Chapter 4
Shea
Last night, after I fired Estel, I posted an ad on the nanny website. I had half-a-dozen responses overnight, and so I spent the rest of my morning responding to the nannies' emails. I needed someone who was available immediately—ideally, someone who could start as soon as tonight.
The site I use is sort of like Craigslist, but for nannies. If you need a nanny, you post an ad describing what you're looking for, and all the potential nannies out there can find it and respond to it. All the candidates are already vetted by the agency, which runs background checks on them and everything; that way they won't hook you up with any psychos or drug dealers.
Not having a psycho in charge of raising my kids is obviously a good thing—and you know who else I try to avoid when I'm looking to hire a nanny? Brawlers fans. That's why I don't put a single word in my ad that could tip anyone off about who I actually am or what I do for a living.
And that's also why I interview the nannies someplace public before I introduce them to my kids. That way, if I happen to end up with a sports-obsessed nut who knows who I am, they won't know where we live.
If I sound paranoid about it, well, I have my reasons. Let's just say that I spent too much of my life with someone who called themselves a fan.
Anyway, only one nanny who responded was available to start work tomorrow and was willing to meet me in the morning for an interview. While I rushed out the door for the team skate, we traded a few back-and-forth messages trying to figure out when and where we could meet for a quick interview today.
In fact, I was still texting with her when I walked into the Brawlers' noisy dressing room—which proved to be a judgment in error on my part. My teammates started in on me immediately.
“Hey, everybody, look! Boomer got a smartphone!” someone shouted.
Boomer. That was the nickname the boys came up for me once I announced my impending retirement—as in, Baby Boomer. Never mind the fact that I'm a member of Generation X; my teammates will never let facts get in the way of a hilarious nickname.
Radar piped up, doing his best grumbly imitation of me. “Ahhh, god damn it, you kids today. Can't walk anywhere without your nose buried in that phone, can you? Keep your head up, kid!” He shook an angry, old-man fist in the air.
I pocketed my phone, but the boys weren't done with the ribbing.
“Boomer,” Lance, our star offensive player, butted in next. “After all the shit you've given us about limiting our 'screen time,' I never thought I'd see the day you'd walk in here texting.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don't get too used to it.”
Lance tapped his chin. “But for you to be texting, it must be something important. Could it be? Is our captain finally ready to start dating again?”
“Yeah, right.” My bachelor days were a distant memory, and everyone knew it.
But Lance rushed over in a fit of excitement and jumped on my back. You'd think that now that Lance had a wife and baby daughter at home, those two girls would keep him busy and he'd have a little less of that wild energy of his … but nope. He's still the same Lance. A big goddamn kid himself.
“Oof,” I grunted, staggering under Lance's weight.
“Who you textin' there, Boomer?” Lance teased, all 205 pounds of him hanging from around my neck. “It's a girl, isn't it? Admit it! You're finally back in the game! So what's her name?”
“Would you get the hell off me?” I said, choking.
“Not until you tell me her nam—”
I gave a powerful shrug of my shoulder and bucked Lance off my back like a bronco. He hit the carpet with a thud.
“I forget her damn name.”
“So it is a girl.” Lance picked himself off the floor and dusted off his hands. “And you don't even remember her name? Boomer, you dog! I didn't know you had it in you!”
“I told you, it's nothing like that.” I took a seat at my stall. I stripped off my suit and started changing into my gear.
“So who is she?” Lance asked. He just wouldn't let it go.
“You really want to know? She's a nanny I'm interviewing. That's it. That's all.”
The room deflated with a defeated groan.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, “but I told you it was nothing.”
“Another nanny?” Radar asked. “Didn't you just hire a new one a few months back?”
I sighed. “Yeah. Estel. I felt bad for letting her go, but she just couldn't keep up with the kids.”
“Your nanny's name was Estel?” Quinton Brooks shouted from across the room, his interest apparently piqued. Brooksy is my cranky defense partner, and an even bigger pain in the ass to play against than me. “And you're wondering why Estel couldn't keep up with three young kids?”
Ilya, our Russian goalie and resident ball-buster, leered at me. “Maybe try to find a nanny closer to your children's age, rather than your own,” he joked in his thick and broken accent.
The room burst into an uproar. It didn't matter if the goaltender's insult wasn't all that funny in itself—his accent automatically made everything that came out of his mouth sound a hundred times funnier. Besides, my age—I'm thirty-seven, by the way—was the ol' reliable joke that never failed to earn a chuckle around the room.
“Ha ha. Hilarious,” I said when the laughter started to wind down. I stepped into my skates and laced them up. “For your information, Ilya, I think the nanny I'm meeting is younger, based on her resume.”
“Ooh,” Radar cooed. “Class of '72, then? Is she more of a Marilyn than an Estel?”
The room cracked up all over again.
“A Marilyn?” another teammate laughed. “Whoa there, what do you think Boomer is, a cradle-robber?”
“Actually, that's a good idea,” Lance said, butting in. “Maybe Boomer will hire some hot teen nanny? Some girl he can't keep his hands off of?”
“Teen nanny? I'm thirty-seven, Lance. Do you have any idea how dumb the stuff is that comes out of your mouth?” I asked as I slipped the practice jersey on over my shoulder pads. “You guys are so dumb. Young, dumb, and full of cum. Jesus, I don't miss being a twenty-something who can only think about getting laid.”
“So what do you think about?” Ilya asked.
“Yeah, Boomer, tell us what we have to look forward to when we're all dinosaurs like you,” someone else in the peanut gallery said, egging me on.
“Winning the Cup,” I answered, and my tone fell deadly serious, whether I'd meant for it or not. The effect was the same regardless: the room had fallen silent, and all eyes were on me. Play time was over.
“All I can think about is winning that Cup before I retire,” I continued. “Two more months. That's all I've got left. And now that you guys are finally married and done with your man-whoring days, we've got the best shot we've had in years. Yet we keep screwing around and dropping stinkers like we did last night.”
Twenty blank faces looked back at me. These were the kids I'd spent so much time mentoring, until they matured into grown men—married men, with good wives that helped keep their lives together and their home in order. Radar and Lance especially. In a way, it was kind of funny that I helped them find the thing I never could.
But whatever. I'm past the point of caring about that.
I tapped my stick on the floor. “Now let's go hit the ice and put in a hard day's work.”
***
Coach kept us out on the ice longer than scheduled. He hadn't liked the way we lost our game last night, either. Too many guys looked like they'd mentally checked out and were going through the motions.
So, to end the practice, he bag-skated us—a punishment where the players have to skate from goal line to goal line, over and over, until we've skated so many laps that our bodies start to quit.
When Coach decided that we'd finally atoned for our sins and told us to hit the showers, more than a few guys were bent over clutching at their side-stitch. My teammates dragged their sorry bodies off the ice.
But I skated off the ice upright and with a smile on my face.
I might be old, as all these young guns are always so quick to remind me, but I take my conditioning seriously.
When I made it back from the shower, I heard my cell phone's chime. I swung my locker door open, rooted through my bag, and snatched up my phone.
It was the nanny. She'd sent me a few messages during our bag skate: “Hi! I'm here.” “Where are you?” “Hello? Mr. Ellis?”
I hoped she hadn't left. My thumbs busily tapped away at my screen, composing a message. “Running behind, but I'll be there soon. Sorry. My work thing ran a little long.”
“No problem. How do you take your coffee?” She punctuated the question with a wink.
“Black. But coffee's supposed to be my treat.”
I was interviewing her for the job, after all.
“Don't worry about it,” she replied. “It'll be easier to find me this way. I'll be the girl sitting by herself with two cups of coffee.”
“Okay, I'll see you soon.”
I was the first Brawler dressed and ready to go. I slung my briefcase over my shoulder and waved at my team. “See you later tonight, boys.”
They moaned and groaned their goodbyes as I stepped through the door. I chuckled at their banter, which faded as I made my way down the hall:
“How the hell is Boomer still standing?”
“Beats me. I feel like I'm about to die.”
“We gotta ask the old man for his gym routine.”
“What's the point? We all know you wouldn't stick to it, you lazy bastard!”
“Hey, screw you!”
***
I hurried through the arena, fetched my car in the parking lot, and rushed across town to the cafe in Charlestown.
My hair was still damp from my post-practice shower when I parked the car on the curb. I made my way to the cafe, doing my best to hide the shooting pain that stabbed through my ankle with every step.
I know what you're thinking. And don't get me wrong: I'm fit, as in my physical conditioning is great, but that doesn't mean I've got some miracle body that can withstand the aging process. I'm still thirty-seven, and my body's breaking down. My ankle has been a thorn in my side for the past few years, and lately, it has only gotten worse—not that I'd ever let anyone know it. If it wasn't bothering me so damn bad, I probably wouldn't have to retire.
Anyway, I pushed the cafe door open and looked around. At mid-morning, the place was mostly empty. A few younger people sat staring into their laptops and phones. An elderly couple stared out the window, people-watching.
And then, towards the back, I saw her. Or rather, I saw a girl sitting by herself with two coffee cups.
Oh, hell no, I thought to myself. Please tell me that's not her.
She'd been sitting upright, watching the door with an inviting smile. Through the cafe's large windows, the morning sun fell on her flawlessly radiant skin. She'd done her ash blonde hair up, into a tight bun, and it glowed like a halo around her head.
This ain't gonna work, I thought to myself as I walked up to her. I hoped this was a mix-up, that I had the wrong girl. I hoped that this girl was on a coffee date with her boyfriend, and he happened to run to the bathroom right before I entered, which would explain the second cup of coffee.
Because this girl? She was too young. Too pretty. Too blonde. Too perfect.
My kids would eat her alive. Chloe especially. This innocent, beautiful blonde girl represented everything that little rebel without a cause hated about the world—and she'd derive some sick joy out of torturing the nanny to her wits' end.
And if Lance and the boys saw that I hired her, I'd never hear the end of their sleeping-with-the-nanny jokes.
But she went through the trouble of meeting with me, and I owed her an interview at the very least.
With a sigh, I stepped forward to meet her.