Eight

There has never been a silence in the world so long or so taut as the one right after I said I think I love you. I could hear him breathing, I could almost hear the wheels in his head clicking.

“Oh. OK.”

Yes, it was a downer response, thank you for asking.

“Wait, where are you?”

Well, Miro, I don’t know why you’re asking that, unless it’s your idea of a topic change.

“I’m in New York.”

“Playing who?”

“The Islanders.”

He sighed, a long deep breath that sounded somehow hollow.

“Well then, give Mariusz all my love when you see him tomorrow.” Sarcasm brittle as the edge of a knife ran through his voice. “Um, bye.”

God damn fucking god damn to all flaming hell fuck him shit-faced little goddamn ass monster fuck him to death.

Sometimes you can’t relieve your feelings, even with a good cussing. Even in several languages. Even if you stop and reflect and wonder that maybe it was nullified by the fact that you actually do want to fuck him to death.

I staggered over and picked up the container of spaghetti. Only a little left, but it was still good, and I twirled it around a fork as I knocked on the door of next door.

“Dude! Check it out! You have got to see this.” Martin yanked me by the sleeve into the room, spilling a blob of sauce off of my fork and onto the carpet.

“Hey, um,” I started, trying to convey the message that now a nice red sauce was decorating their attractive hotel room carpet of an un-name-able color, but I wasn’t allowed.

“Oh no, later, later, I’ve invented the coolest game.” I followed Martin through the little passageway, trying to remove the giant lump in my throat with some delicately sautéed tomatoes in a sauce, garlic, and God only knows what other spices.

“Look. Just look, Marian. How cool is this!” Bonk said excitedly, perched on the sofa, holding a book of matches.

He lit one and touched it to a cotton ball, which began to burn slowly, each wisp of cotton standing out separately against a heart of orange before dissolving into smoke. The acrid smell of sulfur floated over to me, overpowered the sauce, and something inside of me had a hyperactive moment. I suddenly had enough energy, nervous energy, to do a little jig right there, or to do jumping jacks, or a hundred other little things at once. The metallic taste of anxiety rose in the back of my throat and into my mouth, a heavy dark substance that began to fill my entire body from an unseen spring.

“Careful you don’t burn the damn hotel down,” I said thickly.

“Huh?”

“I SAID, be CAREFUL that you—”

“No, I could just hardly understand you. Are you OK?” Martin asked. I know he was trying to sound sympathetic, but the excitement in his voice over his new game could hardly be concealed.

“Oh, yeah yeah, I’m fine.” I declined to explain who’d I’d been on the phone with, why, for how long, and what I’d been saying. There are some things (or in my case, a great lot of things) that you don’t tell even your good friends.

But the creeping feeling of “nervous” skittered across my skin, invading, pervading, strangling and choking and smothering me until I couldn’t stand it in the room anymore, couldn’t stand the solidified air or the colorless walls or identical paintings, and I went to my own room to sleep.

We played the Islanders and won, even though I nearly hyperventilated every time I saw Mariusz. I controlled myself, using those mind-control tactics that I learned during the past few weeks. We played, and we won, I even got an assist.

It would have been better if I remembered it and didn’t have to find it out from the papers. But still.

I hung around outside the Islanders dressing room for an hour while they had an apparent “closed-door” meeting. God knows that door was closed long enough for three meetings, or at least it seemed so. But my advice probably isn’t worth much there, because I felt like a great idiot standing there with my arms folded behind all the reporters, in the shadows, hoping not to be noticed.

At long last the door opened and the Isles came ambling out. I did say hello to Yashin, even though he’d always sort of pissed me off, because it seemed to be the right thing to do.

Eventually Mariusz came stalking off into the parking lot, and I followed him past the throngs of “adoring” fans and not-so-adoring reporters. Nobody loves you when you’ve just lost a close game.

I cleared my throat. “Mariusz Czerkawski.”

He turned around, looking understandably puzzled, and the same feeling of nervous shot through my veins with lightning speed, crawling, chilling.

“Why, yes, that is my name. Can I help you?” he said sarcastically. I opened my mouth a few times and shut it, willing the English to come out properly.

“I know all about you,” I said haltingly. Why I said that, I have no idea. Why it sounded like a ninth-grader’s self-important accusation, I also have no idea, but I continued down the path. “I think you’re an awful man.”

I realized then that I had very little evidence about him outside from what Miro had told me. Actually, more like none whatsoever, but yet my mouth had run too far.

As per usual, he looked at me strangely and stopped in the middle of unlocking his car.

“You what?”

I what indeed. I really had no idea what I’d just said. The only thing I could think about is that somehow Miro had gotten his signals crossed (what else is new?) and confused this soft-spoken, curly-headed man with an evil, heartbreaking bastard.

“I mean, uhh, well, see, I meant…” I trailed off. Good going, Marian, there is absolutely no way you can fix this one.

He rolled his eyes at me and shrugged. “What bitch told you that?”

I was appalled by his words. Maybe Miro had been right?

“Um, see…” again I couldn’t find the words to go on, I was still nervous, feeling choked and I turned and ran, my skates slung over my back thumping solidly against my ribs. I panted a little as I reached the bus, my forehead damp even in the cool, damp March air.

I went back to the hotel in silence and hardly spoke until I went back home and could lie back on my own bed, staring at the ceiling or out the window, thinking. Thinking. Hoping for something I couldn’t quite put a label on.