Page 8 of You, Again

Laughter floated in the air. The doubled-over, uncontrollable, tears-running-down-your-face kind of laughter associated with extra funny shit. It didn’t take a brainiac to figure out who that was.

I glanced in my rearview mirror at Vin chuckling merrily at my expense. Jerk. I fastened my seat belt and noticed I’d accidentally left the passenger door open, so I undid my seat belt and leaned across the console, singeing my arm hair and bruising my knee in the process. I was able to accomplish the chore without additional acrobatics so…yay me.

I took a deep breath and buckled up again just as the Jeep on my left fired up its engine.

“Oh, shit. You meant this Jeep? Sorry, man.”

I probably looked like a befuddled cartoon character, going from confused to comically irate in seconds flat. I was Elmer Fudd to Vin’s Bugs Bunny, always thinking I’d finally gotten the last word only to have a stick of dynamite blow up in my face.

I fixed him with a blank stare. “You haven’t changed a bit, Vinnie.”

He waggled his brows and grinned, so…I maturely flipped him off with as much cool as I could muster and got the hell out of dodge.

3

VINNIE

Well, so much for a sneak-attack icebreaker.

I should have known that joke wouldn’t land. It was too high school and too presumptuous. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have led with a prank at all. I should have gone with serious and polite and—shit, I sucked at apologies.

I stared after Nolan’s truck for a beat and sighed, then killed the engine of my Jeep and headed for the main entrance to Elmwood Rink.

Memories flooded over me like a tidal wave the moment I set foot in the lobby. We’re talking a base level, organic, déjà vu times a thousand feeling. This was hallowed ground.

The squeak of the scuffed tile floor, the hint of ice in the air, the wall of photos lining the wide corridor to the dented wooden reception area. This hallway had seemed so long when I was a kid. It would take forever to slog my gear from my dad’s SUV, across the lot, along this very corridor, and into the locker room. I remembered telling Dad they should build an ice escalator so we didn’t have to waste so much time getting to the good stuff.

Now, I could see the rink through an adult’s eyes and…it wasn’t much to look at. It was too quaint, too small, too worn down. I’d been in arenas all over the globe, and Elmwood Ice Rink would never measure on anyone’s cool meter.

It was marked by multiple generations of townsfolk who’d poked through the photos tacked on corkboards to find themselves, kicked their skates against the front desk, and carved their initials into the locker room benches.

Nowadays, they’d call it vandalism and charge the guilty party for defacing private property, but back in the day, we were just marking territory. My initials were under benches and in at least two bathroom stalls. Oh, yeah, and I’d drawn penises under every other seat of the last row under the projector window when I was eight or nine, too.

I would have kept going, but I’d gotten caught and the threat of being expelled from the rink had been enough to curb my naughty graffiti streak for a while. I’d scrubbed the crayon off, tears in my eyes, while my dad had sat nearby grading papers, occasionally looking over to inspect my work. I’d done my best, but I’d bet the smudges were still there. Unless Ronnie had installed new stadium seating.

Nah, no chance. Everything from the worn rubber mats in front of the rink gates to the giant digital clock gifted by the Elmwood Eagles parent booster group, circa 1967, was the same as it was when I’d left home nineteen years ago.

Nothing had changed. Not here or anywhere in town.

I figured my dad would have mentioned something new. Then again, maybe not. It took a lot to get my father’s attention, which made him a terrible source of information. I stayed in touch with Ronnie and a couple of other friends, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask if the yellow light on Monroe was still too long or if Henderson’s Bakery still made those mouthwatering maple cookies.

Fuck, I hoped so, but I couldn’t figure out why it mattered. It was as if I needed assurance that this slice of my childhood was exactly as I’d left it—a little innocent and full of hope. And for the most part, it was. However, the unrelenting waves of nostalgia took me by surprise.

I’d been hit by the memory bus the moment I crossed the county line. And the closer I got to home, the stronger it got. But the biggest kick in the gut by far was Elmwood Ice. It wasn’t much to look at, but this was my Mecca. I could have sworn I heard a voice welcoming me home.

“Mr. Kiminski?”

I shook off the reverie and pasted a smile on my face as I stepped up to the reception desk with my hand outstretched, knocking the strap off my shoulder. “Hi, there. Just Vinnie.”

The teenage girl blinked and bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. “H-h-hi. I’m, um—it’s nice to meet you, sir. Ronnie—I mean, Mr. Moore is expecting you.”

My grin widened. I was used to the occasional tongue-tied hockey fan recognizing me, but for some reason, it felt a little sweeter in my hometown. And Mr. Moore? I wanted to tell her the only Mr. Moore I knew was Ronnie and Nolan’s dad, but I caught myself.

Mr. M had passed away years ago, and while nothing in Elmwood had changed on the surface, everything was different now.

“Cool. Thank you…what was your name?”

“Erica. Erica Williams.”