Three months later
I lay on the ground, with my legs spread wide and pulled the trigger on my small-bore rifle. The loudness of the shot was always a shock.
Missed the target. Damn. Were you supposed to shoot in time with your heartbeat? Or was that movie fiction? Focus. Aim. Shoot. When you actually hit the black circle, it disappeared. One target. Miss. Miss. Another target. Then I seemed to be out of ammo. I looked at Lief Jacobsen beside me. He had taken out his five targets long ago and was watching me with amusement. He signalled me to get up; I did so awkwardly, and we skied up to the finish.
Leif smiled down at me. He was an extremely tall man of Norwegian ancestry, and in his outfit looked like a colourful tree trunk.
“Well, Kelly, your skiing was good, but your shooting brought you many penalties. I don’t think we would see you on the podium.” He carefully explained how the biathlon scoring worked.
I winced. “I have to say that lying down with skis was painful. It’s very hard on the knees. And then to have to shoot as well—phew. It’s a very challenging sport that requires a lot of different skills at once.”
“I think it’s your first time to shoot a weapon. Am I right?” Lief asked.
I nodded. “Unless Supersoakers count.”
Lief’s face went solemn, which meant he was going to make a joke. “Boyfriends always behave better if they know you are handy with weapons.”
“Well, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks to Lief Jacobsen for guiding us through the biathlon. This is Kelly Tanaka signing off for the Chill Guide. Now where’s that sauna?”
Eric gave the signal, and the cameraman stopped filming.
Lief scowled at me. “Saunas are more of a Finnish thing.”
Doing Nordic sports had taught me these countries had all kinds of feuds going on that I had no clue about. “Oh, sorry.” I scoured my brain to think of something to appease him. “Hey, I really like those Norwegian Forest Cats.”
He rolled his eyes and walked away with as much dignity as a man in neon spandex could muster.
Eric laughed. “Kelly, your charm could alienate an entire planet.”
“Pffft. I bet he’d be nicer to me if I was handy with weapons.”
Rudy, our cameraman, chortled. “But you’re not, so we can all treat you like our annoying little sister. Did you want to see the playback? You look like a road-kill frog lying on that shooting mat.” Rudy’s main goal in life seemed to be catching me at my worst angles. However after the blatant come-ons and sexism of my last job, his brotherly teasing was a huge relief.
Eric looked around. “Time to wrap up our Whistler filming for this season. There’s not much snow left.” It was the first day of May, so we were lucky to have been able to film this long.
“Yeah, you’re right. I think there’s still a lot of snow on the glacier, but we’ve done the skiing parts already.”
Eric Weinberger was a filmmaker who had gotten this idea to make humourous how-to videos about all the Olympic sports. And since he was one of those rare people who had seen both my car commercial and my work on C2C Sports, he decided I would be a good host. The premise was that as a reasonably coordinated person, I would try each sport and show how really difficult they were. It was semi-scripted, so the experts knew what was going to happen and what they needed to say. However, Eric’s favourite part was when I screwed up spectacularly. He said my “physical humour” was going to draw eyeballs. The theme of my career so far seemed to be people waiting for me to make a mistake.
Eric looked at his Moleskin. “So, next week we’re doing figure skating, right?”
I groaned. Although skating was my strength, once Eric showed me the little glittery outfit I’d have to wear I wasn’t as keen. And everyone knew that figure skates and hockey skates were completely different animals.
Rudy laughed nastily. “I want to see her do a jump. Crash city. I’ll get the underpants-cam ready.”
I groaned. “The bruises alone will be spectacular—landing on ice in only a pair of tights equals pain. Okay, send me the shooting schedule so I can get time off work.”
The Chill Guide was a great project to work on. The only problem was that it didn’t pay anything. Eric and Brian, his partner and the sales/marketing guru on the project, had offered everyone involved a percentage of the profits. But there weren’t going to be any profits until Brian was able to sell advertisers on the web series. He figured we’d get more traffic as we got closer to the Olympics. They had a long-range vision of city guides and were starting with Vancouver. There were also guides to restaurants, clubs, and shopping, all with different hosts. I hoped the whole thing took off because I could use the money.
Meantime, I was working as a personal trainer at the rec centre and also at a kayak rental place. Those were the jobs that were keeping me in rent and cheap food.
I turned my phone on and saw a few missed calls. Then my cell rang again and I checked the caller I.D.
Jimmy.
Shoot. Unless I was into double standards, I had to answer, but I really didn’t want to. I knew he was in town since the Hawks were here for the second round of the playoffs. Last night he’d had zero points in a loss to the Canucks. Not that I was gloating.
“Jimmy?”
“Hey, Kelly. How’s everything?” His voice sounded tight and nervous.
“Everything is fine. What do you want?”
“Look, I want to show you something. It’s really important and it has to do with you. All the stuff you said to me before, I thought about it and it’s all true.”
“What stuff?” To be honest, Jimmy wasn’t someone I had thought much about since I got fired. I was too busy trying to hold things together.
He hesitated, and then went on. “You know—about me being an arrogant douche.”
I laughed because it was funny to hear him admit it. “Oh yeah, that stuff.”
“It won’t take long, Kelly. If we could just meet for twenty minutes? Even fifteen. Wherever you want.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to open up this wound again, but it was refreshing to hear him admit his douche-baggery. However, he wasn’t someone I wanted to be seen in public with, since he was on the enemy side in these playoffs and undoubtedly getting recognized more and more.
“I’m at Whistler right now. Why don’t you come by my place after dinner? Say 7:30?” April would not approve, but luckily she was usually out or busy since her wedding day was coming up fast.
Jimmy arrived exactly on time. He had a black messenger bag with him. His casual clothes looked designer and expensive. I reflexively offered him a drink, and once we both had glasses of water, we sat down in the living room. He pulled out his laptop and opened up a Power Point presentation. Some things hadn’t changed.
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to let you know that you were the one who inspired me to do all this. Baller told me you asked him to sponsor that minor hockey team. I wish you had asked me instead, but I understand why that didn’t happen. But the idea was so you—you’re always on the side of the underdog.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal. I loved working with the kids, and one benefit of getting fired was that I got to go back and help them finish the season. We lost our only playoff game, but everyone was feeling good by the end. It seemed pretty clear that next year’s team would be at least average—which was a huge improvement.
Jimmy showed me the plans for a program that riffed on some of my ideas—getting ice time during the day at various rinks and introducing kids to skating. The focus would be on neighbourhoods where the kids wouldn’t normally get to learn to skate or play hockey.
“I talked to this marketing guy, and he said you need to be able to sum up the idea in a catchy phrase—we called it ‘Big Brothers on ice.’ But of course, it’s for girls too. And the program is called the Fresh Ice Foundation. It’s kind of a play on my old nickname.”
“Oh right, Freshy. That’s cool.”
“Do you think so?” He looked very pleased. “I like the fact that it’s not about being good at hockey, but skating and playing for fun.”
“Yeah, hockey should be for everyone.” I’d seen firsthand how much kids enjoyed improving and measuring progress against themselves.
“Are you still playing?”
I shook my head. These days, my hours were too erratic to fit hockey in as well.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “I know how much you enjoy it.”
True, but paying the rent came before hockey. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Where are you working these days?” he asked.
“I have several part-time jobs,” I told him. I debated telling him about the Chill Guides one, since that was the most glamourous. But what was the point of trying to impress him?
“Kelly, I don’t want to pressure you in any way. I have no idea where your life is at and what you have going on. But if working on this program appeals to you at all, there would be so many ways you could help us. Ideally, I could see you as a program head or instructor, who also works on our board. So grassroots stuff, but contributing your ideas as well.”
He sounded so corporate, but I couldn’t deny how exciting a job like this would be for me. It was perfect. I hated being in an office all day, and I loved working with kids. But I also got frustrated with the systems, so having input into the programs would be golden.
“Well, how would this whole thing work?”
“You’d have to move to Chicago. Don’t worry—there are no strings attached. It’s a fulltime job that would pay enough that you could have your own place or whatever. If you want, Baller has offered his spare room for you—although I’d make sure there was a better lock on the door first.”
So far he hadn’t said a word about getting back together. But still, it didn’t take a PhD to figure this out.
“At the risk of sounding completely egotistical,” I began. “Did you develop a whole charity program to get me a job in Chicago?”
Jimmy’s expression finally lightened. “Well, kinda. You are the inspiration. You made me remember that everyone wants to be a better—not just the top players. Hockey’s not about money or a job, it’s about having fun. Playing for life.”
He ran his hand over the laptop, like he was caressing the actual project. “Don’t feel any pressure. This is going ahead with you or without you. Once it got rolling, I got pretty excited about the whole deal, so I’m committed now.” He grinned at me. “It would be better with you, though. Unless you’ve got some good thing going on here.”
Was he being sarcastic? He looked completely innocent, so I guess he had no idea of my hand to mouth existence.
What I had going on here was a roommate who was getting married this month and leaving me to find a new roomie. Two minimum-wage jobs with no future and one volunteer gig. A well-used mountain bike and second-hand furniture. In short, I had a lot of things that I wouldn’t mind leaving. I could always come back to work on the Chill Guide stuff.
“I guess I’m interested,” I said.
He smiled. “Well, that’s great, Kelly. Really great.” Then he didn’t say anything else, but I recognized his nervous tics. He began fidgeting.
“So, is that it?”
His gaze dropped and then rose again. “I won’t lie. I’d like us to go out again. But I don’t know what you want.” His intensity kicked in. “Kelly, I hope you can see I’ve changed. And I’d like to keep becoming a better person. Do you know how that could be easier?”
“How?”
“If I had someone in my life to tell me when I was being an… asshole.” He spoke the word almost delicately, since he rarely swore in front of me. His mother’s training, no doubt. His expression was hopeful. “And you’re the perfect person for that job too.”
I threw my head back and laughed. Jimmy correctly took this for encouragement. He moved closer and slid his arm behind me on the couch.
“Would you like to come to tomorrow night’s game?”
I considered this. Duh, would I like to see a playoff game? “Sure. But… I don’t know if I can change allegiances that fast.”
He frowned. “You mean you’re still going to cheer for the Canucks?”
I giggled. “It’s tough to change over ten years of fandom. It took me a year to switch from cheering for the Sens when we moved here. So you may not want to get a ticket for an opposing fan.”
“Of course I do. But maybe I can change your mind.” Did he remember how watching him play made me hot for him? But that was the past.
“Okay, great.”
“And then, maybe you’d like to come to Chicago too? For games three and four?”
I hesitated.
“No pressure at all, Kelly. You can stay with me, but I have two guest rooms. My parents will be in one—so it’s like we’d have chaperones.”
He said no pressure, but I could tell that Jimmy was getting more and more excited every time I agreed to one of his suggestions. The real question was—had he changed? Were things now different enough that we could work things out?
I think I was stronger now. I had certainly suffered through enough crap at work. Even being fired showed me that I could survive. If I did get back with Jimmy, I didn’t think he’d be able to overwhelm me anymore. I had learned to stand up for myself.
And he was different now. I could tell he was nervous and worried that I would kick his laptop, his business plan, and his ass right out the door.
“Of course I’d like to watch the series, both here and in Chicago. But I want to take things between us slowly. I’ll think about the job and check things out more while I’m in Chicago.”
Relief flooded over his face, and he grinned for the first time tonight. “Thanks, Kelly. For even considering all this.”
“Meantime, isn’t this a distraction for you? You’ve got playoffs on.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I better get going.” He shouldered his laptop case and got up to leave. I walked him to the door, and he turned and put his hands on my shoulders.
“How come you always get everything right?” Jimmy asked.
“I don’t. I screw up constantly.”
He shook his head. “You get the important stuff right.” His face came closer to mine, and I felt the heat of his breath. Then his lips touched my cheek—only for a brief, gentle moment. He caressed the side of my face.
“Thank you, Kelly. For being so real.”
He left, and I leaned against the closed door. Jimmy was different; he was so sweet and affectionate—just like he used to be. Could there be a chance?