Overnight Sensation(42)

So I get a rink shovel—that four-foot mini plow they use to clean up the surface—and patiently tidy up the edges between drills. Or I try to. Jason Castro is leaning over the wall chatting with Bayer, who’s on the bench. “Is it worse today?” he asks.

“Pretty bad,” Bayer says with a grimace. “Trainer’s gonna send me for another MRI.”

“Shit,” Jason says under his breath.

“Excuse me,” I say, clearing my throat. “Can you be a good, concerned friend from a slightly different location?” I have a job to do here.

Jason does a double-take. “What are you doing, Heidi?”

“Obviously, I’m just here to admire the view,” I say through a clenched jaw. Seriously—why do the players keep asking me that?

A beat goes by, and then Jason moves out of my way. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“Your hair looks different,” he says as I pass by.

“It’s supposed to.”

I should have eaten a donut, because practice lasts a long time, and Walrus Mustache keeps me busy doing his job.

At some point I scan the crowd and pick out a handsome man in a suit, sitting alone in the top row of the bleachers. It’s Eric. He’s waiting for me, and Eric isn’t a big fan of waiting.

“Are we almost done here?” I ask Walrus.

“Nearly,” he says. “After you do the resurfacing, you can go.” He tosses something toward me.

Startled, I catch it with only a tiny fumble. It’s a single key. And the key fob reads ZAMBONI.

No. Really?

“Really?” I demand. “I haven’t driven a Zamboni since high school.” And that time it was just joyriding on a dare. My father grounded me afterward.

“Like riding a bike,” he says. “Let’s have a refresher.”

He puts the machine into position. Then, during the last minutes of practice, he goes over the controls. “These here are your hydraulic levers for dropping the conditioner and raising the dump tank. You got your blade adjustment, which determines how much ice you’re takin’ off. Press down here for the snow brake—better hit that puppy once or twice during each pass…”

Good. Lord. I’m nodding like a bobblehead as he tells me all the things I have to do. Then the coach blows the whistle three times, and I know it’s show time.

“Gotta move the nets first,” says Walrus.

Right.

I trudge back out on the ice and remove the first net. But the second one is a problem, because there’s a group of hockey players standing around it. O’Doul is basically using the thing as his pulpit as he sermonizes to Jason. “I think maybe it’s a breathing thing,” he says. “Like, you’re not tightening your diaphragm when you release the puck.”

“No! It’s his shoulder position,” Trevi argues. “He needs to shift his stance to accommodate the change of angle.”

“I think O’Doul is onto something with the breathing,” Beringer chimes in. “You gotta breathe through your eyelids.”

And now I’ve had enough. “Don’t listen to this drivel,” I say to Jason. “That eyelids thing is a joke from Bull Durham.”

“But it worked!” Beringer squawks.

“The only thing working right now is me,” I snap, reaching down to remove the first net pin. When I stand up again, I brandish it at Jason. “He’s the most over-coached forward in the league this week. Y’all just stand around yapping, which won’t help. It’s all muscle memory, for Pete’s sake! This man needs you to snap five thousand passes his way, so his body can figure it out. He doesn’t need your advice.”

It’s suddenly very quiet in the rink. I forgot that there were fans here to watch today. Whoops.

“Anyway,” I say with my voice lowered. “I straightened my hair and my date is waiting, so if you could kindly move your padded bottoms off the rink, I can resurface.”

“Muscle memory,” O’Doul says slowly.

“I could send you some passes,” Trevi offers. “We could all take turns.”

They’re all thinking deep thoughts about this, so I have to physically move O’Doul off the net to dislodge it from the rink. “Y’all wait over there,” I say, pointing at the first row of bleachers. “Please and thank you. Now, I have a Zamboni to drive, so excuse me.”

I’m halfway back across the rink when I realize my mistake.

“Hot Pepper is gonna drive the Zamboni?” Bayer asks. “I gotta see this. Anyone want to make a pool on the time?”

“I’m in!” Jason replies.

Well, shoot. If I hadn’t mentioned the darned resurfacing, I might have done this without spectators.

But now it’s a thing. The Zamboni pool is a rink game where people bet on how long it will take to clear the ice, and the closest guesser wins.

“Twenty-two minutes,” Beringer says, starting the bidding.

Everybody hoots, because twenty-two is a really long resurfacing time. “Who’s got a pen and paper?” someone else calls out.

“I’ll take the bets,” offers Jimbo, the young guy who works in operations. “Got some paper right here. One for you, one for you… Here’s a pen, Castro.”