He Gave Me a Green Dress, So I Gave the Arena the Truth novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Morning Skate

Jocelyn demands the letter at the arena and is turned away by the team doctor, and Belinda says she is moving into the house tonight.

On Monday morning I walked into the arena through the players' entrance with my family pass still clipped to my coat.

The guard waved me through. He hadn't heard yet.

Cold air from the rink came down the tunnel, and with it the scrape of skates and a coach's whistle.

The team doctor's office was at the end of the hall, beside the training room.

He was a heavyset man in his sixties, with half-glasses and a Rolex. Lars had been calling him Doc for ten years.

He looked up from his desk and then, very carefully, put down his pen.

"Jocelyn. This isn't the place."

"I need a copy of the letter you wrote the clinic three years ago."

"I don't know what you mean."

"The one that says my husband is cleared and normal."

He took off his glasses.

"Medical records are confidential. If you want Lars's, Lars has to sign."

"He's my husband."

"Then ask your husband."

I put both hands on his desk.

"Did he have surgery? Yes or no."

"I'm not going to discuss a player's file in a hallway."

"It's your office."

"It's still a hallway."

I could hear boots behind me.

Lars's line was coming off the ice early, six of them in pads, sticks in their fists and steam rising off their shoulders.

They stopped when they saw me.

Brent Sorley was in front. He went red and looked at the floor.

The others looked at each other.

"Look who showed up for practice," one of them said.

Someone laughed.

"Ten years and she wants his medical records," said another. "What for? She wants to prove it's him?"

"It's not him," the first one said. "He's fourteen weeks."

"Fourteen weeks, boys."

The laughing got louder.

I turned around and looked at each of them, one at a time, until the laughing thinned out.

"Which one of you drove him to the hospital when he got hurt?" I asked. "Which one of you knows what the surgery was?"

Nobody answered.

The doctor said, "That's enough. Security."

"Don't bother," said a deep voice from the training room door. "I'll walk her out."

Nolan Brumley stood in the doorway in a gray team sweatshirt, a roll of tape around one wrist.

He was six-three, bearded, a scar through his left eyebrow.

He took my elbow lightly.

I let him.

We walked the length of the tunnel in silence. The laughing started again behind us and then cut off sharply.

"What did he mean, ask the clinic?" I said when we reached the loading dock.

"I can't tell you."

"You told me Saturday."

"I told you where to look. I'm not allowed to tell you what's there."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm the head trainer, and I signed a form when I took this job." He rubbed the scar through his eyebrow. "If I open my mouth about a player's medical file, I lose my license and the team gets to sue me."

"Then why did you say anything at all?"

He didn't answer right away.

"Because I watched you walk out of that room last night," he said. "And nobody went after you."

His voice was low and level. I didn't know what to do with it.

"Is it Lars?" I asked. "Is something wrong with him?"

"Ask the people who are allowed to answer."

"They won't."

"Then keep asking."

He pushed the loading door open, and the white morning came in.

Outside, the parking lot was nearly empty. Lars's black truck was parked across two spaces by the dock.

The passenger door opened.

Belinda climbed out in a cream coat, her hair in a neat braid, one hand on her stomach.

She saw me and stopped.

For a second she was the little girl who used to follow me down the hall of my father's second house.

Then she smoothed her coat and lifted her chin.

"Joss," she said. "Good. I wanted to tell you myself."

"Tell me what?"

"I'm moving into the house tonight."

Nolan took a step toward her. I caught his sleeve.

"Lars said I should have my own room," Belinda said. "The nursery is where your craft room is."

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