Chapter Text
Jack wakes up on Saturday morning to the alarming realization that he has no plans for the weekend ahead. He rolls over and stares blankly at the ceiling, Monsieur Éléphant trapped dolefully against his right ear.
His first weekend in Pawtucket had been filled with setting up his apartment and saying goodbye to his parents. His second weekend had been pure exhaustion from his first week with the new team. His third weekend had been brimming with the light and energy that were Shitty and Lardo. Next Saturday, he has plans to drive out to the Cape to see his uncles but this weekend is … empty. He doesn’t even have the kids to work with this morning because now that school is out for the summer the Saturday-morning open skate will be on hiatus until after Labor Day.
He’d negotiated to start his contract June 1st because he didn’t want the months after graduation to buckle under the weight of future expectations. He knows from experience that’s a recipe for disaster -- he’d rather just get on with it. But that decision has its own set of consequences, including the fact that during the off-season the majority of his new teammates aren’t around all that much. He’s been going to skate every morning and do his cardio and strength training at the team’s in-house gym and while there’s usually a handful of guys there every day, he’s the only one who’s there every day and they’re starting to look at him funny. Even the few guys who’ve stayed in town after Memorial Day will start to drift off -- Dan and Chris will head back to Toronto to spend six weeks or so with their families; Pogs has plans to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail with Bean; Dev is headed off to something that’s actually called “beer school” somewhere in the north of England.
In short, Jack has more free time to do as he pleases since he could count his age in single digits. And he no longer has any idea how he used to cope.
He reaches for his phone and checks for messages, but nothing to give shape to his day has come in over the nighttime hours. Bitty must still be asleep, which given the time -- only 6:13 -- isn’t surprising.
So he’ll go for a run, and shower, and then …
Jack remembers, suddenly, that Lardo and Shitty had enthused about the Hokusai exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts the weekend before. He hasn’t been to the MFA since his art history class took a field trip there during his first semester at Samwell. Going to museums is a thing that adults do, right? And he realizes that he doesn’t need the excuse of other people’s plans -- he can actually make the decision to go somewhere on his own.
He’ll take a book in case things get awkward.
Jack decides while he’s in the shower to take the commuter rail into Boston, in part because he rarely got to take the train while he was at Samwell. His therapist is up in Boston, within shouting distance of Back Bay Station, but it takes as long to drive from Samwell to the closest station as it does to drive or take the Samwell shuttle into the city so Jack had never had an excuse to ride the train. He parks his car at the South Attelboro station, one of a dozen or so vehicles clustered near the platform. He’s made it in time for the 8:35 train. He’s dressed in jeans and a Cape Playhouse t-shirt from 2013, hoping the scruffy messenger bag and the fact that he’s wearing his prescription glasses and not his contacts will stop most random hockey fans from realizing who he is. The glasses usually work because Bob has always had 20/20 vision and the thin wire frames of Jack’s glasses blur the shape of his cheekbones and brow just enough to throw people off the scent.
Settling into an empty row on the train as it picks up speed out of the station, Jack fishes his phone out of his bag and texts Bitty:
Going into Boston today.
Where should I eat lunch?
He checks his email while he has the phone on -- there’s a message from his mother and the rest is all junk -- but no response from Bitty is forthcoming which probably means he’s still asleep. Unless he’s asleep, driving, or at Camp working in the kitchen, Bitty typically responds to texts from Jack in less than thirty seconds. If Jack hadn’t witnessed Bitty in action, he would have sworn there was no way Eric ever did anything except stare at his device waiting for Jack to send him a message.
He tucks his phone back into his bag, next to his camera, and pulls out the book on Frederick Law Olmsted he checked out from the library earlier in the week. He’d picked it up because he knew Olmsted had designed the park behind his parents’ house in Montréa,l and discovered reading the flap copy that he’d also done a lot of work in Boston. Maybe that's part of why Jack has always felt comfortable in the city.
In an hour the train is pulling into Ruggles. Jack exits the station and walks down through the quiet Northeastern campus to Huntington Avenue, then crosses to the Museum of Fine Arts side. He’s still has a quarter of an hour before the museum opens for the day, so he walks around to the north entrance and takes pictures of the freaky baby heads because he knows that Ransom and Holster will enjoy being creeped out by them. Then he follows a herd of geese across The Fenway and wanders toward the playing field where a knot of people are out running their dogs and over to the right, on the green by the pond, a group of seniors are doing exercises.
Jack checks his phone again and finally finds a string of texts from Eric who’s woken up a few minutes before.
What are you doing in Boston?
Are you seeing Lardo and Shitty?
What neighborhood will you be in -- OMG have you ever been to Flour??
Shitty and Chowder and I stopped there once after a movie
AMAZING
And if you miss the lattes from Annie’s?
Pavement Coffee
When I was there in May they were doing this thing called a Death Cream
Or, also, the Iced Mint Latte
It’s hidden on their seasonal menu, just ask for it.
Jack smiles and texts back:
I’m going to an exhibit at the MFA.
I realized I had a free day and thought why not?
Lardo and Shitty said the Hokusai exhibit is good.
It was kind of an impulsive trip so I’m here on my own.
It’s nice.
I haven’t spoken to anyone all day!
:-O
Eric responds:
It’s just after 10:00 so Jack makes his way back to the museum and stands in line to pay for his ticket, then checks his shoulder bag and makes his way through the winding hallway to the inner courtyard where the stairs descend to the special exhibition galleries.
It’s peaceful inside the dim galleries, where the prints and paintings are lit by pools of specially-calibrated light.
There are benches arranged at the center of several galleries, and after he’s drunk his fill of the vast landscapes -- simultaneously wildly vicious and deeply calming -- Jack sits next to an elderly man who’s dozing off over his cane and watches a group of teenagers titter over the pornographic volumes tucked away in a corner case. Museums are a good place for anonymous people-watching, Jack realizes, because most visitors are here to see what’s on the walls and in the cases rather than one another. He watches couples old and young wander by hand in hand, parents herding their offspring didactically, tour groups led by crisp museum docents, a few people, like himself, who appear to have come on their own.
Jack and his mother used to visit museums a lot, when he was a kid and the three of them -- Jack and his parents -- traveled more than they were home. Alicia and Bob had always felt that staying together as a family was a priority, and they had the money so where Bob traveled Alicia and Jack followed. He’s been to every city in North America where NHL hockey games are played and more than two dozen foreign countries on four separate continents. And rather than hiring tutors, Alicia had taken Jack out exploring wherever they landed. Museums and libraries, she’d argued, were as useful to a curious child as textbooks and classrooms. Jack had a library card as soon as he could sign his name. It was from his mother that he’d learned to always carry a book when traveling. “Rude men will rarely question your decision to dine alone if you have your nose in an inscrutable book,” Alicia had claimed. Over the years, Jack’s been witness to a few men whose entitlement or obliviousness has transcended this rule of thumb, but in general can testify to its effect: Whether she’s sitting at a cafe in Paris or a sports bar in Boulder, Alicia’s reading choices can repel 98% of all unwanted overtures.
Jack pulls out his phone, again, and takes a selfie for Bitty next to one of his favorite paintings. The light is a little dim, but Eric still texts back:
Jack writes:
So tell me where the closest place for one of those mint lattes is?
He’ll go sit in a coffee shop somewhere with his nose in a book and enjoy peace among strangers.