Sounds of laughter wafted in from the living room as Charlie unloaded the remainder of the grocery store spread. Putting up perishables and arranging muffins on plates, Adam noticed the way that Charlie was favoring his left hand...hardly a mystery considering the throbbing in the back of his own head.
"How's your hand feeling?" He asked, the two now standing alone in the kitchen.
As Adam spoke, he stared over at the stained countertop; a permanent pink outline of a cup coloring one corner of Formica.
.
His own lip had healed nicely in the night, but that didn't change the pounding in his skull.
.
"Let's just say I think you won that one."
"I don't know." Adam laughed, looking back down at his clear mimosa. "I think you and the concrete double-teamed me on that one."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah."
"You alright?"
"Of course." He smiled, adding a bit more orange juice to his drink as he thought about Julie's comments. "But you definitely left me with an impressive knot on the back of my head."
"That makes me feel oddly better..."
"You're welcome to feel it.
Adam tilted his head down for Charlie to feel; a few sprigs of hair still growing in the wrong direction twenty-three years after his accidental journey down the stairs.
"You and the concrete made a solid team. You should be proud."
"Cake eater."
.
Unable to resist this chance at admiring his own handiwork, Charlie reached over.
Sure enough, an inch or two above Phil's craftsmanship from so many years before, Charlie could feel the solid lump.
He was thankful that he hadn't seriously injured his friend, of course, but he smiled when he realized that they were suffering in the same boat. That rearranging the bones of his own hand hadn't been in vain.
.
He also thought back to all of those years at Eden Hall; to that first year at Minnesota before Adam got hurt.
There had always been tensions.
But Adam had also been a hell of a friend and teammate.
.
Without Adam's work ethic, none of those national championships would have been possible. There wouldn't have been any scholarships to powerhouses like U of Minnesota. Eden Hall wouldn't have hired him if he hadn't played during the era he did; if he hadn't been there during Adam's reign.
And, when Adam wasn't hanging out with Crawford or Thad or Larson, there were lots of good times.
As the thoughts played through his head, he wanted to say something, but no words seemed quite right. Instead, they just lingered there for a second or two too long as conversation drifted in from the other room.
.
"I'm-I really am sorry." Adam finally offered after a moment. "I shouldn't have said any of the things I said last night."
"I shouldn't have, either."
"It's cool." Adam shrugged. "The things you said were all true. They hurt, but they were true."
"Maybe." Charlie agreed, taking another drink of his own mimosa. "But I also left a lot out. You've been through a lot-probably more than I know, and you're still a good person.
"A better person than I could be in that situation."
"Nah."
"Yeah. You are."
"I should have done a lot of things differently."
"Probably.
Charlie grew quiet again, staring down at the floor as he thought not just about the obvious, but at the things that had never been said.
Never talked about.
.
He'd started at Eden Hall right after college; an assistant coach to Orion's JV.
After sixteen years, he'd heard enough whispers to understand that their hockey program had its fair share of ghosts.
People at Eden Hall never mentioned names, and he would have never asked, but as he thought about timelines, certain things started to make more sense. Remembering some of Adam's oddities; things that he'd laughed off at the time, he realized that Adam was probably very familiar with some of those ghosts; that his pain ran deeper than anything was designed to treat.
Adam's losses had begun well before he broke his neck.
.
"You're...you're a good dude. I love you."
Adam just laughed, unsure of how to handle this sudden moment of intimacy between the two of them.
Reaching over, he gave Charlie a hug.
"You are such a queer." He reminded his friend, smiling.
"Not as big of one as you."
"Fag."
August 28, 2001
"He was like, your dad's age."
"Was not!"
"Was too."
Over the summer, Ashley and her latest way-too-old suitor had broken up, leaving her and Julie to dissect the situation in the living room of Ashley's apartment.
With school back in session for the year, the two lounged across a floral sofa handed down from Mrs. Handretti, splitting a bowl of popcorn as they discussed what went wrong.
"My dad's like, 65." Ashley reminded her.
"Okay, fine." Julie conceded. "He was old enough to be your dad in any place other than Connecticut."
"Whatever. He was young at heart."
"No. No he wasn't. He was on cholesterol medication...he was quite literally old at heart."
"Not that way." Ashley laughed. "Besides. I'm not sure you're one to talk."
"What?"
"Umm...Alexandre? Alejandro? Graeme?" She reminded her former roommate. "At this point, I'm starting to think Preppy Stephen Hawking is your best bet."
.
Julie grew silent, staring down at the throw pillow in her lap. She picked at a loose thread, wrapping the loose string around the tip of her finger as she thought about what Ashley said.
She knew Ashley hadn't meant anything by it; that she'd just been kidding around. But still, it hurt to hear anyone refer to Adam that way.
"Don't say that."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"How's he doing, anyway?"
.
"Better. He's back at school now."
"That's good."
"But yeah." Ashley laughed. "I don't think your dating record is any better than mine."
"What. Ever. Alejandro was great other than his tendency to share his love with every other girl in New Hampshire."
"Uh huh. Yeah." Ashley nodded. "When a foreign man-whore with no major is the good one, that's not exactly an accomplishment."
"At least he wasn't old enough to remember Woodstock."
"At least Dennis didn't accidentally set a building on fire."
"Okay, yeah. Graeme was definitely a mistake." Julie agreed, laughing.
"They were all mistakes."
"Yeah."
"So how is tech-bro land?" Fulton asked, Charlie and Adam now back in the living room with the rest of the group as everybody caught up on the remaining odds and ends of one another's lives.
.
When Adam returned, Averman had politely given him his spot on the sofa, despite protests that doing so was unnecessary.
However, now that he was sitting on the floor beside Goldberg and Ken, he couldn't help but notice that the social pecking order of high school was perfectly re-created in terms of their seating arrangements.
.
Up on the sofa and loveseat sat the very people who'd dominated the headlines so many years earlier; Charlie still taking up a disproportionate amount of space as he sprawled across his end of the sofa, and Adam still sitting at the other end, with Julie in his lap and a drink in his hand; an uncomfortable emperor counting the moments until he could be alone again.
Just as it had always been in the later years at Eden Hall.
That probably should have been a sign, now that I think about it...
.
"Definitely bro-ier than it used to be. My nerds have all been replaced."
"That sucks."
"It really does. I'm one of the older guys in the room now, and I'm usually the only one who's had much experience being shoved in lockers."
"Even tech has become too cool for you..." Russ laughed, the absurdity not lost on anybody.
.
Having moved out to California after college, Averman had indeed been one of the more successful Ducks.
He also had amongst the least to show for it; Palo Alto's cost of living swallowing everything he earned.
.
"Such is the tragedy of nerd-dom."
"It's not easy being a dork."
"So how about you?" Averman asked, looking back at the quieter of the two Bash Brothers. "Making a difference in the lives of middle schoolers?"
"I really underestimated how dumb 12 year olds can be."
Charlie laughed, happy that the conversation had shifted to something he knew about.
"No kidding!" He chimed in; his well-meaning tendency to monopolize conversations one thing that had remained unchanged.
Please tell me I was never that ridiculous as a teenager...
"Okay, so that begs the question for all of us. Which is worse: Poor 12 year olds, or rich prep school kids?"
As Connie looked back and forth between the two of them, Charlie sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought about an alumni board that was forever on his case, and a bunch of hockey dads who were all convinced that their kid was the next Gretzky.
"It's not the kids who are the problem." He began. "It's the competing expectations.
"I can put together a winning team. I can do what's best for the kids. Or I can make a bunch of rich alumni happy. But it's probably going to be one of three. Maybe two if I'm really lucky."
"Still a bunch of Tom Rileys?"
"Still a bunch of Tom Rileys mixed in with Banksie's dad.
"I have a whole new respect for Orion and his GPA requirements, because at this point, if it'll win me the game and keep an angry hockey dad off my back, I'm begging teachers to pass kids. I'd write their history reports for them if I thought I could get away with it. I'm like, half a step away from Wilson's approach of 'if you can spell your name, you can play'."
Adam chuckled, thinking back to a few of the dumber players on the team; every season featuring at least one guy who'd never possess the mental acuity to work at Burger King.
"I don't really think he enforced that standard. No way Hunter could spell his own name."
"Well yeah." Averman pointed out. "I don't think that one should even count. Hunter Michael Bodencratz? That was obviously a bridge too far. There were all sorts of complicated letters in there.
"Now Cole's parents knew what they were doing. Cole Jones? Even Cole couldn't mess that one up."
"It was solid planning on their end." Adam agreed solemnly. "They took a risk with the silent 'E', but unless they wanted to change their last name, he was going to have to learn that one, anyway."
September 10, 2001
Passengers milled by; dozens of men in navy and charcoal suits barking orders into their cell phones. They'd walk in packs of two or three, each trying to assert their dominance over the other Charcoal Suit Guys around them. The occasional vacationer would cut between packs, but on this day, Logan International belonged to the business travelers; talks of mergers and 2 PM meetings filling the air.
.
One of the few exceptions to this was a certain Ivy League hockey player, squealing some big news of her own into a cell phone.
.
"I made the team!" Julie announced, her cheeks still flushed with excitement.
.
Nothing was official yet, but the final Team USA training camp prior to Olympic preparations had finished, and she was the starting goalie.
The writing was on the wall: She'd be going to Salt Lake City.
Her heart raced with excitement as she stood at the gate of the airport, the reality still sinking in.
.
Dartmouth hockey might have been underwhelming, but she'd be getting one last shot at athletic glory before life moved on.
One last chance to wear the red, white, and blue. One last chance to hear the crowds cheer, and play in a game with more than 10 spectators.
.
"What? You're the greatest!"
"Coming from the one guy who could always score on me?" She giggled, thinking back to the original Team USA, and the cute boy who somehow found it necessary to apologize for being good.
.
As she stood there, surrounded by the clack of wingtips on tile, she could remember the way that he avoided her for the next two weeks, and the way that he'd stammer over his words anytime she came near. It wasn't until that day on the pier that he finally got up the courage to speak to her, and it still seemed like a minor miracle that he hadn't dove off to his death, just to avoid embarrassment.
.
At the other end of the line, Adam shook his head.
"You're never going to let me live that one down, are you?"
"Heh, you were pretty cute back then."
"Just back then?"
"Yeah, I mean, after that, I lost all interest in you." She joked, wishing that he were there to celebrate with her. That she could put her arms around him and not let go. "Never spoke to you again. Ever. No idea what ever became of you or anything."
"Well yeah." He agreed. "I'm glad you came to your senses on that one."
"Definitely."
.
For a moment, she thought about how he should be gearing up for his first NHL game at about this time; about the draft party that was supposed to happen.
She thought about the celebrations they were supposed to be having; the phone calls about penthouse apartments and decisions about whether he needed to trade his Porsche in for something even more fun.
And, of course, she also thought about the present reality. About the fact that while she'd be getting one last chance at hockey glory, he was having to re-learn how to brush his teeth and sit up with assistance.
.
"Seriously, I'm so proud of you! You're the greatest, Cat Lady."
.
And then she heard the joy in his voice as he congratulated her, and the sadness began to melt away.
I just wish he were here to celebrate with me.
"And the poor ones?" Connie asked Fulton, mindful of the fact that as well-meaning as he could be, Charlie had a knack for taking over conversations.
"Charlie gets the over-involved dads. I get the dads who don't exist."
"Can I donate a few of mine?" Charlie joked, taking another bite of sausage biscuit as he thought about how badly he'd like to donate Mr. Utlaut, a retired minor leaguer with huge ambitions and a son who could fit in a Polly Pocket.
Poor kid's going to need a growth spurt to ride the roller coaster at Mall of America...
"Please do.
"I hate the empty halls at parent-teacher conference time. I get it. My mom couldn't go to that stuff, either. But I want more for them."
"That's tough."
"Yeah. It is."
"Well, I've got at least four that you're welcome to this season. Five if we end up nabbing Hanssen from Blake."
Fulton grew quiet for a moment.
.
People like Charlie had no idea how tough it was.
At Eden Hall, you worried about where kids were going to go to college, and whether they'd be happy in their gleaming office towers when they grew up. You worried that they'd grow up to be unsatisfied with their lives; forever trying to recover from the angst of adolescence. As some of their old classmates had proven, those weren't trivial concerns, but still.
At Terrence E. Baker, you worried that they wouldn't live to see high school.
.
"Seriously. It sucks." He shook his head, thinking of the families like the Moreaus and Avermans who'd sent their kids there thirty years earlier; families who didn't have the money for private school or the political clout to get district lines changed, but who provided some kind of stable, middle-class presence. "Parts of the old neighborhood have gentrified, but every time one block gets cleaned up and I start to think 'Maybe this will at least get us a better mix; bring in some community involvement', the parents just send their kids to private school until the lines get redrawn. At least back in the day, we had a handful of solid neighborhoods. Now there's nothing."
Connie nodded.
"I was wondering how that had turned out.
"I remember when dad sold the house for half a million it seemed crazy." She continued, quietly. "Nobody in our neighborhood had that kind of money back then. I always thought the Duncans were rich because their dad sold insurance and bought the family an above-ground pool."
"That was a nice above-ground pool." Guy chuckled. "I was so jealous of that. I asked my mom if we could get one, and she looked at me like I'd asked if we could buy our own castle."
"Exactly! I remember that the first time I went over there, I was amazed, because they had like, matching furniture. I thought I was in a hotel lobby or something."
"Tonight on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, we tour the Duncan mansion." Averman joked, doing his best Robin Leech impersonation. "Boasting over 1,700 sq. feet of beige carpeting, you can feel the opulence when you sit down on the sofa, purchased new from Haverty's Furniture just ten years ago."
"Venturing out onto the back veranda, we see a resort-like Oasis, complete with a swimming pool that is nearly five feet deep, accented by an elaborate plywood deck and not two but three matching lawn chairs."
"Of course, no part of this opulent setup would be complete without Mrs. Duncan herself, sporting the very latest from the Dress Barn clearance rack. Today, we see her lounging by the pool in a purple pantsuit, made entirely from genuine polyester."
.
Goldberg laughed, thinking of the angst that had periodically consumed his early 30's.
.
Every year, even as the deli continued to grow, he'd look at his modest bungalow and aging Nissan Armada, wondering why he never could catch up to the successes of his wealthier peers' parents.
Then he happened to go through the old photo albums at his parents' house, and stumbled upon a picture from Tommy Duncan's eleventh birthday party.
They had a grocery store sheet cake, and in the background, a new kitchen backsplash that stopped halfway across the wall, courtesy of renovation job that ran out of money a few feet too soon.
.
"Not going to lie. I was well into adulthood before I realized that there weren't any actual rich people in our neighborhood."
"Same."
"There weren't? Because at this point, owning my own house and an above-ground pool is starting to sound like the impossible dream."
September 11, 2001
"You still don't have me convinced."
"What? You've been to Maine. Did it not seem pretty normal?"
"Yeah. Maine. Still no proof that the rest is real."
As the rest of the nation watched New York's towers fall, Julie came to realize that the Banks family might have put a bit more emphasis on hockey than geography; Adam calling to be sure that she was alright since 'New Hampshire and New York are pretty close together'.
.
When she joked with him that Breck's social studies department left something to be desired, she found herself drug back into their old mock debate about whether New England actually existed, the familiarity a warm blanket amidst the world's chaos.
.
"So if they made up all of the places that aren't Maine, where am I?"
"You probably fell off the edge of the earth." He replied earnestly. "This isn't really you that I'm talking to at all-it's someone who sounds like you. It's all part of the plan."
"The plan to lure midwesterners to their deaths?"
"Yup."
"How do you explain Florida?" Julie questioned, longing for his old dorm room back in Minnesota, and the feeling of being curled up together in his bed; of the way that with him, nothing ever changed, and good sweaters felt like enough to keep the world at bay.
None of this was supposed to happen.
None of it.
"It's real. Like Maine." He smiled, lying in his bed alone. "But they're probably islands, kind of like Hawaii or something. So you have like, Bangor, and you have Palm Beach, and then you have the end of the world between them, and if people try to go to those places, they'll fall off the planet."
"See. This? This is what you need to do." Julie laughed. "Educate people about how the east coast doesn't exist."
"So you're admitting that this isn't really you! I knew it!"
"You got me."
"I'm a pretty good detective at these things."
"Yes you are."