Without a Uniform
Clara
Throughout my career, I’ve attended enough official dinners to know exactly how they work.
They always follow the same pattern: the same insipid conversations repeated on a loop under the influence of wine, the same meticulously prepared speeches by executives in suits who confuse real leadership with spouting empty motivational phrases, and the same diplomatic smiles put on for show among players and coaches who, in far too many cases, can barely stand each other on a Monday morning outside the strict protocol of the locker room.
For me, it’s a pure and simple formality.
Just another burdensome social and contractual obligation within the impeccable—and frankly exhausting—sports machine that surrounds professional soccer.
Normally, I know how to navigate these kinds of events like a fish in water without leaving the slightest trace or arousing any suspicion whatsoever.
I smile just enough in front of the camera flashes, say the bare minimum to the sponsors, and head home before I start feeling trapped by the general hypocrisy.
It’s a simple task that doesn’t require me to step outside my usual self-control.
When I arrive at the restaurant, the bulk of the club’s coaching staff has already made its grand entrance.
The establishment is, quite literally, the quintessential luxury venue that the board loves to use to show off: elegant without being over the top, decorated with warm lighting that softens the office squabbles, and featuring an outdoor terrace designed to convince anyone that life isn’t simply a series of questionable personal decisions.
I greet Lucía with a slight, knowing nod.
Immediately afterward, I endure—like a champion—an unnecessarily long and tedious conversation with a sports physical therapist who now works for one of the country’s most famous sports magazines, and finally manage to slip discreetly over to the marble bar to ask the waiter for a glass of ice-cold white wine.
I’m counting on the mild alcohol to help me weather the storm and get through the evening without any incidents I’ll regret the next day.
However, I suddenly realize that all my self-control is of little use when Alicia decides, on her own initiative and at her own risk, to turn the rest of the evening into a perfectly calculated and premeditated emotional ambush.
Alicia appears in the doorway of the restaurant as if the universe itself had decided to conspire to play a private, heavy-handed, and especially cruel prank on me.
She’s wearing a black dress, seemingly simple in cut but criminally effective in the exact way it hugs her silhouette.
Her chestnut hair—slightly golden beneath the lights—is worn loose, falling in perfect waves over her shoulders.
She walks with that overwhelming confidence that defines her so well; that feline expression of someone who is fully aware of the chaos she causes and the emotional casualties she leaves in her wake.
And she’s not alone, of course. Walking beside her is another woman.
She’s tall, possessing an almost insulting beauty, dressed in a passionate red ensemble that seems tailor-made to shatter anyone’s mental stability, topped off with a playful and dangerous smile on her lips.
I watch them enter the dining room standing far too close together for my liking.
At ease with one another. Displaying that natural, brazen familiarity that only arises between two people who share far more than just confidences and free time in their private lives.
My first instinctive thought is strictly professional and cold: Who the hell is that woman, and why hasn’t anyone told me Alicia had a partner?
The second, unfortunately, is far less dignified and professional.
Ah. Sure. Of course. Alicia turning a normal night into a global cataclysm.
Seriously? Did you have to do this right here and right now in front of the entire staff?
Did you really feel the urgent need to bring here, like a trophy, a woman who looks like she stepped right off the cover of an adult magazine?
The third thought is even worse and makes my blood run cold: a burning, bitter, stinging knot of pure jealousy settles viciously in the pit of my stomach.
I try to swallow and hold it back with all my might, but it’s impossible.
Hugo reappears beside me as if out of nowhere, holding his own glass between his fingers and arching one eyebrow toward infinity as he follows the direction of my gaze.
“Don’t give me that sour look, Clara,” he murmurs in my ear with a tone laced with irony.
Unable to take my eyes off Alicia’s date for even a second, I reply through clenched teeth in a cutting whisper:
“What kind of face do you think I’m making?”
“The face of a psychopath who’s seriously considering committing a crime.”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, glaring at him over the rim of my glass.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not,” he scoffs, taking a sip of his drink. “And I haven’t been watching you and Alicia turn every daily rehab session into psychological warfare for the past two whole weeks.”
I nearly choke on my sip of wine. I feel my cheeks flush.
“Hugo, please.”
“I’m just saying that maybe it’s time for you to stop pretending in front of the mirror that absolutely nothing is going on between the two of you.”
“It’s just that there’s absolutely nothing between that woman and me,” I lie brazenly, feeling my throat tighten, while inside my subconscious screams at me: I wish it were true. I wish you could convince yourself as damn quickly as you’re trying to convince him.
“Well, something in your drill-sergeant tone tells me you’re lying to me, but I really hope there’s nothing going on,” Hugo says, adopting a slightly more serious and professional tone.
“You know how the sports tabloids are with internal rumors. I don’t think the board members would be the least bit pleased to find out that the summer’s star signing is wreaking havoc in the club’s medical facilities. ”
Before I have a chance to refute his words and tell him to get lost, Alicia turns her head toward the bar with perfect timing and locks eyes with me.
She smiles at me. And it’s certainly not a friendly or casual smile.
It’s that roguish smile, brimming with outright provocation, that I know all too well.
Without wasting a second, she begins to walk purposefully toward me. Accompanied, naturally, by the woman in red.
“Dr. Valle,” Alicia blurts out as soon as she reaches me, standing right in front of me with an astonishing calm that’s downright suspicious.
“What an immense joy it is to see you outside the walls of your medical office. I was beginning to seriously suspect that you only existed surrounded by treatment tables, injury reports, and veiled threats.”
“And I, for my part, was beginning to harbor the naive hope that you’d learned what it means to show up on time for club events.
It seems we’re both living on nothing but illusions, Alicia,” I reply, pulling myself together and maintaining a light, biting tone, even though inside I feel my blood boiling.
The stunning woman accompanying her lets out a brief, velvety, warm laugh that breaks the tension. Alicia, far from being intimidated, is visibly enjoying our tense verbal exchange.
“Clara, meet Irina,” the forward continues with a hint of smugness, introducing us with a wave of her hand.
Irina extends her hand to me with an innate elegance that turns my stomach.
“I finally have the pleasure of meeting the famous Clara Valle in person. Alicia talks about you so much that I was already incredibly curious—really.”
That unexpected revelation forces me to fix my gaze directly on the team’s star player.
“Famous?”
Alicia shrugs with a feigned innocence that even she doesn’t believe.
“Look, I talk about you a lot because you’re my physical therapist, Clara. It’s a simple, strictly professional fixation focused on athletic performance—nothing more.”
I shake Irina’s hand with all the formal politeness I can muster.
“Well, I sincerely hope she’s only shared my best and most severe medical threats with you.”
“Well, those were most of them,” Irina replies, showing genuine amusement that throws me off balance. “Although I have to say, she’s also mentioned a couple of other pretty interesting details here and there about your recovery methods.”
I stare intently at Irina. Then I look over at Alicia. I come across as curt, sharp, and thoroughly uncomfortable.
“Nice to meet you, Irina. Enjoy the evening.”
Alicia picks up on my discomfort immediately, and far from calling a halt to the game or backing down, she decides to gloat and revel in my silent display of jealousy.
I can see it clearly in the insolent gleam in her eyes, in that small, subtle sense of triumph her gaze exudes.
She’s putting me to the test in front of everyone.
And I, to my profound misfortune, am failing the test with a sense of dignity that could certainly use some improvement.
Throughout dinner, I grit my teeth and try to behave like the functional, mature adult I’m supposed to be.
I force myself to focus as hard as I can on the conversations at my table about the latest signings on the transfer market, the unbearable pressure the local sports press puts on the girls, the tactical strategies for the upcoming season, and a particularly tedious and boring discussion with the CFO about the budgets allocated for medical supplies in the treatment rooms. I try with all my might not to let my eyes wander to the other end of the table.
I try not to hear her laughter. I try, basically, to be emotionally nonexistent.
But I fail spectacularly.