First Flight, Final Fall

by C. W. Farnsworth

  “Phones work both ways, Hallie,” I point out.

  “He doesn’t know what to say to you, Saylor. When he called about being engaged, all you said was ‘Okay.’”

  “I barely know the woman! What was I supposed to say? ‘Glad she’s closer to your age than mine. Big relief none of my old classmates are going to be my new mommy’?”

  A third sigh. “None of them were that young,” Hallie says in his defense.

  “Jessica was twenty-six.”

  “She was?”

  “Yup. She asked me if I thought she could pass for twenty-four because that was the age she told her modeling agent.”

  Hallie laughs. “You’re making this up.”

  “I’m not that creative.” I tuck my phone between my cheek and shoulder so I can pull my hair off my neck. Not that it makes any difference. I can feel a bead of sweat trickling down my spine.

  There’s a quiet snort, then Hallie settles back into her serious tone. “He asks about you all the time, Saylor. They’ve still got some stuff to sort out for the wedding. I’m sure he’d love to know your opinion.”

  “I can assure you it’s nothing I would have an opinion about. I’ll show up. Doesn’t make a difference to me if there’s cupcakes or donuts at the reception.”

  “They already decided on a traditional cake,” Hallie informs me.

  I let out a dry laugh. “Of course they did.”

  “Have you booked your ticket?”

  “It’s still three months away, Hallie.”

  “Plane tickets only get more expensive.”

  “That’s a myth,” I counter. “They drop them closer to the date, then raise them again.”

  “Is it about the money?” Hallie asks. “Because you know Dad will pay…”

  “It’s not about the money. I’ll book one tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.” There’s a pause. “Well, get back to the art. Love you, Sis.”

  Hallie hangs up before I have a chance to say it back. She’s not expecting me to. Probably because I never do.

  Chapter Four

  Natalie shows up in Kluvberg on Saturday with five other girls in tow. They all survey me with a hero worship I should probably be flattered by but mostly find to be annoying.

  Except for one.

  “Scott!” London Reynolds squeals as I walk into the café we agreed to meet at, giving me a quick hug. In a bid to spend as little time at home as possible, I’ve spent the past decade attending every skills clinic and soccer camp across the country I possibly could. I don’t think London had the same motivation, but we’ve overlapped at more clinics over the years than I could count. Outside of my Lancaster teammates, she’s one of the few people I’ve played with on a regular basis in recent years.

  “I didn’t know you were going to Amnerallons, Reynolds,” I reply. It’s not on the same level at Scholenberg, but it’s still a competitive program. Worth bragging about.

  “And of course you’re at Scholenberg.” She rolls her eyes. “I should have known you’d be here.”

  “I didn’t have anything better to do for the next two months,” I reply with a grin.

  Natalie cuts in, introducing the rest of the girls she’s with. Unlike Scholenberg, Amnerallons doesn’t limit how many players it accepts from a country. They’re all American; mostly from schools on the West Coast that Lancaster rarely plays.

  “Where are we going first?” someone asks excitedly once we have made introductions. I already forgot her name, but I’m more concerned by how everyone’s suddenly looking at me.

  “Guys, I barely know the city,” I admit. “I’ve been here less than a week. I’ve gone to the field and a couple restaurants, and that’s it.”

  “You’ve been to Kluvberg’s stadium already?” Natalie asks eagerly. “How was it?”

  “Yeah, we had a meeting there a couple days ago,” I divulge, opting not to share my trespassing earlier in the week.

  “I still cannot believe you’ll be playing on the same field as Adler Beck has.”

  Now would be the perfect opportunity to tell Natalie I met him. To share our electrifying, combative encounter; admit I’m probably on Adler Beck’s shit list.

  But something stops me.

  I’m not sure what.

  Normally, I revel in sharing stories. When Trey Johnson shifted his attention from Hannah Mason to me, he was so confident I’d be interested, he stripped in the girls’ locker room when he knew I came in for extra practice. Athletes tend to be a cocky bunch, but he was significantly less sure of himself when I left with his clothes, forcing him to walk-of-shame through the athletic complex with nothing but a small towel covering his goodies. That anecdote was heard so many times on campus it practically earned triple-platinum status.

  Trey Johnson peaked during his years as Lancaster’s quarterback, fading to irrelevance as soon as he crossed the stage.

  Adler Beck’s in an entirely different league. Natalie’s new friends—even London—might be looking at me with admiration right now. The revelation that I met Beck would do more than earn me deity status. It would prompt questions—lots of questions I don’t feel like answering.

  So, I just shrug in response to Natalie’s statement. “Let’s go to a beer garden,” I suggest. “I’ll text Ellie and see if she has any recommendations.”

  “Ellie?” London questions.

  “Ellie Anderson. She’s the other American at Scholenberg with me.”

  “Oh, right. Her uncle’s a trainer for Kluvberg, right?”

  “Right,” I confirm. I’ve uttered the same statement before, but having met Ellie, I feel a bit bad for concluding nepotism was the reason for her spot in the program. Probably has a little something to do with the fact that she’s the only person who hasn’t acted like my presence is an insult. “And she’s visited here a bunch because of it, so she’ll probably know a good spot.”

  Ellie recommends a place on the opposite side of the city, prompting my first encounter with public transportation. The tiny town in Georgia where I grew up most certainly didn’t have it, and I have a car at Lancaster. From what I’ve heard about transit systems, I wasn’t missing much.

  However, there’s none of the horrors I’ve heard described when we find the correct entrance and head underground. No graffiti, no urine scent, no garbage. We buy our tickets from a machine that helpfully has an English selection and then hop on the first train that arrives; one that is hopefully heading to our destination.

  The inside of the subway is just as clean as the station was, with spotless plastic chairs we settle in and a map of blinking dots that display where we are. With a quiet whoosh, the doors close, and we speed off into darkness.

  Two stops later, we emerge from the cool underground back into the warm sunshine. This part of the city looks just like the section we came from, except it’s significantly more convoluted. Less residential and more commercial. Restaurants, gift shops, bookstores, coffee shops, and bars line the street, interspersed by tourist traps that boast windows filled with flouncy clothing and t-shirts bedazzled with snappy slogans.

  Natalie drags us all into the third gift store we pass. It’s small and narrow, but what it lacks in width, it more than makes up for in height. Soaring shelves cover every inch of available wall space, packed with every souvenir imaginable. There are cuckoo clocks, Hummel figurines, leather-bound books of Grimms’ fairy tales, outfits with full skirts and suspenders, ornaments, bits of rubble claiming to be pieces of the Berlin Wall, beer steins, fedoras, mustard, and more gummy bears than I’ve ever seen in my life. All filling the tall shelves in an explosion of culture and color.

  We all disperse to peruse the store on our own. I’m flipping through the postcard selection to find ones to send to Emma, Cressida, and Anne when Natalie bounces over to me holding two t-shirts. “Which one for the Theta kegger?”

  I glance between the gray option that reads I’m Just Here for the Beer and the pink Life is Brewtiful one.

  “
Pink,” I decide.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Natalie replies. “But I think Gamma’s colors are pink and white, and I don’t want people thinking I’m part of that shitshow. Or is it Kappa that’s pink?”

  “I associate pink with Alpha Sigma I-don’t-give-a-shit,” I respond, grabbing three postcards. “Just get whatever shirt you like better.”

  Natalie deliberates for a minute. “Okay, I’ll get both.”

  She heads for the cashier, and I move farther into the store. The back wall is entirely dedicated to clothing. I spot both the shirts Natalie found, along with a variety displaying the German flag; faded, as a heart, as a soccer ball. The last iteration is located next to the top displayed front and center.

  An Adler Beck jersey.

  The sight of it prompts a strange reaction, reminding me of our outré encounter. Thanks to his breakout performance on the world stage as soon as he was eligible to play, he was living the life of a professional athlete back when I was a freshman in high school, despite being just eighteen months older than me.

  Ever since then, I’ve admired his athleticism and appearance—along with the rest of the world. Our interaction both exceeded my expectations and fell short. I want to relive it and also pretend it never happened.

  “Are you going to get one?” London asks, appearing next to me. I startle. She nods to the Beck jersey I’m staring at. Busted. “You could wear it to practice in Kluvberg’s stadium.”

  The mere suggestion makes me cringe. My impression is Scholenberg does everything it can to separate its female attendees from FC Kluvberg players because: hello, distractions. It’s part of the reason Kluvberg supposedly spends the summer months training elsewhere. Although, I have to say, my experience so far has suggested that’s some pretty spectacular false advertising.

  FC Kluvberg’s official season doesn’t span the summer months, but professional athletes don’t really have an offseason, as evidenced by Beck’s presence at the field just the other day. The thought of Adler Beck seeing me practicing in his jersey is rebarbative. I’ve always been the type to push back just to show I can. Falling in line as an Adler Beck fangirl feels like capitulating, lessening my small victory against him.

  “Nope, just grabbing this,” I reply, taking a baby onesie with a German flag on it off the shelf.

  London eyes me speculatively. “Something you need to tell me?”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s for my sister. She just had a baby.”

  “Look at you being a doting aunt.”

  That adjective seems like a stretch considering I’ve never even met the kid, but I don’t argue. “Are you getting anything?” I ask.

  “No, I’ve bought way too much at Amnerallons already. Thank God there’s only a week left, or I’d have to get a new suitcase, too.”

  “It’s that short?” I ask, surprised.

  “Yeah, just the two weeks.”

  “So, what are you going to do for the rest of summer?”

  “Lounge on the beach.” London grins. “Hook up with a hot lifeguard. Eat ice cream. Who knows?”

  I snort. “Sounds lovely.”

  “What are you doing after Scholenberg? It’s what—six weeks?”

  “Eight. I’ll head back to Lancaster to start training for preseason as soon as it ends.”

  London shakes her head. “I don’t know how you do it. My teammates think my training is crazy.”

  I shrug as I plop the onesie on the checkout counter and dig some euros from my pocket. “If you’re doing the same as everyone else, you’re not going to be the best.”

  “That’s a better t-shirt slogan than Life is Brewtiful,” Natalie comments to my right.

  I smirk as I pay for the onesie. “I’ll tell Nike when I sign my endorsement deal.”

  We exit the store and continue down the street. The beer garden Ellie recommended is supposedly only a couple blocks farther, and the first hint that we’re drawing near is the sudden change in our surroundings. Dense greenery appears on the right rather than more storefronts. There’s a wrought iron archway halfway down the block and a wooden sign affixed to the center carved with a few German words. The last one says Biergarten, which I take as an encouraging sign we’ve navigated the city correctly. Then again, I’m pretty sure Kluvberg has more than just the one beer garden.

  I lead the way down a stone pathway that cuts through the foliage. We emerge onto a wooden terrace. Verdure is draped over and twisting through it, sheltering the picnic tables below and dripping down the sides in tendrils of leaves. A wooden hut is situated to the left, with a line of customers waiting to place their orders snaking around the side. Others are already enjoying refreshments at the tables, dipping pretzels in an array of mustards and drinking beer.

  It takes me a moment to realize, but the beer garden also overlooks most of Kluvberg. We’re in a newer part of the city, one that’s on higher ground, evidently. I can see the canal in the distance. The steeples of the cathedral. And the stadium, of course.

  “You guys grab a table. I’ll get in line,” I offer.

  “I’ll come with you,” Natalie says. “Text me your orders, ladies.”

  Our group splits. Natalie and I join the end of the line, and thankfully, it’s moving pretty fast. We’re close enough to see the menu within minutes, and I realize there’s a lot more than just beer and pretzels being offered.

  My relationship with German cuisine has been antagonistic so far. The restaurant I went to earlier in the week with Ellie and a few other Scholenberg attendees was offering a wide variety of foods that did not sound appealing at all: rolls soaked in milk, beef with raisins, and potatoes prepared in more ways than I imagined possible. But all the German dishes here have English descriptions written underneath, and bratwurst on a pretzel bun or fried pork doesn’t sound terrible.

  We reach the counter, and Natalie relays everyone else’s orders to the young blonde woman behind it as I continue to survey the menu. I’ve always been indecisive when it comes to food. Some might call me a picky eater.

  Finally, I settle on just a pretzel to go with my beer.

  We move to the side to let the next group order and take up positions along the wrought-iron fence that circles the perimeter of the eating area to wait. I stare out at the city for a couple of minutes and then turn my gaze back to the terrace, just in time to watch a brown-haired guy saunter over to us. The cocky grin he’s sporting tells me all I need to know about why he’s approaching us. Or approaching me, rather. He ignores Natalie, focusing his attention exclusively on me.

  “Hello.” He addresses me in English, but there’s a thick accent underlying the greeting. I say nothing, just raise an eyebrow. “I know you speak English—I heard you ordering,” he adds.

  “So?” I ask, raising both brows now.

  “I was wondering if you’d like to sit with me and my mates.” He jerks his head toward a table filled with a boisterous group I’m not the least bit surprised to learn are his companions.

  “We’ve already got a table,” I inform him.

  His smile only grows. Men; they love the chase. “That’s not why I was inviting you.”

  He’s persistent I’ll give him that. I’d smile if I didn’t think it would encourage him. “We’re good.”

  “If you change your mind…” He nods toward the same table, as if I might have forgotten where he is sitting in the past ten seconds.

  I nod once to acknowledge I do in fact recall the location he just shared with me.

  Natalie turns to me as soon as he leaves. “Fuck, he was hot.”

  “He was?” I reply, genuinely surprised. He wasn’t unattractive, but I found nothing particularly remarkable about him.

  Natalie gives me a weird look. “Yeah, he was.”

  I shrug. “Not my type, I guess.”

  She makes a small sound of incredulity. “You’re hard to please, then.”

  Uninvited, blue eyes and chiseled cheekbones flash before my eyes. A face women everyw
here lust after.

  Not that hard to please.

  I definitely don’t improve anyone’s opinion of me when I drag six tipsy strangers into the Scholenberg house. Ellie’s still out with her extended family, so I don’t have so much as a single ally. “Stay here,” I instruct them all when we enter the living room. “I’m just going to change real quick.”

  I rush toward the stairs past Sydney, the fittingly named Australian who’s scrolling through her phone on the couch.

  Another Scholenberg attendee blocks the first step. “Seriously?” Olivia asks. She’s Norwegian. Maybe Swedish? We’ve yet to step on the field together, but she’s preemptively taken an aggressive stance, glaring at me every chance she gets. This is our first verbal encounter, however.

  “We won’t be here long,” I assure her.

  “Meaning you’re going out.”

  “Yes.”

  She sniffs disdainfully. “Interesting training routine you have.”

  My temper flares at the absurdity of someone accusing me of not training hard enough. “Tomorrow is Sunday, also known as our day off. And we’ll see what you have to say about my training routine next week.” I brush past her, heading into my room. I change in record time, swap my cross-body bag for a clutch, and hurry back downstairs.

  Natalie lets out a long wolf-whistle when I appear.

  “Damnit, we should have made you come in your t-shirt and shorts,” London says from the couch, giggling as she surveys the dress and leather jacket I changed into. “How do you manage to just look like that?”

  I roll my eyes. “Get up. Let’s go.”

  Our next stop is the hotel they’re all staying at. The exterior blends with the local architecture, but as soon as we enter, I feel as though I’ve stepped back into the States. There’s the same generic carpeting and bland art as every hotel I’ve stayed in.

  The girls have adjoining rooms with twin beds and cots set up. I don’t ask who’s getting stuck with the cots, but pity whoever the two are when I take a seat on one. They’re just as uncomfortable as one would expect sitting on a canvas-and-wood construction to be. At least they’re free of whatever questionable fluids are preserved in the comforters covering the beds.