Chapter 9
Natalia
Thursday, before I even get out of the car to help Holland with the girls’ practice, I already see something I don’t like.
There’s someone at the training fields who doesn’t fit. A man in a vest with a lot of pockets and a camera the size of a baby hanging around his neck. I’ve spent half my life learning that those people near a soccer field usually aren’t good news.
There’s a second person too, a young woman with a tablet and the club polo, greeting the moms in the bleachers like she’s known them forever.
The girls’ faces light up the second the camera points at them.
They pose on their own, finger-comb their hair or fix their braids before the shot.
At eleven and twelve, they have no idea the trouble a photo taken out of context can cause.
The second she sees me, Holland comes at me in a fury.
“Did your agent set this up?” she asks, tipping her chin toward the photographer.
“I have no idea why they’re here,” I answer, calm.
She makes a face and clicks her tongue, and I can almost see her thoughts in real time. The pro player who needs good press to redeem herself, a photographer who shows up out of nowhere and shoots forty kids, one of them hers.
“You expect me to believe that?” she growls.
Then she turns on her heel and heads for the girl in the polo.
“I don’t want photos while we’re practicing,” she says, raising her voice more than she needs to, over the girls’ protests. “I know a lot of the families signed a release at the start of the season, but you can go shoot other teams in the club, not this one.”
The girl in the polo tries to argue, but Holland cuts her off right away, so she just shrugs and signals the photographer to pack up and go.
That afternoon, practice never quite finds its rhythm.
The girls keep looking toward the parking lot in case the camera comes back, they’re distracted, they talk among themselves and wonder why that photographer was there.
They want to know if they’ll be on the club’s Instagram or on TikTok.
Holland doesn’t say a word to me until we’re picking up the cones, and even then, only the bare minimum.
***
That same afternoon, the second I get home, I write to the club’s press office. In four lines I ask, without letting on too much that my blood is boiling, who authorized press coverage of the youth program practice.
The answer comes in under twenty minutes, an official email from someone on Drummond’s team: general management initiative… we regret not notifying the coaches, et cetera. The same crap as always. I forward the email to Holland with not a single word of my own on top. Let her read it by herself.
My phone rings just a minute later. I’m expecting an apology, so I don’t even look at the screen.
“Man, Brazil,” Iris says at full speed. “A little birdie told me, and the birdie is me, that you and the boss lady are in the deep freeze again. What the hell did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do anything to her. I don’t know how you found out, but right now I’m not in the mood for nonsense, Iris,” I complain.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say. Look, I’m sending you a number. She’s not some shrink, okay? It’s Jordan, the club therapist. She’s the best, I’m telling you, I’ve been with her a year and look at me, I’m a mature, functional person. Super chill.”
“I’m fine, Iris. And, just so you know, you’re the opposite of chill, it’s like you drink a million coffees every morning.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m sending it anyway, okay? In case one day you stop being fine and then you’ve got the number handy,” she insists.
And she hangs up before I can say no.
***
The next day someone knocks at the door at eight.
Holland shows up without warning and stops in the doorway, looking at the living room like she’s searching for something.
“You have a nice place,” she says, by way of hello, and she’s a terrible liar.
“It’s the apartment the club rented,” I say in my defense, with a shrug.
“It’s furnished out of a catalog and there are boxes lying around the living room I still haven’t opened, even though I’ve been here several months.
The only personal thing is a painting my mother did years ago, and I haven’t even hung it, I’ve got it leaning against the wall,” I say, pointing.
“I didn’t say it’s a home, I just said the place is nice. Anyway, I’m not here to stay long,” she announces, still standing in the doorway. “I just wanted to tell you I was wrong yesterday about the photographer, and to apologize.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t just say okay, Natalia. I’m really sorry. My ex’s lawyers left me a wreck, and the second I saw the camera, I assumed the worst about you… and for a while now I’d been assuming the best. Can I come in?”
I step aside and she sits on the edge of the gray couch in the living room.
“My daughter’s driving me crazy,” she confesses out of the blue. “She spends her afternoons in the garage trying to do stepovers with the ball like you taught her. Left leg first, ball rolling out, slow, in pieces. She can’t do it, but she won’t quit. She wants to be like you.”
“I’m not a good role model for a kid, better she be like Zoe or somebody else,” I grumble.
“You’re a much better role model for a kid than you think.
You just have to believe it,” she murmurs, looking down at her hands, nervous.
“Look, I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I don’t even know what you want.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’d like to have a serious conversation with you about the two of us at some point.
Well, the thing is… I don’t know how to say it without it sounding weird.
The thing is, whether what you want with me is something temporary or something more serious, I need Lina not to get hurt if it goes wrong. ”
I go quiet, because I don’t even know what I want. Well, deep down I do know, but it terrifies me. What surprises me is that she’s the one who opened the door to something temporary.
“I haven’t had a serious relationship since Lyon,” I confess. “And that was three years ago now.”
“Lyon?”
“Lyon. Camille.”
The name comes out easier than I expected, and even so I change the subject before she can ask anything else.
“I’ll tell you about it when we have a night with time to talk. Not today.”
Holland doesn’t push. She puts a hand on my knee and squeezes it lightly. A simple gesture, but one that tells me without words that she’s there if I need her.
And, without thinking, I close my eyes, shake my head, and kiss her, because for some reason, with this woman I’m always the one who takes that step, and that surprises me again.
This time I don’t pull back, and neither does she. We get up off the couch without breaking the kiss and make it to my bedroom, tripping over my own boxes. Holland goes very still while I undress her with care.
“How much time do you have before you pick up Lina?” I whisper in her ear, watching the goosebumps rise on her skin.
“I’m in no hurry,” she answers.
I lay her down on the bed, strip off my own clothes, and lie down beside her. I’m used to nights stolen in the middle of a season, to nameless women in stopover hotels. This time I want something very different.
I move over her body slow, sliding my fingertips along her skin like I’m trying to memorize it.
The mole on her collarbone, her breath catching when I run my tongue down her neck, her fists twisting the sheets when I kiss her nipples.
I move down her belly and hear her say my name just like that night in the hallway of her house, only now no one pulls away.
Now she guides my head, gentle, to where she wants my mouth.
She comes apart, her fingers fisted in my hair, lost in long moans that drive me wild, arching her back against my lips, wanting more.
Later, we stay tangled up a good while, her head on my shoulder, her hair against my neck. Orange light from a streetlamp comes through the window.
“I want to try,” I admit with a long sigh. “Not a hookup here and there, something real. I’m not promising you anything, I’m not good with relationships, but I’d like to try if you want to.”
“I don’t need promises. It’s enough that you want to try,” she answers, locking eyes with me and smiling before she kisses me between my breasts.