Chapter 9 Danika
Chapter Nine
Danika
“You have to run really fast, Mummy, ’cause you’re playing for both me and Sylvie.”
“I will.” Danika flashes a smile at Mirza in the passenger seat. Mirza is over six months pregnant, and a rough and tumble soccer game is exactly what the doctor didn’t order.
Mirza pats her stomach. “I’ll be cheering all of you on. Especially Danika—I think she needs it most.”
“Hey!” Danika says in mock-affront. “I was the under-thirteen hundred metres champion at school!”
“About one hundred years ago.” Cami nudges Sylvie, and they both giggle.
Danika smiles, too. It’s good to see Cami happy. After the soccer clinic finished, she’d been a bit down. But of course Cami is still grieving her father, and grief is a process that can’t be hurried.
The car park is full when they arrive. Danika walks through the parked vehicles, not letting herself look for Kim’s car.
Her stomach has been jittery ever since she found the crumpled note about the parents and kids’ match at the bottom of Cami’s muddy kitbag.
But as she squeezes through the gap between two parked cars, she sees the red Subaru parked by the railing.
Part of her wishes this match wasn’t happening—she isn’t ready to see Kim again—but part of her is glad the decision has been taken out of her hands. Because the day will inevitably come when she and Kim will be pushed closer through their daughters, and she can’t bury her head in the sand forever.
“There’s Granny and Gramps!” Cami bounces and waves. Her only grandparents. Chris had immigrated to Australia from the UK when his parents died. At least, that’s what he’d said.
Is that a lie too?
“Glad you could make it,” Danika says.
Her dad engulfs Cami in a bear hug, rubbing his whiskery chin on top of her head until she wiggles free.
“We wouldn’t miss it.” Her mum bends to hug Cami and then kisses Danika on the cheek.
As the kids run off to join their friends, her mum asks, “Is Bella here?”
Danika shoots her a warning glance—she hasn’t told Mirza about Kim, and isn’t about to—but her mum rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard all about Cami’s latest, greatest friend.”
“She is—I saw Kim’s car.”
“Good.” Shirley pats Danika’s arm. “Now, you and the kids go register or whatever you have to do. We’ll find somewhere to sit. Coming, Mirza?”
The three of them move off. Danika draws a deep breath and squares her shoulders. She can do this.
Parents and kids are milling around the sign-up tables. Cami grabs her. “Quick! We need to play on the same team as Bella and her mum.” She tugs her across to the nearest table. “This one.”
Danika writes her name, Cami’s, and Sylvie’s. “Okay, squirts? Happy now?” The volunteer behind the desk gives them red bibs to wear. The other team wears blue.
“Yeah. Now you go sit with Granny and Gramps, but make sure you come out at halftime. Promise you will?”
“Of course.” Danika resists the urge to ruffle Cami’s hazelnut-brown hair. It’s tied tightly in a ponytail, and she won’t be happy if it’s disturbed. “Do your best, both of you.”
“Of course.” Cami gives her a ‘duh’ look. “It’s soccer.”
Danika walks back to her parents and Mirza. She looks around. Other parents, like herself, wear shorts, t-shirts, and sports shoes. She pulls the bib over her head.
Her dad is talking to Mirza about growing vegetables. Snippets of their conversation about cabbage moths and snails drift back to her. Her mum takes her arm and pulls her down onto the bench. “I see her,” she whispers. She jerks her head toward the pitch.
Danika doesn’t pretend not to know who she’s talking about. Cami, Bella, and Sylvie are arm-in-arm as they listen to the coach.
“They look so alike,” Shirley says.
“Yes, they could be sisters.” The joke falls flat as her mum stares at her.
“Where’s Kim?”
Danika looks discreetly around, but it’s not until she looks up to their spot in the grandstand that she sees Kim. She’s staring, but when she sees Danika looking, she looks away.
“In the grandstand, halfway up on the left,” Danika says. “Please don’t make it obvious you’re looking.”
Her mum nods and turns to talk to Paul, glancing up as she does so. She turns back to Danika.
“She looks so alone.”
“She is alone. That’s where we sat and talked. She’s giving me the chance to go to her.”
Her mother grips her upper arm. “Kim and you need to find a way to work together in this. For your kids’ sake.” She looks back to the pitch where the match has started, and Team Red are in possession and running toward goal.
Danika also directs her attention to the melee of kids racing around. While the skill levels are haphazard, the kids play fairly. Sylvie gets the ball and dribbles it toward the goal.
Mirza breaks off her conversation with Paul to scream, “C’mon Sylvie!”
Sylvie shoots and misses, and Mirza says sheepishly, “Sorry. I promised her I’d never be that sort of parent, but here I am, first chance.”
Danika knows how she feels. She opens her mouth to commiserate, but then Cami gets the ball and turns toward the goal, and Danika’s on her feet, yelling for Cami to shoot. Cami kicks it to Bella, and it’s Bella who scores the first goal of the match.
Twenty minutes later it’s halftime, and Team Red are ahead by three goals. Coach yells for the parents to come onto the pitch.
Danika rises, and with a glance at Kim making her way down the stands, walks slowly toward the pitch.
Kim catches her up as she reaches the rail. “Hi.”
Danika turns and gives her a slight smile.
Kim is wearing black jogging tights and a long-sleeved t-shirt, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows.
The tights show off her legs. She looks fit, as if she works out a lot, and Danika is conscious of her own too-skinny, unfit body.
Kim in tights has a coiled energy about her, as if she’s looking forward to the game.
And she looks good. Scratch that. She looks great.
The tights highlight her muscled legs, and although the outfit would be unflattering on most people, on Kim it works.
Danika’s fingers twitch with the unexpected urge to touch Kim’s forearm.
The kids run off the pitch, giggling and high-fiving each oncoming parent like it’s the World Cup.
The coach, probably assuming most parents don’t have a clue about the game, allocates them randomly to positions, and tells them just to have fun and try not to injure themselves, or anyone else.
Danika and Kim are something called “midfield”, which Danika assumes is just to run around in the middle.
There’s a couple of muscular fathers already trying to intimidate the other team, and three competitive-looking mothers doing high-knees in the centre of the field.
Danika raises an eyebrow at Kim. “I thought this was supposed to be fun and friendly.”
“Me too. I’m wondering if I can sneak off to the clubhouse, to be honest. But Bella would never forgive me.”
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Danika takes what she thinks is her position and jogs on the spot doing exaggerated warm-up stretches.
The whistle blows, and what seems like one hundred kids immediately start yelling.
The centre on their team is one of the high-knees women, and she’s already dribbling down the field in a very professional manner.
She passes to one of the muscular blokes, who is immediately tackled by the other team.
He passes it to another of the high-knees women, and a minute later she scores the first goal.
Danika’s moved maybe ten metres. She returns to her spot feeling unnecessary. On the other side of the pitch, Kim is jogging in place. She doesn’t appear to have moved either.
But then the whistle blows again, and this time the ball shoots out her way. Danika runs, engages, gets the ball and passes. Game on. Muscle memory kicks in and she’s able to trap the ball and pass without falling flat, and if she’s puffing, well, that’s part of the enjoyment too.
Peripherally, she’s aware of Kim in those black tights that make her legs look so amazing.
Kim tackles a bloke on the opposing team, and her t-shirt rises to show a strip of toned stomach.
The flash of skin puts flutters in Danika’s stomach.
Exertion probably, or the collywobbles, as her mother likes to say.
Kim passes the ball to the centre, who passes it to Danika. She runs forward a few paces and sees two of the opposing team bearing down on her. She makes a wild kick, and the ball happens to land at the feet of her team’s striker, who with a quick flick sends it to the back of the net.
Well, that was easy! Danika high-fives her closest teammates, and they dance in a small circle, stopping when they become puffed, which turns out to be about eight seconds.
Near the end of the match, the score is even.
The kids and supporters are yelling their hearts out, and except for the fitness gals and muscle guys, the players look half-dead.
Danika sees the referee looking at his watch and silently begs him to blow the final whistle.
But then Kim—looking far more sparky than most of them—gets the ball and heads for goal.
Three of the opposing team close in on her, and the referee is looking at his watch. Kim passes to the striker, who draws her foot back, ready for a shot, when she’s tackled. The ball spins out of bounds.
Danika’s cheering: for Kim, for their team, for the fun of it.
The final whistle blows. It’s a draw.
Kim flops down on the grass like a beached starfish. Some of their teammates sit around her. Danika goes over, and Kim peers up at her.
“Can you pull me up?”
Danika holds out a hand and rocks back on her heels preparing to pull, but instead Kim tugs when Danika’s off-balance, and Danika stumbles forward. She ends up sitting on the ground next to Kim. Her knee rubs Kim’s thigh, and the shiny tights give her a spark of static.
“Ow!” She jerks her knee away. “You’re electric.”
“Sorry.”