by Anne Leigh
My coaches knew about my condition, I’d gone through rounds and rounds of medical testing before one of the two football teams in Los Angeles selected me after waiting on my chair for eight minutes and twenty seven seconds on that fateful day of April 27th.
The Royals’ management team and coaches didn’t doubt that I could throw the ball.
They did, however, have concerns about my medical condition and they wanted to ascertain that when they gave me that twenty eight point two mil contract, along with a signing bonus of seventeen point two mil, that I wasn’t going to faint and collapse on the field.
I had never collapsed on the field.
I also wasn’t planning on doing so.
Ever.
But there was always a 0.012 chance that I could have another seizure, but that chance was something that the Royals were willing to overlook and because of that, I gave my all to the team.
Dex could spout all the shit he wanted, but as long as I held the title of this team’s quarterback, the noise he created would just be chatter and nonsense.
Dillon didn’t say anything more about Dex as he walked to the side to grab his water bottle, and started talking to Murrow, another wide receiver. No doubt he would be talking to him about how to grip the ball tighter, especially after it was loosened from his hands during practice by Titan, a defensive back, and caused a fumble.
My teammates milled around the gym, choosing their own poison to master, and as I started my run on the treadmill, I pressed the earbuds of my phone to my ears and let the sounds of Pharell fill my head.
Bridgette had started a playlist on my phone and it included him, and his music was pretty good.
As I started to run, I thought of Bridgette who was still in her class. She had a full day today.
But tonight, tonight she was all mine.
The thought of her made my athletic shorts feel snug, so I tried to focus my thoughts on next week’s game against Pittsburgh.
It wouldn’t do me any good to run with a boner.
Especially in a room filled with large bodies, sweat, and a guy who was clamoring for my position, and just waiting on me to fall.
Bridgette
“What time are we meeting your man?” Rianna asked, her brown eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
“He said to be there at nine,” I answered, feeling my hair fall from one of the pins I’d tucked it in. I had to fix it again. This was the umpteenth time I was fixing my hair; the strands didn’t want to be tamed today.
She was sitting down on the metal chair I’d grabbed from the living room; she was taller than me so I needed her not to tower over me as I applied her makeup.
She was part Dominican, the other part Vietnamese. The tan of her skin was a color that my mother would envy. She wouldn’t be the only one because every time my skin burned in the sun, I cursed at my Norwegian heritage.
My brother got the luck of the draw; he’d inherited our father’s darker skin.
I wasn’t pasty white, but I had to actually work on getting a tan.
Rianna’s eyes fluttered as I applied the mascara, “Ri, stop. You’re ruining my masterpiece.”
The barely-there powder looked magnificent on her and I knew that the nude lipstick would go great with the nude blush I’d scoured from my makeup bag. A makeup bag that was one of many I’d kept in my room. It was a collection of the products I liked from the beauty boxes that were delivered to our apartment.
Every four months, I received a beauty box personally selected by my mother’s assistant, Tre. He liked to surprise me with an eclectic mix of eyeshadows, eyeliners, blushes, skin care products, and lipsticks. I may be time zones away from my mother, but her legacy didn’t escape me.
Rianna had become my closest friend since I started college, and like me she had secrets of her own. It took both of us some time before we divulged those parts of ourselves to each other. But one night, after watching This is Us, we grabbed life by the horns and told each other who we were.
I, the daughter of Bettina Clarkson, a Norwegian import who’d became a famous actress in the US and married an equally famous Canadian hockey player, Beau Cordello.
And she, Rianna Rodriguez, the daughter of Matias Rodriguez and Therese Dao. She was the love child of baseball royalty and an ousted member of Vietnam’s royal family.
It’s funny how fate brought us together.
Two women who didn’t want to be encumbered by our bloodlines. We both had a hard time looking people in the eyes during initial meetings. Maybe it was because we didn’t want anyone to look and see us only because of what we were, and not who we were.
Now if someone was to view our friendship from afar, they’d think that we’d been friends forever.
We were.
We just took the long route to get there.
She was the sister of my heart, the bearer of my secrets, and the holder of my dreams.
“You have the unique talent of making me beautiful.” Her eyes flickered open as she checked herself in the mirror.
I laughed, “I have the raw materials to work with, and they were pretty great to begin with.”
I chose a copper shade for her eyes and it created a dramatic effect that would go great with the gold dress she was wearing tonight.
Scott had asked us to dress up, so we were heeding his advice and doing just that.
“When you decide that outer space isn’t for you, just remember that you can always fall back on being a makeup artist, a painter, or a ventriloquist,” Rianna said, standing up from the chair and combing through her curls.
“Ventriloquist?” Where did that come from? I had no clue on how to transfer voices to a puppet.
“Isn’t that what they call people who can speak many languages?”
I laughed so hard that my stomach started to ache.
“What?” Rianna didn’t get why I was dying of laughter.
“Wha- Ha- I can’t.” I gasped for air between fits of laughter. When I could finally get some cohesive words out, I sputtered, “You’re trying to say linguist. Or specifically polyglot.”
She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Ventriloquist…Polyglot…Po-tay-to. Poh-tah-to. All the same, girlfriend. All I care about is that you can order all dim sum without needing an interpreter.”
I closed my arms around her shoulders and as I stared at our images in the mirror, I said out loud, “Who would have thought?”
“What?”
“That one day our worlds would collide and we’d be friends?”
A misty sparkle started to show up in her eyes, and I didn’t really want her to ruin my makeup masterpiece, so I said, “I meant…that two girls who came from dysfunctional families like ours.”
“Ha.”
A comfortable silence filled our tiny bathroom.
It was the silence formed by an unconventional friendship.
We didn’t seek out to find each other. Especially not on the streets of Los Angeles.
But we did.
And it was everything I could hope for, and so much more.
“Are all the hot guys here tonight?” Rianna said, her mouth close to my ear.
It was hard to hear anyone in this busy club. Her assessment was on point. There were so many cute guys in different shapes and sizes walking around LA Live.
When we entered the club, a yellow band was clamped on my wrist since I was under 21, alerting the servers not to serve me alcoholic drinks.
I didn’t mind it.
I’d tasted alcohol before I decided that we couldn’t be friends.
My friend wouldn’t want me reduced to a messy pile on the floor, puking and wishing for the toilet bowl to swallow me whole – which was exactly what happened five months ago when Rianna turned the big 2-1.
I nodded my head at my friend and looked down at my phone.
Running late. So sorry.
Scott was supposed to be here already, but he got tied up with a last-minute meeting with one of his coaches.
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I texted back, No problem. We’re here. We’ll just grab some food.
The dotted lines appeared and seconds later, the message, Ask for Dylan and Swami, we have a private room, came to light.
I voiced out the names to the pretty blonde who welcomed us at the entrance, and her smile got bigger. “You’re here with the Royals?”
Rianna answered for me, “If we are, is that gonna get us free drinks?”
The lady with the name tag, Sadie, chuckled, “More like free everything.”
“Oh well, I guess we are,” Rianna said, as she snapped her fingers in the air, to which I giggled.
My friend was funny.
She was shy, but once you got to know her, she was really hilarious.
We hadn’t been out of our apartment for a night like this. It’d been a while since we let loose, so when Scott asked if it was okay for us to hang out with his teammates instead of going on a romantic dinner for two, I agreed because I just wanted to see him.
I wasn’t comfortable meeting lots of new people all at once, it just gave me heebie-jeebies, but I would endure introductions so I could breathe the same air as the quarterback who’d been dominating the football field for weeks now.
I didn’t watch football. I’d made exceptions when he played…but that was a long time ago.
But now, my face was glued to the TV or my phone when Scott was playing.
Every time Scott’s football cleats touched the field, it was like I was watching Van Gogh playing football. I couldn’t see his eyes because he wore a helmet, but the way he walked, commanded his team, there was no doubt that he was their leader.
He wasn’t good for my heart because the suspense of not knowing who was going to win was going make me an early candidate for my grave. Just like his last game. I had to keep my teeth from biting into my lips or I’d be bleeding all over the place. The Royals scored a touchdown with forty five seconds left in the fourth quarter.
I wasn’t a praying woman, but I said all the prayers that Nanny Tilda taught me in French. I even said some in Italian and Chinese, hoping that maybe God would listen. In different languages.
Scott made playing football look easy.
That’s what the best players did.
My brother did it for hockey and rugby.
They made the audience, viewers, everyone watching them feel like they themselves could do it.
But I knew the hard work and intense mental pressures that they put themselves under. Maybe good athletes were born, but the great ones thrived because of their dedication to their sport.
My phone vibrated in my hand as Rianna and I followed Sadie up the steps.
I glanced down as soon as we reached the top step, it was Scott.
Be there in twenty minutes. Traffic.
I texted back, Okay, no worries. Drive safe.
Sadie and Rianna were chatting about how spacious the club was. It looked small from the outside, but it was clearly deceiving because it was a palace inside. The lights weren’t your typical neon-glow, dance club scene. Rather there were golden orbs on the ceilings and mirrored glass everywhere that screamed elegance and fun.
Everywhere I looked there were Royals, Lakers, Clippers, Angels, Dodgers, and other sports mementos decorating the walls.
It was clear that this was LA’s museum for sports.
“Here we are,” Sadie said, stopping by a closed door that didn’t have a knob to open it. Sadie pressed her right hand on the right side of the luminescent wall and the door opened.
“Fancy,” Rianna commented, her fingers snapping in the air.
Sadie smiled, “Only the best for the best football team out there.”
“Is this their playground?” Rianna asked, to which Sadie said, “One of many, I’m sure.”
The music around the place was loud, but as soon as the three of us stepped inside the room, the music playing was elevator music, the sounds that you’d play on a rainy day when you were covered with three blankets.
Rianna picked up on my question, “What’s this?”
Sadie smiled, “Oh the music? It’s early yet. They don’t get wild til after eleven.”
I nodded and noted that the room was about 1500 square feet in size, there were two billiard tables in the left corner and three bowling lanes on the other end. A few girls milled about by the bar area and hors d’ouevres were displayed on a table.
Two large guys were talking to the bartender; they must be Scott’s teammates.
Sadie’s voice cut through my inspection, “Is there anything else you ladies need?”
Rianna said, “I’m good.”
I agreed and waved my hand, “No, I’m good. Thanks for walking us up here.”
“It’s a pleasure.” Sadie smiled and before leaving she said, “Enjoy your night. Please let us know if you need anything.”
Rianna and I thanked her again and as the door closed behind us, one of the big guys walked towards us.
“Ladies, would one of you happen to be Bridgette?” His dark eyes roved around me, then his gaze floated to my companion and it remained there.
I said, “That’s me.”
“I’m Swami.” He held out his hand, clasped mine and gestured toward the bar, “Ask Gavin if you want some drinks, he’s the best.”
“Thank you, Swami,” Rianna said at my side. “Thanks for inviting us.”
“I didn’t, but I’m sure as hell glad that Scott did.” His dark eyes were already swarming over my best friend’s face. She looked amazing, and Swami was going to be another captive of hers by the end of the night.
Poor guy.
“Rianna.” She smiled and the six-foot-five black guy looked like he wanted to fall to his knees and bow to her. She’d recently broken up with the guy she was dating because he was becoming too clingy, so now she was free to explore other options again. Her words, not mine.
While the two of them were exchanging swoony glances, I excused myself to try the appetizers on the small table.
My mouth was devouring the heavenly mushroom appetizers and was about to pop another one in my mouth when the lights started to get dim and the music became louder.
The door opened and a group of three guys, each big enough to crash a semi, came through. Their voices were loud. One of them was saying, “Hell yeah, let’s burn them to the ground!”
A bevy of ladies soon followed, and in a matter of minutes the scene had gone from chill and relaxed to my-heart-is-thumping-from-this-loud music.
Rianna and Swami had moved their conversation to the bar. My friend waved at me time and time again, and I waved back to let her know that I was doing okay.
She’d eaten a burger after her last class while I managed to scrounge up cheese and crackers after my lab. I was hungry. Therefore, the table filled with food was my friend.
The blue mini-dress that I wore for tonight was tame in comparison to the barely-there outfits of the ladies that entered the room. They gave me smiles and then they all proceeded to the bar. Everyone here was invited by someone on the Royals’ roster, so they might not know who I was, but to them, it probably didn’t matter.
I was used to being a fly on the wall and it was the best place to be.
Some women liked to be front and center. I loved being in the background, unnoticed.
I kept an eye on my best friend, ensuring that she was okay, and hoping that she didn’t drink much tonight so she wouldn’t regret it tomorrow. But if she did and she had a hangover, it was no big deal. She didn’t have classes and she wasn’t a rowdy drunk. I just hoped that she enjoyed her time tonight.
I hadn’t received another text from Scott.
He was probably parking or walking here by now.
My phone vibrated again, so I placed the spinach crostini I was halfway through eating on a napkin, and pulled my phone out of my small silver purse.
The purse complimented my dress and my shoes. Shoes that were only two inches in height. I could’ve gone taller, but I wanted co
mfort over fashion. Every single time.
Ur sked still clear for brunch when I’m there? It wasn’t from Scott.
It was from my brother, Bishop.
He’d called yesterday to let me know he was going to be in town.
These days, when he was off, he was in San Francisco helping his girlfriend look for a place to live. A year ago, Kara got a job from WebNatics, a startup in Silcon Valley. She’s had a hard time looking for places, so whenever Bishop was in town, he was out there with her, trying out their luck.
A pang bloomed inside my chest.
I didn’t like keeping secrets from Bishop.
He was the best brother I could ever hope for, and he never kept secrets from me. If he did, it was because he didn’t want to hurt me. The mental abuse he’d sustained from our father would never be erased, and he tried to shield me from everything. I’d never tell him because it would only open up wounds that have already healed up, but I still remember all the broken bones and bruises he’d suffered from hours and hours of hockey practice.
I’m available. What time are you and Kara flying in? My fingers were quick to respond.
It wasn’t like I was purposefully hiding Scott from Bishop.
Maybe I was.
I don’t know. It was all too confusing.
Truthfully, I didn’t know how my brother was going to react to finding out that I was dating his girlfriend’s ex. Growing up, my brother wasn’t controlling or overprotective. He liked to tell his friends that I was off-limits to them simply because he could.
But by the time I was old enough to date, Bishop had gone to college and he got busy.
I didn’t have anyone to talk to about girly stuff. My mother wasn’t one for hugs and kisses, so talking about boys wasn’t on her menu either. All she liked to talk to me about was my beauty routine, which was non-existent.
I learned everything about boys from my classmates at St. Therese. I heard them through hushed whispers and secretive glances whenever the other schools, with boys in them, came to visit ours for dances and school activities.
I knew Scott wasn’t on Bishop’s radar of guys I could potentially date but then again, who knew?
LAX at 9:30. We can meet up at Caldwell’s. Bishop’s text buzzed through and I sent him a thumbs-up.
