Page 47 of He Has Game (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Even if Joe tells me I’m out, knowing I have the night to spend with Vivvie will help take the sting off.
Because I’m not sure which would be the worst thing that could happen—whether it’s being traded, or never having at least one night with Vivvie.
* * *
Ham gothimself invited to Sherry’s dinner party too. And I have to say I’m glad to see him there. We’re dining at the Boylstons’ Beacon Hill townhouse in Louisburg Square. It’s a short drive and a valet takes my Suburban away which makes me uneasy. If we need to make a quick escape, I’ll have to call an Uber and give my keys to . . . my mother.
Since when the fuck do I think I can rely on my mother?I’m not sure, but I am counting on her tonight. That fills me with enough trepidation to coil up the tension. My chest tightens at the same time my heart pumps like I’m skating in a race with all my pads on. Holding onto Vivvie, my hand pressing into the small of her back and sliding to her hip, we walk inside the impressive foyer of the townhouse behind her parents and my mother, who are chatting about what an elegant old-world neighborhood this is.
The loud clacking sound of heels on marble precedes Sherry into the foyer.
“Welcome to my home. So glad you could join us for dinner.” She has a broad beaming smile that I would never suspect is filled with venom if I didn’t know better, and I cringe as I watch Vivvie’s parents’ reaction. The Frosts are charmed as Vivvie introduces them. Nick and Sally Frost seem to be as warm and genuine a pair as I could imagine. They remind me of Coach and his wife, sending a sharp pang through me.
Sherry and her butler, or whoever hell the guy is who let us inside, lead us to a grand dining room dominated by a long table set with more plates and spoons than I’ve seen in a cruise ship banquet hall. There’s a bar set up at one end of the room where Mr. Edwin Boylston beckons us. The poor old fuck smiles, unsuspecting. Mary says Sherry set it up so Ed can see for himself that our engagement is fake. Maybe he does suspect and doesn’t care one way or another. He’s placating his crazy wife. No skin off his teeth if the team loses me. If I lose my team. But why the fuck is Moroni and the ownership paying any attention to Boylston’s demands? I know there’s something. And I know Mary knows.
We walk by the long table to join him. It’s set for ten. Thank Christ she’s left no one out. Maybe she’ll be on good behavior.
Fuck that. There’s only one reason for her to hold this party with Joseph Moroni, the team’s fucking manager attending, and that’s to nail me—so to speak—to somehow expose me as a degenerate in front of her husband and Joe so that he’s forced to trade me.
“I’ll have a bourbon. Straight up,” I say to Boylston as he extends his hand. I take his hand and congratulate myself that I don’t twist it off. Since I’m not in a talkative mood and Vivvie knows it because she has spot-on instincts—when it comes to me anyway—and she’s overcome her reserve, no longer intimidated by meeting new people, she jumps in and fills the conversational void.
“You have a lovely home, Mr. Boylston.”
“Thank you. Call me Ed, young lady. My, you’re a lovely one. Finnegan, you’ve done all right for yourself.” He’s perfected the superficial boardroom best friends manners covering up the competitive animosity underneath, but I feel it. I keep my cool, but I’m not anything more than barely civil.
My mother sticks to Sherry’s side with a smile plastered on her face that I know is as fake as Edwin’s teeth. When Sherry asks her in an extra loud voice if she’d like a drink, I know she’s done her homework about dear Mom and my chest tightens impossibly. Shocked that my first instinct is to go to her, I resist. Vivvie looks their way without a break in her smile and gives Caroline a nod. It’s subtle and I doubt anyone else would notice because no one else would be so hyper-attentive to everything Vivvie as I am.
“How kind of you to offer, Sherry sweetheart. But I don’t drink. I’m an alcoholic so it would be a very bad idea.” My mother never breaks her smile and though I see the slight surprise on Vivvie’s parents’ faces, I see admiration and appreciation for her honesty.
The grin pops out and a squirt of pride slips through. I can’t help myself. My automatic response to gather my defenses against my mother, to not give her any credit for anything in preparation for the inevitable disappointment, rises to claim me, to squash the grin, to squash anything positive associated with the woman. But I let it go, and even the flicker of the image of her in bed with my fifteen-year-old teammate doesn’t erase my smile. Not completely.
By the time we’re seated at the table, I’ve had two bourbons and I’ve spoken about two words. Mom is busy occupying Mr. and Mrs. Frost, especially when they venture to have a conversation with me. She’s good. She knows me well. But avoiding getting to know Vivvie’s parents makes me feel like shit. Because I am shit. I’m taking advantage of their daughter, spoiling her pristine soul, about to disillusion her and change her from a hopeful romantic to a sad, jaded cynic like the rest of us.
When I realize, even as I look the Frosts in the eyes because they’re seated opposite me courtesy of the sick-minded Sherry, that I’m still going to steal Vivvie’s innocence if not her virginity, because I’m a cold nasty bastard—I’m Caroline’s son aren’t I?—I start on my third bourbon. It’s smooth stuff. Ed has nothing but top shelf in this glittering palace. So what if it’s all poison if you look past the surface? The bourbon and especially his glittering wife.
Mrs. Frost asks Caroline where she’s from. I listen closely, afraid of everything that comes out of my mother’s mouth like the next word could be a conversational bomb, either on purpose or not.
“We’re from Snow Lake, Manitoba. I was a single mother and raised Finn there.” She raises her chin in a defensive posture and tension grips me like an opposing player clenching me in a fight, stopping me from making any moves.
“That must have been so difficult. Vivian told us you lost your husband at a young age. I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Frost puts a hand on my mother’s arm conveying nothing but genuine caring. Like her daughter. Of course.
Caroline smiles and I’m surprised. She usually disparages so-called sappy people. Instead, she goes on and on about my childhood, bringing up things I’ve long forgotten. Including the story of my first pair of new skates and the trouble she had to go through to get them—which thank fuck didn’t involve sleeping with anyone. She leaves out the part where she missed Christmas Eve and showed up halfway through the Christmas dinner my grandparents and I were having without her.
Anxiety had ruined the meal. When she arrived home, she’d given no explanation, but she had a gift with her—something special. Later that night I heard Grandma yelling at her about catting around on Christmas Eve and she said she’d needed to shop late and it took her some time to earn the money for the gift—right up till the closing time at the bar. Grandma slapped her, called her a whore, and Mom cried and swore it wasn’t like that. I buried my head under the pillow, refusing to hear more. I was young, but old enough to know what it all meant. Old enough to remain unconsoled that she’d supposedly done it for me.
I hated my mother and showed it at every opportunity from then on. I remember her sticking up for me when I was a kid. When she came to games she routinely yelled at the refs, making a scene when they called penalties against me. After that Christmas I blew up and told her not to come to my games. Told her I would stop playing if she did.
Maybe that’s why she stopped, or stopped letting me know about it. I’d see her sneaking in on occasion, wearing sunglasses and a scarf, sitting in the back or sometimes on the visitors side.
Fuck.I was just as shitty a son as she was a mother. Nothing is clearer to me as I sit opposite the equivalent of the Cleavers. I wonder if Vivvie knows how lucky she is?
“How are you enjoying Boston, Caroline?” Sherry interrupts my mother’s diatribe on the joys of my childhood. “How long are you staying? Not long I hope.” She pauses, flashes me a glance and says to my mother, “You never know, Finn could be traded at any minute.”
I halt the bourbon mid-sip, the glass hovering close to my lips. Meeting Sherry’s triumphant eyes, I put the glass down when everything in me is screaming to throw it in her sick face. Vivvie squeezes my knee under the table and the violent instinct is quelled. She’s a fucking miracle worker.
I wait for my mother to punch her in the eye and I’m not sure if I’ll mind if she does, but she doesn’t. She tenses, but keeps her mouth clamped shut.
Joe and Mary look at each other. I expect them to speak up in my defense, but they don’t. The Frosts look puzzled and uneasy, looking around for reassurance. They’re used to dining with sane people, no doubt. Grace looks angry. I can’t believe she’s even here, but Vivvie insisted because she’s like a sister. Ham puts a hand on her arm. He knows better than to fuel a fire and looks calm and carefree as usual. If I’m traded he would lose his piece of the Stanley Cup bonus, but he doesn’t have nearly as much to lose as I do.
