Split Squad

The sentence is already wrong.

I have it on the screen in fourteen-point because fourteen-point is how I catch a leak before it becomes a byline. Pike goaltender Henrik Solberg will participate in Heddle Home's split-squad charity weekend in Duluth. Participate is a verb that does not throw up. Participate does not look at a lens like the lens is a slap shot. Participate is what I get paid to put in a release so a furniture man in a better zip code can hang a pike on a banner and feel like he bought a town that is not dirty.

Ruthie wants the banner. Pia wants the ice invoice paid. I want a morning that does not include Rhea Collett smelling a hole I have not patched.

I delete participate. I type is scheduled to appear. I delete that too. Scheduled is a lie with a calendar. Appear is a word for people who can stand still in a light.

I leave the cursor blinking on his name. Henrik Solberg. Twenty-seven. Starter. Swedish in a way the weekend will want to make cute. Superstitious in a way I have been ironing into focused since October. He talks to a crease. He does not talk to a camera. He lives in a walk-up over the diner that has one chair and a plant that is not a personality. Heddle's people asked me yesterday, on a call I took in the lot so Ruthie would not hear me lose a sentence, whether he had someone. A partner. A life they could put next to a sectional.

I said I would get back to them.

I am Director of Communications for a barn that used to be a warehouse. I came here from a market that had two morning shows and a leak I did not make. The person before me in Fenwick put a medical word in a text to a cousin. The player found out from a comment. Ruthie fired the person and hired me because I said I do not leak and I meant it as a religion. I still mean it. Inventing is not leaking. Inventing is a plug.

I drink coffee that has gone cold. The office is a converted ticket closet with a plant June refuses to water and a printer that jams when I need a credential. Bo Peck put a roll of tape on my desk last week like a threat. I have not used it. Tape is not a sentence.

The phone buzzes. Heddle again. A woman named Dara who says family the way people say family when they mean a picture.

"We love the Pike," Dara says. "We love the small-market story. We just need the weekend to feel warm. The split-squad is a charity skate and a dinner and a camera package for the stores. Our last club sent us a married defenseman and his wife who taught kids to stop. It photographed. Your starter photographs like a monk. Is he a monk."

"He's a goalie."

"That's not an answer I can put on a banner, Maren."

I look at the wall. There is a rust-and-bone schedule and a memo from Fran Bell that says a safety audit will walk the Barn the same week we leave for Duluth. I have not ironed Fran. Fran irons herself.

"He has someone," I say.

The silence is a person sitting up.

"He does."

"He does." I do not give her a name. A name is a hole Rhea can put a recorder in. "She keeps a low profile. The market is small. We don't put staff-adjacent people in a release unless we have to."

"Staff-adjacent," Dara repeats, tasting it. "Is she staff."

"I'll send the plus-one list by Friday."

"We need a couple for the dinner. We need a hold-hands for the skate intro. We need him to look like a man who has a life that is not a crease. If you can't give us that, we can still do the weekend with Ward Keene. Captains photograph. Goalies who live like monks make our board nervous."

Ward Keene is cleared and riding a bike and not a product I am allowed to loan to furniture. June would eat me. I know this. Dara does not need to know this.

"You'll have a couple," I say. "You'll have a hold-hands. You will not have a medical and you will not have a quote you didn't buy."

"We bought the weekend."

"You bought ice and a banner. You did not buy a mouth."

I hang up before I iron myself into a person she likes. I sit. I look at the sentence. I type will appear with his guest. I hate guest. Guest is a plus-one who is not a lie yet.

Ruthie comes in without knocking. Fifty. Coffee. The face of a woman who has already decided the weekend is happening because the ice invoice is a religion she can see.

"Heddle still on," she says.

"They're on if I produce a life."

"Then produce one. Pia has smileys from that man about a dirty town. Miles gave them the dirt. You got fourteen seconds out of him and you looked like you wanted a novel. I don't have a novel. I have a split-squad in Duluth and a league that wants us to look like we can host a camera without a parent calling anyone a name in the lot."

"Henrik can't do a camera."

"Henrik can stand next to a woman and not vomit on a sectional. That's the job. If he vomits, June writes it and you do not. I am not losing a furniture account because my starter is a monk."

"I told them he has someone."

Ruthie looks at me. She does not smile. Ruthie does not do smiles that are not threats.

"Does he."

"He will."

"Don't hire an actress. Rhea will Google her in the lobby and write club plants girlfriend and I will have to live with a sentence I cannot pull. If you're going to invent, invent something that already has a credential."

She leaves. The plant dies another inch. I understand what she did not say. I have a credential. I have a face the town already knows as the person who irons unfortunate. I have a mouth that can do a camera because that is the whole job.

I sit with that for a minute I do not bill. I look at the rust-and-bone schedule. I look at Fran's memo. I look at a photo of the Barn from a year I was not here, when the last person leaked a medical and the player found out from a comment. I was hired to be the opposite of that person. I am about to put my own name in a hole. Opposite is a word I iron. It does not always hold.

I go down to the glass.

Morning skate is optional and therefore a census. Ward is on the bike in the hallway, which is June's religion and not mine. Miles tapes his wrists and does not look at anyone. Owen wears the A like a spare. Theo March is on the ice talking. He is too young for the words he uses. Greer is upstairs doing time on a dump-in I do not need. Cal has a marker behind his ear. Henrik is in the crease talking to himself in Swedish. I cannot hear the words. I have never asked for them. Asking would make them a quote.

I wait until he comes off. He takes the mask off like it hurts. His hair is wet. He has a mouth that does not perform. He sees me and stops the way men stop when they know I have a sentence.

"Duluth," I say. "Heddle. Split-squad. They want you. They want a camera. They asked if you had a life."

He looks at the tunnel. "I have a crease."

"That's not a life they can hang over a couch."

"I don't sit on couches."

"I told them you have someone."

He looks at me then. Not at my mouth. At the folder. At the rust-and-bone badge on my hip that says I am the person who makes him a paragraph.

"I don't," he says, precise. The English is better than mine when he is scared. "You know I don't."

"I know you throw up before starts and I have been writing focused around it since I got here. I know you cannot do a lens. I know if I send Ward they will take Ward and June will put my name on a sheet I cannot iron. I need a plus-one who already has a credential and a face Rhea cannot Google as a plant."

He waits. He is good at waiting. Goalies are.

"Me," I say. "I put myself on the list. You hold my hand for a camera. You say my name if they ask and you do not say anything else. After Duluth I take you off the list and I write the weekend as charity and I do not write a love story. That's the sheet."

He looks at the crease through the glass. The ice is a sheet Anja will invoice at five if we eat her slot again. He nods once.

"Yes," he says, like a save. Short. Correct. Terrified.

"Don't thank me."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. Thanking me makes it a favor. It is a plug."

He goes. I stand in the tunnel with the folder and I write plus-one: Soto on the inside flap in letters I will have to type later. I do not feel like a girlfriend. I feel like a person who just put her own name in a hole so a furniture man would stop asking why a starter lives like a monk.

June is in the ticket booth with the dying plant. She looks at me. I look at June. We have a treaty that is not a friendship. She has a face that knows when a pulse is a story.

"You're running a weekend," she says.

"I'm running a sentence."

"If you put him in a light before a start I will pull him for a sheet. Vomit is a medical. It is not a cute."

"I'm not putting vomit in a release."

"I didn't say you were. I said I will pull him. You can iron that."

She shuts the booth. I walk the lot. The Barn is a warehouse that learned hockey. My car has a credential on the dash that now means plus-one. I sit. I write the email to Dara in my head before I start the engine.

Henrik Solberg will attend with Maren Soto, club communications. Low profile. No medical. No interview with the guest unless I am in the room.

I send it from the lot so I cannot watch myself hesitate. Dara replies in four minutes with a heart and a request for a hold-hands on Friday in Fenwick so the camera package has a hometown beat.

Friday. The Barn lobby. A hand I have never held except to pass a folder.

I text Henrik two words.

Friday. Lobby.

He texts back ok like a man who has agreed to a shot he did not see.

I do not tell Rhea. Rhea will smell it anyway. I do not tell Pia. Pia will put it on a key ring. I tell the printer to stop jamming and it does not listen. I print the plus-one list. My name is on it. The ink is wet. I wait for it to dry because I am not going to smear the first lie I have filed under my own byline.

Then I go back upstairs and I change will appear with his guest to will attend the weekend with communications director Maren Soto.

It is a sentence. It is already wrong. It will photograph. That is the job. I close the laptop before I can delete my own name.