Page 134 of Full Contact

A player who refuses to come off the ice and leave it to his teammate will eventually exhaust himself.

Development note: Line changes. Learn them. That’s how everybody plays a sixty-minute game.

Mark set the phone on the coffee table.

“She’s been watching me play for twenty years,” I said.

“She’s good,” Mark said.

“She’s annoying.”

“Maybe she’s both.”

He put his feet back in my lap. After a moment, I started to rub his ankle.

Later, while Mark was looking for his shoes, we settled our schedule for the Sunday after our road trip that ended in Calgary on Friday. Mark would come over early in the afternoon, and we’d make spaghetti and meatballs. He said he had a good sauce recipe.

“I’ll bring dessert,” he said.

“From where?”

“There’s a place near the office with a lemon tart. I’ve been looking for an excuse.”

He found his second shoe under the coffee table, where Peaches had been lying across it. I put Sunday on my calendar before he’d finished tying the laces.

***

In Calgary, we struggled into overtime tied at two. Four minutes in, Varga came down the left side with a defenseman on his hip. The goalie came out of the crease to cut off the angle. Varga saw the opening before the rest of us. He shot low, through the goalie’s legs, and the puck was in the net before the goalie could respond.

Nineteen thousand people were silent at once. In the quiet, I heard our bench, everybody yelling at the same time. On the ice, I grabbed Varga and yelled, “You’re the man!” in his ear.

On the bus afterward, Rook watched the arena out the window until we turned the corner. It was his last regular-season game in that building.

On Saturday morning, a clip from our latest Peaches episode drew attention. It was an eleven-second cut. I stood near the couch while Peaches batted the felt mouse between my feet. Then she walked away. It was a cat being playful, and the team account set it to lighthearted music.

Someone created an edit tying the Peaches clip to Varga’s Calgary shot going between the goalie’s legs. They put them side-by-side, and they included red arrows in case the side-by-side placement wasn’t enough.

I watched it once while I waited in the hotel lobby for the team bus. Then I put my phone in my pocket and left it there until we reached the airport.

Varga had watched it more than once.

“She called it,” he told me on the plane. He had the edit on his phone and was holding it across the aisle so I could see it again. “Look at her face.”

“She’s looking at a wall.”

“She’s seeing the future.”

He played it again for Cross, who was trying to sleep.

A reporter stopped me at the airport when we arrived back in Chicago. “Can I ask about the cat?”

“You can ask.”

“There’s a clip going around. People are saying she predicted Varga’s goal.”

“I don’t discuss predictions,” I said.

“Do you think she has special powers?”