Chapter 5
Natalia
“You’re staying for dinner with us,” Lina says, planting herself in front of me, hands on her hips.
She doesn’t ask, it’s almost an order. She’s seven and has the same habit as her mother of dropping things like they’re already decided.
I flick my eyes to Holland, hoping she’ll come up with some more or less kind, believable excuse, the kind that won’t hurt the kid but gets the idea out of her head.
But Holland just slings her bag over her shoulder and shrugs.
“There’s soup and sandwiches. If you can make do with that, it’s fine by me,” she says, heading for the car.
And just like that, I follow her to Crestview.
***
Her house is small and tidy in an almost obsessive way.
On the fridge there are drawings held up with magnets, nearly all signed with a big pink L.
In the hallway, photos. Holland as a kid in goalie gloves way too big for her.
Others of an older Holland, an armband on her bicep and a trophy in her hands, surrounded by other girls in the same purple jersey.
Her with a gray-bearded man who has her exact eyes, the two of them laughing at something.
Lina dressed as a pumpkin, looking furious at the universe.
I stand a beat too long in front of the trophy photo.
On the field, three weeks ago, on a day I was furious with her, I decided on my own and with zero evidence that Holland was one of those people who coach because they read a book about soccer once.
I even said it out loud in a fit of temper.
I don’t remember the exact words, but it came down to her never having played at any serious level.
The girl with the trophy stares me down from the photo, like she’s telling me I now have to eat my words and apologize.
“That was in college,” she explains from the kitchen. “A million years ago.”
She doesn’t add more. She’s one of those people who don’t like to fill silences with words they don’t need, and that’s fine.
Lina grabs me by two fingers and pulls. A smile slips out of me, because it’s the same thing Wesley does, that direct little ambush kids pull. I end up on the floor, back against her bed, while she puts an endless parade of drawings and photos in front of me.
“This is me stopping a penalty,” she explains, proud, pointing with her index finger. “I’m going to be a goalie, like my mom, even though she says for now I have to learn to play every position.”
For thirty minutes she keeps me on the floor, weighing in on soccer, on the things that happen at her school, even on the best dog breed to convince her mom to bring one home.
From the kitchen I hear the sound of running water and a spoon against the rim of a pot, and for some reason it hits me that I’ve spent years never staying anywhere long enough to enjoy home life.
And that I miss that life.
We eat a soup that’s delicious and that the kid defends like she made it herself. Later, while we drink tea, she nods off in the middle of a drawing and Holland carries her to bed.
“Feel like having your tea on the porch?” she asks, tipping her chin toward outside.
Outside it’s that typical damp Seattle cold for this time of year. Very different from the weather I’d have right now in S?o Paulo, but a lot better than last year in my old city.
Holland sits cross-legged in an old chair, cups her mug, and we talk.
About Brazil first, because I guess it’s the easiest way to open a conversation.
About the heat, about my mother, who paints.
About how at my house there are real hummingbirds slipping in among the flowers in the yard, and my mother has spent half her life trying to paint them without ever making them look real.
I push up my sleeve and show her the tattoo on my forearm.
“Beija-flor,” I say. “The one that never holds still.”
She traces it with her fingertips, careful, like it might be a real bird she’s afraid of hurting.
From there, I don’t know how, we move on to Tacoma. To her working-class family, to the scholarship she earned for college thanks to soccer, to her brother.
“Daniel,” she sighs, and for the first time all night she talks looking at the garden and not at me. “A motorcycle accident when he was nineteen. I was fifteen.”
She tells it in short sentences, with a heavy sadness in her eyes.
“The day of his funeral I decided I was going to be the responsible one,” she adds.
“The one who doesn’t break. And I’ve spent twenty years keeping that promise.
I guess that’s why I have a hard time trusting that people will stay.
When someone leaves, part of me takes it for granted that it’s forever. ”
I say a very quiet “I’m sorry.”
“I left home at fifteen,” I confess. “Six hours away. Then one city, and another, and one country and another. I’ve spent half my life boarding a plane and adapting to new teammates. I’m good at it. It’s the only thing I’m good at without training.”
“And have you ever wanted to stay in one place?”
The question leaves me with nothing to say. There was a city. A woman who asked me to buy real furniture, to stop signing short contracts. And I managed to make sure that conversation never became real. I ignore the thought, like always, changing the subject before it shows.
“Once, almost,” I admit, with a shrug. “But almost doesn’t count. It’s part of the job, I guess.”
It’s late when I get up to go. Holland walks me to the door down a narrow hallway with a burned-out bulb.
She stops halfway, in the dim light. She looks like she’s about to say something, but she stays quiet and brings a hand to her earlobe, a little nervous. And I kiss her.
I don’t even know how it happens, because I never give the first kiss.
Because I always think the first kiss is a little more commitment, and commitment and I don’t get along.
The thing is, I put a hand on her waist, lean in, and kiss her.
She closes her eyes, grips my hoodie, and sighs my name when I pull back.
“Natalia.”
Just that.
“Good night, Holland,” I whisper.
And I go.
I sit in the car a moment. Hands on the wheel, but not starting it. She watches me from the porch, still.
Today I was the one who kissed first.
Like my grandmother would say, bad sign.