Page 5 of Five Things I See in You

But she celebrates with the crowd, not with her teammates. As if she needed to prove something to someone.

I close the folder. My tea has gone cold, almost untouched. For some reason, I watch the video again.

Chapter 4

Noa

The league season opens on the first Saturday in March. We’re at home, and it’s raining. From the tunnel, the shouts from the stands sound like an engine idling.

“Just run down the wing and get me the ball as soon as you can. I’ll take care of the rest,” Iris Vance murmurs beside me.

I get the ball almost as soon as the game starts. I don’t think we’ve even played a full minute. It’s a pass from Zoe, and there’s not much I can do with it except play it back. I think she just wants me to get an early touch to settle my nerves in my first game for the new club. It more or less works. The pass I’ve been waiting for comes in the twenty-ninth minute, with their defense pushed up and space in behind. Beating defenders on the outside is my specialty. I’ve been doing it since I was five. I pull a couple of yards ahead of the fullback and drive into the box with the ball glued to my foot. I have a couple of passing options, but there’s a clear opening, so I fire a shot low across goal, where keepers are always a fraction too late.

My first goal with the Seattle Emeralds. Before I know it I’m facing the stands, celebrating with the fans while my teammates pile on top of me.

We win 2–0 and in the mixed zone the reporters ask me several times about the transfer fee and not once about the goal. The next question is whether I’ve come to help the team win its fifth championship in six years. I answer that I’ve come to play soccer as well as I can and contribute as much as possible to the team. When I was younger, a few things I said were taken out of context and turned into headlines that made me regret opening my mouth. I learned my lesson the hard way. The reporter doesn’t seem satisfied, but it is what it is.

In the locker room, Natalia Costa, the Brazilian player who attacks down the other wing, drops down beside me and takes out an earbud.

“Lots of questions about money, huh?”

“Almost all of them.”

“I’m guessing you’re used to it. Some reporters are like that. When I joined this team, I was serving a suspension and coaching forty girls as punishment.”

She puts the earbud back in and goes to her locker before I have time to ask her about that suspension.

***

Our second league game is away, and we win again. This time I don’t score, but I set up two goals, both for Iris Vance. On the first one, she comes running toward me, hugs me and lifts me off the ground while shouting in my ear over and over that I’ve come to the best team in the world. After the second, she gets sent off for saying something to an opposing player who had already kicked her several times. Luckily, there are only a few minutes left. Still, judging by the shouting, the coach is furious.

In the locker room, Iris asks for quiet by banging on a locker a few times.

“Assists count toward the friendship stats. I just made those up this year, and Brit’s in the lead. The rest of you need to step it up. She’s only been here a month.”

Everyone protests. Zoe throws a towel at her head while Tina spits half a mouthful of her sports drink in a fit of laughter. Then they put reggaeton on some speakers while the players head into the showers. It’s not that they make it hard for me to fit in, quite the opposite, but you can tell they’re a family that’s been playing together for a long time and has shared a lot of experiences. That makes it more complicated for a player coming in from outside.

We have the next day off and I remember the napkin Jordan gave me. I have it stored in one of the kitchen drawers, under the spare keys, with the name of a coffee shop in Ballard written in small, cramped handwriting. So I grab my umbrella and decide to give it a try.

I have to admit Jordan Hayes was right. The flat white is excellent. The first decent one since I left the UK: the milk is just right, and I can actually taste the coffee instead of just the milk. Sounds simple, but apparently it isn’t. Outside, it’s still raining, the same rain as the rest of Seattle, just with more plants here.

For reasons I can’t explain, Iris gave me Jordan’s number on the way out of Thursday’s training session.

“Save it, Brit. In case you ever want to talk to someone who isn’t me,” she told me with a mysterious air, and then added, “That woman is part witch.”

I make several attempts at a message thanking her for the recommendation. The first one comes out too long, with an explanation about the temperature of the milk that nobody cares about. I don’t send it. The second is too short. The third tries to be funny and isn’t. It should be easy. After all, it’s just a thank-you. Something like: “Thank you so much for recommending this place. You were right, the flat white is really good.” And still, I struggle to find the right words.

***

Over the following days I start to realize something I’d rather not admit in public, because it seems a little weird to me. I know where Jordan Hayes is without needing to look. I notice if she stops on the sideline, if she crosses behind the goal on her way to her office. I don’t know when I learned to recognize the way she walks, and it bothers me that I have. I also don’t know why the club psychologist spends so much time watching training.

In one of the sessions, she’s standing on the sideline, next to Hades, with a folder under her arm. In the last rondo I take a heavy touch and the ball rolls right toward them. I go after it, but Jordan stops it with the inside of her foot and sends it back to me with a clean touch.

Not a word, just a smile, but I go back to the rondo with my heart racing harder than the workout can explain. Must be this morning’s speed work, I tell myself, even though the speed work was yesterday.

Otherwise, my days are settling into a kind of routine. I’m usually the first to arrive and the security guard already knows me. I almost always eat lunch and dinner at the training complex, even if I have to do it alone. I wake up at four thirty in the morning and lie there staring at the ceiling because I can’t get back to sleep. At the monthly check-in, the scale reads nine pounds less than the day I arrived and Tessa asks me if I’m sleeping well. I tell her I am.

On Thursday, when I open my locker, I find a bottle of water I didn’t leave there. I look around and Zoe winks at me from a few yards away without saying a single word. I don’t know exactly what the bottle means, maybe a tradition on this team. I don’t ask either.