Chapter 11 Dina
Dina
‘And who knows what she’s even up to these days? She’s probably just passing time before she starts taking sponsorships and becoming a celebrity influencer or something.’
Aisha doesn’t respond to my lengthy rant. Instead, she just presses her lips together and looks at me silently for a minute.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I was just making sure that you’re finished. When you said you wanted to join me on my lunch break today, I just wasn’t expecting it to be all about Maya. Usually you do anything to avoid the topic of her.’ Aisha raises an eyebrow at me while taking a bite of her sandwich.
The two of us are sat at a bench in Victoria Park, which normally wouldn’t set me off about Maya.
But ever since bumping into her with Jen the other day, Maya has been running laps around my mind.
And being here in front of the bandstand, where the two of us used to hang out after school, is bringing back too many memories.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble, heaping a forkful of pasta into my mouth.
I don’t admit to Aisha that I have been perusing all the online articles about Maya for the past few days.
Since her retirement, she’s racked up a lot of attention.
‘Honestly, it’s kind of weird that she’s back.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel or act around her. ’
I think about how I practically ran away from her the other day, with my tail between my legs. I’ve replayed that moment in my head a million times since, feeling more and more mortified.
‘I feel kind of bad for her,’ Aisha admits. ‘I mean, retiring so young, and all that harsh media criticism? It can’t be easy.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ I mumble. I’ve seen some of the articles, calling her rude, and a bully, pointing out her ‘attitude’. It doesn’t sound like Maya, but I don’t know her these days. ‘I just wish that she didn’t have to be here. Things are hard enough without dredging up our past.’
Aisha looks at me curiously. ‘Would that be so bad?’
‘What kind of a question is that? Of course it would be bad.’ It already is bad. Being around Maya makes me act like someone I don’t even recognise. A past version of myself who was quick to anger and apparently even quicker to run away.
‘I just think that it might be nice to resolve whatever issues the two of you have and put it all in the past,’ Aisha says.
Aisha sounds way too reasonable, so I just shake my head. ‘Enough about Maya. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘OK. How’s the job hunt going?’ Aisha asks.
I make a face. It had been on the back burner since getting the assistant coach position, but I’d have to get out there again soon.
‘You’ll find something,’ Aisha says encouragingly. But that’s what she and Thea have been saying ever since I quit my job, and I’ve still got nothing. Because the problem isn’t that I can’t find a job, it’s that I can’t find the right one.
Aisha’s lucky – she has two jobs that she loves: teaching, and art on the side.
Even Thea, who grumbles about how hard she has to study, is still clearly passionate about becoming a lawyer.
She might complain about her legal assistant job and all her co-workers, but I know she loves it all the same.
‘You’re still doing those catering jobs on the side, right? You remember my friend, Jana? She catered Khushi’s wedding a couple of months ago? She’s looking for servers. It pays pretty well.’
I only vaguely remember her, but I could definitely use the money. ‘Give me her info, I’ll get in touch.’
With Aisha’s lunch break almost over, I offer to walk her back to her school. But then my phone buzzes with a call from Jen, and she waves me off, telling me that she’ll see me at home later.
‘Hey, Jen, what’s up?’ I ask.
‘Dina, hey. I meant to call you last night, but it was late, and I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea,’ Jen says.
‘Is everything OK?’ Jen’s serious tone makes a little tendril of worry burrow into my stomach.
‘They will be. There was a little emergency with my family last night,’ Jen says.
‘Is everyone OK?’ I ask, finding myself stopping in my tracks.
‘My mum had to have an emergency surgery, so I had to drive to Manchester last night.’
‘God, I’m sorry, Jen, that must have been scary,’ I say, my mind reeling back to when Baba was ill. There were so many nights spent in hospital rooms waiting and worrying. I can almost see the cold, clinical hallways, feel the sense of panic and helplessness. I don’t envy Jen right now.
‘Yeah, yeah, it was. But I went to see her this morning. She’s already doing a lot better. I’ll probably have to stay here for a couple of days, just to make sure that she’s recovering OK.’
‘So, do you want me to … cancel practice this week?’ But even as I ask this, I can sense what Jen actually wants from me. We may have only reconnected a few weeks ago, but I can already read the tone of her voice.
‘Is there any way that you can – I know it’s a lot to ask – but if you could hold the fort without me?’ Jen asks tentatively. ‘I know that they’re a lot to handle sometimes, but you know I think that you’re the perfect person for this job.’
‘Yeah … yeah, of course I can hold the fort, I’ve got this, you don’t have to worry. You just deal with whatever you need to.’
Jen sighs with audible relief. ‘Thank you, Dina. Seriously. You don’t even realise how much of a lifesaver you are.’
I find myself smiling, even though my tendril of worry has slowly grown into the size of a boulder, and it’s weighing me down.
‘I’m happy to do it, Jen.’
As I hang up the phone, my smile falters. I’m not sure what I’ve just signed myself up for.
It’s not long until I find out, though. With Jen out of the picture, the team is even less enthused about training.
‘If Jen isn’t here, why do we have to be?’ Sara asks. ‘I mean, she’s our coach. You’re just like the assistant or whatever.’
‘Well, with her gone, I’m the coach,’ I say, trying to sound as authoritative as I can. ‘And, Jade, didn’t Jen tell you to make sure you’ve got your hair up when you come to practice?’
Jade glances up from her phone to give me a bored look, before quickly going back to her screen.
I obviously haven’t come prepared like Jen, either. I don’t have extra hair ties, or kits, or boots. I don’t even have the cones that we use to do drills, and make a mental note to ask Jen about where she keeps her supply.
I try to remember what Jen said to me. She wanted me to be her assistant coach for a reason: she thinks I can do it, and I can’t let her down.
‘Guys, listen,’ I say, trying to channel Jen’s calm, cool energy.
The way nothing seems to rattle her ever.
‘I know that it’s not fun to be up early to get to football practice in the morning on your summer holidays, but wouldn’t it be great if we made the most of it?
You’re already here. If you came on time, dressed properly, enthused about maybe really giving football a shot, we could have a lot of fun. You could have a lot of fun.’
I stare at the blank faces of the team – and that’s the select few girls who even bother to look at me.
Half of them are whispering to each other, and a few of them are on their phones.
This is clearly not working at all, which is unsurprising considering my attempt at motivation hasn’t even managed to motivate me.
I decide to try something different.
‘Tell me something, why did you guys decide to join football club?’ I ask.
‘Um … I wanted to do fashion club, but all the spots were taken by the time I got there,’ Sara chimes in.
‘I was going to do art club,’ Jade says, nodding along.
‘I needed to join something. I thought football looked OK.’ Sophie shrugs.
Everyone else on the team mutters something similar – there isn’t a single girl here who actually has an interest in football. It shouldn’t surprise me, and maybe it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t give me a lot to work with.
‘OK, well. We’re here now. So, why don’t you tell me what you know about football? You must know some football teams, have watched a few matches, or maybe even played a little in the past?’ I ask with tentative hope in my voice.
There’s silence for a moment, and I worry that I’m not even going to get an answer to my question.
Then, Jade pipes up. ‘I follow Colleen Rooney on Instagram.’
A couple of the other girls chime in to say that they do too.
‘OK … good,’ I say, mostly because I’m not sure how to respond to that. It’s not exactly an enthusiasm for football – they could at the very least follow an actual footballer, but I’m going to have to take what I can get. ‘Anyone else?’
‘My brother’s favourite team is Man United,’ another one of the girls offers.
‘I watch the World Cup with my family. Sometimes,’ Sophie adds tentatively.
A few others mumble that they do too, though none of them seem particularly enthralled by the idea of it.
‘OK … let’s just warm up by running some laps.’ I sigh, waving them forwards.
They slowly, hesitantly stand up and start to jog the length of the field. One of them pretends to pull a muscle, another checks her phone. All the while, my worry grows and grows. Because it’s clear to me now that Jen has made a mistake.
And so have I.
‘They can’t be that bad, they’re teenage girls,’ Deen says to me later that night when I complain about everything over a late dinner at the restaurant.
‘I just wish they actually cared about … well, anything. They don’t know the first thing about football and they don’t want to be there,’ I say, moving around the rice on my plate with my fork instead of actually eating it.
‘They said they don’t want to be there?’ Deen asks.