Alan sighed.
“Fine, fine. Whatever. No nice soft clothes. Just the stiff kind that hurt.”
“You can wear mine, Carol,” Michael offered. “It’s soft but stylish.”
Carol brightened at that and sipped the water Michael handed him.
“We have to up our game just a bit,” Alan said. “We’ll be playing in higher profile tournaments going forward and I want us to represent well. Show the curling world we can do that in style, yes?”
“Yes, boss,” Carol grumbled.
“Good. Perry.” He waggled his fingers at the table. “Finish up. The chicken is ready.”
“It’s okay,” Evan stage-whispered. “I’m gonna call Sheri.”
“Why?”
“Her hair is almost as curly as yours and she has to wear it back for work. I’ll ask her for tutorials.”
“I don’t get why it matters.”
“I do. Every curler looks exactly the same. Clean-shaven, cropped hair. Not us. We all have long hair and we all want to keep it long, so we have to show them that we can look as classic as the rest of them, but better. Us.”
“Okay, I get that. But y’all might just have to live with my puffball hair. It doesn’t do much else but corkscrew out of my head in every direction.”
“You need product,” Mikko said quietly to me, picking at my curls and running a few of the strands through his fingers. “Leave it with me.” The softshushing of his words due to his accent made him even softer-spoken than the quiet tone, and I found it calming.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and moved off, closer to Robbie, whispering something in his ear.
Robbie nodded and looked over. “Next time we have an afternoon off, Mikko will take us shopping.”
“We can?—”
“Please,” Mikko said, and I heard the even softer slide of the “s” as he looked away.
“Sure. Okay. Shopping’s good.”
The man’s smile, directed at Robbie, though I think it was because I’d agreed, was almost angelic. No wonder Robbie had it bad for the guy.
“We’re being rebranded,” Evan teased, drawing my attention back to him.
“I guess so.”
He breathed in deep and made his eyes big. “It’s getting real.”
I pulled him into a hug. He was right. New clothes and better hair weren’t that big a deal on their own, but paired with the long season of tournaments about to come to an end, the summer ahead of training and practice, with hardly being home, and asking for more and more cutbacks to my work schedule to accommodate it all, and there was no denying we were on the road to something big.
As the seven of us gathered around the table to eat the chicken, potatoes, and salad, it felt like a last meal of sorts, but also, like a feast before something big. Something life-changing in an even more permanent way than being able to say I’d once had a chance to be on the Canadian Olympic Team.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 22
ALAN
Never underestimatethe power of domestic chores to ground people in their lives. It was something my well-meaning grandmother used to always tell my mother, bless her sweet, old-fashioned soul.
