Being Sloane Jacobs (23 page)

The waiter sees me staring, chuckles to himself, and wanders away to put in our order. At least, I think Nando ordered. Maybe he just made a crass joke or told the waiter about how he plans to ax-murder me later after he stuffs me full of french fries and peas.

“You speak French,” I say.

“It’s the official language of Montreal,” he says. He unwraps his silverware and spreads his napkin in his lap. “Didn’t you notice all the signage?”

“Yeah, but I just didn’t expect it,” I say. “You haven’t lived here
that
long.”

“You pick it up quick,” he tells me.

“That is so cool.” I wish I could speak another language. After three years of high school Spanish and an entire life of living in Philly, pretty much all I know is how to order dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant. I can also ask where the bathroom is, though I probably wouldn’t be able to understand the directions.

Before I can embarrass myself further with my pathetic monolingualism, a plate appears before us. It sort of looks like something that’s already been eaten. There are definitely french fries, but the brown sauce and white goo covering the rest looks a bit digested. If it weren’t for the unbelievably good smell coming off the plate, there’s no way I’d eat it.

“This is poutine, the classic,” he says, pushing the plate a little closer to me. He picks my fork up off the table and hands it to me. “And yes, we eat it with a fork.”

“Such a native,” I say. “Quick! Say ‘what aboot it?’ ”

“You knock it off,” he says, taking his own fork and stabbing a fry.

“Oh, oh, what are you gonna do abooooooot it? You’re all Canadian now. I bet you’re too nice to do anything.” I’m laughing so hard I worry that gravy is going to come out my nose. Nando starts laughing too.

When the plate is empty save for a river of gravy, I’m ready to admit that poutine isn’t gross. It’s pretty stinking good, in fact. If I hadn’t eaten those brownies before I got here, I might order another plate. But not the one with peas. That’s still wrong.

Nando throws down some Monopoly money and slides back from the table. Normally I’d try to split the bill, but I’m already running low on cash. I feel weird about not offering, but it would be worse if he agreed and then I had nothing to contribute.

“I have a little more time, if you want to hang out some more,” I say quickly, then catch myself before I start to sound desperate. I must be high on carbs and cheese, two items that are hard to come by back at the dorm.

“Perfect,” he says, offering me a hand up from my chair. “Then we have time for a walk.”

The next block over from La Banquise is the entrance to a gorgeous green park lined with lush, towering trees.
Nando, still holding my hand, leads me down the path toward a small pond. At the edge, there’s a large weeping willow. He parts the branches and ushers me inside. We settle down at the base of the trunk, shoulder to shoulder.

“This is my favorite spot in the whole city,” he says. “It was one of the first places I discovered when I moved here. I always come here when I need to get away.”

I look over at him. The setting sun is peeking through the branches, throwing a scattering of light across his dark skin. I lean closer to him. There’s a heat radiating from him, an energy that I never felt when I was near Dylan. For the first time I realize I was never actually
near
Dylan. He was always around but never close.

We’re so quiet that the crickets start singing around us. Through the branches I can see a family of ducks paddling slowly through the water. A woman jogs by along the path, a happy black Lab trotting next to her. I feel miles away from figure skating, miles away from hockey, miles away from everything. I feel so relaxed I could cry.

But I don’t, partly because I
never
cry, and partly because I know Nando is watching me. I feel his shoulder press into mine. He scootches over a little until we’re hip to hip. I lean my head back against the tree trunk and sigh.

“What’s up?” His voice is just barely above a whisper tickling my ear.

“I’m just … happy,” I say. It sounds stupid and insufficient, but it’s all that comes out. I haven’t been able to say I was happy in a long time.

“I like that about you,” he says. “I think I need it.”

I look at him. “You’re not happy?”

“Not lately,” he says. I wait for him to go on. He sighs. “Look, Sloane, there’s something I should probably tell you.”

My stomach tightens. The thought flashes through my head:
He’s got a girlfriend
. “What is it?” I ask.

“I’m not in school anymore,” he blurts out, all in a rush. Immediately, he seems to relax, as if he’s been holding it in for who knows how long. “I haven’t been in school for a while, actually. I quit hockey, and since hockey paid my tuition, I had to sort of … drop out.”

This is not the confession I expected. “What happened?” I ask. “Did you get injured?”

“Not exactly,” he says. He pulls a blade of grass out of the ground and starts tearing it into tiny pieces. When there’s nothing left, he flicks the tiniest piece into the wind and stares at the horizon.

“Nando, what’s going on?” I nudge him with my shoulder. “How could you have quit hockey? You’re amazing at it.”

“Yeah, until I wasn’t anymore,” he says abruptly. He runs a hand through his hair. “When I got here my freshman year, everything was so intense. The coach kept telling me how much I meant to the team. Practices leading up to the first game were insane. Everyone was so focused, and I felt just … out of it. Like, suddenly I couldn’t remember why I started playing or why I loved hockey or any of it.” He shakes his head. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try,” I say quietly.

“I just … lost it. I played like total crap. I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t get myself in the right place. I missed passes, missed shots, kept getting checked. The other teams figured out that I was outmatched and totally routed me. Preyed on me like the runt of the litter.”

I stay quiet. There’s a weird squirmy feeling in my stomach. The story sounds a little too familiar.

“Practices got tougher, and I didn’t. Coach tried screaming at me; then he tried benching me. Midway through the season I was totally miserable. I was barely making it through classes. I figured it was only a matter of time before they pulled my scholarship, so I quit.” He exhales. “I told my parents I was injured but that I was staying up here to be involved with the team until I could play again,” he says. “But really I’ve been working in the bar, saving up some cash so I can take some classes again on my own. Hopefully figure out what to do now that hockey is over.”

I realize, suddenly, that this is my chance to tell him the truth. He’ll understand. He’ll totally get it. And it’s not like he’s going to rat me out. I open my mouth to pour it all out, to tell him that my confidence is shot too. That I want to quit, that I’m not sure I can keep playing, and also that I’m not sure who I am without hockey. That right now, I’m hiding from the game completely.

“That’s why I like being with you,” he says. He places his hand on top of mine. The zap of electricity that runs between us causes my heart to pound. “You remind me of the
time when I loved to play. Watching you, and how much you love the game, inspires me. I’m starting to think maybe I could—I don’t know—get it back, somehow.”

I slam my mouth shut. Looking into his eyes, I see the eleven-year-old kid who loved to play hockey. And I know he’s trying desperately to find that again—in me.

I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t break him like that.

So I force a smile onto my face. “You’ll get it back,” I say. “I promise.”

CHAPTER 19

SLOANE EMILY

I never thought I’d be so excited to see a plate of cafeteria-grade spaghetti and meatballs. I stab my fork into the mound of pasta, twist for maximum spaghetti delivery, and stab a red hunk of meatball, too. Even though it’s the size of six bites, I cram the entire forkful into my mouth. And it is just as glorious as I imagined.

I started off the day joining the black team, my scrimmage team for the rest of the summer, for a five-mile run. Then we had three straight hours of on-skates drills. After lunch, we played a full-length regulation scrimmage, which we capped with a half-hour endurance skate in what Coach Hannah laughably referred to as a “cooldown.” I burned off enough calories for an entire hockey team, plus their coaches, and now I’m
starving
. As soon as I got off the ice, I crammed Sloane Devon’s gear into her bag and made a beeline for the cafeteria.

Did not pass Go, did not collect two hundred showers.

“Damn, you smell.” Cameron, freshly showered and clad in a powder-blue tracksuit, drops into the seat next to me with a plate of spaghetti nearly as big as mine.

“I do not!” I stab another meatball.

“Yes, you do. You smell like your moldy old gear bag,” she says. “Seriously, wash that thing or replace it.”

I reach down and grab a handful of my T-shirt, bringing it up to my nose. Okay, yeah. So maybe I’m not exactly fresh as a daisy.

I can’t believe how much has changed in the past two weeks. When I first met Sloane Devon, I was horrified by the smell of her gear bag. And now I hardly notice.

“Hey.” Matt’s massive frame overtakes me. “How was the scrimmage? Did you own the white team’s face?”

I drop my shirt and smooth out the wrinkles, hoping he can’t smell eau de garbage can. His sweaty head tells me that he skipped a shower too, so hopefully he’s suffering from the same olfactory immunity I am.

“I was okay,” I reply. Matt takes the seat beside me.

“She was the queen of assists,” Cameron cuts in. She runs a crust of french bread through her marinara. “I’d say at least two of our four goals were thanks to her.”

My dear-God-please-don’t-give-me-the-puck strategy is working like gangbusters. And one of those assists was directly to Melody, my teammate on black. I’ve found that helping her be the star on the ice actually gets her off my back even more than checking her into the boards, so that’s two for the price of one.

Matt chatters on about his own scrimmage and how he scored the winning point for the blue team today. I’m watching his mouth move, but I’m only half listening. All I can think about is the kiss last night. Each time I relive it in my mind, I feel a chill start at my lower back and race up my spine until the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I’m grinning like a fool. And now he’s sitting next to me, despite the fact that I’m unshowered and totally disgusting.

Matt ends a story about a red team player who was nearly ejected today for trying to start a fight. He shovels a giant bite of salad into his mouth, and I jump at the chance.

“Wannawatchamovietonight?” I say it so fast it all comes out as one long, newly invented word (country of origin: Swoonistan; meaning: “to swoon so hard as to be rendered incapable of enunciation”).

“I totally would,” Matt says, “but I’ve got a strategy session with the blue team tonight. We’re going to hit a pub up the road and talk about how we’re going to crush the red team tomorrow.”

To save a little face after getting brutally rebuffed by the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, much less kissed, I turn to Cameron.

“What about you? Lifetime movie marathon?”

Matt groans, and so does Cameron.

“I
so
want to, but I have to work on my summer reading tonight or I’m never going to finish. Whoever decided that
Les Misérables
was a great summer read can bite me.”

“Can’t you just watch the movie?” Matt is apparently not as stellar a student as he is a hockey player.

“Not if I want an A on my paper,” Cameron says. She pops the last bite of meatball into her mouth, then gathers up her plate and silverware. “Mrs. Best, aka the Beast, has, like, a sixth sense for people who didn’t read the book. She’ll string me up by my toes and force me to recite
Beowulf
in Middle English.”

“Good luck,” I reply, although I sort of loved
Les Misérables
, the book
and
the musical. I did a long program two years ago to a symphonic arrangement of “I Dreamed a Dream.”

Matt hoovers the last of his spaghetti and jumps up after her. “I gotta get going. I’m supposed to meet the guys in the lobby at seven.” He bends down, then stiffens and stands upright again.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Well, I was gonna kiss you, but, um … I wasn’t sure if, you know, with all the people, so I … well, now I feel royally stupid. This was easier the other—”

I stand up, rise to my toes, and plant a soft peck on his lips. Then it’s my turn to go stiff. I drop back down in my chair so hard I have to keep from wincing.
I can’t believe I just did that. In front of everyone! Who am I?

A smile spreads across Matt’s face. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” I say, trying to suppress a massive grin. My cheeks are already aching.

He waves and saunters out of the room.

Who am I? I’m Sloane Jacobs
.

“Holy crap, you tamed the white whale!” Cameron is staring at me openmouthed from across the table. Several other skaters are blatantly staring at me, and two girls in the corner are whispering behind their hands. “How did you do it?”

“He said he’s changed,” I reply. And as I look at Cameron’s disbelieving face, my own belief wavers for a moment. Do people really change?

Cameron just shrugs and gathers her things. “Nicely done, Captain Ahab.” She stands up. “I’m off to study. I’ll catch you later.”

Left alone with my plate, I chow down on the rest of my spaghetti and manage to scarf seconds, too.

Back upstairs, I consider checking in across the hall to see what Melody is up to, but then I remember that while she high-fived me for the assist, the force of said high five took me off my skates. I don’t think we’re ready to be besties yet. So instead, I take out my phone and text the only other person I know in Canada.

Wanna hang? Long time no see. —your doppelganger