There was grace and fluidity to hockey that I’d been missing in soccer, that unfurled inside me the moment I laced up a pair of skates and took to the ice. When I got that stick in my hand, the cool silence of a rink to myself, the puck in front of me, it was like I’d finally found my natural habitat. I came alive skating, playing hockey. I still do.
Every day I pinch myself that this is my job. That I get paid to play a game I love, to be a role model to little kids, and to contribute to my community. I also pinch myself that I get to see Frankie every day I work.
She’s one of the first people I met when I signed. After meetings running through legalese and expectations and schedule and logistics, there was Frankie in the doorway, strutting in with a smoke-colored cane and fresh Nikes in the team’s colors. Looking at her, I felt something slam inside my chest as air rushed out of me, more brutal than any check against the boards.
She sat down across from me, explaining what I’d need to do to cultivate my social media presence, how to tweet and post on Instagram, how to engage, how to complement what she did during practices and games.
My favorite moment was when she gave me a critical once-over and said, “I apologize in advance that I have to say this, but if you post a dick pic on any social media platform or send one to any woman’s inbox, when I’m through with you, you won’t have a dick to pic anymore. Get my meaning?”
She was courteous and entirely professional after that, like she hadn’t just threatened to castrate me, albeit for good reason. I remember trying to listen to what she was saying while struggling not to stare at her mouth. I still struggle with that.
The door to the treatment room swings open, followed by a familiar, “Ren Zenzero.” ZENzehrro is how Frankie says it.
My head snaps up from the massage table. I have no idea why she calls me that. I know it sounds Italian, and I’ve almost googled it a dozen times, but I’m kind of scared to find out what it means. I just know when she uses the word, it rolls off her tongue in a way that makes my whole body tighten, the hair on my neck and arms stands on end. It sounds effortless and emphatic, only further evidence that Frankie is very much Italian, as if her name wasn’t a dead giveaway.
Francesca Zeferino. Though if you call her anything other than Frank or Frankie, she’ll twist your nipple until you burst into tears. Her hair is a sheet of coffee-colored silk that falls halfway down her back. She has forever golden skin that glows like she’s lit from within, big hazel eyes, thick dark lashes, rosy lips, and a ridiculously deep dimple in her left cheek.
Frankie stops at the side of the massage table, lifts her cane, and smacks my ass with it.
“Ow!” I yelp.
John, one of our trainers, is used to Frankie’s authoritarian approach with players. He lifts his hands and backs away. “Just holler when she’s done beating you.”
I stare up at Frankie. “What the heck was that for?”
She scowls. “Your Shakespeare reading club is attending en masse tomorrow. I did not know about this.”
My stomach drops. That was not supposed to get out. A furious blush crawls up my throat to my cheeks. This is one of the disadvantages of having reddish hair. Dad and Ziggy, as the fellow gingers in the family, empathize. You can’t hide your emotions to save your life—you wear them on your skin.
I swallow nervously and slowly sit up. “Who told you that?”
“That is irrelevant.” Frankie leans on her cane and gives me a stern glare. “This was almost a huge missed opportunity. What were you thinking, keeping it from me? Do you know how many ideas I have? In the five minutes since I’ve known, I already—”
“Frankie.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. With her height, and because she’s right next to the bench, we’re eye to eye, our noses nearly touching.
For just a second, her eyes lock with mine, slivers of bronze and emerald disappearing as her pupils expand. She blinks, takes a step back, and clears her throat. “What?”
“Frankie, that part of my world…it’s private.”
“Why?” She tips her head like I’m genuinely confusing her. Like she doesn’t understand the discrepancy most people would see between who I am here—former Rookie of the Year, alternate captain, Viking on ice—and the part of me that still nerds out on Shakespeare and poetry readings.
“I’m not ashamed of them or my interests, but some of those guys, they’re not into the camera and the spotlight. They’re dorks like me, who find any kind of undue attention too reminiscent of the kind of attention they got in the past.”
Frankie steps closer. “Zenzero, are you telling me that you were a nerd in high school? That you had dorky friends?”
“Yes.”
She gives me a rare smile, and the dimple pops out. God help me, not the dimple right now.
“Are you saying…” Her eyes search mine. “Are you serious? You? You were teased in high school? You were—”
“A misfit. Yeah. And not all of my Shakespeare Club necessarily moved out of that demographic. I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, okay?”
Frankie covers her mouth. “Okay.” It comes out muffled.
“Are you laughing at me?”
She shakes her head. “I’m dying of adorkableness.” At least that’s what I think she mumbles.
I don’t know whether to be offended or amused. “Frankie, how long have you known me? Do I not have weirdsmobile written across my forehead?”
She snorts behind her hand. Another shake of her head.
“Wow. For your job relying entirely on social astuteness, you missed the signs big-time.”
That makes her stop laughing. Her hand falls away. “Sometimes…” She swallows and twists her fingers around a necklace she nearly always wears. It has metal shapes and charms on it that she slips her fingers through, twists and rolls and spins. She does it often, like it soothes her.
“Sometimes I misread people,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you. It was a pleasant surprise. I thought the Shakespeare stuff was…an eccentricity. You telling me that this runs much deeper, I’ll respect that it’s private.”
She avoids my eyes, focuses on a piece of lint on her sleeve, and brushes it away.
There’s incongruence between her words and her appearance right now. She sounds fine, but she looks like I just yanked the rug out from underneath her. I feel simultaneously guilty and curious. What is she hiding?
I make to stand, but Frankie sets her hand on my chest and pushes me back with surprising strength. “Back to Shakespeare Club,” she says. “The dork years. I need details. I need so many details—”
“Frank the Crank.” Matt strolls into the treatment room and walks up to her, blatantly interrupting us and ignoring me. He sticks out his hand. “I’ve come to kiss ass and say sorry.”
Rage rolls through me. I still want to throttle him until his creepy brown eyes pop out of his head for what a jerk he was to her at Louie’s.
“Water under the bridge,” she tells him. Frankie takes his hand and flinches as he squeezes too hard.
Andy and Kris stroll in, breaking the tension of the moment. Matt releases her hand, just as Kris pulls the elastic on Matt’s shorts and releases it with a snap.