30. There’s No Crying In Snowball

30

THERE'S NO CRYING IN SNOWBALL

PATRICK

Quinn and Team Poinsettia are clobbering us. They pick off my teammates one by one without breaking a sweat.

Who is this guy? I think of Quinn. I narrowly dodge a lumpy snowball hurled at my torso. I would be more impressed if I weren't so winded and afraid of losing. Quinn's got a speed and grace I don't think I've ever seen from him.

Smartly, only half his team is playing offense. They're running up to the line and attacking. The other half is building snow mounds. They use them as places to hide and catch their breath. I had not considered this strategy. I wonder if Quinn is the one who came up with it. He is brilliant. I just didn't know that brilliance extended to sports.

I run for our snowball supply. My team's morale is low. Half of them are already out. They stand around kicking snow on the sidelines. They're barely even cheering. They've forecasted our loss.

I summon my second wind by packing a tight snowball and javelin-tossing it across the center line. It strikes an elf. She lands on her butt and slides several inches back. Score!

The game goes on like that for thirty more minutes. The crowd's enthusiasm never wanes for even a second. Quinn and I remain in contention as our teammates meet their fates.

Even after so long together, I'm unable to anticipate Quinn's moves on the field. When I go left, he goes right. It frustrates me. I know he's not trying to embarrass me. But he kind of is. I'm the new Santa around here. The big man. A loss could be a blemish on my reputation. Hargraves don't stand for things like that.

In a Hail Mary move, I charge forward despite knowing I'm a large, moving target. I have to do this. Now or never. I take aim at Quinn's final teammate. I nail him right in the shoulder as he attempts to swerve.

The large clock over our heads switches from the upticking timer to a ten-second countdown that zeroes out before either Quinn or I can get a good throw in at the other.

"Showdown!" the announcer shouts. The stands go wild as I try to muster a third wind.

Quinn and I retreat to our sides. Two of the referees run out to the middle and place two perfectly round snowballs within reaching-distance. And then, using brushes, they dust away the centerline.

There are no more sides. The whole field is fair game.

There's the faintest hint of a smile on Quinn's lips. He licks them like he's tasting victory.

I shake my head. He has no idea I've got him right where I want him.

Only, my cockiness might end up being my downfall. Because when the whistle sounds, I'm slow to react. Quinn has his snowball already. And now I'm rushing to find cover.

I don't know how it happens. All I know is that I make a mad rush for my last and only weapon and end up splattered in ice, snow, and the bitter nip of shame.

A pair of peppermint martinis are delivered to our VIP suite after the dust has settled. The funneled, chilled glasses have chocolate coating around the rims, which are sprinkled with crushed candy cane bits. Hobart sets our tray down and dips out.

Quinn and I clink our glasses together. "Quite the game," Quinn says. "I hadn't imagined such a jolly people being so aggressive out on the field."

The acrobatic ways these elves could dodge throws and jump over barricades were both impressive and mind-boggling. I make a noncommittal grunt in agreement.

I keep my eyes on the field. I don't mean to be short with Quinn. But my fuse for failure is burnt out after getting fired and nearly chewed out by my family over Christmas dinner.

Quinn must sense this. "Please don't tell me you're mad that my team won."

"I'm not mad," I say. I hate that the heat blossoming on my neck is probably leaching onto my cheeks and betraying my words.

"Angry? Frustrated? Annoyed? All three? Come on, I do this all the time with my students. I'm good at helping them identify which emotion they're experiencing," he says.

"I'm not a second grader," I snap. Even though I know that's not what he meant. I'm sore and tense all over.

"I know you're not, so don't act like one." Quinn takes a big swill of his martini.

He's right. I'm being a baby. A big, immature baby. "I'm sorry." My shame magnifies. Good thing what happens in the North Pole stays in the North Pole. My dad and my brother would love to rag on me about this.

"Don't be sorry. Just tell me what's going on," Quinn says. "We live in the Arctic, I'm not letting you ice me out anymore."

I can't resist a corny joke. "You know my family, Quinn. You know losers are basically not allowed a seat at the table."

Quinn sets his martini down to deliver this. "One loss does not make you a loser."

"Two losses."

"What?"

"I lost my job, remember?" I hang my head.

Quinn lets out an understanding noise. "Losing something that isn't serving you is a win."

My chest contracts with a new kind of panic. He isn't talking about us, is he? Since arriving, we've been much more connected. "Sometimes," I say. So he doesn't think that's a hard-and-fast rule.

"Patrick, you are a talented architect. When we leave here, you will be able to start over," Quinn says with confidence building behind his words. "You have a great portfolio, Jason will give you a glowing reference, and you're going to crush Kacey's project."

"Shit," I mutter. "I really need to figure out how I'm going to finish that while I'm here."

"You really do, but let's not bother with that right now." Quinn reaches for my hand. "Right now, let's just sit back, enjoy the second game, and get more of these martinis because they're delicious." He tips his glass upside down to show that he's already finished. I haven't even started.

I finally take a sip. "Wow, they really are delicious." I go to down more of it.

"Okay, slow your roll, Santa. Losing would be the least of your worries if you get blackout drunk," Quinn says with a light laugh. "Besides, I want you to remember how I kicked your ass."

I roll my eyes, despite enjoying this interesting cocksure side of him. "By the way, where the hell did all of that come from?"

Quinn's face flames the color of the Team Poinsettia puffer coats. "What do you mean?" he asks in a way that suggests he knows exactly what I mean. He sighs heavily before launching into it. "Remember when I told you my dad coached a Little League baseball team when I was a kid?"

I nod. Even though I'm uncertain where he's going with this. "Yeah, you told me he was pretty obsessive about it and that you never wanted any part of it."

"That wasn't entirely the truth," Quinn says. "The first year he coached he had signed up because he wanted me to play. He had been a star high school athlete, and he had aspirations for me."

A flash of the Christmas card we got from Mr. Muller and his second wife, Sharon, plus their kids appears in my mind. Both of his boys are wearing baseball jerseys and holding gloves. I even remember there being something in his handwritten note, included in the envelope, about his oldest son getting a starting position on his travel team. I didn't pay much attention at the time. He's not a part of our lives, but clearly, he's still looming over Quinn.

"And you couldn't live up to those aspirations?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "No, I was actually amazing." He snorts reproachfully into his empty cocktail glass.

I chuckle at this. "You're kidding."

"I wish I was." He sets his glass down with a clink. "Even at eleven, I had clearly inherited my dad's talent. It was a low-stakes, recreational league but we were crushing the competition every weekend, and I was the star player."

I can't wrap my head around this. It's so antithetical to the unathletic guy Quinn's always projected himself to be. "Wait, the first time you brought me over to your mom's place, she had that old baseball card–style magnet on her fridge of you in a batting helmet. I didn't say anything, but I saw you take it down and stick it in a drawer so I wouldn't see it. I assumed you were embarrassed."

He says, "I was, just not for the reasons you probably assumed. I was the star player that helped take us all the way to the championship, which is laughably small potatoes thinking about it now, but it was big then, especially to my dad who was a first-year coach and always bragging about how well we were doing to our neighbors. The night before the final game, I got up to use the bathroom and heard my parents arguing. Their bedroom door was open a crack." His gaze wanders away dolorously as referees and snowball rollers prep the field for the second game.

"What were they arguing about?" I ask.

"Everything and nothing. That's how it always went," he says. It's as if he's watching the scene from his childhood played out on one of the JumboTrons hovering above us. "But my dad shut down the argument by saying, ‘You're going to wake Quinn. He's got a big game tomorrow. It's very important. To both of us. He needs to be rested. We need to win. Winning is going to make him into a man.' My dad was always saying stuff like that to my mom, ‘More veggies will make him into a man' or ‘Babying him less will make him into a man.' Then, I heard him start collecting stuff, which made me worried he was packing a bag to leave us, but then I realized it was just stuff to take down and sleep on the couch. I ran back to my bedroom, heart absolutely racing, one, from almost being caught eavesdropping and two, from the anxiety of maybe not winning. And guess what?"

"You lost?"

He nods glumly. "It was all my fault. I think they call it the yips. If you can even get the yips that young. I fumbled a catch in the outfield that would've kept our lead, which wouldn't have normally mattered because my superpower was my throwing arm. I could've gotten the runner out. Only something short-circuited. I didn't let go on the follow through. The ball made it maybe a foot in front of me before it hit the grass and started to roll. The kid on third base wasn't sure whether to leave his position and run for it or stay, so the kid on the other team got a home run and got the kid who was sitting on second all the way home. My dad was pissed for a long time."

I lean forward in my cushy chair. "I'm sorry. That's ridiculous. It was one bad throw." I have met Mr. Muller only a handful of times. One of those times was our wedding day where we barely exchanged eight words total, one of them being "hi" and another a brief "congratulations."

"It wasn't just one throw, though. It followed me into the next season. It got so bad that I quit after the second game of the second year and refused to try another sport." His shoulders slump as if he's encumbered by this experience all over again. "Because of what he said, I got this idea in my head that I'd never be a man because men in my family were supposed to be athletic. Well, athletic or smart—preferably both—but since I fumbled the bag on the sports part, I threw myself into books."

"There's no one way to be a man," I say. Though I feel hypocritical saying it. Moments ago, I was pouting over losing a silly sports match.

"Sure, right, but that's not something I could internalize at twelve," he says. He shakes his head. "Then, my dad served my mom papers not that long after and I felt like it was all my fault. I wasn't talented or smart enough; I wasn't enough of a man to make him stay."

"Quinn."

He holds up a hand. "I know. I don't believe that anymore, especially after that." With his right hand, he gestures out to the field. The players are beginning to take their positions once more. "That game felt like it exorcised me of something."

"I can't believe," I say, "that I didn't know any of that."

Quinn shrugs. "It never came up and if not for today, I'm not sure I ever would've talked about it."

I grab my drink and finish it off. "I'm glad you did, my secret all-star."

He lets out a little snort-laugh. "Me, too."