Coming in First Place
Contents
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT
For my mom.
You’re my hero.
Full stop.
And in memory of my grandfather Ken Wheeland.
My brother and cousins would get practical gifts every Christmas, such as flashlights and screwdrivers.
But I always got the most practical gifts of all from him: books.
CHAPTER ONE
David doesn’t remember meeting Jake Lourdes. He imagines it’s irrelevant, how they met, though he’s sure the media would consider it fated. Important.
In all likelihood, David met Lourdes somewhere in the multiplicity of tournaments: Lake Placid, London, Rochester, a blur of Southern Ontario and upstate New York. He doesn’t remember it, but if he asked one of the reporters bunched in front of him, microphones in his face, he’s sure they could tell him, tell him it was a handshake line in Lake Placid or an illegal hit in London or neighbouring urinals in Rochester. He’s sure they know.
He doesn’t, however, nor does he much care. It’s irrelevant. There’s no point wondering.
David has known Jake Lourdes’ name since he was fourteen years old. Has played him since he was sixteen, new to the U18s and shaking with pride, just to watch Lourdes and his team hand them silver with a smug grin. Turned it around when he was seventeen, captain now, facing Lourdes, captain himself, and serving the States that silver medal right between their teeth.
They have been advertised as rivals since people figured out they would be important, the brash American and the polite Canadian, like they’re national figures instead of teenage boys. When Canada bows to the US for Gold, David feels that rivalry, with Lourdes’ grin so obnoxious he wants to knock it off his face. When Canada wins the next year and he shakes hands on the other side of losing, he bets Lourdes feels the same.
But mostly the labels don’t even make sense. David is polite with the media because of course he is; who would be rude to people who can make all the difference in your career? Lourdes is brash and cocky in a way that the media paints as quintessentially American but is the province of teenage boys the world over.
They’re the assured first and second draft picks, though no one’s sure which of them is going first and which of them is going second. Either way it’s to a terrible team, and either way it’s an honour, so David doesn’t care at all, except in all the ways he does.
*
On draft day, David’s hands shake so much he can’t tie his tie. He has to stop, breathe in, out, will his hands still, before he tries again. It still isn’t right, and he reties it once, twice, before it finally satisfies him. He puts on his cufflinks, a present from his agent, with hands that have already started to shake again. They’re lucky cufflinks. He’s decided that, even though he’s not generally superstitious. They’re lucky cufflinks, and they’re going to take him to first place.