Page 99 of On His Mind

We climb down the steps toward her. She’s saved a whole row — a jersey draped over the seats to hold them, her brother’s number on the back — and she yanks it off the moment she sees us coming.

“Okay, good, you made it, sit, sit.” She’s already talking a mile a minute. “These are the best seats, right behind the bench, close enough to hear them yell at each other. Penelope, you sit here, in the middle, so you’re between me and Mara and you can’t escape.”

“Was I going to escape?”

“First-timers always want to escape by the second period. It’s the cold. You get used to it.” She hands me half a pretzel I didn’t ask for. “Eat. It’s tradition.”

I sit between them and take the pretzel. The seats really are close — a low wall and a pane of glass are the only things between us and the ice, close enough that I can see the players’ faces when they skate past. Down below us, the benches are filling, guys in full gear leaning over the boards, spitting, talking, a coach with a clipboard pacing behind them.

“When does it start?” I ask.

“Any second. Watch the tunnel.” Gianna points. “There. That’s my brother. He’s going to pretend he doesn’t see me.” She cups her hands. “Reeve!” Benson Reeve stands near the tunnel and does not look up. “See? He saw me.”

“He didn’t look at you,” Mara laughs.

The lights do something, and the music gets louder. Both teams come pouring out onto the ice in a loop, fast, and the whole building stands up, so I stand up too. Gianna’s screaming. Mara’s screaming. I clap because everyone’s clapping. Then there’s a whistle, and the two teams line up in the middle, and a referee drops the puck, and it starts.

I don’t really know what I’m looking at. I’ve never cared about sports. Not once in my life have I sat down and watched a game on purpose. So I sit there and watch. The guys skate faster than I expected, and they stop easily. The puck’s impossible to follow until suddenly it’s the only thing in the room.

Gianna is a different creature. She knows everything. Elbows on her knees, forward in her seat, calling things before they happen — watch, watch, he’s gonna dump it in — and half the time she’s right, and every time she’s right, she grabs my arm.

“Did you see that? Mara, did you see that pass—”

“I saw it!”

“That was filthy! That was a filthy pass—”

“It was pretty good.”

“Pretty good.” Gianna is baffled. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that to me.”

Mara’s not a hockey person, I don’t think, but Gianna’s the kind of loud that’s contagious, and within ten minutes, Mara’s yelling at the referee about a call she can’t possibly understand. Gianna’s egging her on, and the two of them are feeding off each other so hard I mostly just watch them instead of the ice.

Ivory, a few seats down, is quiet. Which I notice, because Ivory is never quiet. At a party, she’d be the loudest one in the room. But here, sober, in a cold rink with two girls she doesn’t know that well, she just watches, phone in her lap, and not finding much else to do with herself. It’s strange, seeing her with the volume off.

The game moves back and forth for a while, and I’m just starting to follow it — starting to see where the puck’s going to go before it goes — when something happens fast down in the corner closest to us. A guy in white carries it up the boards, and a guy in our colors comes across and ends him, shoulder into chest. The white jersey goes down hard, the glass bangs a foot from my face, and the whole section is on its feet before I’ve understood what just happened.

“Ohhh—” Gianna’s up, both arms in the air. “That’s Golding! That’s Blue! Get up, Penelope—”

The guy who threw the hit skates off like nothing happened, calm, blank-faced, and I recognize him — the quiet one from the house, the one Gianna said looks like an asshole. He just turned a person off with his shoulder and felt nothing about it.

“Clean,” Mara declares.

“So clean,” Gianna agrees.

I’m still watching the guy on the ice get up slowly when Ivory leans forward down the row.

“There’s Theo.” She points unnecessarily because she’s been tracking him the whole time. “Number seventeen. Right side.”

Gianna and Mara both turn and look at me. At the same time.

“What,” I say.

“You know Theo?”

Ivory laughs. “Oh, she knows him alright.”

Gianna’s laughing now, and Mara’s laughing. I roll my eyes and let them have it, because it’s easier than the truth, and the truth is I couldn’t pick Theo Marsh out of that ice if Ivory hadn’t pointed him out, and the only number I’ve been watching all night is a boy on the end of the bench who isn’t even in the game.