Pucking Sweet

“In the first game the Jacksonville Rays play in the NHL, Colton Morrow, the Black kid from Canada who everyone bet against will be the starting right-side defender.”

Colton’s pride at being in the starting lineup in the Rays’ first-ever game intertwines his feelings about his racial identity, national identity, and health history. Being Black in an overwhelmingly white sport as well as someone who has longstanding heart issues makes Colton feel like an outsider at various points, which makes his triumph as the starter even more pointed. His reference to his Canadian origins may refer to his feelings as an outsider as a Canadian living in the United States.

“‘My Poppy girl!’

Mom stands from the table the moment she sees me enter the dining room. She holds her arms out wide, welcoming me into her loving embrace like I’m the prodigal daughter returned […]

‘Why didn’t you wear the Chanel?’ she says in my ear. ‘You always look so pretty in Chanel.’”

Poppy’s interaction with her mother, Annmarie, highlights how Annmarie manipulates her children, something that Poppy must learn to reckon with during the novel. Annmarie’s reference to the “prodigal daughter” refers to an anecdote from the biblical book of Luke in the New Testament, in which the “prodigal son” returns, remorseful, from disobeying his family’s wishes. The reference here highlights how Annmarie sees Poppy’s job as distasteful and her return as an admission of wrongdoing. Her backhanded compliment about how Poppy looks pretty in another outfit (thereby implying that she looks bad in her present outfit) is one of Annmarie’s methods of control; by couching her criticism in a compliment, she makes any objection that Poppy has to this treatment seem unreasonable.

“You’re being hysterical right now. This was clearly a lot for you to digest, so allowances will be made. Anderson wanted us to know that your feelings for him might not be completely gone—”

After Poppy learns that her sister, Violet, is planning to marry her ex-fiancé, Anderson, Poppy’s family rejects her anger as “hysteria.” The use of this particular word invokes a sexist history of dismissing women’s feelings as “hysterical” excess of emotion. In doing so—and in claiming that Poppy is upset due to jealousy, another feeling her parents attempt to dismiss—the St. Jameses highlight the patriarchal values of their insular, wealthy, upper-crust society. Over the course of the novel, Poppy’s character arc involves her facing The Challenges of Craving Familial Validation and growing beyond the need for their approval.

“Seriously, what’s his problem? Always deflection. Always guarding his true thoughts and feelings. He’s a good enough guy, and a ton of fun to be around, but these iron walls and constant dodges make it hard for me to see him as anything other than a teammate.”

Colton here laments that Lukas keeps others at arm’s length when it comes to emotional intimacy. Though Colton’s attempt to “see him as anything other than a teammate” refers, at this point of the novel, to the friendship between them, it foreshadows the way that letting down his emotional walls will be an important hurdle for Lukas when it comes to letting Colton and Poppy in during their romantic relationship, as well.

“I’ve had a couple of stalkers in the past. I even had a woman corner me at my car, trying to get inside. One more reason I prefer no names, no numbers, and no repeats. You can’t get attached with a one-and-done. Call me crass, but safety first.”

Lukas explains his rationale for only having casual sexual encounters. While the novel does not reject Lukas’s logic that wealthy public figures like hockey players are at risk of predatory relationships, it does illustrate that this isn’t Lukas’s true motive for avoiding emotionally intimate relationships. Even in his own rationalization, he moves from physical safety (avoiding stalkers) to emotional safety (not getting attached). Learning that there are rewards that outweigh the risks of emotional intimacy is Lukas’s primary emotional journey in the novel.

“‘This guy looks like he tells all his dates his favorite book is Catcher in the Rye.’

‘I bet you a thousand bucks he says his favorite movies are Apocalypse Now and A Clockwork Orange,’ Jake adds.”

Caleb and Jake reference literature and film (and, in the case of A Clockwork Orange, both) to mock Anderson. All three works that they reference here are linked to notions of hypermasculinity that the novel pushes back against. That Jake and Caleb make these references so easily suggests that they—and, by extension, the Rays broadly—have a more nuanced view of sexuality and gender. The novel thus subverts the idea of athletes as the hypermasculine figures of the text; instead, Anderson and the St. James family are shown to cling to archaic gender ideologies, while the Rays promote more nuanced visions of masculinity that expansively embrace different forms of affection, romance, and sexuality.

“Seriously? We’re not the freaking Medicis, Vi. We’re not the Vanderbilts or even the Kennedys. Mom’s world is fading fast. The rules are changing. We don’t have to play those awful social-climbing games anymore.”

Poppy encourages Violet to break off her engagement with the unfaithful Anderson, even though the marriage would be beneficial for both families. In invoking historical political dynasties, Poppy shows that there are some similarities between these families and the way that the St. Jameses see themselves, even if these overlaps are not as strong as Violet assumes. However, the shift between Violet’s situation and these historical antecedents seems to be one of time; the world, Poppy contends, is changing. She implies that women can have meaningful lives beyond their marriages.

“Who would I be if I didn’t feel this pressure to make my body perform? What would I do if I actually had a choice? If I didn’t have to keep proving everyone wrong?”

Colton reveals his most central emotional arc in the novel. While he is the most assured of the three when it comes to romantic relationships, he must reckon with how central his career as an athlete is to his identity. The effort he puts into his interpersonal relationships ultimately helps him embrace that there is more to life than hockey, something he realizes most pointedly when he needs a career-ending pacemaker at the end of the novel.

“I can’t share her. This is too hard. I liked it better when she was a dream I was chasing, unobtainable and flawless. This real person with raw instincts and moods and needs is too powerful. She’ll devastate me.”

Colton inverts traditional framings about the challenges of unrequited love by highlighting how caring for Poppy from afar was easier. He notes, however, that easier is not necessarily the same as better, as he frames her “instincts and moods and needs” positively as “powerful,” not as something burdensome to him.

“Power and control course through me. I’ve never felt this way during sex with anyone, like I could be in control, like it’s fun to be in control, like the man could willingly cede control.”

Poppy’s reflection about how sex with Lukas and Colton is fun and empowering illustrates the novel’s framing of polyamorous relationships not as salacious but as relationships that can provide needed emotional support. Her shock that a “man could willingly cede control” also highlights the patriarchal assumptions held in her previous relationship with Anderson, something that she must work to dismantle in her new relationship with Colton and Lukas.

“The third beast is jealousy. I let myself sink into that feeling, loving the burning ache that accompanies it. I’m jealous of Lukas, there’s no denying it.”

During one of the trio’s first sexual encounters as a group, Colton reflects on the pleasure of jealousy while watching his other two partners have sex. This reframes the previous way that jealousy served as a conflict for Lukas and Colton; while they were jealous of each other with Poppy, it fractured their friendship and budding relationship. When able to temper his jealousy in pleasurable ways, Colton can indulge in possessive feelings without damaging his relationships—something that he finds erotic.

“Turns out Maggie and Giselle both clerk for the Supreme Court. The social media gag order was their idea.”

Though Poppy does not get along with her sister’s bridesmaids, this note that Maggie and Giselle, two of the bachelorette party attendees, are Supreme Court clerks rejects the stereotype that women who enjoy “partying” are unintelligent or unserious. Poppy and the novel embrace that all can be true—women can be antagonists, partiers, and smart professionals without putting these into conflict.

“Lukas, honey, it’s just a game. You play it so well, but your ability to be a good defenseman on the ice is just one piece of you.”

Poppy speaks to Lukas’s insecurities about his value to his partners as well as to the stakes of hockey in a sports romance. Though the sport in a sports romance offers emotional stakes for the characters, it rarely provides the key emotional stakes, which more frequently come from something interpersonal. Instead, the sport is, indeed, “just a game” that provides structure or conflict while the characters work through their personal relationships.

“Well, it was a bit too early to see any cardiac activity this time. But everything looks like it’s going very well.”

At her six-week pregnancy checkup, Poppy’s gynecologist indicates that the perceptible activity at this stage doesn’t constitute a heartbeat. This foreshadows the conversations that Poppy, Colton, and Lukas will have about their future child’s heart health, given Colton’s history of heart disease.

“‘I’m staying if I back off, then the two of you can come out as dating and just be a free, normal couple. No media hassle, no bullshit, no wacko keyboard warriors saying you’re going to hell.’

‘We were bound to get some of that anyway,’ I say with a shrug.

‘What? Why?’

‘Racism is still alive and well. Not everyone supports interracial dating.’”

Lukas’s surprise that Colton and Poppy would receive criticism for dating as a Black man and a white woman reveals how racism does not affect him the way it does Colton. Colton’s shrug also indicates that he believes that Lukas should not let the fear of backlash stop him from pursuing happiness, given that there will always be someone who has a problem with what other people do. His point develops the idea of pursuing desire despite fear of public recrimination; there will always be people who disapprove, no matter what one does.

“What he is doing is saying he loves me a hundred times a day. He’ll ask me for the remote, I’ll hand it to him, and he’ll say, ‘Thanks. You know I love you, right?’ I finished the last of the milk and put the carton back in the fridge (just to piss him off), and he just tossed it in the trash with an, ‘It’s fine. I still love you.’”

Lukas feels overwhelmed by Colton’s constant reassurance of love, which Colton gives even when he is being difficult. This show of unconditional love ultimately sways Lukas, whose core fear in becoming a family with Poppy, Colton, and their child is that he is not worthy or capable of sustainable love.

“‘I was abandoned, Poppy. I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to wish one person cared about you. Just one.’ He holds up a finger. ‘Well, how lucky could this kid be to say he has three, right?’”

Lukas refutes his fears about how his childhood abandonment will make him an inadequate father by highlighting how his experience makes him particularly attuned to the value of love to a child. He also offers an alternative to Poppy’s fear that having three parents will make her child an object of scorn among his peers by suggesting that having three loving influences will overall make their child happier and more resilient. This declaration marks a turning point in Lukas’s character arc as he comes to understand his value to the family.

“A weak heart. Is this man really daring to say that I, Colton Morrow, have a weak heart?”

Colton here invokes the idea of his heart both physically and metaphorically. While his heart may have health concerns that will cut his hockey career short, he feels that he has gained emotional fortitude from these struggles. In a twist, the physical weakness of his heart is presented as metaphorically strengthening the organ correlated with love and steadfastness—two qualities that Colton demonstrates in abundance.

“‘It’s not ridiculous, Mom,’ I try to reason. ‘Queer people exist. They fall in love, and get married, and have families, and live perfectly well-adjusted lives.’

‘Well, you answer me this,’ Mom huffs. ‘What are we supposed to tell people, Poppy? What do I tell our friends, our family, our pastor?’”

Poppy’s observation that she “tries” to reason with her mother indicates that she knows that her attempt to defend her choices to her mother will go unheard. Annmarie’s response about telling others about Poppy’s relationship shows that she values her image more than she cares about her daughter’s happiness, avoiding the true issue of her own acceptance and support.

“Why do I have this bone-aching need to be seen and respected by my family? I should walk away. If people show a pattern of disrespecting you and your values, if they seek only to manipulate and control, you walk away, right? I would walk away from a job that treated me that way. I would certainly walk away from a romantic partner. Heck, I already did. Anderson was all of those things and more. So why can’t I walk away from this? Why do I keep crawling back to them time and time again, desperate for their validation?”

Poppy’s questions to herself about why she craves her family’s approval are not answered. Instead, they serve more as a lament that she cannot stop experiencing these cravings even though she knows they are illogical, unlikely to ever be satisfied, and stem from behavior she would not tolerate in other aspects of her life. Poppy’s character arc revolves around the challenges of craving familial validation, and she learns, in the last third of the novel, to reframe these questions not to ask herself why she feels this way, but rather to ask what she can do to ameliorate the feelings.

“So why don’t you just slap the scarlet A on my chest, and tie me to the stake already? Because this wanton hussy has two gentleman callers.”

Here, Poppy invokes her mother’s previous reference Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, in which protagonist Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her dress as punishment for extramarital sex. Her use of outdated language like “wanton hussy” and “gentleman callers” emphasizes how absurd she considers the idea that her character is lacking because she has multiple sexual partners. The reference to “[tying her] to the stake” references a historical punishment for perceived witchcraft, which has since been framed as a form of sexist violence against women.

“‘What is it with you young people feeling the need to desecrate your bodies with all this ink and metal?’

‘It’s called body modification,’ Tina replies. ‘And it’s actually a practice as old as humanity. They’ve found tattoos on human remains that are over three-thousand years old.’

Mom grimaces. ‘Well…isn’t that a fun little anecdote for a wedding.’”

Here, Tina rejects Annmarie’s judgmental idea that body modification is an irresponsible action only undertaken by young people by citing the long history of the practice. Annmarie’s snide response indicates that logic is unlikely to change her preconceived notions—a position that also informs her interactions with Colton and Lukas as they try to impress Poppy’s family at the wedding.

“Your indifference brought us here as swiftly as Mom’s constant meddling. If you ever want to earn my respect back as your daughter, you will fix this.”

Although much of the novel focuses on Poppy’s need for her mother’s approval, here, she confronts her father for his part in his wife’s wrongdoing because he willfully ignored her manipulation of their children. This is an important milestone for Poppy, who spends much of the novel ignoring even subtle insults from her parents. Here, instead, she demands that they seek her respect, instead of her fighting for theirs.