You Could Make a Life Read online

  Contents

  acknowledgements

  i. beginner's luck

  ii. i battle with it well

  iii. training wheels

  iv. giving in for the interim

  v. also-ran plays

  vi. intangibles

  vii. tangibles

  viii. you are not alone in this

  ix. a pressing wait

  x. an interlude

  xi. upon further review of the play

  xii. bring it home

  xiii. dig in your heels

  xiv. make it your own

  epilogue: you could make a life

  copyright

  acknowledgements

  To my family: my mother, who was the first person to assist financially, and who has always been my moral compass. My father and stepmother, who helped me reach my goals. To my brother, who is the reason I spent hundreds of hours in arenas throughout my childhood, and who is still mad I only got into hockey after he stopped playing. And to my beloved nine year old sister, who will never be allowed to read this. She doesn't like hockey, really, but pretends to, because her big sister loves it. Also because she thinks Sidney Crosby is cute.

  This would not have been even remotely possible without a lot of support, financial and otherwise. To Annkiri, L Turner, SH, Nana, Elin, Hazel Par, Lesa Sorge, Libby, Thea B, oriolegirl, LoveKeller, Dayle, Laura P., asimplechord, MetaKim, whiskers, Caroline, doom-is-so-last-season, Cara Dale, Alyssa, nowfailingoutofschool, jmcbks, Roxanne, jescher, Kimberly, J, Alison Nicoll, Winds_wanderer, SS for their generous support. And again to Alison for her endless patience and assistance throughout the process.

  To R, whose thoughtful criticism immensely improved this story in every way.

  To the city of Toronto, though it obviously doesn't care a whit. My beautiful hometown. I wrote YCMAL while still living there, and edited it while living away, and the definition of homesickness is reading your own writing about a city you have called the love of your life and still left behind.

  And to everyone who read this when it was in its infancy, and loved it at its roughest, and these foolish boys at their worst, I cannot begin to express my gratitude.

  i. beginner's luck

  Marc has freckles.

  This fact isn't something Dan knew before, wasn't something to know, but earlier in the week they had long, easy days off in California on a Western road trip, and Marc disappeared the final day, came back sunburnt and smiling. The burn's mostly gone now that they're back in Toronto's relentless winter freeze, but he's still a little pink along the bridge of his nose, and there are faint freckles on his cheeks.

  It's something Dan shouldn't notice. A lot of things aren't. Other guys will complain about their road roommate's snoring while Dan gets stuck on how Marc always sleeps with his mouth slightly ajar, bottom lip shiny wet. Another thing he shouldn't notice. Another thing he wishes he didn't.

  Dan's known he was gay since he knew that was a thing to be, has known to keep his mouth shut about it for just as long, to get off with people who have as much to lose, stupid drunken hook ups during Juniors, six months of a mostly long distance relationship with an out friend of his sister's, and never, ever letting anything make its way to the locker room. But that was before this year, when he'd been snapped up by the Leafs and thrown together in with fellow rookie Marc Lapointe, who'd been grabbed from the QMJHL and was just as new to the big leagues.

  Dan's always been smart enough to be discreet, but he can't stop noticing Marc's freckles, and he doesn't want to think about what that means.

  *

  Dan first meets Marc on the second day of the draft. For all he knows, they've played each other in tournaments before, knows Marc was on Canada's Junior team, the freaking star of the Junior team, but this is the time Dan remembers.

  Marc's picked in the first round, second overall, but Dan doesn't go until rounds later, is picked more for depth than skill, a flexible winger to fill out any incomplete line. Marc's been in blue and white for a full day by the time Dan meets him, and the first thing Dan says is, "we're in the NHL!", because that's how he's been greeting anyone wearing a jersey, and Marc Lapointe, 'the future of the franchise', is wearing Dan's colours.

  "Yes we are," Marc says, dry, but Dan shakes it off, because he's a fellow boy in blue, a teammate, soon enough.

  "I think you're my new best friend," Dan says, his excitement beating out common sense, social filters, the need to play it cool.

  Marc laughs at him. "Are you drunk?" he asks.

  "Only on success," Dan admits. "I'm Dan Riley."

  "Hello Dan Riley," Marc says, his mouth still twitching. "It is nice to meet you, new best friend."

  In hindsight, Dan probably falls in love with him in that moment, Marc laughing at him and with him all at once, but it takes a little while to figure that out.

  *

  Dan doesn't see Marc again until training camp. He reads up on him a bit during a Wikipedia and HockeyDB binge when he reads about on everyone he's going to potentially play with, still a little in shock that he's going to be on their lines, maybe, in practice with them, some of them guys he grew up watching, so in awe of their skills.

  But he's just one guy in Dan's long list of research, maybe with the added bonus of being the guy Dan completely embarrassed himself in front of with his enthusiasm. On his first day of training camp, surrounded by other rookies, Marlies, and the flotsam and jetsam not guaranteed a spot, Dan gets kind of lost in amazement. It's a long way from actually making the team, making a difference to the team, but it's still a lot to take in.

  Dan's always been a Leafs fan—his Toronto citizenship would have probably been revoked if he wasn't one—and it's unreal to even potentially be playing for them, sharing a room with guys he grew up idolizing. Yeah, they're pretty bad, but that just means he daydreams about carrying them out of it, breaking the drought, his city losing its collective shit as he hoists the cup, cold metal in his palms.

  Marc drops down heavily in the seat beside him, interrupting Dan's reverie, but Dan's happy enough to see a familiar face that he doesn't mind. "I bet you were a Habs fan," Dan says judgmentally, incapable of not embarrassing himself. Again.

  "Mais oui," Marc says in response, all exaggerated French hauteur. "And you a Leafs fan." The disdain he manages to inject into that sentence is impressive.

  "Dude, look where you are," Dan points out.

  Marc looks around with wide eyes. "Tabarnak," he swears, and Dan bursts out laughing.

  *

  Training camp is brutal. The thrill of being drafted gives way to the reminder that he's far from the only one trying to make the team, competing shoulder to shoulder with people bigger or tougher or more experienced or just plain better. He's not going to take any chances. He skates hard.

  Marc doesn't. Or, he does, of course he does, but maybe not as hard as he could. At the end of the day Dan can barely keep his eyes open. At the end of the first week he's a mess of bruises, has five stitches below his left eye from a high-stick he's mostly sure was unintentional. Marc's got the bruises too, can't avoid it, being under six feet tall and taking part in full scrimmages with defencemen desperate to prove themselves, but he's always got some energy left at the end of the day when Dan's ready to pass out in the showers.

  Dan's not the only one who notices that Marc isn't giving it one-hundred percent. The coaches have nothing but praise for him, which is totally fair, because he's embarrassing everyone else in comparison, but the guys who are trying to make the team steer clear of him a little, reluctant to pull him into conversations they fold Dan into as a matter of course, skipping over him when they invite Dan out for dinner, drinks, a whole slew of things Dan turns down be
cause he'd rather go home and eat a home cooked meal and pass out in his own bed.

  If Marc notices it, he doesn't let it show, but it's weird, the berth around him, a small guy in a crowded locker room who seems to get more space than anyone else. He's a little off-putting, Dan guesses, seems standoffish, looking so typically French until he opens his mouth, and then he's got a sense of humour too sharp at the edges, a wealth of knowledge in things a little too abstract. Dan likes it, is used to 'Educate the Dumbass Hockey Player Hour' from his philosophy major sister and her friends, and Marc makes it more charming than Sarah does.

  Even if Marc doesn't notice the quiet shunning, Dan does, and it makes him uncomfortable. That's probably why he invites Marc over the first time, drives Marc to Riverdale after a scrimmage that bloodies Marc's lip and leaves Dan with a lingering twinge in his hip. His dad won't come home until late, wrapped up in work, and neither Dan or his mom can cook anything more complex than toast and maybe Kraft Dinner, so they order a pizza and watch it over baseball, Marc choosing to commentate both loudly and sardonically—clearly not a baseball fan, or merely bitter about how terrible the Montreal Expos are—and ruining Dan's Blue Jays zen. The Jays lose, and Marc makes Dan get mushrooms on their pizza as a compromise for Dan's insistence on whole wheat crust. Dan somehow has a really good time.

  Dan got more than a few 'momma's boy' comments in the locker room at first when he kept turning down invitations to go out in order to slink home and lick his wounds. He's on route to getting a nickname he'll be stuck with the rest of his career, but the morning after Marc comes over for dinner he rhapsodises about the home-cooked meal, and the guys are disgruntled and jealous instead of mocking, nostalgic over 'mom cooking'.

  "We ordered pizza," Dan says, low, and Marc just shrugs beatifically.

  "You're kind of an evil genius, aren't you?" Dan realises.

  "You are lucky I like you," Marc agrees solemnly.

  Marc still leaves everyone in his dust, especially before the regular corps of the team start drifting in so the coaches can test chemistry along with skill. Dan isn't the only one that notices Marc's practically treading water, guaranteeing himself a spot, a good one, even second line since they're weak on centre and they know it. Marc's guaranteed, and Dan really isn't, but he's still there when they start cutting, sending the weakest guys down. He's there when they start mixing those core players in with the new blood, and he's there when they set the preseason roster, even if he's a mess of bruises, strung out on trying to prove himself every day. He isn't sure what it is that gets him there, but he's a flexible player, can play left or right almost equally well and is big enough to floor some of the smaller forwards on opposing teams, big enough to protect the smaller forwards on his team. He's a way to diversify the roster, a back-up, a safe-guard, but he'll take it gladly if it means he's on the roster.

  Once it becomes clear they're actually bona fide NHL players, at least for the preseason, Dan takes Marc around the city to show it off. Marc's family is in town, and they join Dan's impromptu tour, Marc's little brother taking it in with the enthusiasm only a sullen fourteen year old could lack, Marc vibrating with excitement beside him, playing translator for his parents. Marc's mother looks on quietly the entire time, tolerantly amused, and it's later that night, when Marc's family has gone back to the hotel and the team has gathered in a loose celebration at the captain's house for those who actually made it through training camp, that Marc admits that his mother not only speaks English fluently, but had gotten her degree at the University of Toronto.

  "You ass," Dan shouts, red with embarrassment and beer snuck from their Cap's fridge—Buchanan had noticed their lame attempt at subterfuge, but all he did was roll his eyes and leave them to it.

  Marc laughs at him for longer than Dan thinks is warranted, and then says, "well, you assumed," mouth still twitching after the laughter fades, and Dan punches his arm and goes to find them more drinks.

  *

  Despite Dan's impromptu declaration on draft day, he wasn't actually expecting him and Marc to become best friends. They stuck close during training camp, but they were rookies, unblooded, and Dan was too afraid he was going to kill himself trying to make the team to worry about proper mingling. But he lived, and even came out of it mostly intact—Marc is loudly insistent scars should be considered a sign of character. Dan still isn't sure whether Marc's serious when he says that. The stitches healed up fine.

  But now he's on the team, first the preseason roster, then the regular one. He's even been accepted by the veterans. They kind of look at him like he's an excitable puppy sometimes, but still. Buchanan takes all the rookies under his wing like they're ducklings who've imprinted on him—which really isn't far off the mark, Dan thinks, considering every time Buchanan talks to him Dan has to take a moment to distance Joe Buchanan the person from Joe Buchanan: Dan Riley's Childhood Hero, because he thinks Buch might be a little offended if Dan tells him he got a poster of him on the wall when he was nine, and kept it up until he was fifteen. Whether at the reminder of how long he's been playing, or that Dan took it down at all, Dan's not sure, but either way, Dan's not saying anything.

  The first month Dan spends feeling his way out with the old guard, and everyone's great to him. Buchanan invites him over for dinner with the wife and kids, the latter of whom are close enough to Dan in age to freak him out a little. Pazuhniak gives him pointers on the best cities to drink in, especially underage, and the etiquette of loving and leaving—or fucking and dropping—a puck bunny, and Dan nods and smiles and doesn't tell him the advice isn't really applicable to him. Stevens offers to take him to clubs that have "no grenades, guaranteed", because apparently he takes Jersey Shore as an instruction manual. That would really not surprise Dan.

  But despite the fact everyone's friendly and inclusive, Dan mostly just spends his time with Marc, even though they don't actually have that much in common. Marc reads a lot, his nose in a book when he's not on the ice, and is quickly dubbed 'Poindexter' by someone who enjoys puns way too much. Dan hasn't cracked a book since high school, and tries to take up as many invitations offered by teammates as possible, for dinner or drinks or a video game night, while Marc turns a lot of them down for a chance to hibernate in his apartment, until the invitations stop coming his way. The apartment's a total hole too, not helped by the fact that Marc's a slob, though Dan guesses it doesn't matter much considering Marc spends half of his time at Dan's house. The rest of the time Dan figures he reads and swills red wine while skyping people at home for intense philosophical conversations en francais.

  When Marc does come out with them, he isn't shy or anything, blurts out all sorts of facts—edifying knowledge, he insists, and Dan spares a moment to be embarrassed the Quebecois kid has a better vocabulary than he does—but it doesn't make him popular with the guys, who view him as some weird curiosity, the loud-mouthed Francophone going on about things none of them give a shit about.

  But despite all that—or maybe because of it, who knows—they stick close to each other, look out for each other. When Marc's out with the guys and goes into one of his tangents about the FLQ, which he'd been reading about the day before, and subsequently attacking Dan with knowledge shrapnel on the plane, or the growth of Francophone cinema in Canada, which he'd been steadily subjecting Dan to, Dan gently steers him over to shop talk, where his depth and breadth of knowledge is viewed with slight awe instead of derision. When Dan's inability to say no to invitations starts to wear him out, Marc loudly reminds Dan they have plans and invites himself over, eating everything put in front of him and charming Dan's family.

  Dan starts to notice Marc's getting bigger helpings than he is at family dinner. He doesn't mind—his dad has a pathological need to make sure everyone's well fed, and compared to Dan, Marc's practically wasting away, though compared to Dan, everyone is. They watch hockey, or basketball, or a movie—always super pretentious, and Dan's sister Sarah loves when Marc comes over, pops in, coincidentally 'in the n
eighbourhood', even though they're across town from her campus, probably because she likes seeing Dan subjected to the kinds of movies he teases her for liking. The next morning Dan feels refreshed from not dealing with people for a night, because his family doesn't count. Neither does Marc, for some reason.

  So somehow Dan dubbing Marc with best friend status while riding completely high on life ended up being prophetic. It doesn't go without notice. On the plane, when everyone else plays video games or cards, maybe settling down enough to watch a movie, Marc reads while Dan watches TV or dozes next to him. Marc's got a new book every flight, practically, obscure Quebecois authors or famous Europeans, a pair of glasses he needs for reading perched on his nose.

  The guys give Marc shit for it, the glasses and the pretentious books, but Dan finds it soothing; the heat of Marc all down his side, the quiet flip of pages, almost inaudible over the engine, over whatever TV show Dan's obsessed with at the moment. Marc loses his glasses constantly on trips, so Dan's started carrying a spare pair in his carry-on. The guys give Dan shit for that one, but Marc doesn't like flying, gets visibly nervous whenever he's forced to acknowledge it, and the only thing that distracts him seems to be sticking his nose in a book, so Dan always has a pair handy, cheap ones from the drugstore, because Marc keeps losing the ones Dan gives him.

  They've been assigned to share a room, a lucky coincidence, because half the time Marc ignores his existence for a book or his laptop, in a way Dan thinks would probably annoy a lot of the guys, and the other half of the time he won't shut up, talking about his newly acquired knowledge of the day, or the genius of Camus—which he reads in the original French, then in English, and he foists a matching copy upon Dan and forces him to read alongside him. Dan doesn't really like it, and he's pretty sure he doesn't even remotely get it, but he nods a lot at Marc when Marc enthuses about it, and Marc seems content enough with that.