Team Player: A Sports Romance Anthology

by Adriana Locke

  A collective gasp went up, and the stands went as silent as 3,000 people can get. Robert stared at the red card, then turned to glare at me.

  A vein bulged in his neck. “You stupid fuck. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  I nodded faintly, the fire doused by a cold bucket of reality. I opened my mouth, maybe to apologize. Maybe to tell Robert I was relieved. That’s when I heard him.

  “Hallooo, hoi! There he is.”

  I turned toward the stands to see him there, drunk off his ass, and waving a whiskey bottle like a beacon at me. In the relative quiet of the stadium, his voice carried straight to me.

  “Did you see? A goal like no other. Right off a prince’s crown…”

  The referees were motioning for the players to take position for Lyon’s free kick, even though the foul was on my own teammate.

  Not just fouled. Red carded.

  The realization of what I’d done dropped into my stomach as I walked toward the sidelines. But instead of heading left toward the locker room, I walked slowly toward the stands. The fans booed and jeered at me now, many screaming Pourquoi? Over and over.

  As I drew closer, I found my friends’ group. Lucie was crying and Brigitte had her arms around her, glaring at me with pain in her eyes. Janey stared about in confusion at the crowds’ reaction. She met my eye and raised her hands. I only shook my head.

  My sister and mother sat in silence. My mother glared at me, a mixture of fear and anger shining in her eyes. Only Sophie, of everyone in the entire stadium, smiled for me. A small, kind smile.

  “Did you see that?” the drunken man asked, pointing his whiskey bottle at me. “Did you see what he did?”

  Some of the crowd was now booing him, too, and telling him to sit down or get the hell out. Sophie glanced over at him, her smile fading, her eyes full of tears.

  I held up my hands to tell her I’d take care of it, and approached the man.

  “Did you see that?” he asked me, his eyes glassy and bright. His breath reeked of stale booze and it dripped from his scraggly salt-and-pepper beard. “Did you see...? Do you know…what you did?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Papa, I know what I did.” I put my arm around his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

  11

  I Fall to Pieces

  Janey

  Sitting in the stands was like being caught in a storm. Swells of nervous excitement coursed through the spectators, as the teams set up for kickoff after Adrian’s first goal. Lucie and Brigitte were clutching each other, their eyes locked on the field.

  Not the field, the pitch, I reminded myself with a dull ache, and snapped a few shots. I had more than enough material for a puff piece interview, but I wanted more.

  Adrian…

  I cut the thought off before it led me down another rabbit hole of confusion and second-guessing. After Robert’s cold words to me the night before, how I felt about Adrian was now tangled up with the team’s chances to advance.

  He’s been different since you showed up.

  Butterflies and nerves warred in my stomach.

  And then it happened.

  The whistle blew and a Lyon player nudged the ball to a player behind him. A blur of black and yellow, and Adrian was there.

  “You see?” Brigitte said from beside me. “You see how he can read the field? He’s three steps ahead of every defender and knows where his own teammates are. To pass without looking…”

  She fell silent as the entire stadium collectively held their breath. Adrian passed to #10, a player I didn’t recognize, and he took a shot. The ball glanced off the goalie’s hands and—almost as if he were defying reality—Adrian leapt up and head-butted the ball into the net.

  The stadium went crazy; a storm of cheering and applause and stomping feet as everyone bolted out of their seats. Lucie and Brigitte were screaming and jumping up and down together.

  The crowd’s thunder then hissed like a doused fire in a collective gasp as Adrian suddenly charged at Olivier, taking them both to the ground. Brigitte’s hand snaked out to clutch my arm painfully, as the two men wrestled.

  “What is he doing?” Lucie screeched, louder and louder. “What is he doing?”

  When Adrian slammed his fist into Olivier’s face, the crowd bellowed as if they’d felt it.

  “Mon Dieu,” Brigitte whispered as the teammates pulled the men apart and the ref flashed a red card in Adrian’s face. “Red card. Oh mon Dieu, he got a red card.”

  Lucie burst into tears, and men in the stands around us began to curse Adrian’s name.

  “What is it? He got kicked out of the game?” I asked as Adrian headed towards the sidelines on our side.

  “He got kicked out of the game,” Brigitte said, her face pale. “They’ll have to play with only ten now.”

  I made a face. “Okay, but PC is up two to nothing…”

  Brigitte shook her head. “Adrian is kicked out of this game but a red card means he also can’t play in the next game.” She raised her eyes to meet mine. “Adrian can’t play in the final match.”

  I sank back down in my seat. The bum from the last game had returned and some fans were taking their anger out on him. I watched as Adrian, still in his uniform, approached the man and put his arm around him. Together, under a hail of jeering and catcalls, they left the stadium together.

  I slipped out of the stands and followed.

  I caught up to them on the street corner where Adrian was trying to hail a cab. One slowed but then screeched away when the driver caught sight of the old bum, cursing and waving his bottle.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  Adrian spun around. “Janey…” His glance darted to the bum and back to me. Then he slumped, defeated. “I have to get him home. He’s not dangerous. Only…confused. And drunk.”

  I nodded. “Who is he, Adrian?”

  Adrian’s blue eyes held mine. “Victor. His name is Victor.”

  I stared, realization nearly bowling me over. “He’s…”

  “My father.”

  Victor Rousseau turned to peer at me with glassy eyes. “Eh? Brigitte Bardot right before my eyes…”

  “This is Janey. She’s…a friend.”

  Victor narrowed his eyes at Adrian, as if thinking hard. “How hard it is…to love so much? Like reaching through a fire…to pull the treasure from the flames.”

  “Come on, Papa,” Adrian said. “Take it easy.”

  No taxi would stop, so we took the Metro to the 18th Arrondissement. The buildings here were as old as the grand apartments of Madame Rousseau’s neighborhood, but in greater disrepair. Narrow, trash strewn streets wound like a snake between ramshackle buildings. Men huddled together outside tobacco shops, smoking and talking, and staring at me as we passed by on narrow walks buffeting narrower streets.

  We came to a small, three-story pension with chipped maroon paint and a faded awning. The pension looked wedged between two other, larger buildings, like bullies muscling a little guy between them.

  “I got it from here,” Adrian said. “Thanks.”

  “I can help—”

  “No, you can’t,” he said, his voice sounding frayed. Beside him, Victor swayed tiredly.

  “You told me your father died in Vietnam,” I said in a low voice.

  “I said he didn’t come back,” Adrian said, watching his father mutter at his own hands. “That was the truth. The man who came back from Vietnam was not the same who left.”

  “Adrian—”

  “This is all off the record, Janey,” Adrian said, opening the pension’s front door. “There is no story. Not anymore.”

  He helped his father inside and shut the door between us.

  12

  Stay With Me

  Honey, it ain’t much,

  It’s only everything.

  –-“One Good Man”, Janis Joplin

  JANEY

  I went home that afternoon, my heart and brain so at odds with each other, I could hardly think. My heart ached for
what I now knew of Adrian’s father. Adrian had said he wanted to be a hero for his dad, but what did it mean for him if he couldn’t play the biggest game of the season? What would it mean for Paris Central?

  “Hey, Antoine, how’s that for an angle?” I muttered as I fit my key in the door of my flat. “The star striker gets red carded ahead of the final.”

  In my small place, I sank down on my couch. On the coffee table, arrayed in front of me, were the photos I’d been taking of Adrian. I’d spent hours in a darkroom at the university developing them. Dozens were of Adrian on the pitch in action. Hair flying, his face darkly handsome, smudged with sweaty grime and drawn with determination.

  I fanned those photos out beside the few I’d taken of Adrian not playing. One at his home, in the backyard reading with a shaft of light falling over him. Another of him dancing the soccer ball over his knee, his expression free of worry or pressure—just him and the ball, messing around for the hell of it.

  The last photo I drew toward me was of him and his father—though I hadn’t known it was his father at the time I snapped it—walking down the side street. A son helping his dad make it home safely.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  “What do you want, Adrian?” I whispered.

  I had no idea, but I knew what I wanted, and it had nothing to do with any article or big story. I grabbed my bag and headed out.

  I took the Metro to the 16th Arrondissement, to Adrian’s home. The late afternoon sun cast an amber glow over the neighborhood, like an old, sepia-toned photograph. Two girls—the same two girls I’d seen bounding down the stairs the first time I’d come to interview Adrian—were coming out the front door as I stepped onto the stairs.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, stopping them in their tracks. They were about my age, and looked like college students dressed to go out. “You’re Sophie’s friends, yes?”

  They both gave me a funny look.

  “Not really,” said one.

  “We live here,” said the other, and they hurried past me.

  I frowned. They live here…?

  I knocked on the door, and waited patiently for Sophie to answer. Instead, it swung open and Mme. Rousseau was there. She looked tired, her eyes red-rimmed and her bouffant hair looked a tad deflated.

  “Ah, it’s you,” she said, tightening her housecoat tighter around her waist. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Adrian,” I said.

  “Adrian is not here right now,” Mme. Rousseau said, and while her refined manners wouldn’t let her shut the door in my face, I could see she was itching to. “I will tell him you stopped by.”

  “Wait, please…”

  “Don’t you feel you’ve done enough damage?”

  I gaped. “Me? What did I do?”

  “Robert told me everything,” Mme. Rousseau said. “Adrian attacked Olivier because of something crass he said about you.”

  My heart crashed against my chest, then plummeted to my feet. “Something about…me?”

  “Oui,” Mme. Rousseau snapped. “If you hadn’t stuck your nose into Adrian’s business, none of this would have happened. He’d still be playing in the finals, and we’d…” She bit off her last words and shook her head.

  I spotted Sophie lurking in the hallway, holding to the wall for support.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Mme. Rousseau. “I didn’t mean—”

  “They lost, young lady.”

  I gaped. “They…lost? But they were up two, nothing…”

  “Lyon rallied and with only ten players—and without my son—PC couldn’t hold. They lost and the fourth-ranked team won their match. PC is now fourth place again and out of contention for advancement. If they don’t win their final game…” Mme. Rousseau’s face paled and then she drew herself up. “As I said, Adrian’s not here right now. Have a good day.”

  And then Mme. Rousseau did shut the door in my face. I stared at the elegant but old, peeling paint, half in a daze.

  Adrian got red carded for me.

  The notion gave me a little thrill that he would defend my honor like that, but it was fleeting. To think of what he might lose…How they did lose.

  I sat down on the front steps of his house. It was possible Adrian had been delayed helping his father settle into the pension, and he was on his way back right now. Or maybe he’d gone out after. Even if it took hours, I was prepared to wait. Late into the night if I had to.

  But a few minutes later, the front door opened and Sophie struggled out onto the stoop. Adrian’s sister clutched the railing of the front stairs of her building with both hands; the twilight sun glinting dully off her leg braces. I rose to my feet.

  “Sophie…”

  “Adrian doesn’t live here,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  I blinked. “He doesn’t live here?”

  She shook her head. “We rent his room and the guest space to two girls. University students.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “We need the money.”

  “Where is Adrian, then?”

  “He lives at 23 Rue Cassis, in the 18th arrondissement. He won’t like that I told you, but he likes you.” She smiled shyly, and looked to the ground. “And I know you won’t mind.”

  “Mind what?”

  “About our situation.” Sophie glanced back at the house. “I have to go. Maman is resting but she won’t be happy if she knows I told you.” She turned back to me, not able to meet my eyes. “Our secret?”

  “Of course.”

  Sophie stumbled, then caught herself.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “I can do it. I can do more than Maman thinks,” Sophie said with more strength behind her words than I’d ever heard. At the door she turned. “Tell Adrian I’m sorry but…No.” She shook her head and laughed softly. “I’m not sorry. I like you. For him. And I have to watch out for my brother, don’t I?”

  “That’s right,” I answered, strangely proud of her. It was odd to think of that frail woman as anyone’s protector, and I know most people felt the same. Including me, up until that moment.

  Sophie let go of the railing to give me a wave and then retreated back into the house, leaving me with an address and more questions. I exited the Metro and as soon as I stepped foot onto Rue Cassis, another current of shock jolted through me.

  I know this street…

  I recognized the street because I had just been there hours before with Adrian and his father. The address Sophie gave me was for the same ramshackle pension with a maroon awning that Adrian had helped his father into.

  The front door stuck a little from too many layers of paint over the years. I opened it on a front foyer that was cramped and dim, but homey and warm. I felt comfortable immediately.

  The carpet and walls were both the same maroon as the front awning, that dark color making the small space feel even smaller. Black and white photographs that looked dated from the 1940’s hung on the wall, and a pall of pungent cigarette smoke.

  A rotund woman with a head of short, graying curls, stepped up to the little office from a back room. She looked to be in her sixties, and wore a worn cardigan over a housedress, and rested her arms over the ledge. Behind her, a wiry, darker-skinned man with gray hair emerged to lean against the back wall, smoking the cigarette that gave the foyer its fog.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked in French, though with an accent I didn’t recognize.

  “I’m looking for Monsieur Rousseau?” I said.

  The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “You are American?”

  “Oui.”

  The woman’s heavy jowls lifted at once in a smile and she said something to the man behind her in a foreign tongue. It sounded like Arabic, but I couldn’t be sure.

  The wiry old man came to the desk. “New York City?”

  “Uh, no. California.” I glanced at the rows of numbered hooks on the wall behind the lady, most empty, some with keys dangling from them.

  “This is a residence?” I asked.r />
  The woman nodded. “You are visiting M. Rousseau, the older or younger?”

  “The younger,” I said. “They both live here?”

  The woman’s smile was kind but sad. “Oui, both have rooms here. The father is not well. The son, he takes care of him as best he can. We try to help, but M. Rousseau likes his drink and we can’t very well lock him in.”

  I nodded, my heart more full that ever.

  Oh, Adrian…

  The wiry man spoke again.

  The woman listened, nodding. “My husband reminds me of a saying we have in Algeria: no beauty shines brighter than that of a good heart. That is the young man. A good heart.” She beamed at me. “You are such a pretty girl, I am happy you are here to see him.”

  “I am too,” I said softly.

  “Second floor. Number six.” She indicated the small stairway to the left of the lobby—such as it was.

  “Merci.”

  At number six, I knocked on the door, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Who is it?”

  Adrian sounded wary, and I suddenly felt horrible for intruding. If living here is a secret, he wants to keep it.

  While I stood there, caught in a tangle of my emotions, the door opened.

  “Janey?” Adrian immediately froze. He then closed the door tight to him, so that I couldn’t see beyond him to his place. “What are you doing here?”

  “I went to your home. Or what I’d thought was your home,” I said gently. “Your sister told me you were here.”

  Adrian rubbed his eyes. He’d changed out of his uniform and wore plaid pajama pants and a white V-neck undershirt. His hair was still damp from a shower, though he looked haggard, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “So now you know the truth,” he said bitterly. He pushed off the door and stepped back inside, leaving it open. “Is that why you came? To finish your story?”

  “I don’t know what the truth is,” I said, stepping inside and closing the door behind me. “And no, I don’t give a damn about my article.”

  I glanced around his small place that was cramped but clean. A bed next to a desk; the desk under the window, cluttered with papers and medical textbooks, still open. A little nothing of a kitchen area was on the left and beyond that, a door that I presumed was a bathroom.