

  Jane’s stomach jumped. “They found you,” she squeaked.