Page 139 of Full Contact

“I haven’t decided.”

“Then here are your options. You can tell the people you want to know, privately, and the department never says a word unless we’re asked. If a question comes up, we can answer with a statement you’ve approved, in your wording. There’s no requirement to make a public announcement about anything in your personal life.”

He nodded slowly.

“No advance notice needed?” he asked.

“None required.”

“And no availability specifically about it.”

“We can decline requests,” I said. “We do it every day.”

“Acceptable,” he said.

Then he took his hands out of his hoodie pocket, tapped the doorframe once with his knuckles, and left.

I looked at the empty doorway for a while.

Pratt had been in a relationship with his partner, Sully, a bartender, for a long time now. There was no need to dig further. Pratt would let me know anything I needed to know, and he would tell me on his schedule.

I went back to my availability schedule. Someone had moved a player interview into the forty-five minutes I’d kept clear for lunch. It immediately followed weekly time for Markel to talk to the most dedicated journalists.

The player interview was a podcast, and the host could only do noon. I looked at the rest of Wednesday. There was nothing else before two except a call I’d been dodging since Friday. I moved lunch to one fifteen and gave it thirty minutes instead of forty-five.

***

The workroom was a long, windowless room under the press box, with two rows of tables, a coffee urn, and a television tuned to the sports network’s midday hockey show. Markel was already gone. When the broadcast returned after a commercial break, there was a segment I hadn’t been told about.

It opened with Peaches’s two mice falling off the couch, then the side-by-side Calgary edit. Then they showed PEACHES KNOWS signs in the upper bowl, a man in a cat-ear headband, and a little girl holding up a drawing of an orange cat in an Ironhawks jersey.

“The Ironhawks’ lucky mascot,” the host said, “continues her undefeated season.”

The gathered media enjoyed it. Two of the beat writers laughed, and a woman from a radio station took a photo of the screen. One of our interns interrupted her work filling stat sheets to watch the segment to the end.

“Is the next episode already filmed?” someone asked.

“Leah has the production calendar,” I said.

The reporters stood and gathered up their equipment as the podcasters settled in. I made the necessary introductions. Rafe took a chair, and my phone buzzed as the questions started.

Trier: Formal correction requested. Peaches is not the team mascot. She is nothing like a hawk.

Mark: That’s Leah’s desk.

Trier: I know. I just wanted to make sure you knew too.

Mark: Have you asked Peaches whether she objects?

Trier: She has no employment agreement. They’re assigning duties without consulting her.

I laughed loud enough that everyone turned to look. I waved them off.

***

Peaches’s ninety-day bloodwork was set for the last Tuesday in March, at nine fifteen.

Trier asked me about it on the Thursday night before, while he was drying the pans and I was wiping down his stove.