Long Live

Meetings were good. Hell, meetings were great -- it meant they were finally getting somewhere, even if it didn’t feel like it.

It had been weeks. Max had been in and out of Shero’s office so many times that he had memorized the piece of paper behind his desk, describing the staff identity of the organization with words like “invested” and “committed.” Max was starting to think that if this shit kept up, he was going to be committed. There was only so much a person could take, before going under.

Weeks. Weeks. Obviously they hadn’t started talking immediately. After Tampa, the guys were given some time to go home and lick their wounds, trying to forget that they’d rolled over and given it up to Stevie Y’s club. They just weren’t where they needed to be, and everyone knew it. There was defeated silence for about a week, blinds down, doors locked, TV off, no light. Max slept and ate and explored his bachelor pad to its full extent and slept some more.

However, he could only stew for so long. After days spent lounging around on his couch in sweats, he was back on his feet, that familiar itch keeping him going. His eyes were forward, ahead, looking to the future and another year with the Penguins. When Shero finally gave him the call, he felt thirteen all over again, but this time, he was more than ready to begin “the talk.”

He thought he’d lay down his price, they’d take a day or two to confer, sit back down with him to agree, and he’d be signing away his life to the city he loved. It was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make; he’d made it every year for the better part of a decade. He wanted to make it again, he wanted to stay. This is my home, just give me the key.

But maybe he should have known things wouldn’t go according to his plans.

At first, he thought how long they were taking was normal. They needed time to think, and of course, they were busy! He knew that, he knew the way things worked, with Dan, with Lemieux, with Jay, with Shero, with the whole grinding machine that was their organization. He knew. So he told himself to quit being so impatient, and let the river run its course.

Then the guys started talking. It was a text message every now and again: U signed yet? It was the occasional lunch with Flower, with Sid, Kris, Duper, Rupp, everyone. They’d make such casual remarks: “Oh, well once the Superstar over here gets signed...” It got to the point where Sid would laugh, and say he was paying them to take so long, just to see Max sweat. Max had laughed, but it wasn’t funny, because he was sweating, lying awake at night, wondering why.

He had his line out. Trouble is, nobody was biting.

Eventually, it got the point where he couldn’t wait anymore. He told them to call when they were done with their games, and hopped on the first plane back to Montreal. My life has to keep moving, even if they’re holding me in place. Though he knew he couldn’t stay, leaving felt wrong. He wasn’t the only thing up in the air; his future was, too, and there was more than a little turbulence.

Things were normal, for a while. Max could pretend to forget about the arguing going on back in Pennsylvania, the papers flying, the phones ringing constantly. He diligently planned for his charity golf open with Bruno Gervais in several weeks; he spent time with his brothers, one of whom had just become a father; he went to a party at Fleury’s house. It wasn't until the party that his heart began to sink, and a small part of him, a small secret part, already knew.

When his phone finally lit up on a balmy night, the screen displaying a 412 area code on a deck overlooking the St. Lawrence, Max felt his heart leap. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. He was already picturing his future, seeing the crowds, the black and gold glittering for four more years, the timeline he’d asked for, just to be safe, just to be secure, wrapped up tight in the heart-shaped box of the Steel City.

With a bottle of beer in one hand and his phone in the other, he answered, standing and slowly walking the length of the deck. The wood creaked beneath his feet.

By the time he made it to the end, he was hanging up, well wishes and promises still echoing in his ear. The dream he’d had was quickly fading, the black and gold washing from his mind, repainted with the solid white wall of shock, the one sight that used to give him such a thrill during the playoffs. He was numb now, but not with excitement, with something else, something that made him throw the bottle right off the railing of the deck. He watched as beer swung through the air in a sparkling arc, the bottle landing hollowly in the sand below, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, rolling slowly to the water. A message in a bottle, but there were no words, no sounds, just an empty brown bottle with a resignation to the end. Hadn't you known? Good things don't take this long. Don't pretend you didn't know. Maybe he had known. But he had hoped for something else, hoped so hard it hurt.

On a conference call between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Montreal, Quebec, words were spoken. Numbers were said, years were offered.

And Max Talbot said no.

---

In such a tight-knit group, there were no secrets. So why did you think you could keep this from him?

Max heard the footsteps before he turned, knowing already who it was. He had told Vero at the door that he had only stopped by to see Marc, only to be informed that he was out, buying more beer and some missing ingredients. From the laughter beyond her and the smell of barbecue from the backyard, Max could tell they were having a thing, most likely for family. Sure enough, he could hear Marc’s sister laugh no more than a second later. True to his assumption, Vero informed him that they were visiting before they went to Africa. She smiled softly when she spoke, leaning against the door frame.

Max remembered. Marc had been talking vacation for months, even before they were knocked out of the playoffs. At first, it had been anxiety-laced babbling in the middle of the night in their hotel rooms. He wanted to take Vero somewhere, somewhere special, somewhere original, but he was coming up blank and in desperate need of help. It had been Max’s idea, remembering his life-changing trip to Haiti. “Go somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, but never imagined you would.” A few days later, Vero was glowing and happily chatting with the other ladies about Africa and the safari adventure they were planning on taking. After that, Marc was calm and collected, voicing his own excitement as well. He never thanked Max, but he never needed to. Max just always knew.

Just like he knew now that he was about to have the hardest conversation of his life.

He and Marc were like family, but even they knew when to give space. As such, Max backed up, easing away from the door. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Tell him I stopped by, will you?”

“Is this about your contract?” Vero’s dark eyes widened hopefully. “Did they finally call?”

Max held his tongue, weighing his words. What was safe, what wasn’t? He had never needed to censor himself before, and had gotten in trouble plenty of times because of it. But this, this was business, there were rules and protocol that had to be followed. Until there was an official announcement put out, he was fair game, a target painted blood-red on his back.

The pause was really all the answer she needed; immediately, he could see her deflate. Still, he nodded stiffly. “They called, yeah.”

She stared at him, and in the split-second that their eyes met, she knew, and he knew she knew. There was never any use trying to put one past her; he’d learned that in the years he’d played alongside Marc, and had known her as his best friend’s better half, his stable counterpart. She was always clever, always shrewd, and the look in her eyes was breaking his heart.

She opened the door wider. “Look, Max, come inside--”

“No.” The word surprised him, the sharp tone, the tenacity. He was always the laidback guy, rolling with the punches, only ever getting fired up, angry, during games where that was needed of him. But here he was walking on a tightrope, broken glass littering the ground beneath him, almost begging him to fall. As he bid Vero good evening and reminded her to tell Marc he’d stopped by, it hit him, almost unexpectedly, but not quite.

He was scared. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt scared. He’d always loved people, loved attention, but this was all wrong, for all the worst reasons. The idea of him having nowhere to go, floating, wandering, alone; it turned his stomach. As he walked down the street to where he’d parked at the corner, he thought he might need to sit down, to lower his head, even his breathing, maybe puke covertly into someone’s bushes, but then there was the roar of an engine behind him cut silent by keys, there was the door slamming and the footsteps, hurried, the flip-flops slapping against otherwise bare feet and he was turning around, body operating against his volition, reminding him he had no time to be scared, no time to prepare himself, no time, no time.

Marc stood there a few feet from his haphazardly parked car, but there was no trademark smile on his face now, only a dark look, a storm. “I honked, jerk. Didn’t you hear me?”

Max shook his head. He had been miles and miles away from himself, wondering how it was possible to do the right thing and still feel so lost.

“You said no.” The disbelief in Fleury’s voice was palpable.

Max almost asked how, but he knew. In such a tight-knit group… He ran a hand over his hair, cut short for the summer. “Yeah, I said no.”

Marc looked dumbstruck, unusually pale. “Why am I the last to know?”

“You’re not. That’s why I stopped by, I--”

“Shero and Dan, obviously. Sid, Kris...” Fleury ticked them off on his fingers. “I’m not stupid.”

“You’re acting kind of like it right now.” He meant it as a joke, a half-cracked smile his evidence, but it didn’t come out sounding funny and his heart sank. I need things to go back to normal. Please just let us be us again.

Fleury stood up straight, an uncharacteristic scowl darkening his features. “And how should I act? My best friend is leaving.”

The emotion teeming beneath the word caught Max off guard. “Marc…”

“I am the last to know.”

Max just nodded. “Yeah, you are.”

“Why?”

Max sighed. “Because they all just knew. Sid called me last week, Tanger last night. When a contract doesn’t fall into place immediately, something’s wrong.” I waited because I was trying to think of a way to tell you. Because I knew, too.

Marc shook his head. “I don’t get it. You love it in Pittsburgh, I know you do.”

Max nodded.

“And it’s not us.”

“Of course not! This team…” Words presented themselves in Max’s mind, but he was grasping at air, unable to speak for half a minute. He felt silly, a child again, arguing with his best friend on the street, the sun fading in the background behind them. How could he explain? This team was his heart, the thing that kept his blood pumping and his life going. “It’s home, Marc, it is.”

Completing the picture, Marc crossed his arms over his chest, very nearly pouting. “Then why are you leaving?”

“Everyone leaves home eventually.” Max was backed into a corner, hopelessly defending himself from the accusatory look in Marc’s eyes, and he had no other choice but to try to be profound, to be calm, to make him understand. This isn’t easy for me, either. He had been the bad guy on the ice against other teams, but never against his best friend.

“Is it…” Marc took a deep breath. “Is it the money?”

It was, but it wasn’t. It was the time, the money, the bruises he had sustained on the ice, fighting for that team, fighting for his place in that black and gold sweater, for his place in life. This was his dream; it had always been something he wanted to do, something he was obviously good at, and something people wanted him for.

It was four years and a fraction more. Four years I was going to give, four years I would fill with blood and sweat and spit and tears, anything they asked me for. In return, I would get what I was asking for. That was the deal.

But then there was no deal, and it was over.

“Marc, haven’t you ever…wanted more?”

Marc stared. “What do you mean?”

And that was when Max knew. His entire life, he had wanted. His parents had never had much money and he was the youngest of three; it was his first and most proficient talent, since the day he’d left his mother’s womb. Growing up, desire was his driving force. Nothing was good enough. Satisfaction led to a plateau, the opposite of progress, a place to become sedentary and ordinary. He wanted to live his life with risk, gaining rewards and becoming someone bigger, someone better. As he grew older, desire became his weapon. He used it on others, on women, to get what he wanted. It was his drug, his fuel. You can always be better, work harder, do more. And he did. He won a silver medal at Worlds in 2004, he won the Stanley Cup in 2009, he was a fan-favorite on the team.

But he wanted more. And Marc, older sibling, first-born son, pride and joy of his well-off parents, doting fiancé to a wonderful woman, would never understand that.

It’s not selfish, Max always told himself. I work hard every fucking day. I deserve it. Hell, we all do. He figured everyone else was thinking it. But he was the only one who asked.

“Don’t you ever think you deserve more, for all the hard work you do? I mean, come on. Could Sid do what you do? You’ve seen him at practice, he’s awful when he’s goofing off in net.”

Fleury looked uncomfortable, his fingers tightening around his arms. “I don’t think about that.”

“Never? You never think about how much more you could--should--be making?”

“So it is about the money.”

Max shook his head. “Yes, but also no. It’s about me. It’s about these people needing me enough to say yes to what I need. But they don’t.” When Marc opened his mouth to protest, Max held up a hand. “You don’t! You guys don’t need me. When a cup is overflowing, what makes more sense: to pour in more water, or dump a little out?”

Marc’s eyes were wide. “But I like our cup.”

“So do I." But everyone needs fresh water eventually. "You know, maybe this is good for me. Maybe a fresh start is everything I need.”

“But why would you need one?”

“At first, I felt the same as you. I thought this was some horrible dream that couldn’t be happening to me. But after I thought about it for a few days, I realized that maybe Pittsburgh and I are just too familiar. Distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that shit.” He tried to smile but it came out crooked. “Sometimes you just know when something is over.”

Marc unfolded his arms, letting them hang loosely by his sides. He clenched his fingers several times, like he wasn’t sure what to do with them. “And it’s over? Just like that?”

“Of course not. I didn’t just wake up and think, ‘I am so bored with Pittsburgh.’ And it’s not boredom, it’s just…I don’t know if I’m happy anymore. And I want to be.” The knowledge startled Max, but the words had come out of his mouth. Happiness was like a one-night stand: there for a brief, pleasant time, and then suddenly it was gone in the morning before he even had time to notice. How long had he lived with eyes closed?

Marc looked down, scuffing his worn sandals on the sidewalk. “I want you to be happy, too.”

“So I gotta go. It’s going to hurt like hell -- still does, even right now -- and probably will for a long time. It’s not over, just like that, and it won’t ever be. I don’t want this to be the way things go, but that’s the way they just are, and now I have to deal with them. You get it?”

Miserably, Marc nodded his head. “What did Sid say, when he called?”

“He said he’d had a feeling. You know how he is, all superstitious. But he wished me good luck, wherever I choose to go, and told me he knew I’d be happy someday.” Max didn’t tell him that he’d almost known it too, feeling it in the way Shero had looked at him before he left. Some things in life you just know.

“You will be happy someday,” Marc said. “I know it.” Striding forward, he pulled Max into a gruff hug.

Immediately, Max was thrust into the past, images flashing through his mind. How many times had they hugged that way after games in the throes of a win, laughing and talking over each other? Max remembered when they’d won the Cup; he’d never hugged another man so hard in his life, pressing his face to Fleury’s shoulder, digging his fingers into the fabric of Marc’s jersey, shaking from what they had done together, what their team had done, from the urge to scream and laugh and cry all at once.

We’ll never share that again.

That was the worst part, and it hit him all at once, the sick feeling returning. It had been his choice, his decision to say the word, to shake his head, but now he realized: he would never again hitch a ride with Marc to the rink, the two of them fighting over the radio dial; he would never again dress in Crosby’s jersey and fool an entire arena; he would never again play pranks with Fleury and Cookie and Dupuis; he would never get to spend the night at Fleury’s again, too drunk to go home; he would never get another fond scolding from Vero for getting too rough with Marc and their dog Lily in the pool; he would never threaten Marc with the details of his bachelor party that he couldn’t remember; he would never baby-sit their kids when it was date night.

It wasn’t the end of their friendship, technology willing. With all the ways to keep in touch nowadays, Max was certain they would still talk all the time. But it was the end of something only they’d had, together.

“So I guess the next time I’ll see you, you’ll be in some other colors,” Fleury said, clearing his throat several times. “Got your sights set on anyone?”

Max did the same, casually wiping a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes like they itched, like there was something in one that was making his vision swim. It was a good question, one that he didn’t really know the answer to. His agent was working out the details on all of that, but he hadn’t stopped to consider the options available to him, not yet. There was both a certain thrill and horror to that, and Max felt both, colliding at once. He had so much freedom but so much fear, and he felt eighteen all over again. Where will I go? And can I make it there without everyone I know?

Max shrugged. “I dunno, man. We’ll have to see, I guess.”

“Go somewhere good, okay? Somewhere nice. Like Florida.”

“Florida would be nice.”

“Not Tampa, though.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you just send me a list of teams that are acceptable?”

“Maybe I will.”

Max smiled. "You know who I really feel bad for? The ladies."

"Why?"

"They'll miss me."

There was almost a smile on Marc’s face. Almost. And that was how things were going to be. Not okay, but almost. We can survive this. Just let us be us.

They talked for a few more minutes, but there was nothing else to discuss. The sun had long set by then, and Marc mentioned Vero and his family. Max nodded. There would always be that distinction, where Marc had people, a family waiting for him, and Max just had places, new cities to see. They hugged once more, before there was a pause, a hesitance.

Max waved. “See you when I see you, Flower.”

“And you. Try not to get in too much trouble without me, okay?” It was meant to be a joke, but Max could hear the wavering plea between the lines.

He nodded. With that, his hands were back in his pockets, and they were both walking away. Max waited until Fleury drove off with a honk, before climbing into his own car. It was dark, and he flipped on his headlights, unable to see anything than what was directly in front of him.

It was the beginning of a new Max Talbot, a new era, a new desire. But it was also the end of something he would always miss, something he would always cherish.

It was the end of the best years of his life.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marc waited until he was in the kitchen. He waited until he had unpacked the case of beer and the mayonnaise and the pickles. He waited until he had torn open the box and placed every single beer into the refrigerator, lining them up in perfect rows on the top shelf, nudging aside the milk and the other condiments. He waited until the mayonnaise was on the shelf inside the door, and the pickles were on the second shelf, next to the cold cuts and slices of cheese. He waited until he pulled out the bowl, the half-completed macaroni salad that Vero had been making. He waited until he had dumped all the empty bottles on the counter into the recycling bin. He waited until the empty box of beer was in his hands, his fingers denting the cardboard.

He waited until the door opened, and Vero silently strode inside. He waited until he heard her feet, slow against the tile. He waited until the noise of his family laughing beyond faded to the background.

Vero must have known immediately, from the stricken expression, from the wooden limbs, from the way he was tearing the box to shreds, pieces littering the floor. One of his relatives poked their head in, but with one severe expression and hand gesture from Vero, they were gone again, the door swinging shut.

Vero pried the remains of the box from his hands and dropped them to the floor. She stepped up in front of him, raising her hands to cup his cheeks, to force his eyes to meet hers.

“Marc.” Her voice was painfully soft. He would have preferred yelling.

He didn’t say a word. He just waited to gather her up in his arms, burying his face in his dark hair, before he began to cry.