Page 62 of Breakaway
"He's having a year," Paulson says. "The kid is everywhere. Points, ratings, the whole media thing. Atlanta got lucky with that pick."
"Yeah, they did."
Paulson moves to the bench press. I pick up the thirty-fives and start curling because my hands need a place to be that is not the phone.
The ice is clean for morning skate. I take my shifts. The puck finds my tape in the slot and I put it where it needs to go. The release is right and Coach nods from behind the glass. The best stretch of a career that has lasted fifteen years, and the stretch is happening in an apartment where the second coffee cup has not been used since August.
I drive home after practice. The pictures are on the laptop, but I’m not opening it. So I grab my camera and head to the balcony, but the ocean and light are still off, totally flat, and the sky won’t cooperate for a picture. I press the shutter anyway. The imageon the screen is gray water and gray sky and the railing in the foreground and nothing in the frame is alive.
I should call Kevin. Kevin would sit on his patio and let me talk and not say anything until I was finished and then he would say the thing I should already know, which is the thing I have been carrying since the island. I should call him. I pick up the phone and open his contact and look at it and close it.
Luca was performing for the beach. He was performing for me. In three hundred and seven photographs I can see a man I love and in twelve of them I can see the real Luca, and the distance between those two things is the distance between Miami and Atlanta. I have been standing on this side of it for five months telling myself the distance was fine.
The distance is not fine.
I am going to do something. I don’t know what yet. The not-knowing is new. For five months I have known exactly what I was doing, which was holding, which was waiting, which was playing the best hockey of my life in an apartment where the coffee is for one. I have known what I was doing. Standing on the balcony in Aruba watching him rate a lime with the wrong timing, I stopped knowing.
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Chapter 22: Luca
THEN
The Marlins are not a real baseball team. I have been making this case for twenty minutes and Wes will not concede.
"They have a stadium," he says. "They have a roster. They have two World Series titles."
"They have two titles and nobody in this city can name a current starting pitcher. I went to a game in April. The section behind home plate was half empty. Half empty, Wes. Behind home plate."
"You're comparing them to European football crowds, and that's not a fair comparison."
"I am comparing them to having a pulse. A stadium should feel alive. That stadium felt like a waiting room with a diamond." I add "The Twins are worse."
"Don't start."
"The Twins are the Marlins with snow. Same attendance energy. Colder parking lot."
"The Twins have a loyal fan base."
"The Twins have your mother. That is one person. That is not a base. "
"My mother is worth fifty thousand fans. She has not missed an opening day since 1981."
"Your mother is a statistical outlier in Minneapolis, and you cannot build a franchise on a single outlier."
He laughs. The real one. His shoulders drop and his head turns toward the water and for a second the evening is perfect.
My phone buzzes on the table behind us. I reach back without turning my head.
Kyle.
"Chapin," I say. I put it on speaker because there is no reason not to. Kyle calls about contract language, roster logistics, schedule notes. "Hey, Kyle. You're on speaker. Wes is here."
"Good." A beat. "Good that he's there."
I look at Wes. His forearms are still on the railing. His head has turned toward the phone in my hand.
"Luca, I got a call from Atlanta's front office about an hour ago. The expansion draft selections came through this afternoon."
