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“You know that if the herring isn’t fresh, then the herring and beet soup will be disgusting,” he informed me.
“Yep, I know that.” He tipped his blond head to rake me with a look. “Okay, fine, I know nothing about herring. I wanted to talk to you about something,” I segued into the real reason I’d let him drag me along on this dinner party shopping trip to every small deli and fish market within fifty miles of Wilkes-Barre.
“Hey, look what I found over in aisle three,” Crispy announced as he sidestepped an old lady with a folding shopping cart wearing a bright babushka and a glower at my captain for cutting in line for fish. “Sorry, ma’am,” Crispy whispered, ducking his head. She flung something in a different language at him. Ooni quickly leapt in to soothe the elderly woman’s upset, the Finnish flowing over the piles of dead fish on ice. “I found some of those cookies you brought back last summer,” Crispy added as Ooni let the old gal get in front of him in line. “Sorry for losing your spot. But look! These things are to die for!”
I nodded as I studied the box of cookies. They looked to be some sort of toffee cookies. Since that was the only word on the box that I could read, I knew my assumption to be correct. Sherlock Holmes had nothing on me.
“Hey, so while we’re waiting in line, I have something to talk to you guys about.” I smoothly led us back to my huge announcement.
Crispy began picking at the glue holding the box top closed. Ooni gave him a dark look, and he stopped.
“Do you guys like lute fish? I see they have some that look better than the herring, although I really wanted to make herring and beetroot soup. Maybe I could substitute salmon for herring?” Ooni looked puzzled, tapping his chin, as the deli person—a stocky woman with red hair that I assumed to be Pihla as she was the only one working here—began talking to the babushka lady in Finnish.
“I’m not sure why it’s a problem if I dip into the cookies if I plan on paying for the box that I open plus the other ten in my basket,” Crispy stated with a wave at the basket resting by his feet that held at least a dozen boxes of toffee cookies.
“Because you are not four years old. Have some restraint,” Ooni countered, leaning down to eyeball a platter of something that looked like ground organ meats. Oh Lord, was he going to serve us pâté? I wondered if he would be offended if I brought a dish to pass. Like good old macaroni and cheese or potato salad—“Oh, I think the herring looks better from this side of the case. One of the lights was out, and that made it look off.”
“Cool, yay herring, so I have something to tell you guys about the dinner party,” I said again as the old lady began dickering about the price of something called riisipuuro which looked like rice pudding to me.
“There are no signs anywhere saying you can’t dip into the groceries. I saw a kid in the fresh fruit section eating grapes and the Finnish army didn’t rush in and throw him out into the street.” Crispy tore into the box of toffee cookies with a flourish.
“So, about this thing that I wanted to talk to you two about…” I tried once more but was run over by Ooni spinning around to dress down Crispy.
“For one thing,” my fellow goalie barked while the rice pudding price debate raged on in front of us. “The Finnish army is not going to rush in to take your cookies or that child’s grapes. What they would do is shame you terribly for acting like that child instead of a man grown who is captaining a hockey team!”
Crispy looked stunned. The cookie he had taken out of the box hovered in front of his open mouth. I rolled my eyes. The volume of the rice pudding situation was growing as was the cookie snark fest. I glanced over at some old man sitting at a table in the corner napping, his white butcher bib stained with the day’s work. Perhaps that was Pihla? Or Mr. Pihla? Whoever he was, there was no help coming from that quarter.
The boys kept bickering about toffee cookies and the women kept fighting about the price of rice pudding.
“Baskoro Huda and I are in a serious relationship and I want to bring him to your dinner party as my date!” I shouted to be heard over the warring factions. Everyone fell silent. The old man in the corner snuffled awake. All eyes were on me. I cleared my throat. “So yeah, that’s my news.”
Crispy and Ooni looked nonplussed. The old woman finally agreed to take a half pound of the pricey rice pudding, and the old man stared at me for the longest time until his eyes drooped and he dozed back off.
“You owe me fifty dollars,” Ooni said to our captain before turning to the deli lady to order lute fish and herring and Lord only knows what else. Crispy muttered under his breath, ate a toffee cookie, and then glanced my way.
“What the hell?” I coughed out.
“What? We knew you were seeing someone secretly. There were signs. Then you and Huda got into that goalie fight.” He wiped his fingers on his jeans to throw up a quote around the word fight. “Which to anyone with eyes was more a grope and giggle than fisticuffs. We both figured you two were seeing each other, but we didn’t want to say anything because that’s something you should tell us about.”
“If you wish to bring Baskoro, that is fine. Maybe I can buy extra salmon and make a nice curry dish for him. He’s Thai right?”
I nodded and folded my arms over my chest. “Yeah, he’s Thai. So you both were cool enough to let me come to you when I was ready, which is incredible and thank you, but betting on me gave you no pause?”
He shrugged. “He said you’d tell us by Christmas, and I said it would take you until after the new year. You know I can never turn down a wager when it comes to a teammate’s crush. Want a cookie?”
I took the damn cookie, bit into it, and realized that Crispy had been right. Finnish toffee cookies were to die for.
And my friends were pretty damn righteous as well.
Chapter Thirteen
Baskoro
“Of course after that she never once brought hot dogs and pickles in a lime Jell-O mold to one of the family dinners again. I’m not sure what Cousin Mikey’s second wife—Dolores Marie was her name, nice gal but kind of spacy about things—was thinking to even slip a wiener into a wobbly Jell-O mold, let alone a dozen, and then haul the thing all the way to Flushing from Staten Island on the ferry for starters. Sure, it’s free and all but I rode on it once when I was going to check out a scooter for sale and let me tell you them people on the ferry ain’t kind to hot dogs in Jell-O or people who ask why they ain’t got a good hockey team like the rest of New York does, so I wager on the way over Dolores either showed someone her hot dog and gherkin mold and they reacted violently—which any sane person would—or the waves that day were like them huge waves over in Portugal. Did any of you see that episode of that show with Norman Reedus when he was biking around Portugal? I love that man. Henri don’t get the appeal of zombies, but I love them. Daryl Dixon can hold my crossbow any time. Henri wonders why Daryl don’t get a haircut and tidy up and I’m like, Sugar Bottom, it’s a zombie apocalypse no one is worried about pressed hankies, but he just rolls his eyes and sips his wine. Not sure if he’s rolling them peepers at me or at the grimy zombie fighter to be honest, but I suspect it’s Daryl or Dog. No, not Dog. Dog is cool. Did you guys ever see Old Yeller? When I was a kid…”
I glanced over at Fossie seated next to me on a stationary bike in the crowded Williams Wellness gym where we congregated on days off to work out. He was pedaling away, his jaw set, his gaze on the owners of the gym, Keyshan and his twin sister, Jemetta. The other triplet wasn’t here today, and my head was too full of worry to recall his name. I did take note of how Fossie seemed to be zoned in on Keyshan as he spoke to his incredibly pregnant sister.
I looked to the left, around Greck who was still talking, to see if Liam was paying attention to the team chatterbox, but no, he had ear buds in. Smart. I should have brought mine, but I was too keyed-up about making the big reveal to remember much of anything. I was lucky I had sneakers on my feet, to be honest.
