Page 67 of Blind Spot
“Did you sleep over here?”
His voice was perfect Saskatchewan deadpan. “Wanted to beat the traffic.”
“It’s Saturday. The city’s asleep.”
“Then it worked.” He almost smiled. The kid was settling in, giving back a third of what he took.
Markel ran a short session. Edges, a breakout drill, and a flow rush he killed the second it got sloppy. Nobody’s legs were in it and it showed.
Half the room was already with family in Michigan, or wherever, mentally. Coach didn’t fight it. He stood at the hash marks with his arms crossed and let us get the work done so he could give us the two days off.
I muffed a pass and Rook gave me the flat look across the blue line that the team reads as Rook being tired of Varga. I gave him back the grin the team reads as me not caring. The Rook and Varga Show was running on schedule.
The difference was, someday soon we wouldn’t need the flat look or the grin at all. Today we were performing a show with a shelf life.
Markel blew his final whistle before eleven. “Go home,” he said. “Be real people for two days.” His eyes landed on me half a second longer than on the rest. Or I imagined they did. Everything looked like that now.
My bag was already in the truck. So was Rook’s. We just had to drive.
***
We were two hours up I-94, and I was still talking.
“I’ve played the May playlist so many times I’ve started hearing the stuff underneath.” I held up my phone. “There’s a cowbell in the third song; you probably don’t know about it. I can’t unhear it now. It’s in my head forever.”
“Okay.”
“Waterpark.” I pointed at a billboard. It promised indoor water slides. “Water in late November in Wisconsin. Somebody’s getting in that water. I respect and fear them.” I drank from my travel mug, which dribbled. “This thing leaks, by the way.”
“Get a new one.”
“I’m not getting a new one.”
“Then stop telling me about it.”
“Yours doesn’t leak. It fits your personality, Rook. You buy a functional object once, like you choose a—“
He dropped in a word every few miles to prove he was listening. Otherwise, he let me run.
The land flattened out north of a town named Tomah. I told him about the dog.
“Okay, the dog. His name is Medve. That’s Hungarian for bear. He’s going to lose his entire mind. I need you to be ready for that. He’s a golden retriever, so he won’t hurt you; he’ll just love you so hard you’ll go down. That’s the price of entry with my family. You only pay it once.”
Rook nodded at the road.
“My mother will put a plate in your hands within ninety seconds. I’ve timed it before. It’s not a hospitality thing; it’s a reflex. Don’t try to stop it. And my father—“
I held up a finger.
“My father shakes your hand and says one sentence. Only one. It will either be nothing, like a comment about the weather, or it will destroy you. There’s no middle ground. That’s Hungarian fathers, and you won’t know which one’s coming.”
“What do I say back?”
“Nothing. You’re a Maine guy; you’ll be fine. Your people don’t talk either.”
Rook’s phone lit up in the cupholder.
I saw the name before he did, and I resisted doing the old thing, grabbing it and sayingI’ll get it.
