Chapter 19
Natalia
The other team scores the first one in the twenty-second minute. A corner their center back flicks on that goes in at the far post, and for a moment, the stadium settles into that uncomfortable silence you only hear when you concede at home.
From the bench, Hades yells something that barely reaches midfield, though you don’t need to catch every word to know she’s furious.
I don’t like being down. I never have, not even as a kid on the dirt fields of S?o Paulo, where if you missed a touch you didn’t smell the ball again all afternoon. So I drop deep to go get it myself.
I score the equalizer in the fortieth. Jade lays it off to me with a gorgeous backheel at the top of the box, I cut inside and curl it to the far post. It’s not one for the highlight reel; it goes in with a fair bit of luck, but it goes in all the same, and that’s the only thing that counts.
Iris gets the second. Zoe wins it from their fullback, passes it to me, I pick up my head, and there she is, planted right in line with the defenders, with that face of a kid who’s just been promised ice cream.
Before she gets the pass, she touches her ponytail, Hades hates that gesture, but almost every time she does it, it’s a goal, I guess it’s her way of reminding herself she’s very good.
She comes running at me and yells things I can’t quite make out, something about loving me with all her soul, about us being the best, and about getting my face tattooed on her arm.
Two to one. End of the game.
***
This year, the playoff final is in Seattle.
We’re tied at one when, around the seventieth minute, I take on their fullback down the wing.
I show her the ball, knock it past her on one side and take my body around the other.
She does what almost every defender does when they can’t get there anymore: she sticks a leg across me.
I go down. And they point to the spot without a second thought.
I grab the ball before Iris can take it from me. It’s not that I’m feeling especially brave today, it’s more that if I stop to think about it too much, I miss. Over the years I’ve learned that in soccer and in life the important things have to be done before you have time to get scared of them.
I set it down. The keeper studies me, bounces on the line. I breathe, take my run-up, and send it hard into the top corner, where she can’t reach it even with a prayer.
“Vai!” I shout as I run toward the corner with my fist clenched.
The third one I set up down the wing and Tina finishes, poking it in with her shin or her knee, with whatever she can, really, but she gets it in and launches into the dance she’s been rehearsing with Iris since January.
A little later, in stoppage time, when the other team goes hunting for a goal in desperation, Castillo pulls off an impossible low save and closes out the game.
Final whistle. Champions again, for me the first time.
The grass fills with people and photographers. I find Mireya in the middle of the chaos and hug her, both of us soaked in sweat. The press invented a rivalry at the start of the season, but Hades put us on different wings and it worked. Her setups drive you crazy at first, but they work.
It’s Hades herself who comes up to me a little later. She doesn’t smile or hug me, because that would be a lot for her, but she grips the back of my neck a second and squeezes.
“Thanks for bringing me to the team,” I whisper.
“Better you thank me by signing the renewal already,” she grumbles before going off to find Iris.
The renewal I haven’t signed because nobody at the club yet, except Iris, knows I have a much better offer in France.
Right then, Lina comes running in a jersey of mine that’s way too big on her, dodging players and photographers, and throws herself at my neck. I scoop her up without thinking.
“We won, can you believe it? We won,” she repeats against my neck.
Behind her comes Holland, with a grin from ear to ear, and before I can realize what’s happening, she kisses me.
Cameras everywhere, television catching every detail of what’s happening on the grass… and Holland kisses me while I have her daughter in my arms.
***
The next day, the kiss is everywhere.
It’s one of the images of the celebration. Holland leaning toward me with the kid in my arms, her lips on mine. They share it, they comment on it, people who don’t even know who we are weigh in. To everyone we look like a perfect couple.
I’m in the kitchen of her house in Crestview when Holland comes over to me with small steps.
“Now they definitely have to renew your contract,” she whispers in my ear, wrapping her arms around my waist from behind.
“Well… about that…”
“Is something wrong?”
I have a hard time looking her in the eye and telling her, because the renewal came two weeks ago, but the French offer is much better and could be the last big contract I sign in my life.
“Natalia, is something wrong?” she insists, lowering her voice.
“There’s an offer,” I admit at last.
“You’re not going to wait for the renewal?”
Holland sits down slow in the chair, like she’s short of breath.
“I already have it,” I confess. “But this is a three-year contract and a lot more money. At my age, it could be my last big contract.”
“So they offered you the renewal and you didn’t tell me anything.”
“I didn’t want to worry you until I was sure and…”
“Right, you didn’t want to worry me,” she huffs, rubbing her temples.
And here it is again, the same scene as years ago in Lyon, with another woman who also stopped looking at me when she understood I already had one foot out of her life.
“And when were you planning to tell me? When you already had the ticket booked? God, I can’t believe it, Natalia. I thought we had something serious, I thought… damn, forget it. Lina’s going to be crushed.”
I don’t answer, because the honest answer is that I’m an idiot. I already blew it with Camille and now I’m doing the same thing with Holland. And Lina… I’d rather not think about it.
“I think I’m going home,” I say, just like that.
“I thought this was your home,” she whispers, looking away so I won’t see her cry.
I grab the keys from the bowl by the entrance and leave with a simple “bye.” The running shoes are still there, in the clear box by the door, next to the kid’s boots.
***
Iris shows up at nine, no warning, with a six-pack of beer. I don’t even know why she assumed I’d be here, because I haven’t come by in weeks.
“Man, what a depressing place, Brazil!” she says, looking around. “You look like a hostage. Do you really live here or are you hiding from someone?”
“I live here.”
“Nah, you live at Holland’s, what I want you to tell me is why you’re not there and, above all, why you look like someone tore a piece of your soul out, because you’re a sad sight, buddy.”
And I tell her. She already knew about the offer from the French team. What she didn’t know is that I still hadn’t told Holland. Or the blow I just dealt her… or the one Lina will take when she finds out I’m leaving.
When I finish, she raises her eyebrows and stays quiet a while, turning the beer can over in her hands.
“That sucks!” she mutters through her teeth. “I spent a ton of time running from Paula,” she says next. “A ton of time, with the excuse that it was complicated and all that crap. I kept telling myself she had her life and I had mine, so why would we go complicating things.”
Then she goes quiet. I wait for the advice, the textbook line. At least a “but one day I realized that…”
But nothing comes. Iris takes a sip of beer and stares at the empty wall of my living room.
“And?” I ask.
“And what?”
“Why are you telling me that if you’re not going to explain anything? What a crap piece of advice.”
“It’s not advice, Brazil. It’s just what it is. Anyway, I’m off, Paula’s grandmother is going to teach us to make tamales over video call. Just remember one thing, you’re already at the best club in the world. Other places can pay you more money, but here you have a family. That matters, you know?”
And she leaves, just like that. She leaves me alone, with my half-empty apartment and the hummingbird painting propped against the wall. Still unhung.