Jane noticed that the heckling from the crowd was not limited to the Chinooks’ goalie. Anytime a Seattle player came within hollering distance, the men behind Jane yelled, “You suck!” After several Budweisers, they got more creative: “You suck, eighty-nine,” or thirty-nine, or whatever the player’s number.
Fifteen minutes into the first period, Rob Sutter checked a Coyote into the boards, and the Plexiglas shook so hard Jane thought it would crack. The player slid to the ice and the whistles blew.
“You suck, Hammer,” the men behind Jane yelled, and she wondered if the players could hear the fans over the collective noise. She knew she’d have to drink a lot of alcohol before she had the courage to tell the Hammer he sucked. She’d be too afraid he’d meet her in the parking lot later and “feed her lunch.”
After the first two periods, the score remained zero-zero, mostly due to some amazing saves by both goaltenders. But the Coyotes came out strong in the third. The team’s captain broke through the Chinook defense and sped down ice toward the Chinooks’ goal. Luc came out of the crease to meet him, but the captain snipered a shot passed his left shoulder. Luc got a piece of it with his stick, but the puck waffled and sailed into the net.
The crowd jumped to their feet as Luc skated to the goal. He calmly placed his stick and blocker on top of the net. As the blinking blue light announced the goal, he pushed his mask to the top of his head, picked up his water bottle, and shot water into his mouth. From where Jane sat, she watched him in profile. His cheek was slightly flushed, his damp hair stuck to his temple. A stream of water ran from the corner of his mouth, down his chin and neck, and wet the collar of his jersey. He lowered the bottle, tossed it on the cage, and shoved his hand into his blocker.
“Eat me, Martineau!” one of the men behind her yelled. “Eat me!”
Luc glanced up and one of Jane’s questions was answered. He’d clearly heard the men behind her. Without expression of any sort, he simply looked at them. He picked up his stick and lowered his gaze until it landed on Jane. He stared at her for several long seconds before he turned and skated to the Chinooks’ bench. Jane couldn’t tell what he thought of the two men, but she had bigger concerns than Luc’s feelings. She crossed her fingers and hoped like hell the Chinooks made a goal within the next fifteen minutes.
We have to remember we’re dealing with hockey players. You know they can be real superstitious, Leonard had warned. If the Chinooks start losing games, you’ll get blamed and sent packing. After the way they were already treating her, Jane figured they didn’t need much of an excuse.
It took them fourteen minutes and twenty seconds, but they finally scored on a power play. When the last buzzer sounded, the score was tied, and Jane let out a relieved breath.
Game over, or so she thought. Instead five more minutes were put on the clock, while four skaters and the goaltenders battled it out in overtime. Neither team scored and the game went into the record book as a tie.
Now Jane could breathe easy. They couldn’t blame her for their loss and send her packing.
She gathered her purse and shoved her notebook and pen inside. She headed to the Chinooks’ locker room, flashing her press pass. Her stomach twisted into knots as she moved down the hall. She was a professional. She could do this. No problem.
Keep your gaze pinned to their eyes, she reminded herself as she took out her small tape recorder. She entered the room and stopped as if the bottoms of her Doc Martins were suddenly glued to the floor. Men in various degrees of undress stood in front of benches and open stalls, peeling off their clothes. Hard muscles and sweat. Bare chests and backs. A flash of a naked stomach and butt, and…
Good Lord! Her cheeks burned and her eyes about jumped from her skull as she couldn’t help but stare at Vlad “the Impaler” Fetisov’s Russian-sized package. Jane jerked her gaze up, but not before she discovered that what she’d heard about European men was true. Vlad wasn’t circumcised, and that was just a little more info than she wanted. For one brief second she thought she should mumble an apology, but of course she couldn’t apologize, because that would be admitting that she’d seen something. She glanced at the other male reporters and they weren’t apologizing. So why did she feel like she was in high school peeking in the boys’ locker room?
You’ve seen a penis before, Jane. No big deal. If you’ve seen one penis, you’ve seen them all… Well, okay, that’s not true. Some penises are better than others. Stop! Stop thinking about penises! she chastened herself. You’re not here to stare. You’re here to do a job, and you have just as much right to be here as male reporters do. It’s the law, and you’re a professional. Yeah, that’s what she told herself as she wove her way through players and other journalists, careful to keep her gaze above the shoulders, but she was the only female in a room filled with big, rugged, naked hockey players. She couldn’t help but feel very much out of place.
She kept her eyes up as she joined the reports interviewing Jack Lynch, the right winger who’d made the Chinooks’ only goal. She dug out her notebook as he dropped his shorts. She was almost certain he was wearing long underwear, but she wasn’t about to check it out. Don’t look, Jane. Whatever you do, don’t look down.
She turned on her tape recorder and interrupted one of her male counterparts. “After your injury last month,” she began, “there was some speculation that you might not be able to finish the season as strong as you’d started. I think that goal put the rumors to bed.”
Jack planted a foot on the bench in front of him and glanced across his shoulder at her. His cheek had an angry red welt, and an old scar creased his top lip. He unwound the tape from the top of his socks and took so long to respond that Jane began to fear he didn’t plan to answer at all.
“I hope so,” he finally spoke. Three words. That was it.
“How do you feel about the tie?” asked a reporter next to her.
“The Coyotes played a tough game tonight. Naturally we wanted the win, but we’ll take a tie.”
When she tried to ask more questions, she was talked over and shut out. She soon felt as if she were being conspired against. She tried to tell herself that she was probably being paranoid, but when she moved to the small group interviewing the captain of the Chinooks, Mark Bressler, he looked right through her and answered the questions put to him by other reporters.
She talked to a rookie with a blond Mohawk, figuring he’d be grateful for any exposure, but his English was so poor, she didn’t understand more than two words. She walked toward the Hammer, but he dropped his cup and she kept going. While she could tell herself that she was a professional and this was a job, she couldn’t bring herself to walk up to a totally naked man. Not on the first night.
Soon it became obvious to her that some of the other reporters resented her too, and the players were not going to answer any more of her questions. She wasn’t all that surprised by the male journalists’ attitudes. The sports-beat reporters at the Times hadn’t treated her any better.
Fine, she could write the column with what she already had, she thought as she made her way to the team’s goalie. Luc sat on a bench in the corner of the room, a big duffel on the floor by his feet. He’d removed everything but his thermal underwear bottoms and socks. He was bare from the waist up, and he’d wrapped a towel around his neck. The ends hung halfway down his chest, and as he watched her approach, he sh
ot water from a plastic bottle into his mouth. A bead of moisture dripped from his bottom lip, slipped down his chin, and dropped to his sternum. Leaving a trail of moisture, it descended the defined planes of his chest and hard stomach and dipped into his navel.
He had a black horseshoe tattooed on his lower belly. The shadowing of the groove and nail holes gave depth and dimension to his flesh, and the heels curved upward on each side of his belly button. The bottom of the tattoo disappeared beneath the waistband of his underwear, and Jane doubted he needed the luck of a horseshoe tattooed above his goods.
“I don’t give interviews,” he said before she could ask him a question. “With all that research you’ve done on me, I’d have thought you’d know that.”
She did, but she wasn’t feeling particularly amiable. The boys’ club had shoved her out, and she felt like shoving back. She turned on her recorder. “How do you feel about tonight’s game?”
She didn’t expect him to answer and he didn’t.