CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (5 page)

She nodded, pulling it from her worn out
jeans jacket pocket.

He waited while she patiently untangled
the earphones, then he placed just one of them in his ear and searched for a
local radio station.  Marika was about to speak when he held up a finger,
asking for silence.  “I can’t believe it, we’re already losing by one goal. 
That’s another five euros down the toilet.”

“What did you expect?” she said, trying to
sound authoritative.  “You keep betting on the
Lanerossi
to win!”

“Knock it off,” he said, lightheartedly.

“Fine... I’m leaving, though,” she said,
resigned.  She held out the palm of her hand.  “The iPod, please,” she cooed.  “If
I’m late, it’ll be your fault, and you’ll have to wait for me.”

“Not a chance!”  He looked her in the
eyes, handing over the iPod.  “You’d better hurry or I’ll leave you at home! 
And get your friend to get a move on too,” he added, referring to Carlotta.

Marika kicked her scooter to life and,
placing the black helmet with pink trim on her head, smiled at him for the
millionth time before giving it some gas.

On the drive home, her brain, overwhelmed
by teenage love, was like an erupting volcano, and each thought of Matteo set
off surprising fireworks: his smooth, scented skin, his faded, low-slung jeans,
his dark polo shirt, soft to the touch but tight enough to show off his
well-shaped chest muscles, hardened from years of sports.

Matteo, meanwhile, had parked his car on
the dirt shoulder of the road that led to the water mill.  He threw the door
open and flopped down into the graphite-colored front seat, staring into space,
lost in his thoughts.  “Pffffff...” he sighed.

Then, spinning his wheels, he sped off
towards home.

***

“She’s coming too?”
Dario muttered, impatient.  “What’s up with that?”

Matteo shook his head, turning on the
radio.  “She sent me a text this morning saying that she would be coming.”

“Bummer!  First yes, then no, then yes...
and we’ve been waiting for her for over an hour.”  Dario rolled down the
window, fed up.  “Honk the horn!”

“Take it easy, man,” he said for the tenth
time while he tried to find the station carrying the pre-game coverage.

Dario narrowed his eyes.  “You’re kind of
quiet tonight.  What gives?”

Matteo rubbed the back of his neck,
thinking.  “I ran into Marika at the old mill this afternoon.”

“And so?”

“I don’t know, it was strange.”  He stuck
a piece of gum in his mouth to relax.  “We were goofing around just like
always, but all of a sudden I got the sweats and began to feel... I don’t know...
ridiculous.”  He still felt embarrassed about it.

“You don’t say?!”  Dario screwed up his
face and a smile crossed his lips.  “It’s obvious: Matteo and Marika, sittin’
in a tree....”

“Man, shut up!”  He looked out the car
window.  “She’s a friend, just a friend.”

“Right... a
friend
,” he snickered. 
“Thus,” he continued in a scholarly voice, “if two minutes in an open field
with her – a
friend
– gave you a hot flash, then you must be on the
point of self-combustion after an hour with me here in this car.”

Matteo gave his muddled head a jerk,
trying to shake off this unexpected interpretation of events.  “Monday there’s
an English test, and I haven’t studied for shit.”

“Uh-oh, you’re changing subjects too!” Dario
ribbed him.  “It’s too late!  Things are more serious than they seemed.”  He
gave Matteo a swift punch to the shoulder.  “You’ve been cheating on me!”

“Yeah, with your sister, moron!”  He
pushed him back to the other side of the car.  Dario was an only child, so no
offense was taken.

Dario pointed a finger at an approaching
female figure.  “Finally!  The Queen is ready!”  He buckled his seat belt.  “Anyway,
if anyone in this car is a moron, it’s you.”

Matteo said nothing, but gave his friend a
look that warned him to keep his mouth shut while waving at the new arrival.

The Alfa Romeo pulled up at 23 Palladio
Road at about 5:50.  Marika and Carlotta, having dressed quickly in denim jackets
and sleeveless sweaters, rushed out the door, thick as thieves.

“Be careful at the stadium.  And on the
streets!” Mr. Vendramini called after them, hoping not to be completely
ignored.

“OK Dad, don’t worry,”  Marika muttered,
like a broken record.  “Bye Mom, we’re leaving!”

The view they got just outside the gate
was a true abomination: Lucrezia, dressed like a Lolita – totally inappropriate
for the stadium – her arms splayed across Matteo’s car.  “I didn’t know
she
was coming with us,” Carlotta whispered in shock.

“She doesn’t even
like
soccer,”
Marika added, clearly miffed.

Pulled up next to a second car, meanwhile,
Dario and Matteo were chatting with Giacomo and the rest of the troops.  Sandra
was there, sitting in the back seat, as well as Albano (who everyone called
Puccio, his real name being an unfortunate homage to Albano and Romina in a fit
of nostalgia by his parents).  Puccio was the goalkeeper of the
Brenta
Soccer Club
.  Six foot two inches tall and robust – one might even say
overweight – he was the literal wall between the goalposts.

Like Valerio, Marcello had also blown them
off, though for a different reason: he was a die-hard
Internazionale
fan
– the arch rival of
AC Milan
.  So be it: after all, variety is the spice
of life.

While everyone was piling in, Lucrezia
leaned across Matteo and, widening her languid eyes, asked, “You don’t mind, do
you, if I sit up front?  I get carsick in the back.”

Matteo shrugged his shoulders while Dario
was relegated to his place in the back, muttering, “But it’s all straight
highway from here to Milan....”

They followed closely on the fender of
Giacomo’s minivan.  The laughter inside the car became contagious, competing
loudly with the beats throbbing from the speakers.

The guys were talking about the Serie B
matches from earlier in the day.  “Did you hear about Vicenza’s comeback?”

“Yeah, a comeback to a tie!  I kept
waiting for them to put in the winning goal, not least because of the bet I’d
placed.”  Matteo didn’t sound too thrilled about the final result, comeback or
not.

Marika and Carlotta, on the other hand,
were comparing notes from the last season of their favorite teen drama from the
Upper East Side, and the eternal question:
Who the hell is Gossip Girl
? 
And Lucrezia....

...Well, you certainly couldn’t call
Lucrezia a good traveling companion.

They got off the highway in Milan and
headed toward Certosa Boulevard until they got a glimpse of their destination:
San Siro Stadium.

Even though he had gotten booted from
shotgun, Dario did not seem the least out of sorts; the close contact with
Carlotta had even made him talkative.  “Is this the first time for you at the
stadium?” he asked her, sounding nervous, as if he expected some kind of
snippy, sarcastic reply.  “Don’t worry, I’m a regular!” he crowed, puffing out
his chest.

“Oh yeah?  A regular what?”  Carlotta
couldn’t help herself.  “Loser?  Bonehead?  Horse’s ass?” she taunted.  “Anyway,
don’t you worry about me!  I know how to handle forty thousand bad boys.”

The fact that Dario always let his guard
down when he was with Carlotta, offering her his soft underbelly, was proof
enough that he was helplessly in her grips.

The stadium towered imperiously over the
parking lot, and the chants from the fans inside echoed the soundtrack from
Rocky IV that was blaring from the loudspeakers.

Before getting in line to pass through the
ID checks and pat-downs at the turnstile, Marika slipped away from Dario and
Carlotta for a moment, which wasn’t difficult, seeing as how they were totally
absorbed in their badly-concealed and fully-reciprocal flirting.  She stopped
at a stall to browse through its wares and her eyes alighted upon a red and
black scarf, the colors of the home team.  While she was digging through her pockets
for money, she heard a voice behind her that made her jump.

“How much?” Matteo asked the vendor from
above her shoulder.

“The official ones are 12 euros.”

With total self-assurance, he grabbed two
of the scarves with the team logo emblazoned on them and said, “2 for 20?”

The vendor looked as if he had been
mortally wounded, but then flashed a big grin and said in a voice that clearly
betrayed his Neapolitan origins, “Sold, to the young couple for twenty euros!”

Matteo paid the vendor with a fifty, then
pulled one of the scarves from the plastic bag and handed it to Marika.  “Here. 
The other one is for my brother.”

Marika was still trying to think of how to
thank him when Matteo headed back to the group, which was standing in line to
go through the turnstiles.  “Hey guys, don’t all wander off like always once we’re
inside.”  He slid the electronic ticket into the reader.  “Remember, it’s their
first time,” he said, nodding toward the tittering girls grouped behind him.

The ramp that spiraled up and up to the
second deck seemed like it would never end, but finally, walking through the
rectangular entrance, they saw the vivid green field, so intense that it seemed
like you could touch it.  The vertical drop from the upper decks, almost
directly above the playing field, often gave first-time visitors a sense of
vertigo.  Marika, Carlotta, and the other girls quickly made it known that they
would not be sitting in their appointed seats, and so the group headed up the
steps away from the edge.  Despite the vertigo, the total experience was
thrilling, a massive jolt of adrenaline.  They found a space away from the
organized groups of fans and sat down: Marika and Carlotta, then Matteo and
Dario one row above them, and so on.  The players were already on the field
warming up, and the stadium was rocking to the sounds of
We Are The
Champions
.

While the players went back into the
locker rooms for final preparations, the entire
Curva Sud
, the area of
the stadium reserved for the most die-hard fans, rose as one and began hopping
in place to the rhythm of one of the many stadium chants that they would belt
out throughout the match.

Milan had the upper hand for the first
half of the game, but wasted a number of good chances right in front of the
net.  Their opponents had played worse, but had a couple of close calls as
well; in one instance only Milan’s goalkeeper saved them from falling behind. 
At the fortieth minute of the first half, a number of large firecrackers were
set off and the
Curva Sud
lit smoke bombs in the home team’s colors.  A
smoky din filled the air.

Marika felt Matteo’s lips brush against
her ear.  He was trying to tell her something, but the touch of his mouth on
her skin sent such a shiver down her spine and set her heart pounding so hard
that she couldn’t understand a thing.  He looked at her.

“Did you understand me?”

She shook her head no.

“I said, cover your nose and mouth with
your scarf so you don’t inhale the smoke.”  And it worked; the soft smell of
the woolen scarf, vaguely sweet and spiced, gradually took away the acrid,
suffocating odor of the smoke.

Just before the first half ended, a Milan
midfielder scored a goal, and the stadium erupted.  Marika was stunned by the
noise and felt herself being helplessly pushed downward by the force of the
celebrating fans.  But not for long; after a few seconds of blackout, Matteo
was grabbing hold of her and protecting her from the general mayhem with his
body, all the while still yelling and pumping his fist into the air.  Marika
felt an infinite protective warmth surrounding her, and she pressed her face
into his chest and breathed in his scent.  For those few moments, everything
around her seemed to go quiet, as if the world wanted to give her the gift of
silence so as to fall completely under his spell.  Enfolded in his arms, she
became one with him, leaping in unison and mouthing the words to the victory
chants, unable to actually make a sound, while the enormous clamor made the
very stadium vibrate beneath their feet.

With thirty minutes remaining in the game,
though, the opposing squad scored the equalizer, and the match ended in a 1-1
tie.  Still dazed by the emotional whirlwind of those 90 minutes, Marika let
herself be guided out of the stadium by the flowing masses, pretending to
listen to the guys’ chatter about their possible fantasy soccer results.

Matteo scrolled quickly through his text
messages, trying to find the fantasy lineup that his main rival, Puccio, had
played on that day.

“Hey Puccio!”

“Huh?” he replied, not exactly with the
manners of an English lord.

“You lost.”

“Impossible!  My team is practically
invincible!” he proclaimed.  “Sorry, gorgeous, better luck next time.”

“Hold your horses.  In the early matches,
your goalkeeper gave up 2 goals,” Matteo sniggered, putting his friend into a
headlock, “both of which were given up to my very own sharp-shooting striker. 
And now, one of my midfielders has scored too....”  He pulled out an imaginary
calculator and started pressing invisible buttons.  “Let’s see now... plus 6,
minus 2, plus 3 more... looks like I’m going to take the lead!”