Home from the Vinyl Cafe (37 page)

Sam was never able to tell Dave the name of the girl he had his arms around in the basement. No one seemed to know who she was.

“She was in a red dress,” said Dave.

“When I left,” said Morley, “there was a girl in a red dress standing at the top of the spiral staircase, singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’”

Dave got up and poured himself another drink. “What did Polly say?” he asked.

“Last I saw of Polly Anderson,” said Morley, “she was in the hallway protecting her bonsai collection.”

Morley stood up and hunched over. “She looked like a football player ready to make a tackle. She was screaming: ‘Stand back. Stand back. Don’t come a step closer.’”

“Who was attacking the bonsai?” asked Dave.

“Her eldest son,” said Morley. “He was trying to shoot the origami birds out of the trees with a Nerf gun.”

The only child who wasn’t sick, singing, or passed out was their daughter, Stephanie.

“I told her I was proud of her,” said Morley.

The truth of that dawned on Dave later, when they were upstairs and Dave was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He walked into the bedroom, holding his toothbrush at his side.

“Stephanie was the only kid drinking from the adult bowl,” he said.

“Oh,” said Morley. “Oh.”

“Merry Christmas,” said Dave.

               
O
f all the gifts that Morley received last Christmas, nothing showed more thoughfulness and understanding, nothing made her laugh out loud with quite the same surprise and secret pleasure, nothing changed her life, like the present Dave and Sam gave her together.

From your boys
, read the card.

“What’s this?” Morley asked, holding up the box, shaking it.

“Don’t tell her,” said Dave.

“Guess,” said Sam.

“I don’t know what this could be,” said Morley.

“Open it,” said Sam.

And so she did.

She wouldn’t have guessed what it was in a thousand years.

Morley hadn’t known such a thing existed.

A battery-operated heated seat cushion.

“For watching your hockey games,” she said to Sam. “It’s perfect.”

And it
was
perfect.

Morley hated watching Sam play hockey. Hated it.

Well, that’s not exactly true. What she hated was the arena. Or, more to the point, the arena benches. Slabs of concrete so cold a woman could freeze to death. Or worse.

“I love this,” she said. “Who has batteries?”

She sat on it during supper.

“I
do
love this,” she said. “You have to try this. This is wonderful.”

She took it to bed and put it down by her feet. “I love my cushion,” she said.

She took it to work. “This is my new friend,” she said. “Everyone should have one of these.”

Over the next few weeks, Morley found many uses for her cushion. Hugging it while she watched the news on television. Propping it beside her while she read. Sitting on it in the car until the heater warmed the seats. The cushion became a thing. It followed her around the house like a child’s favorite toy, lying on the stairs, on the couch, on a chair in the kitchen. It felt good having it around, reassuring and comfortable. Warm.

“Sort of like a husband,” she told her friend Ruth. “Only quieter.”

Nice, but not what you would call life-changing. It wasn’t until hockey began again in January that the cushion changed Morley’s life.

Halfway through the first game, she turned to Dave and smiled. “Did I mention how much I love my cushion?”

It was the cushion that turned her into a hockey fan.

“Not a real fan,” she explained earnestly. But she was at the arena every Saturday. The game was still a mystery, but it wasn’t still mysterious. Or cold. Morley didn’t miss another game all year.

A big change from last year, when it wasn’t just the game that Morley had found overwhelming—it was everything. Even the equipment had threatened to defeat her. She had started off ambitiously enough, assembling the paraphernalia for her son’s first year of hockey with confidence.

On the Wednesday night before his first game, she laid it
out on the kitchen table. The blue pants looked too large for her son. One of the thigh pads was missing, but she thought she could cut one out of cardboard. She looked at her list and ticked off “pants.” The skates, she figured, would hold up another year. She ticked off “skates.” Then she ticked off “elbow pads.” She had bought them from the lady across the street. The shin guards came from a church sale. The kids had worn them on their shoulders for two years now for dress-up. Sally said she thought she had a helmet that would fit Sam and had promised to bring it to the rink. Morley ticked off “shin guards” and put a question mark beside “helmet.” She stuffed everything into two plastic bags, propped them by the door, and went upstairs.

This is a father’s job, she thought as they drove to the rink the next morning. Brian had phoned in sick, and Dave had gone to open the store. Sam was alone in the backseat holding his stick. They weren’t talking. They’d had a fight after breakfast because Sam wanted to get dressed at home. The only thing he had said in the last thirty minutes was that they were going to be late. The second time he said it, Morley told him to
get in the car
. Now she was regretting yelling. Why did they have to fight before his first game of hockey? Was that what he would remember?

In the dressing room, Sam slumped on the bench, and Morley stared at the two bags. For the first time in her life, she had no idea how to dress her son. She didn’t know where to begin. The man beside her was lacing his boy into a set of shoulder pads. She didn’t have shoulder pads. The list had said they were optional.

“We don’t have those,” Sam said accusingly.

“We don’t have to,” Morley said. “You don’t have to have them.”

She started with the pants.

Then she was stumped.

“Do the shin pads,” said the man beside her. “Then put the socks over.”

Sam was the last kid on the ice.

On Thursday after school, Sam said he needed a jockstrap.

“What for?” said Morley. She was frying sausages for dinner and reading a gardening magazine.

“Everyone has one. I have to.”

“
Who
has one?” she said.

“Paul. He wore it to school. It’s a penis protector.”

Morley phoned Paul’s mother after supper.

Friday morning Morley drove to Wal-Mart. When she got there, she sat in the parking lot. She wasn’t sure what to ask for. She knew “penis protector” couldn’t be right, but she wasn’t sure about “jockstrap.” She didn’t know if it was a word you could use in a Wal-Mart. It might be a little-boy word. Like “fart.” She certainly wasn’t about to say “penis” to a man she didn’t know.

She drove home and phoned Dave.

“Sam needs a jockstrap for hockey,” she said. “That’s your job.”

“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.

Saturday, Morley took Stephanie to get her hair cut. Dave took Sam to hockey.

“How was the jock?” Morley asked at supper.

“It didn’t fit,” said Sam, pointing at his father as if he were a witness in a murder trial. “He didn’t get the holder.”

Morley opened her son’s equipment bag on Wednesday night and fished out the jockstrap. It looked just like the
masks painters wear on their faces when they’re sanding dry wall. It was a size medium.

She phoned Paul’s mother again.

“That’s just the cup,” Maggie explained. “There’s a holder it slips into. Like a garter belt.”

How could Dave watch all the hockey he watched and not get the holder? The way he hollered during hockey games, you would think he had at least a rudimentary knowledge of the equipment. Morley felt resentment well up in her as she thought of the Saturday nights she had struggled to get the kids into bed while Dave sank onto the couch in front of a hockey game. If he hadn’t
learned
anything, what was the point?

Morley went back to Wal-Mart on Thursday night. As she passed through the automatic doors, she realized she still didn’t know what the holder was called. She had looked over the equipment list again before she left home. “Jockstrap” definitely wasn’t on it. She had a tick beside everything on the list except “shoulder pads.” She had double-checked. Shoulder pads
were
optional.

There were four aisles of hockey equipment. She spotted the holder on her second pass. They came in three sizes: medium, large, and extra large. All things considered, Morley was surprised to see how small the extra-large one was. The package came with a cup identical to the one Dave had bought plus the elastic belt he had neglected. Morley was holding a medium in her hand when she saw the salesman coming. This was what she’d been hoping to avoid.

“For your husband?” he asked.

“My son,” said Morley.

“How old is he?”

Thank God, thought Morley. She had thought he was going to ask how big it was.

“He’s seven,” she said.

“This is too big,” said the young man, taking the package from her. “You’ll need extra-extra small … We’re out. Try maybe Sears.”

She was smiling when she got back to the car. ATHLETIC SUPPORT, it had said in big white letters on the red package.It was on her list after all. She had ticked it off. Morley thought
she
was the athletic support.