Chapter 357: Jennifer VI—In No Good Condition

Jennifer’s chest hurt, above all things. She scowled and tried to catch her breath. She hadn’t felt this horrible in the climate since first moving here with Adam. Coughing, she dropped her hockey stick and crouched over, sucking in all the precious oxygen she could in this thin air. Thick mucous loosened in her windpipe and she stared at the bluish white, scraped ice, and she finally understood why these men felt the need to spit.

“You okay, hon?” Cammi Granato asked.

Jennifer peered at the woman’s thin, distinctly cut face. “Sure, I’m just acclimating, you know.”

Cammi lifted and amused eyebrow. “Haven’t you been living here for awhile Jenn?”

Jennifer scowled, “Yeah but not playing hockey here!” She sniffled, her nose runny like a child’s. Whose idea was this anyway? Well it stank!

Cammi nodded. “Hey, Jenn take a break, drink some water, and take a breather if you can’t handle it.” Cammi tilted her chin down and gave Jennifer a long, pointed look.

Jennifer swallowed and stood up straight and narrowed her eyes, even though her heart slammed angrily in her chest and her head felt funny and airy, she looked straight at Cammi. “I can handle it I just needed a deep breath!” She closed her eyes when Cammi turned around and made a face. For one thing, the goaltending gear she wore was heavy, smelly and just generally not at all helpful for her movement. How any man could make a living out of this crap was beyond her. Her cheeks blushed and she thought of Patrick and then pushed him out of her mind.

“Oh she’s such a coach, she’s got in her head I think that we’re going to be her next Olympic team or something. Hell, were hotter at least, if anything,” Josefina said in a labored voice. Jennifer looked at her face, gorgeous even sweaty, one of those types of women. “Can I have some water?”

“Sure.” Jennifer handed the bottle to Jo and squinted at her. Jo’s face seemed somewhat blurry, wobbly. She blinked and tried to clear her head. The sound of the water bottle squirting nauseated Jennifer somewhat and she cringed.

“What’s wrong?” Jo asked.

“Ah,” Jennifer sighed. “I think it’s the flu or something, just a touch of it. I haven’t been able to shake it since Christmas.” She blew out through her mouth and sucked in another breath of air.

“You got the muscle cramps, and nausea?”

Jennifer nodded. “Yeah it gets worse in the afternoon; I’ll shake it sooner or later I guess.” She tried to cough but couldn’t find the strength to so she ended up with a wet, rattling sounding hack getting a wrinkled nose and a step back from Jo.

“Man that sounds pretty bad, you sure you should be here?”

Jennifer laughed. “Yeah, I’m just being a baby. And I don’t wanna tell General Granato to her face I can’t do this, or ask any of you guys to.”

Josefina grinned. “Can you imagine?” She laughed and leaned forward narrowing her eyes and smirking like a girl. “Actually I wake up in the middle of the night scared and apologizing for not cranking more power into that puck.”

“Crank some more power into that puck!” Cammi’s voice cracked through the arena, bouncing off the walls and ice. “Stop hitting it like a little boy, hit it like a GIRL! Come on you pansies!”

Jennifer giggled and Josefina put the back of her arm against her lips to stifle hers. All of the women had fast realized that instinctively putting the fingers over the mouth in those gloves left a foul stink in the nostrils and a bad taste in the mouth. The back of the arm did in a pinch. “Christ there she goes again, I’m scarred!”

“When is the damn game anyway?” Jennifer asked and her head felt better and her lungs felt fresher. It felt nice talking with Jo like this; the woman was actually pretty cool. She reminded Jennifer of the cool girl in eighth grade you smoked cigarettes with in the bathroom before sharing a red lipstick. Tammy be damned Jennifer decided she liked Josefina.

“On the eleventh isn’t it?” Jo said, “That’s what, five days from now?”

“Christ I think it’s the seventh!” Jennifer gasped. “Four days! We’re supposed to do this in front of a paying audience in four days?”

Jo’s eyes widened. She half grinned. “Maybe the guys’ll go easy on us?”

“YO JO!”

Josefina cringed. “Yeah Cap’n?”

“Are you a goalie?” Cammi snipped.

“Nope,” Jo replied in a dull voice.

“Well then get your pretty ass over here glamour puss, what are you hanging around over there for?”

Jo rolled her eyes. “I was thirsty!”

“Yeah you’re breaking my heart,” Cammi replied. “Come on I wanna see your shot, you’re not getting out of this one.”

“Yes, master,” Jo replied and she skated over to the rest of the group.

Jennifer smiled and leaned back into her net. She yawned and watched the women skating and shooting and laughing and groaning. Truthfully she didn’t feel at all left out or board being a goalie cause she didn’t want to rough house like them over there. They could tire themselves out she got the easy job. Her head throbbed with pain again, and good riddance to that!

“CRANK it Jo don’t shoot it like a boy! Come on, Cecile get over here, show her how it’s done, now look at Cecile, she’s got good form and she whacks the shit outta that…. Oh sorry songbird I forgot you don’t like cussing….”

Jennifer yawned again.

“I’m bored.”
Jennifer smiled at Brandi who seemed the part of a pouting goalie. “Are ya Brandi? It’s okay at least; I mean we don’t have to break our necks really.”

Brandi shrugged. “I don’t like having to do it period. I bet Alex’s new girlfriend would never stoop to do this.”

Jennifer smiled, smelling new gossip. “Alex has a girlfriend?”

Brandi nodded. “Yes, that actress, Tom Cruise’s girlfriend I don’t know if he stole her or they’re sharing.” She smiled at the end of her words.

Jennifer felt her eyes widen, almost as if glitter had been thrown into them. “What? Haha I thought that was a rumor! It’s not true!”

Brandi shrugged. “Well some portion of it is, I guess. I mean Robbie was really certain about everything. He even said that she called him on his cell phone to congratulate him on his hat trick yesterday night.”

Jennifer swallowed she felt excited and a little nervous wondering how it would be to have a movie star in the fold. “Did she, but did she come visit him? Are they really dating?”

Brandi giggled. “That’s where Alex is frustrating everyone. You know how much of a gentleman he is Robbie says that Alex won’t really see her because she’s officially attached to someone else. How cute is that?”

Jennifer nodded. Pretty damn cute. One thing about Alex Tanguay was the boy’s incurable cuteness. In fact she didn’t like the idea of him getting tangled with some self centered foreign actress, he was too sweet for that! He felt too much like everyone’s little brother making her certain that everyone else felt the same way. “Well has he said anything else, is she dumping Tom?” Omigod Jennifer thought I just talked about Tom Cruise already as if he were a casual acquaintance! Her stomach zinged with excitement and she laughed and then….

Something didn’t feel right. She lifted the left corner of her lip and shook of her glove. She pressed her hand over her waist. Her nose filled with a bad smell, something coming from within, a metallic taste filled her mouth and her head felt as if something pressed in on it from all around. She bent forward and closed her eyes, her forehead was caving in she knew it.

“Jennifer are you okay?” Brandi’s voice warm now bereft of all petulance and selfishness.

“No,” Jennifer said and she felt her mouth fill with spit and her skin burned all over and she knew what was going to happen, she felt embarrassed but she couldn’t stop it. It felt like a water balloon inside her popped and the contents came rushing up her throat. She saw a mouthful of her vomit splatter onto the ice and she felt the ice against her cheek as she lost consciousness.

Her mouth tasted sour and her throat felt raw when she woke up with an acrid piss like smell in her nostrils and she sat up, feeling so much more lighter realizing that she was on the cool ice and her gear had been stripped off. Her head was cradled in someone’s lap and she squinted at all the faces around her. “Water,” she whispered. But before the water touched her lips she passed out again.

“I think I just worked myself over too much, you know practicing for this thing,” Jennifer sighed, gulping down a paper cup full of water and looking at her doctor who had come into the room with a clipboard. “And I’ve been fighting the flu, it’s not that bad but I overworked myself.” Stupid of me to faint, she thought feeling embarrassed and so, so helpless. The only good thing had been Adam’s tenderness towards her.

“You don’t have the flu, that’s the good news,” the doctor said.

Jennifer sighed. “Oh good, then there should be no problem in me playing then, I must have been a little dehydrated then.”

“You’re not playing in any game,” the doctor replied. “You’re in no good condition to do that.”

“Why not?” Jennifer asked narrowing her eyes. She wouldn’t mind an excuse not to play in the game but not at the expense of her permanent health.

“Because you’re pregnant, dear.”

Jennifer jumped off the bed, her heart cracked and shattered with shock and she closed her eyes, feeling nauseated all over again and a million images went through her head, babies, her babies, crying babies, diapers, Adam smiling and crying and holding the infants, Patrick’s face and his body and she bit her lip. When she opened her eyes again, she saw her doctor take a step back from her.

“Is that a bad thing?”

Jennifer shook her head. She couldn’t remember if Patrick had consistently used a condom, that’s the only thing that raced through her mind. Had Patrick used protection, had she made him use it? Oh God was this Adam’s? Please… God…. “I don’t know,” Jennifer whispered. She only wanted Adam now, only wanted him to hold her and she wanted to apologize to him but she knew that he would never understand, and she couldn’t either.