Page 115 of Full Contact

Mark: Of course. I’ll find you.

***

Leah forwarded an email Monday morning from Denise. She’d attached a picture of her kitchen counter, where a photograph of her presenting Heath his award stood next to a cookie jar shaped like a moose.

FYI. Nothing needed from us, I think.

It was from the library’s volunteer services office. Callahan had finished his background check and orientation and had begun taking Saturday morning shifts in the children’s department. His application required an employer contact, and he’d listed the team. They were confirming the address.

It was a beautiful story. One of our rookies went back after his scheduled visit, on his own time. One photograph would carry it: Callahan in a chair built for a six-year-old, a book open on his knees, with small boots drying on newspaper by the door. People would share it for a week.

Then I remembered the librarian at the back of the storytime room.

The kids aren’t PR content.

She’d answered the question before I asked it. Callahan had answered it too, when he typed the volunteer office’s number into his own phone.

I wrote back: Thank you for letting us know. This is the correct contact. We’re glad he’s there. I sent it and closed the email.

Leah stopped in my doorway on her way to partnerships. “Did you see the library email?”

“I answered it.”

“That was fast. I figured it would sit behind the Storm thank-yous until Wednesday. Anything for us?”

“No,” I said. “It isn’t ours.”

She looked at me a moment, then nodded and walked down the hall.

I returned to the credential request I’d been answering. A radio producer wanted a press pass for one of his reporters at tonight’s game.

Under it was an email from Graham Whitfield at the league office about the All-Star media deadline. It had a postscript. Two other clubs had asked him whether a written oversight structure like ours existed, and could he see it.

I sent the October memo with a note that it had been written for one player and would need adjusting for a roster. He wrote back within the hour, thanking me.

We beat Minnesota three–one. Trier blocked two shots in the third, one with his forearm, and did his postgame interview with his sleeve pulled down over the bruise. He texted me from the parking garage at eleven.

Trier: Arm’s fine. Just a little purple. Still on for tomorrow.

***

Trier walked into the gym in black joggers and a gray long-sleeved shirt.

“Markel kept us forty minutes over, reviewing a bungled penalty kill,” he said. “I showered in four minutes and changed in the car.”

“You’re still early.”

“Three minutes early.” He looked up at the walls first, then at the desk.

The gym smelled of chalk and rubber matting. Somewhere behind the bouldering wall, a man dropped onto a crash pad with a thud and a groan, and the front-desk speaker was playing an old R&B song.

“That’s higher than you said,” Trier told me.

“I said it was taller than a house.”

“It’s more than twice as high as a lot of houses.”

The instructor, a young woman named Tess with a carabiner on her belt loop, led him off to the beginner wall. Dana and Felix arrived a few minutes later, stamping snow off their boots, and joined me on the bench. Dana squeezed my shoulder as she sat.