Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Look, I wasn’t an idiot. I needed help and though I didn’t think my game was a hopeless case, I was more than open to tips from a couple of former NHL stars. And…Vinnie’s agent was one of the biggest in the business. I needed that kind of clout behind me if I wanted a spot on a team this year. But…kids and Bingo and volunteering? Fuck me.
There had to be an easier way.
If there was an easier way, I couldn’t figure it out on my own. Sometimes you just had to pull on your big boy pants, take a few deep breaths, and slap a smile on your face before walking into the lion’s den—aka, church Bingo at Town Hall on Friday night…or late afternoon.
According to my folks, Bingo was bigger than ever in Elmwood and Friday nights were lit.
“Oh, honey, it’s a hoot,” Mom had enthused. “The seventy-five-and-older crowd take the first shift in the early afternoon and it’s a free-for-all after six p.m., but once a month, elementary school kids play. We host Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, hockey teams, and anyone under ten looking for fun after school. We serve cookies and punch, and the prizes are geared toward their age group…anything from a bag of popcorn to a stuffed animal. It’s become very popular.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’ Are you in charge now or something?”
“No, but I still volunteer. Unfortunately, not this Friday. But if you’re going to be there, maybe we’ll swing by.”
I’d quickly kiboshed that idea. “Don’t bother. I’ll be there ten minutes, tops.”
Forty minutes later, I was still at Town Hall, having my ear talked off by an overzealous dad who was pretty damn sure his six-year-old was the next Great One. And yes, of course, I’d gone to school with him. Archie Menlo was a nice guy. He’d been two grades ahead of me and had been skinny as a rail with a mop of blond curls and a habit of high-fiving everyone on campus. He was balding now and had a beer belly, but he was still Mr. Friendly.
Archie’s sister, Krista, was there with her eight-year-old son. Both cousins, Jack and Jason, were enrolled in Mighty Mites, and wasn’t this amazing?
Yeah. Uh-huh. Amazing.
The truly amazing part was that either my brother, Oren, or I had gone to school with at least one parent of every kid at the Mighty Mites Bingo table. There was no way to politely say hi and walk away from a group of enthusiastic hockey fans and former classmates who were jazzed to have a professional coaching their little darlings.
I supposed it was inevitable that there’d be questions about how I’d ended up in Elmwood at the start of the regular season, but no one pressed for details. I said I’d cut ties with the Sea Snappers and was looking for a new home, and that was that. They took it in stride as if there were no shame whatsoever in bunking in my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house, and they seemed genuinely happy to have me on board.
And their kids were…cute. I’d been told we had twelve on the roster, and met eight of them at Bingo: three girls and five boys. They’d glanced up from their boards distractedly and gave a perfunctory “Hi, Coach” when Archie introduced me, wiggling in their chairs while undoubtedly willing me to keep it short and not mess with their mojo—the number caller wasn’t stopping, and there were prizes on the line.
Their manic concentration was kind of funny.
“Geez, if they’re this focused on the ice, this is gonna be a piece of cake,” I joked.
“Ha! That’s a nice dream,” a young mom piped in. “They’ll keep you on your toes, but there’s something to be said for spontaneity and—”
She broke off just as the winning number was called and two of the new hockey players simultaneously burst into tears. That was my cue.
I said good-bye and headed for the exit at the far end of the hall. I was almost home free, but in my haste to avoid running into an old schoolmate or a friend of the family, I nearly bowled over the guy standing in front of the caller’s table.
What do you know? It was Ivan, the latte man.
“You again,” I teased, grabbing his elbow to steady him. “We have to stop running into each other like—”
“I have alcohol and I’m willing to spike your lemonade,” he intercepted, tugging my shirt and pointing at a small wire cage filled with tiny balls. “Just…call these numbers.”
“Huh?”
“Please. We used to do this together, remember?”
“We did? What are you talking about?”
The flash of hurt on his face was hard to miss, but he recovered quickly.
“I’m the only one manning the booth and if I don’t deliver these prizes, we’ll all lose our hearing for the night. This is Combat Bingo for kids and we don’t have the budget for consolation prizes, so…pretty please.” Ivan spun the wire cage, opened the hinge, and pulled out a tiny white ball, then handed me the mic. “Here you go. Read this one and four more. I’ll be right back.”