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Robbie walks into media day for the very last time. As far as exits go, it’s a weird one, going to work and doing his least favorite part of his job, biting his Goddamn tongue so they don’t get anything out of him that he’ll regret giving. Saying the same things over and over, just rephrased a little. Throwing in a joke or two so they don’t notice he’s doing it. And they don’t. They never do. So yeah, his last day is going to suck, just like it always does, but at least it’s the last fucking time he has to do this shit.
Technically, it doesn’t have to be. He’s had enough consultations over the past few weeks to know that, been given enough options to know coming back isn’t lost cause, at least any more than last time. If he were a few years younger, had a contract to come back to, was willing to put in the work —
But he doesn’t, and he isn’t, not if it just ends up like last time, gritting his teeth and popping pills just to get through the day-to-day of it all, shit ramping as soon as the postseason came along, to the point that, though he wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, it was almost a relief, not having to play through it anymore. Robbie doesn’t quite know what he’s going to do next, but he does know, unless he picks manual fucking labor, it isn’t going to be harder on his shoulder than hockey is. And frankly, he figures he’s put the damn thing through enough already.
So he goes in that morning, the only one who knows it’s all over. Well, outside the team, who have been just as obnoxiously kind and supportive about it as Robbie would have expected. The Schneiders got him a fucking gift basket. It was full of chocolate and he ate the thing in three days flat and neither of them looked repentant at all when he called them out, just said ‘of course you were supposed to eat it?’ heads tilted, like dogs who didn’t know what they did wrong, but wanted to make it up to you anyway. Couldn’t stay mad after that. Good fucking chocolate too. The kind worth savoring, though obviously it’s a little late for that.
They all got time slots to show up, presumably so they wouldn’t be stuck waiting around, or all show up at the start, make themselves scarce as soon as possible. Georgie’s already there when Robbie arrives, apparently has been for a while. Which makes sense. Whole lot less pressure facing the media as a deadline pick-up. He doesn’t have to stand in front of the firing squad like the coach, the GM, the captain. As alternates, Finn and Georgie will too, though to a lesser degree. Another reminder Robbie’s glad he was never asked to wear the A — he probably would have said yes, but he’d have hated that shit.
He wonders if Georgie hates it. Thinks that, no matter how he feels about it the rest of the year, he probably hates it today.
Robbie does what he came here to do. He says what a pleasure it was to play for this coaching staff, under this management, the usual brown-nosing shit you say when a contract’s up. Says Erickson’s a brilliant hockey mind, and Chaser is a hell of a lot more fun to play with than against — except at cards, because Robbie always wipes the table with him, and he’s happy to let the Hartford media know about it. Says that Finn Schneider’s one of the nicest guys in the league, and Logan Schneider’s right up there too. He’s not lying about any of it either, just saying shit he knows they want to hear, giving them a few pleasant sounding quotes to sprinkle around everybody else’s ‘we didn’t do enough’ and ‘we’re so disappointed in ourselves’. Besides, if miracles do happen, it never hurts to suck up to a potential employer.
That sounds like one of the lessons he got from his father, perched on his knee — when he was little enough that his father let him sit in his lap, imparting lessons Robbie didn’t understand. Though he was still little when his father said he’d gotten too old for it, young enough that he’d been sad about it. Robbie wonders what other lessons he might have picked up there — buy low and sell high, never invest in anything unless it’s a sure thing, always have a backup plan.
Between the salary he’s made over the years, some shrewd investments made by his supremely competent financial advisor, Robbie’s worth more than his father ever had been. That fact doesn’t give him much satisfaction, but the idea of his father stewing over it in the afterlife kind of does. Problem with that image is that Robbie doesn’t really believe in heaven, and if he did, he sure as shit wouldn’t expect his father to land up there. But then, to be fair, Robbie wouldn’t be landing there either. His ma would get lonely up there, and she wouldn’t be the only one.
Robbie bets there would be a hell of a lot of lonely people up there, willing to give it all up to see a bunch of worthless sinners again. Without them, it’d just be purgatory with a better view.
After he gets free from the crowd, drops the smarmy smile he always finds on his face when he spends too much time around reporters, Robbie figures he’s just got his locker left he’s through. But a reporter catches up with him just outside the room, as he’s trying to figure out how to get all the shit he somehow accumulated to his car in one trip.
At least, the press credentials on his lanyard say he’s a reporter, but he’s young — probably not even legal to drink yet — and breathless with nerves standing somewhere he’s not allowed to be in right now.
“What was it like, getting to play with Georgie Dineen again?” the kid asks, all in a rush.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” Robbie says. “Who are you with?”
“Henry Creek,” the kid says. “The Daily Free Press.”
Well, that explains why he’s approximately twelve years old and has no idea where to go, doesn’t it.
“Um,” Henry says. “That’s Boston University’s—“
“I’m about to head out,” Robbie says, and when Henry looks utterly crestfallen, he thinks ‘what would Finn Schneider do?’. Slightly more realistic goal than Jesus.
“Why don’t you ask me what you want to over coffee?” Robbie asks. “If you’re up to help me carry some of this shit to my car we can head out right now.”
He was planning on hassling one of the front office guys, all stuck pretending to work, give someone a much needed break from morosely staring at their inbox, but fair exchange is fair exchange. And it’s nice, the way the kid’s face lights up at the offer.
“I don’t usually make reporters carry shit,” Robbie says, as he hands over his bag. “But I’m a bit short-handed at the moment. Obviously.”
Henry’s face drops from excited straight down to disconsolate, face so expressive It’s like looking at a cartoon character. It’s hard to believe they were that young back then, but when Robbie asks, Henry tells him he’s a junior, and Robbie realizes he’s actually older than they were when Georgie left for Cleveland. But still taking everything in, wide-eyed, even a parking garage that looks like every other parking garage Robbie’s ever seen. And he’s seen a lot of them by now.
“You a hockey fan, or just the dude they stuck with the alumni story?” Robbie asks.
“Big Bruins fan,” Henry says, then winces, maybe about Robbie’s shoulder, maybe about the way the Whalers knocked their asses out.
“Me too,” Robbie says. “Back when I was at BU, I mean.”
Henry brightens. “Oh yeah?” he asks. “Do you know if Dineen was a Bruins fan too?”
Nice angle, Robbie figures. Robbie and Georgie reunited one last time, defeating their childhood heroes. You get the local aspect too.
“Yeah,” Robbie says. “Georgie was too.”
The first few minutes of Robbie’s interview is spent arguing over who buys coffee. Henry insists that he can get reimbursed, but when Robbie asks if he’s ever actually tried getting reimbursed for shit before, Henry cracks and lets Robbie buy him an overpriced cup of herbal tea and a monster scone, because he’s apparently 20 going on 85.
“Caffeine makes me jittery,” Henry says, when Robbie gives him shit about it, and Robbie can believe it — he’s already pretty wired, and Robbie can’t see a couple shots of espresso improving the situation.
Henry, scone crumbs on his chin, pulls out two pens and a comically small notepad, opening a recording app. He takes fervent notes until Robbie reminds him he’s got the audio if he needs it, and then he alternates taking notes and accumulating more crumbs. Robbie’s got to say, it’s one of the more enjoyable interviews he’s ever had, even if most of what he’s telling Henry is shit he hasn’t talked about in years, hasn’t wanted to, a door he’d locked and put his back to. But sticking to just the relevant parts, telling it doesn’t sting the way he expected it to, the way Georgie talked about Cleveland, choking out the words like he was trying to purge it from his body. Like a fucking exorcism.
“I wouldn’t have made the show if I hadn’t played with Georgie,” Robbie finally says. “That’s not me pumping his tires or playing fake humble or anything. The only reason scouts were even looking my way was because I was playing with a top draft pick. It didn’t hurt how well we played together. So, it’s fitting, I guess. Got my start in the league thanks to playing with him, won my first Cup playing with him, and now—“
With Henry’s wide eyes on him, he realizes he just said too much. But fuck it, let them break the news in The Daily Free Press if they want. The article probably won’t even be out until September, unless they’ve got a special summer edition for the students trying to make up for courses they flunked, the skeleton crew of staff. Or maybe it’s all digital these days, will be out first thing tomorrow, but either way, Robbie isn’t any less done just because he hasn’t said it yet.
“Beginning, middle, and end,” Robbie says. “All stories have those, right?”
“Technically they don’t have to,” Henry says. On the way to the cafe he told Robbie he was an English major, the poor kid. “The Modernists were known to—“
He cuts himself off, embarrassment the latest expression to waltz across his face. “All my favorite stories do, though.”
“Not a fan of the Modernists, I guess?” Robbie asks.
“I’m a big fan, actually,” Henry says. “But writing’s primarily an exercise in style to them, you know? That comes first. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But all my favorite books, I don’t really want the tricks, I just want a good ending. It doesn’t have to be a happy one, just — good.”
Robbie looks down at his coffee.
“You don’t care about this,” Henry says. “And your shoulder — that was thoughtless, I’m—“
“Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?” Robbie asks.
“Pretty much everyone I’ve ever met,” Henry says immediately, and Robbie laughs.
“You remind me of a guy I went to college with,” Robbie says.
“Is this going to be one of those stories where it turns out the guy is you?” Henry asks.
“No,” Robbie says. “But honestly, close enough.”
*
He writes Georgie an email after he gets back to his place. Feels he needs to, and not just because it’d be a dick move not to give him a heads up that Robbie had given his number to the press, even if it’s just a reporter from their college newspaper. Besides, it feels wrong to leave town without at least saying goodbye. So he does. He says goodbye, and he tells him about Henry, and he tells him that he liked playing with the Whalers more than he ever expected to when he got that call.
He starts the brown-nosing all over again — tells Georgie he has a good group of guys, a good room, good leaders, yeah, Georgie included — but it all looks so cheerfully artificial, like a reference letter or some shit, so Robbie deletes all that shit, sending the email before he starts rethinking the rest of it too.
He leaves his phone charging in his room, doesn’t come back to it for hours — packing’s painstaking work when it’s one-handed. His ma’s here tomorrow, already offered to help him with it, but some things a man must do for himself. Especially if he’s the only one who knows what shit in this fully furnished apartment actually belongs to him.
He finishes the living room, the kitchen, then decides to leave the rest for tomorrow. He’s not in any hurry — no training to rush to, no loving partner waiting for him, not even a pet. There’s his ma, of course, but she’s probably spent more time here than not since he got injured, declared she was going to chauffeur Robbie to any appointments he had and no amount of patiently explaining the existence of Uber was going to dissuade her. As far as dependents go, he guesses he’s got the plant, but it’s sitting right on the dining room table, looking just the same as it always does, and it doesn’t give a fuck where they go, just as long as it gets a spot in the sun.
He orders delivery — funny that his ma seems to understand that Uber just fine — replies to a few straggling condolence texts. Should call his ma, let her know he should be good to head home tomorrow, but figures he’ll wait until after the food arrives, eat while she talks his ear off about all the plans she’s made for when he’s back home again. He’s visited plenty over the years, even stayed for a few long stretches, but he hasn’t lived there since college, and he doesn’t really know how he feels about it. Worst case scenario, he and the plant will find somewhere else to land. In the meantime, at least he doesn’t have to worry about feeding himself.
He checks his email, even though chances are pretty much nil Georgie’s checking it right now, not after having to answer to media all day. More shit to respond to? No fucking thanks.
But Georgie’s name is right beneath the order confirmation for Robbie’s dinner, lit up in white.
Robbie,
There was a King of Scotland named Robert. A pretty famous one. You’re about to say that clearly doesn’t count, considering you’re a Roberto, but there was actually a King Roberto too. They called him Robert the Wise, which I thought you’d like. He was the King of Naples, which I thought you’d like even more. So maybe the real reason you keep meeting kings is like finding like.
That, or people need to quit naming their kids after royalty, but I like the first idea better.
I’m glad I got to play with you again one last time, even though I hate the way things ended.
Best of luck in everything, Robbie. I’m always going to be wishing you the best.
George (III)
“Fucking show off,” Robbie says aloud. “I fucking knew you still were.”
They’d one up each other sometimes. Get on a roll with it. Robbie was quicker on the draw, faster to make connections, but Georgie could remember fucking everything, at least that’s what it had felt like. He wonders if the bit about King Roberto is something Georgie looked up years ago and still somehow remembers, or if he looked it up on the fly today, smug little smile curling his mouth as he typed, pleased he gets to land the final blow.
Robbie fucking knew he was still there.
That was a goodbye email, Robbie knows. A pretty good one, he thinks, as far as those go: all well wishes, no hard feelings, a bit of interesting trivia, and an inside joke for old time’s sake.
And sure, they’ll most likely see each other again. Hockey’s a small world, and they shared three locker rooms. Years down the road, the Caps will hold a Cup event, maybe at the ten year mark, the twentieth. Or the Terriers will want to honor Georgie’s career, maybe stick him in the hall of fame, and they’ll ask Robbie to make a speech or something. That’s probably coming as soon as he retires. And that isn’t imminent, like Robbie’s, but it’s not too far off either. Georgie’s got a handful of years left if he’s lucky, willing to take a pay cut, maybe even go somewhere else. But realistically, it’s probably going to be sooner than that. Goodbye letter or not, they’re not quite through with one another yet.
Robbie rereads the email. Thinks of what Saul said about forgiveness not being a feeling, but the lack of one. Thinks of Georgie in freshman year, overwhelmed because he was taking every class in a completely different subject. History, English, Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology. He couldn’t decide what he wanted to major in, and anyway, he said, they all knew he wasn’t going to be getting a degree. That wasn’t what he was there for, and they all knew that. But he may as well take advantage of the opportunity to learn some interesting things.
Do you know anything about the Modernists? Robbie types out.
He deletes it. Types it out a second time. Presses send.
Saul’s going to have a fucking field day, Robbie thinks, already bracing himself for it. And thank fuck that Saul’s nothing like Robbie, because he would be absolutely insufferable about it. If Robbie were in his place, he’d never shut the fuck up about it again.