Chapter 20 Maya
Maya
It’s a strange feeling going from keeping all of my feelings bottled up inside of me for the past few years to suddenly being pressed for more by everyone.
The few reporters at the event are eager to score exclusive interviews about the real reason that I quit the Vikings, and I’m torn over allowing them to share my story after everything they’ve been writing about me.
The most surprising thing is when Erica Hadley strolls up to me, handing me her card as if I don’t know exactly who she is.
‘I’d love to interview you on The Warm Up,’ she says. ‘Give me a call sometime.’
I take the card from her hand, at a loss for what to say.
I half want to challenge her for all the stories she’s run on me over the past few months – the ones that had never held back on besmirching me and spreading unfounded rumours about my ‘attitude’.
But Erica disappears back into the crowd before I’ve mustered the courage to say anything.
Taking a deep breath, I look around the room, trying to spot Dina. I lost sight of her sometime during my speech, and even now she’s nowhere to be found. There’s a hollowness in my chest at the thought of her being gone.
‘You were amazing, Maya!’ Nina says, appearing over my shoulder.
She’s beaming from ear to ear. ‘I knew that things were difficult for you, but I had no idea. I just know that everything you said will stay in people’s minds for a long time.
I know it’s definitely made me re-evaluate a lot of things. ’
‘Thanks, Nina. And thank you for letting me speak here. After I retired, I … kind of felt like I had to say goodbye to football in every way. I thought maybe there was no place for me in a space like this.’
Nina’s eyes widen. ‘Maya … there will always be space for you here. I think you’re exactly the kind of voice that we’ve been missing in football. You’re an amazing player, and it’s our loss that you’ve retired. That you felt like you had to.’
The genuineness in Nina’s voice tugs at my heart, makes tears pinprick on the edges of my eyes. I blink to keep the tears from falling, because that doesn’t seem like a great way to end the night. I doubt that Nina wants to be comforting a tearful ex-football player either.
‘That means a lot,’ I say instead, meaning it with my whole heart.
Nina pulls me into a hug and soon we’re saying our goodbyes. But just as I’m about to turn and leave, I pause, calling out to Nina one last time.
‘The caterers. Have they already left?’
Nina’s eyebrows shoot up, like that was a question she wasn’t expecting. ‘I’m not sure. They might still be in the kitchens. Why?’
‘I just … I ran into that server earlier and I feel bad. I wanted to, um, apologise,’ I say.
Nina smiles. ‘If only the press could see you now, huh?’
‘I’m sure they’d find a way to turn it around on me.’
Nina lets out a small laugh. ‘They are very good at that.’ She points me towards the double doors leading into the kitchen, before waving goodbye.
I hesitate in front of the doors. I can hear sounds coming from inside: talking and laughing, the clatter of plates and glasses and cutlery.
If Dina is in here, would she really want to see me now?
But after what she’s done for me, it doesn’t feel right to leave without saying anything either.
Especially since she disappeared in the middle of my speech.
Hesitantly, I push the door open. Compared to the quiet of the events hall now, the kitchens are utter chaos.
There are servers everywhere; people rushing to and fro.
I almost get knocked down by someone carrying a stack of dirty dishes as soon as I enter, only managing to swerve to avoid collision at the last second.
‘You’re not supposed to be back here,’ a woman says from beside me. She’s carrying a clipboard and pins me with a small frown. ‘The exit is on the other side. The double doors there.’
She must really think I’m a dolt who can’t tell the kitchen from the exit.
‘Sorry … I was looking for one of your servers,’ I say. ‘She, um, she was really great. I just wanted to pass on my thanks.’
‘To one of the servers?’ The woman narrows her eyes at me. Like she can’t possibly imagine what a server needed to have done in order to garner a thanks from me.
‘Yes. Her name was Dina Chowdhury, and I … knocked into her, but she was so great about it. I just wanted to—’
The woman holds up a hand to silence me, scanning her clipboard. She taps on it with her pen, before her eyes flick up to me once more. ‘Yes, I have a Dina here. She’s new. I’ll make sure to pass on your message. But I really can’t have you here. Everybody’s busy working.’
She steps forward and holds open the double doors, waving me out. I take one last look around the kitchen, hoping to spot Dina. But when I don’t, I’m forced to admit defeat.
I step outside and towards the other side of the events hall, spotting Dina’s familiar figure in the distance.
She’s at the drinks table on the edge of the hall, collecting used glasses and throwing bottles into a rubbish bag.
I feel a tug in my heart. What was it Dina said to me?
That she had been hating every moment of her life, trying to make ends meet.
That was about working in finance, but I doubt that working as a server is part of her dream life either.
I remember when we were young and bright-eyed with hopes for the future.
We traded these grand dreams of being star football players.
When we went to the football museum in Madrid for our school trip, we even talked about how one day our football shirts would be displayed there, because that’s how successful we would be.
But it seems that neither of our dreams were meant to be.
‘Hey,’ I say hesitantly as I approach Dina.
She jumps a little, before turning towards me. She looks more surprised to see me now than she did when I ran into her.
‘What are you still doing here? I thought everybody had left.’
‘I was looking for you. I think I spoke to your boss, in the kitchen.’
Dina frowns, before turning back and throwing a bunch of bottles into the rubbish bag. I dive towards the other side of the table and begin collecting dirty glasses and bottles too.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Dina says. Her voice is grim, and she doesn’t look at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Whatever moment we had before, where I actually opened up to her, where she seemed like she still cared about me, seems to have passed swiftly.
Maybe that realisation should deter me from trying with Dina now, but I’m not sure if I can stop. It felt like there was still something between us earlier, and I’m not willing to give up on that so fast.
‘I just … wanted to say thank you.’
Dina pauses in her work and her eyes snap towards me. ‘For what?’
‘For helping me earlier. I would never have been able to go up to that podium and speak if it weren’t for you. I probably would have just had my panic attack and cried in the bathroom and gone home. And Nina would have been down a speaker, and I would have felt … well, humiliated.’
‘You would have figured it out, even without me.’
I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t think I would have. I needed someone to say the things that you did. I needed … you. You were the only one who could push me in that way. The only one who understood me about so many things.’
Dina seems to study me, her eyes roving over me as if she’s looking for something, but I don’t know what it is. ‘I didn’t know things were so difficult for you,’ she finally says. ‘I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with so much.’
‘Yeah, it’s been … It hasn’t been easy.’
Dina sighs. ‘I thought you were living some dream life, that you were about to announce that you’d be playing at the next World Cup or something.
’ Dina almost seems shame-faced as she admits it, but I feel a smile tug at me.
While others in the football world overlooked me, Dina always saw something in me. Even if it was tainted with envy.
‘I wish.’ I toss some empty bottles into the bag. They land with a loud clink.
‘Maybe now that people are finally hearing your side of the story, things will change,’ Dina says.
‘Maybe. I wouldn’t hold my breath.’
I reach for some of the empty glasses scattered around the table at the same time that Dina does. I freeze as our fingers brush, and fresh goosebumps erupt across my skin. Our eyes lock for just a moment, across the table. The dark brown of her irises pulling me in. My cheeks flush.
Then, all too soon, Dina looks away. I pull my hand aside and watch as Dina ducks her head, gathering the glasses and lining them up on a tray to take back to the kitchen.
‘Thanks,’ Dina mumbles, her voice soft. ‘You didn’t have to help me with this.’
‘I wanted to. I can help with the other—’
Dina cuts me off with a shake of her head. ‘Jana would probably kill me if she saw a guest helping me clean up, and I kind of need this job. The assistant coach position is only part-time, and this job pays better than the other catering gigs I’ve been doing.’
This is the most Dina has given me since I came back, and there’s a part of me that’s bursting with questions to ask her.
About her job in finance that she must have quit, her other catering jobs, about what her life has been like for the past nine years.
The curiosity of it all gnaws at me, but I simply nod.
‘Yeah, sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’ Dina offers me a smile that quickens my pulse. ‘By the way, I talked to Jade. She said she got in touch with Laila.’
‘Really?’ Dina has come through for me twice now, in ways that I couldn’t have even imagined. ‘Thank you.’
‘You should thank Jade, not me,’ she says. ‘And wait until she actually does something to help Laila out. For all we know, they’re at each other’s throats.’
‘I can definitely see that,’ I say with a chuckle.
A door squeaks on the other side of the hall, and Dina freezes for a moment, her smile dropping.
‘I should go, right? Before your boss catches me here,’ I say.
‘Probably … I’ll see you around?’ Dina says it like she hopes that will be the case, but I don’t know if I’m just reading my own hopes into her words.
‘Yeah. See you.’
I turn around and head out of the double doors, feeling lighter than I have in a long time.
All this time, I’ve thought that Dina hated me with every fibre of her being, but now I wonder if there’s still some part of her that cares about me.
It may be a part that’s buried down deep inside of her, but maybe, just maybe, it exists.
And maybe there’s a chance that the two of us could go back to what we once used to be.