Chapter 599: Foppa XXXVIII--A Little Bit Wacko

Chapter 599: Foppa XXXVIII—A Little Bit Wacko

 

            Peter woke up when Josefina did, she’d jostled him when she sat up and stretched. He opened his eyes and yawned. Jo looked at him, and she smiled, lying back down. “I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”

            “Yup.”

            Josefina did not seem at all sorry. She kissed him and ran her hand along his cheek. “You slept all night tiger.”

            Peter yawned again. This time he stretched. Hunger shook his empty belly, and fatigue nagged at his joints. Actually, he couldn’t remember coming back to the hotel room or getting into bed last night. Although they hadn’t been out drinking, the evening’s action must have really drained his system more than he’d care to admit.

            “You did great in the skills competition, honey.”

            Peter’s eyes widened. “What? I didn’t do well at all.” Not that he minded her sweetness in attempting to comfort his bruised little ego. Only women did things like that for a man, ah, Peter loved them so!

            Jo frowned, however. “What? Didn’t you hit all of those plates on the goal? What are those things made out of anyway? Syrofoam?”

            Oh, wow, was she joking? Peter wrinkled his nose. “Uh, no, that wasn’t me. That was Alfredsson.” Damn Swedish countryman.

            “Who?”

            “Daniel.”

            Josefina seemed irritated now, of course, by now Peter knew that she despised being corrected in any way. “Who?”

            Annoyance nagged at Peter as well, by now. He’d assumed Jo were a little more perceptive than the average disinterested hockey girlfriend. “Alfredsson, Daniel Alfredsson.” It irritated him even more to have to say the bastard’s name so many times in one morning. Actually, he had no real beef with Alfredsson, but he did object to his girlfriend confusing their identities.

            “Oh… who hit the plates then?”

            “ALFREDSSON!”

            “Oh.” Jo’s voice and expression drained and fell to disappointment. She scratched awkwardly at the back of her head and cleared her throat. “Oh…what did you do?”

            By now, Peter knew he should feel insulted. Obviously, the love of his life couldn’t tell him apart from any other strawberry blond Swede, and that’s not good! But her question, perhaps meant to irk him, tinged a bell of delight. “I got a goal on Patty.” Ah, it’d been so sweet! In the breakaway relay he’d been the only one to cut in, to get that goal past Patrick, denied him an otherwise perfect score for the goaltending competition! Oh, Patty had glared at him, he’d pouted, he’d cussed in French!

            Jo’s brow wrinkled. “Did you?”

            “Yup.”

            Jo squinted. “No you didn’t! That other Swedish guy got a goal on Patty. I remember because Mimi cursed him out.”

            “What? Who?” Jolted, Peter sat up, annoyed that his lone goal on his teammate had been shown up.

            “That Alfredsson guy.”

            “Honey…”

            But here, Josefina grinned, a slow Cheshire stretch that gave away her teasing game. “Yes?”

            Peter sighed. “Nothing.”

            Peter got up and jumped into the shower after he and Jo shared a breakfast of croissants and jelly. Counting the fat calories didn’t seem to apply on this vacation, and it warmed him through to she Jo thoroughly enjoying the warm, buttery rolls. He thought about yesterday. All in all, he’d been pleased with it. All sorts of amusing things had happened. Although, Peter hadn’t witnessed the majority of it first hand, he’d heard about it from some of the other guys.

            Apparently the kids, which of course meant the seed of Patrick Roy, had gotten the entire arena worked up over kidnapping accusations against Wayne Gretzky…or something. Either way, they’d managed to bring Chris Chelios into it somehow, either way that had resulted in Cheli being “sporked” by Jana Roy. None of it made sense, but the thought of Joe Sakic losing his head and verbally assaulting “The Great One” was too much! He chuckled as he thought about it.

            The skills competition hadn’t gone as good for Peter as he’d wanted. His aim definitely was not working like he’d wanted but getting that breakaway goal on Patty. Ah, so cool! Now he needed to make a point of scoring one on the crazy goal during the game itself. The only mar he could think of about the night, was actually one of his goalie teammates. Nikolai Khabibhulin for some reason kept twitching and cackling and insisting on being called “The Baron”. It seemed even stranger to see Alexei Kovalev haplessly doting on Nikolai as if he were some actual royal personage. Maybe it’s one of those mob things? Either way, Russians like them gave European players a bad name.

            What had really heartened Peter, however, was seeing Mike Modano having such a good time. Mike laughed and hung out with the other North American guys, performed wonderfully in his skills, and joked to the cameras. To Peter, it all really seemed genuine and it added to an immense sense of relief for him. This showed that Mike could be a bigger person, he could actually “get over” things and not harp on being the victim like some dumb girl. Good work Mikey Mo, good work.

            When Peter came out of the bathroom, he found Jo still wrapped in a sheet and watching television. When he asked her if she wanted to get up and get some air, Jo lazily flipped her wrist in his direction and told him that she really just wanted to lounge in bed and watch television. If he wanted to go out and have some fun, she didn’t mind. In fact, why didn’t he do that?

            Cool.

            For the most part of the morning, Peter walked around the shopping area. He bought himself some new shoes and a jacket. Feeling completely generous, he even went into a couple of designer stores and selected a nice expensive pair of stilettos to surprise Jo with when they got home. He knew her passion devastating shoes and couldn’t wait to see her face when she saw these toe-snapping, ankle-ripping babies.

            Around early afternoon, he passed a newsstand and his attention was caught up by a flimsy tabloid cover which blared in proud black ink, “Aliens Take Over the NHL.” Peter’s eyebrows slid up and he picked up the periodical which declared itself a “Special All-Star Edition of the Los Angeles Tattler”. Peter grinned. Well, this was too good to pass up. He bought the tabloid and took it to a bench where he sat down to read it. The front page picture purported to be a cell phone picture taken by someone who witnessed NHL player Alex Tanguay and a group of children disappearing from the Staples Center to go to some sort of alien spaceship.

            Wouldn’t Patty love this as a keepsake?

            Side articles included allegations that Wayne Gretzky had an evil twin, and that the most powerful Chinese Triad in California had successfully established ties to the NHL. Would they mean Alex and Danny? Peter laughed. Ah, what a great read! Another article featured photographs of Alex Tanguay and Penelope Cruz together, and the hint that Alex might become the most powerful man in the NHL in a few years. Better yet, was another article about hockey stars with a photograph of Chris Drury mislabeled as being of Colorado Avalanche Captain Joe Sakic.

            Smaller articles were not as interesting, they were on genetic testing in vegetables and the possibility of a mysterious virus jumping from dairy cows to humans. Wasn’t that cow-pox? Wasn’t that medieval news? Ha. Peter folded the periodical neatly, intending to give it to Patty straight off, as a gag gift after scoring on him at the skills competition.

            “Hey, Peter! Peter Forsberg!”

            Peter looked up and saw the pleasant smile of Phil Keating, that local television reporter who’d trailed the Avalanche players to Los Angeles. “Hi there.”

            Really, he didn’t feel like doing an interview but he supposed he could put on a polite smile for about ten minutes if Keating asked.

            “Did you hear the news?”

            Forsberg thought about it. Ah, yes! He remembered what everyone buzzed about last night. Patty had been fined twenty thousand dollars for skipping out on a press conference. “Sure. I heard.”

            “You did?” Phil seemed genuinely surprised.

            “Yeah, about Patty?”

            Phil grinned now. “No! About you!” He pointed.

            Ah, now Peter felt a zing of worry and confusion. “What about me?”

            “It’s crazy!” Phil threw his arms in the air and then rubbed his hands together.

            “What?!” By now the only thing Peter could think of was a trade, but that was impossible because of the trade freeze imposed during the All Star weekend.

            “Well…you guys haven’t been doing that great lately…”

            Peter narrowed his eyes. Maybe not a trade as a done deal, but perhaps a confirmed trade rumor set to go off after the All Star break? Peter readied himself for this shock. Where would Pierre have sent him and for whom? This was crazy!

            Phil held out his hands, “And Joe Sakic really didn’t ingratiate himself with Wayne Gretzky with that incident, you know, accusing him of kidnapping his son. Wayne was really pissed. He went straight to Pierre. I hear everyone was embarrassed!”

            Peter jumped to his feet, horrified. “Joe’s been TRADED?”

            Phil shook his head. “You’ve been made the new team captain.”

            A mix of horror and elation swirled in Peter’s gut. Actually, Peter had no idea what to say or do. “Wow…”

            “Yeah?”

            Peter breathed. “Patty’s going to KILL me.”