“I didn’t ask for a roll.”
“You don’t have to. I’m offering. Nonna ships me biscotti every two weeks and my pre-wrap guy ships me tape every month. Between those two supply chains, my life is complete. Happy to share one of them.” I lean over to look at his setup and ask the important question. “You tape toe to heel?”
“Always.”
“Good man. Same. Respect.” I hold up my fist and he bumps it back.
He goes back to unpacking and his shoulders are already loose. Good sign. I pull my practice jersey over my head and my right shoulder catches on the stretch. I adjust the angle and get the jersey on. Rotate the arm once, roll my neck, start taping my stick. Heel to toe.
Berger walks in wiping his forehead with his forearm.
“This humidity is going to kill me,” he announces to no one in particular, dropping his bag. “I’m sweating through my third shirt today.”
Mueller, already seated and lacing his skates with mechanical precision, looks up. “Didn’t you just come from Miami?”
“Yes, but at least there we had the beach and an ocean breeze.” Berger drops into his stall. “This is just hot soup. No beach. No breeze. Just soup.”
“The soup is part of the charm,” I tell him. “Give it a month. You’ll acclimate.”
“I will not acclimate. I will endure. There’s a difference.”
A few guys laugh. Berger looks around, encouraged, and he’s exactly what the group chat promised. Maybe more. The long messages, the restaurant rankings, the unsolicited weather analyses. The way he unpacks his stall with a system so precise it looks architectural. Hangers separated by type. Toiletry bag at a specific angle, adjusted twice.
He catches me watching. “Marchetti. You look like you slept in your car.”
“I look great. I look fantastic. This is what five hours of sleep and a positive attitude looks like.”
“It isn’t.” He studies my stall, where my pre-wrap is sitting on top of my slides on top of my tape. “And that’s horrifying.”
“That’s a system. It’s a load-bearing jenga machine. Don’t touch it.”
“That’s a cry for help. And I say that with warmth.”
I go back to taping my stick. Berger goes back to organizing, muttering about shelf placement. Somebody three stalls down has put on a playlist that’s clashing with mine and I let it go for about forty-five seconds.
“Okay, no.” I look up. “Who’s playing metal over Janelle Monáe right now? I need a name. I’m not mad, we just need to have a conversation.”
Thompson glances over, giving me an eye roll he is not concealing. “It’s music, Marchetti.”
“It’s not music. It’s a crime scene. You don’t layer metal over Monáe. That’s not an opinion. That’s acoustics. My nonna raised me with standards.”
“Your nonna has opinions about metal music?”
“My nonna has opinions about everything. She would walk in here and fix this in ten seconds.” I point at the offending stall. “We’re going to need a protocol. Locker room music protocol. Before the week is out. I’m making a schedule.”
“It’s day one,” Thompson says.
“And already we need a protocol. That’s how serious this is.”
The coaching staff comes through at nine. New systems, new sweaters. I’ve heard versions of this speech before, with my last team, and the words are a little different but the basics are the same. We’re building something here. Fresh start. New chapter. I nod along and mean it more than I expected to, which catches me a little, the sincerity of my own nodding.
Staff introductions are next. The head coach goes through the support staff one by one. Strength coach. Equipment manager. Video coordinator. The room claps for each the way hockey players clap for anything that isn’t a goal, which is three hits and a nod.
I’m sitting between Thompson and Berger, still in my base layer, hair damp. Berger has already changed into a clean shirt, his fourth of the day if his own count is accurate.
“Fourth shirt,” I say to him. “New record?”
“It’s not a record. It’s a necessity. I refuse to sit in a meeting damp.”
