Rooster: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (5 page)

I shake my head. “No.”

“No?”

“It’s not my sport. It’s in America. I don’t like America. I can’t get a good pint there. I can’t skate and I don’t want to wear those stupid pads. It’s not hurling, Francis. It’s not what I do.”

Francis clears his throat. “I’ve been speaking to the disciplinary board.”, he says. “I’ve had a bit of time to kill waiting for you to get yourself organized. Do you even know how difficult it is to overturn a ban here? Least of all a ban for five years.”

“I’m different”, I say.

“No-one in the history of this sport has overturned a ban”, Francis says, coldly.

“No-one in the history of hurling has done as much for the game as me”, I reiterate.

“And what did your manager say?” Francis asks.

“Fuck my manager.”

“That’s the spirit. That’s exactly the attitude you need to get things going your way. Did they teach you that in prison or is that something you always knew how to do?” he says.

Fuck him.

“I’m getting a pint.”

“Good idea. You ought to get your practice in because you’ll need something to do if I leave and you’ve said no. You seem to be good at drinking.”

“Everyone’s good at drinking”, I say.

“Then I expect you’ll do what it takes to be the best”, Francis adds.

I get the pints in, the ice hockey game still up on the screen, mocking me from afar. Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. There must be hundreds of available players over there, and maybe they’re not as big as me or as handy with a stick but I bet they all know how to skate.

Maybe he’s offering me less money. Maybe he even wants me to do it for free. I want to know why he wants me at all, because that
I’ve got family here
bullshit line may be true, but he seems to have gone to a hell of an effort to find me.

“Why me?” I say, fresh pints on the table.

“There’s nobody like you in our sport, and right now, we need you”, he says.

“Even though I’ve never played it.”

Francis leans in. “Even though you’ve never played it, I wager that you are better than ninety-nine percent of everyone else in our league. We need that advantage. At the end of last year we lost one of our best players, and if we don’t pull it together  this year we are going to fall apart completely. I can’t let that happen.”

“Which is why you’ve come here for me?” I ask.

“Which is why I’ve made the effort to come here personally for you”, he says.

I drink half of my pint in one go.

“What’s it worth?”

“One year contract, one million dollars”, Francis says.

I let silence seep in between us, punctuated only by the sound of the fruit machine bells from across the room.

“Huh”, I say, leaning back into my seat. It’s way more than I’ve ever been paid here, even with sponsorship deals.

“You do well this year, we talk about tripling it”, Francis adds.

He coolly sips his pint, but this still doesn’t seem right to me. I know I’m good, but I can’t help it from coming back to me. Hurling is my life, ice hockey isn’t. I have my family here, my friends, my club, even though all of that is currently on hold. What have I got there? A week full of good memories and one that has made it into the hall of fame, but what else? I know New York is a big place, but what if I bump into that lass again? And what if this time, it isn’t down a darkened alley?

“One million?” I say.

“That sound alright to you?”

“One year?”

“To start”, Francis says.

“It isn’t hurling.”

“No, it isn’t hurling.”

I sip my pint. “I have a criminal record”, I say.

“So did I when I got there.”

“And now you work for an ice hockey team.”

“No, Rory”, he says. “Now I own an ice hockey team.”

From across the room, a waterfall of euros fills the trough at the bottom of the fruit machine, a pop-pop-ching of sound echoing around the bar, that only cold hard currency has the ability to make.

Izzy

I have about enough money to last me until Christmas, a lot more if Brad stops treating me like a fucking weekend pitstop and steps up his game to help me out. I can’t get too upset with him because Oscar isn’t his responsibility, but it kind of bums me out that he doesn’t seem to give two shits about the fact I’ll have to move back home if I don’t somehow sort this situation out.

Waitressing won’t pay for childcare and child support isn’t enough alone to get me through. Being a single mother sucks balls because I can’t do all of this stuff alone. My family is too far away to depend on, and I can’t keep asking April to help out while I go to interviews for jobs I know are not even worth me taking. Either I get a nine to five that gives me enough money to hand over Oscar all day to someone else, or I bite the bullet and head home where I can work any shitty job
™
while Mom and Dad do the childcare angle, which isn’t exactly my first choice at all.

If motherhood wasn’t difficult enough, I’m still coming to terms with the fact my dream job has been mercilessly ripped away from me. How could they do that to me? A young Mom with hopes and aspirations. And that season ticket bullshit just adds insult to injury. Like I want to support the team that fired me. Brad wouldn’t be happy either. He’s an Islander after all, and even though we met because I worked at Rangers, he doesn’t want me actively supporting them.

Even if I manage to get a decent job, I’m not entirely sure I want to pay someone else to look after my child for forty hours of the week. I’m supposed to be a Mom after all, and even though I didn’t plan to have Oscar, now that he’s here I want to take responsibility for him.

There isn’t an easy solution obviously. Brad earns enough money to look after me and the baby, but that doesn’t solve the issue of me wanting to work, back in something I’ve spent my life working towards, plus he’s openly admitted he doesn’t want anything to do with the baby, nor for what we have together to be anything more serious than a casual hook up. Whenever he fucking feels like calling that is. It’s not exactly officially an open relationship, and I don’t have the time to look for anything else anyway, but I guess that’s the way Brad sees it. Fuck me when he wants to, with absolutely zero responsibility afterward.

I guess on the plus side I get laid, and he is an arrogant asshole, which is kind of the type I go for anyway. I suppose it could be worse. He’s definitely no Rory, in looks, size or ability, but then Rory was a one-off, and it’s not even worth me going there.

I’m late to the fucking interview and it’s not exactly because I’ve slept in too long. If anything, I hardly feel like I’ve been to bed at all. Not the best preparation, but if a baby’s crying, what exactly am I mean to do?

The look I get as I walk in is priceless. It’s so dismissive I almost walk straight out of the door again. It’s as if none of these people have ever seen a baby before, and even though I know, technically, it isn’t the best form bringing him here, it’s not exactly the end of the world either.

Maybe they don’t have children, or maybe they do and they didn’t have to do it alone. They should be thankful he’s asleep, because it’d be a hell of a lot worse if he wasn’t.

An office job. A corporate, behind the desk, brain-numbing, nothing to do with my sports related business degree job, at just about enough money an hour, to keep Oscar in diapers and pay for the stupidly expensive but cheapest I could find childcare across the bridge in park slope.

Three wax works guarding the way between me and a single mother’s daily grind. I smile, because if I don’t I’m only going to cry. Not because I’ve given up, but because it might make them take pity on me.

“So, Isabel Byron. Thank you for coming”, one of them says.

Coming was the easy part, looking after the baby afterward? Not so much.

“It says on your resume that you spent a year in the PR department at the Rangers, I just worry that this might be a step down from there for you”, another one of them says.

Oh, it is, it’s a massive step down, not just in terms of salary, but pretty much in every other respect too. This is a data entry job. This is the kind of job I could have done at nine years old and I have a degree in business, from a good college. I’m better than this but I also have a child to support and little other choice.

“I wouldn’t say that”, I say, instead of what I’m really thinking. “I’ve been impressed by this company, and I think we would have a lot to offer each other.”

“What happened with the Rangers?” the last one asks.

“My one year contract can to an end, and the department I was working in was restructured and the position dissolved”, I lie.

“And they didn’t want you to continue?”

The question comes from the man wedged between the two women either side him like salami in a subway sandwich.

“I was offered a role that I didn’t think best matched my skills and aspirations”, I lie again, at which point Oscar decides to wake up, filling the awkward silence with an ear-splitting scream.

I lift him out of his pram and settle him down within minutes, but I feel like the damage is already done.

“My sitter canceled on me at the last minute”, I say by way of explanation. “And Brad was at work, so-.”

Their awkward nods don’t fill me with much confidence.

“It’s really a very basic role. I’m not sure-”, the left slice of bread says.

“I don’t mind basic”, I cut in. “Life is kind of challenging enough at the moment.”

They look at each other, perhaps trying to work out how best to manage this situation so they can get me and Oscar out of the door as soon as possible without being rude.

It doesn’t take them long. A few more textbook questions and it seems like the shortest interview in the world is over.

“We’ll be in touch”, white bread to the right says. Those famous last words of any prospective employer. What she really wants to say is
we will never be in touch, ever. Even if you were the last candidate on earth and employing you meant the survival of our company and every single staff member, it would still be a no. Lose the baby and we might be able to talk, okay, honey?”

I make a show of struggling out with the pram, even though it’s not necessary. I think about doing the waterworks too, or even stopping to breastfeed him right there in the reception area, but I just haven’t got the energy to waste on a completely lost cause. This isn’t the first job interview I’ve been turned down in, and it won’t be the last. The best thing for me is to forget all about it and move on. Baby crying, head held high, back out into the freezing New York weather, onwards and upwards.

I’m halfway home when I see him, far too late to avoid contact. He’s blocking my path, smiling like a lunatic and waving his arms about to get my attention like an aircraft marshall guiding in a jumbo jet.

Martin.

Same tight pants, same stupid hipster swagger, even more cutting edge haircut.

“Izzy.”

Please don’t do the two kisses, one on each cheek thing like we’re French. I’m not French and I’ve not seen him for a year but no, that still doesn’t stop him. If someone goes in for it, it’s not exactly easy for the other person to hold back, so stretched awkwardly across the pram, up on tiptoes and nearly falling over, careful not to be impolite, I engage in this frankly ludicrous ritual.

“What’s it been, a year?” Martin says.

“Something like that”, I respond, vaguely.

“What are you up to now?” Martin asks, in a way that seems like he can’t wait for me to ask him the same question.

Either Oscar is invisible or too many jam jar cocktails have addled his brain. I mean isn’t it a little bit fucking obvious?

“More or less the same”, I say. “I’ve got this one now.”

Nothing conversations with people from the past always lead absolutely nowhere. They are like dead moments in space and time, and no-one ever wants to engage in them, except, perhaps Martin.

“Wow, he’s cute”, he says, leaning into the buggy.

Please don’t fucking wake him up.

“He’s got your nose”, he says.

Is that just one of the things people say to be polite or does he actually mean it?

“How’s your photography thing going, the project?” I say, unable to find a decent enough
out
yet, and feeling just like the panel probably did in my interview.

“The lines that aren’t there”, Martin reminds me.

“Yeah, the lines that aren’t there. How’s that going?”

“It’s gone already, and it went well, thank you. We had a gallery opening and I made it into the New York Times”, Martin says, obviously very proud of himself.

“Wow. That’s… impressive”, I say, searching for the right adjective. “Well done.”

“Thank you”, Martin says, smiling coyly. Like I said, not bad looking, just not my type.

There’s an awkward silence in which I wish he’d stop looking at me with those
you and me we could have been if only you’d given me a chance
eyes.