Summer Light: A Novel (7 page)

“Martin won’t hurt me.”

“Are they winning?” Kylie mumbled, suddenly coming slightly awake.

“Yes, two to one,” May said.

“Where’s Martin?”

“There,” May said, crouching forward to touch his figure on the screen.

“Martin skates fast,” Kylie said. “And he can skate backward.”

“He can,” May said, not taking her eyes off him.

“You can say that again,” Tobin said, letting May know she was on her side.

Hockey had never meant anything to them. No team sports had. As girls, May and Tobin had played tennis, gone swimming and bike riding. They had hiked around Selden’s Castle every summer and cross-country skiied the Black Hall fields every winter. But now, watching Martin Cartier slam the puck at 101 MPH high into the net, May wondered what she had been missing.

He went in, skating back and forth, moving as if he loved motion, darting forward and falling back, teasing the other team, receiving and passing and shooting for the goal in one fluid motion. Then doing it again from the other side. It was like dancing and fighting, all at the same time. May was mesmerized but she felt afraid of the impact—those scars on the Edmonton goalie’s face.

“Go, go,” Tobin cried.

The crowd was screaming, and the announcers were yelling. May watched the clock ticking down. She had dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands as she heard them say “…pass intercepted by Cartier, he takes it, he turns, he shoots…”

“They won!” May said.

“Oh, boy,” Kylie yelled.

“The Bruins,” the announcer went on, “have won Game One, beating the Edmonton Oilers by the score of three to one, with a hat trick by the amazing Martin Cartier. The unpredictable, volatile, amazing Martin Cartier. What do you think, Ralph? Is the Cartier Curse broken? Is this Martin’s year to go all the way and win the Stanley Cup?”

“I sure hope so, and I know all the Boston fans are saying the same thing back home. After a less-than-brilliant season and play-offs, Martin Cartier tonight showed himself to be—”

“What’s the Cartier Curse?” Tobin asked.

“I think it has to do with how long he’s been trying to win the Stanley Cup.”

May turned off the sound, wondering about the Cartier Curse. They sat very still, May’s arm around Kylie, watching the TV screen. The camera showed wild shots of the crowd, the dejected Oilers, their furious goalie Nils Jorgensen, the jubilant Bruins.

“That was incredible,” Tobin said, yawning as she climbed off the bed.

“Thanks for watching with us.”

“Better than listening to John and the boys revving the engine every ten seconds. You think hockey’s rough, try letting your kids turn the garage into a lab for their homemade car.”

Outside, the night was warm. The windows were open, the white curtains fluttering in a light breeze. The air was scented with meadow grasses and wildflowers, a world away from the ice and violence of a hockey game. As May stared out at the old wedding barn, illuminated yellow in the white light of a half-moon, she could hardly believe that he had been right here, in her barn, just two nights ago…

The telephone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Tobin said, lunging past May. “Hello?”

May sat quietly, holding Kylie, listening.

“Well, congratulations on winning the game,” Tobin said, and May knew it was Martin. “The Gold Sledgehammer himself. I’ve heard so much about you…that’s right, Tobin. How did you…really, she did?…” Tobin grinned, her gaze sliding to May.

“Let me speak to him,” May said, holding out her free hand.

“We go back a long, long way,” Tobin said. She listened silently, as if Martin was going on at length. May’s pulse kicked over, wondering what he might be saying. Tobin’s expression was sharp, amused, but as May watched, it softened. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” Tobin said after a long while. “Very glad.”

Handing the phone to May, she said, “It’s for you. I’ll put Kylie to bed, okay?”

“Thanks,” May said, taking the phone.

“You have a good friend,” Martin said.

“I know,” May agreed. “She came over so we could watch your game. You were great.”

“Thank you.”

“You won!”

“Actually,
we
did,” he told her.

“Yes, the Bruins—all of you,” she said, correcting herself.

The connection was scratchy, as if he was calling from a portable phone. In the background, May could hear men’s voices laughing and shouting. She pictured the locker room, or what she imagined of a locker room, filled with victorious hockey players.

“I don’t just mean the team,” he said.

“Then—”

“You and me, May,” he said. “You were with me out on the ice. I don’t know how or why. I just know it’s true.”

May’s heart pounded. She thought of being with Martin in the game. She imagined flying down the ice with him, helping him win, keeping him safe. “That’s because of the rose petals,” she said. “That’s what they’re for.”

“Well, they worked.”

This wasn’t May. It wasn’t May at all to be holding her breath, straining her ears, just to hear someone at the other end of the line. May had been shut off for so many years. She had stopped believing in this kind of connection for herself. It might be possible for the brides she worked with, but not for her.

“I’d better go,” he said. “I’ll call again, when we get back to Boston, eh?”

“I’ll keep watching you,” May promised.

“Tell your friend and Kylie I said
bonne nuit
.”

“I will.”

“
Bonne nuit
to you, May.”

“Good night, Martin.”

Then May stood in the dark, holding the phone as she gazed out at ghostly cats hunting around the moonlit barn, closing her eyes to keep his voice in her mind.

Boston won the opener, but needed a double-overtime goal from Ray Gardner to take Game 2. Game 3 also went into overtime, and this time the Oilers won it 1–0, Nils Jorgensen brilliantly blocking every shot Martin made.

Back in Boston, Martin’s ankle was killing him. An old knee injury flared up. The trainers wouldn’t leave him alone, trying every treatment known in New England and some imported from ancient China. Ice, laser, massage, acupunture. The Oilers took Games 4 and 5, and the Bruins won Game 6, tying the series. Martin thought of his father in the brick-red prison, watching every mistake he made. Bowing his head, he cringed, blocking the thought from his mind.

Coach Dafoe found a picture of Martin’s mother in an old hockey yearbook, and he pasted it next to a snapshot of his own mother and taped it to Martin’s locker. Ray Gardner’s wife was going to Mass every morning to pray for victory, and Jack Delaney said his daughter had lost a tooth and left the tooth fairy a note asking for the Bruins to win instead of her customary dollar.

Martin talked to May after every game. He wanted to invite her to the Fleet Center, to watch in person, but caution prevented him. He needed every bit of concentration to focus on winning the Cup. Every bit of focus, every molecule of strength, had to stay in his brain and bones.

When he was younger, he’d invite women to watch him play, and he’d get off on showing them his stuff. But May was different. He didn’t need to show off for her, and now, with so much riding on this postseason, he didn’t quite trust himself to think of May and win at the same time.

After midnight, sleepless after losing to the Oilers, Martin questioned his plan. With all the other guys relying on prayers, teeth, and dead mothers, Martin didn’t feel quite so strange about the rose petals, and he considered the possibility that he was screwing up his chances, keeping May away. He called her house.

“I want you there, you know?” he asked. “But I’m thinking it might be a distraction.”

“A distraction how?” she asked, disappointed.

“See,” he said. “I need to keep my eyes on the puck.”

“I’d stay out of the way,” she said.

“Even so, I’d know you were there.”

“It’s okay. I understand,” she said, sounding hurt.

“You don’t,” he said.

“I promise I do.” Her voice was cool.

During their lunch break, May and Tobin left Aunt Enid with that day’s bride and her mother, taking their sandwiches out to a tree behind the barn. There in the shade, they ate their lunch and listened to a chorus of birds singing in the branches.

“You’re upset,” Tobin said.

“I am. I can’t help it.”

“Because he’s back in Boston and didn’t invite you to watch him play?”

May nodded, staring at her sandwich. “He says he wants me there, but he thinks I might be a distraction. It reminds me of Gordon going on business trips, never wanting me along.”

“Because Gordon wasn’t going on business trips,” Tobin reminded her. “He was going home to his wife.”

“I know,” May said. “Telling me he had deals in Hong Kong and London, when he was actually reconciling with her.”

“Martin’s not lying to you,” Tobin said.

“How do you know?”

“Because you can watch him on TV. You know he’s where he says he is.”

“Then why doesn’t he want me there?”

“Maybe because of what he said—he’s afraid you’ll distract him.”

“I think he knew I was upset on the phone last night.” May stared at the Bridal Barn, shaking her head. “Relationships are so complicated. I’m barely getting started, and I can’t stand myself.”

“Gordon really worked you over.”

“That’s not Martin’s fault.”

“Then tell him the next time you talk. Wish him luck and mean it.”

“I do,” May said miserably.

But Martin didn’t call that day, and she realized she didn’t have a number for him. She watched the game on TV, saw Martin win Game 6 with a blast from the slot high into the cage, electrifying every person in the Fleet Center, shooting them to their feet in a roaring ovation. Nils Jorgensen lunged after him, restrained by his teammates. May saw Martin meet his eyes, and she saw the rage boiling between them.

She wished he would call her, but he didn’t.

In a blue concrete room stinking of sweat, stale cigarette smoke, and smuggled-in alcohol, a crowd of men thronged around the TV, cheering and jeering loudly, in almost equal measure. The Bruins had just taken Game 6. The cell block was built of concrete and steel, so the men’s voices were hollow, crashing echoes. Pucks of sound, the old man thought, slamming against the walls.