CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (49 page)

“Pffff.”  Marika
scratched her head and puffed out her cheeks.  “She’s going to make me go
gray!  I lost about ten years of my life just now,” she whimpered, blowing her
nose, “but I’m glad I was wrong.”  She had feared the worst, and even though at
that very moment she would have liked to wring her neck, she was happy to learn
that suicide was not one of the stupid things that Eve had in her repertoire. 
Suicide made no sense: situations change, people change, and the problems of
today may find a solution tomorrow. 
So long as you’re in the game you can
change the final score, but if you take yourself out of it, you’ll never know
how it might have ended, and you let the world win
.  “See you tonight at
Dario’s?”  Marika’s relief turned into flirtatiousness, now that the heart
attack had been avoided.

“Right.”  He was
happy to hear her smiling again.  “I’ll bring the manipulative bitch with me,
that way she can beg your forgiveness in person.”

“She’d never do
that,” she said.

“Trust me, she
will.”  Free will, in certain circumstances, is overrated.

“Thanks,” she
chirped, smacking a kiss into the phone.  “You’re the greatest.”

“I know.” 
Federico knew all too well what those words didn’t say.  “So are you,” he
replied, wanting to say so much more.

***

That evening, the ring of a 90s-style telephone and a disguised voice
filled the night in Villaga.  “
Ring!  Ring! – Hello?  Who is this?
” 
Dario’s house was hosting a horror movie marathon, running from
Scream
to the 1960s.  “
Who are you trying to reach?
”  On the pinewood couch,
Carlotta hung to Dario’s chest while trying to keep Eve and Marika separated,
since the former’s apologies had not fully appeased the latter.  Federico was
squeezed into the corner by Sandra and Giacomo, who leapt at every chord from
the pipe organs or every crunch of popcorn.

“
You never
told me your name
.”  The celluloid killer was taking shape in the basement
of the house.  “
Why do you wanna know my name?
” the naive blonde girl
asked.  “
Because I wanna know who I’m looking at
.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”  A sudden
, bone-chilling scream broke through the silence and sent the girls
jumping to their feet.  “Are you nuts?!”  Carlotta was panting from fear, and
accused her cousin of having poked her.  “You almost gave me a stroke.”

“You’re the one
giving strokes with those screams of yours.”  Marika couldn’t get her heart to
stop racing.  “I just wanted to ask Eve if she had ever heard of netiquette.” 
She raised her arms.  “I don’t know, things like ‘keep a level tone in your
posts’ or ‘don’t ask for long-distance help?’”  She glared at her friend.  “Or
were you sick that day at school?”

“Shhhhhh!  Not
now!” the rest of the group hissed at her.

“What a drag!”
Eve cursed.  “I was just trying out the impact of some lyrics on an audience,
but maybe I was expecting too much.  Next time I’ll use some boy band lyrics on
you, maybe you know those better.”  She dropped back onto the couch, noticing
that Federico wasn’t backing her up.  “If I had told you that it was just a
song, and not even one of ours, the experiment would have been useless.”

“Aww, poor
experiment!”  Marika was still pissed at Eve, while Drew Barrymore escaped into
the back yard.  “And so you used me as your guinea pig?  Deliberately?”  Her
legs bounced nervously as she watched Eve nod her head, proudly.  “Well then, I
guess you won’t be too upset when I now, deliberately, tell you to fuck off.”

“Oh shut up, both
of you,” Dario said, getting tired of having to continually pause the film.  “We
can’t hear anything.”

And while a black
and white film by Hitchcock was put on to replace the previous high definition
one, the players of
San Carlo
, in a hotel room in Palermo, were watching
tape about the following day’s adversary in Serie A with the entire staff.

On the
whiteboard, Agostini drew schematics in X’s and O’s about attack strategies and
methods for keeping the opposing team from taking advantage of fast-breaks in
the opposite direction.  Matteo, the next day, was scheduled to sit in the
stands with Sergio, while Pão was going to start on the bench.

It would take
another two weeks before a series of injuries and a bad case of the flu, which
had decimated the starting roster, gave him his chance to debut with the first
team.

It was November 3rd when Matteo played his
first minute of professional soccer in a Europa League match against a French
opponent.  He wore number 28.  The official clock read 69 minutes, with the
score 1-2 in
San Carlo
’s favor, when the head coach told Matteo to get
warmed up to come on for one of the two central midfielders, setting off a
series of scandalous reactions by all of the radio and TV commentators.  “I can’t
believe it!  Agostini had lost his marbles... he’s going to substitute in a
back-up from the youth team!”

For twenty minutes, the playmaker from
Vicenza ran about aimlessly, followed hotly by number 5 on the French side – a
big, physical brute – until just before the end of the match when, with a deep
pass into the penalty box, Matteo managed to find an open forward from
San
Carlo
who transformed his pass into the insurance goal with a devastating
right footed kick past the keeper: 1-3.

Fiii... Fiii... Fiiiiiiiii!
  The
three whistles signaling the end of the match came shortly thereafter, at which
the
white and blue
striker turned and applauded Matteo’s play, while the
San Carlo
bench emptied and surrounded him in celebration.

“
Zovigo: too good to be true!
” was
the title of the major sports newspaper the following morning, setting off a
brisk debate about what position he should be used at: forward, midfielder,
winger, or playmaker.  Those in the know had already recognized his qualities
as a superstar and from Etna to the Alps, he was blown over by the winds of
accolades.

His real debut, though, in Serie A, came
10 days later at the Broletto Stadium, the elliptical structure on the north
side of Milan that hosted the home games of the two professional teams from
that area.

To celebrate the
event, the Vendramini family had invited the Zovigos to come and watch the game
at their house.  There was the scent of something special in the air.  There
was a real emergency at midfield, and even Ninho was out.  About fifteen
minutes before the opening whistle, the doorbell rang and Delia Zovigo entered
the house joyfully, carrying a plate full of Venetian cookies and a bowl of
zabaglione, followed by her husband and her youngest son.

“Oh you shouldn’t
have,” Paola said as she took the cookies and had them take their seats in the
dining room, where they had laid out snacks and refreshments, while Ferdinando
told them the latest news about the local Zovigo fan club.  “We’re trying to
organize a bus with
Brenta Soccer Club
so a group of us can go watch the
matches in Milan.”

“Thank you so
much,” Matteo’s mother gushed.  “He’ll be touched.”

“He’s a good kid.” 
Ferdinando amped up the emotional level.  “We all think the world of him, and
we’re happy to be able to follow him down this new path.”

“Delia, dear.” 
Paola moved closer to Matteo’s mother to comfort her, seeing her eyes become
glassy with nostalgia.  “I think I understand how you feel, and the emptiness
that his departure has left behind, but you know he loves you very much, and he
would be distraught to see you this way.”

Marika waited
behind the column of the archway that led into the living room, unwilling to
confront that scene of longing, the same torment that she herself was feeling. 
Ever since Matteo first sat in the stands in Palermo, she had followed his
every move, reading the papers, watching the sports programs, checking out the
internet, and even monitoring the fan blogs that had popped up and which
commented on everything about him except his on-field performance.

Delia dried her
cheeks with an embroidered cotton handkerchief before sighing, “I knew that
sooner or later they would take him from me.”

OUCH!
 
Those words tore Marika’s heart to ribbons: an intense, cutting pain forced her
to take refuge against the wall, frozen.

“He was such a rowdy kid when he was a
boy, and he must have broken every piece of furniture in the house, always
running back and forth with that soccer ball at his feet.”  Mrs. Zovigo had
taken a one-way trip down memory lane.  “When he was three he would send the
ball flying in all directions.  He never sat still for a second,” she said, her
heart aching, “and we must have punished him a thousand times for it.  But it
was always useless.  It was the only thing that mattered to him.  It was a part
of him.”  She smiled lovingly.  “I used to call him my pit bull because he
would never let go of the ball.  And he never gave up.  No matter how many
times he fell down, not even when he was playing in the old dirt field full of
stones, he always got up, dusted himself off, and went right back at it.”  How
many scars the body of her son bore from those years!

“I can see him there now,” Ferdinando
said, always happy to meditate on days gone by.  “He was bitten by the soccer
bug, but unlike all the other kids his age with the same passion, he had feet
of gold.  That’s why, that day I met Canosi, Matteo immediately came to mind
and I told the agent all about him.”  He looked softly at Matteo’s parents.  “I
hope I wasn’t out of line.”

“Don’t even think a thing like that!  What
you did for us was incredible.”  Bepi Zovigo was quick in showing his
appreciation.  “We’ll always be thankful to you for it. 
San Carlo
is an
excellent club, and Milan after all isn’t so far from here.  We couldn’t have
asked for more.”  He turned to his still visibly emotional wife.  “This is his
destiny.  We always knew that, sooner or later, someone would take notice of
him.”

The teams took the field – perfect natural
grass mowed into geometric patterns – and were greeted by the applause of the
fans. The stadium could hold a maximum of 40,000 spectators spread out through
the stands, the box seats, and the press box. The southern curve of the stadium
had always been reserved for fans of the home team, while the northern curve
hosted the visitors. The two teams were spread out over the playing field,
waiting for the referee’s whistle, and the coaches and substitutes were sitting
in the dugout benches at the side of the field, hemmed in by the lines over
which none of the coaches were allowed to cross.

Marika had finally come out of her hole,
forcing herself not to tremble as she leaned awkwardly against the arm of the
couch, trying to avoid the flailing limbs of Daniele who leapt in excitement
every time the cameras focused on his brother.

He wasn’t the only one to lose his cool. “
Why
do I lose my head whenever I see him
?” Marika watched as his image took
shape on the widescreen TV, her palms sweaty and her head spinning wildly. “
Why
can’t I say a single word when people are talking about you?
” Matteo lived
inside her like a memory that paradoxically stopped the pain and which she
could never get enough of... because there was, and never would be, anything
that was like him. Wherever she went, whatever she did, he was the only thing
she truly loved, and which she sadly no longer had.

“Marika, sit up straight!” her mother
nagged, as usual making her look like a little girl in front of others. “Don’t
lie there like a sack of potatoes.”

There were fourteen minutes left in the
match when Agostini turned to the two players from the youth squad that were
sitting on the bench and yelled, “Get warmed up, you’re going in!” Matteo
looked around skeptically to make sure that it was really him who the coach was
pointing at.

The large living room at the Vendramini
house erupted. The men leapt to their feet, cheering, while Daniele hopped up
and down on the couch and the women exchanged tender smiles of approval.  Every
cell phone lit up with phone calls and texts, and everyone was speaking at
once.

Only Marika was speechless. She couldn’t
even write back to Dario and Carlotta who were telling her to tune in to the
match on TV.

The pale Milan sun was barely breaking
through the gray autumn clouds to illuminate the sideline where Matteo was
waiting for his teammate to leave the field.  The look of concentration on his
face left very little room to glimpse the excitement and nervousness that he
was feeling underneath his
white and blue
jersey number 28.  “Dad!  We
should have gone....”  Daniele was whining, clinging to his father’s flannel
shirt.  “Mom!” he complained.

“We’ll be there next time.”  Delia didn’t
want to speak about it – she blamed herself for not being there too, though she
knew the reason why.  They weren’t in the economic condition to take frequent
trips: they were always short on money, and working overtime, even on weekends,
was a stroke of luck that they never said no to.

Matteo himself knew perfectly well why he
was alone on that special day, though he didn’t truly feel like he was alone. 
His head was empty of all thoughts except the present moment.  Everything he
felt was going on on the inside.  He high-fived the guy he was replacing and
ran quickly to the center of the field to take up his position and do what he
did best.  The seconds ticked away, and on the field of play he showed no signs
of nervousness or psychological pressure.  He moved fluidly and was quick to
react, his speed with the ball was unpredictable and devastating, and the ease
with which he was able to get inside the box meant that he often found himself
within striking distance.  Then, just two minutes from the final whistle, as
the opposing team was pushing toward the
San Carlo
goal, he stole the
ball at midfield and sent a long, lobbing shot over the head of the
unsuspecting goalkeeper from 20 yards out.