Kulti Read online

  Poop.

  He poops.

  He poops.

  Right. That was all I needed to snap out of it. I pictured an image of him sitting on the porcelain throne to remind me he was just a normal man with needs like everyone. I knew this—I’d known this for the longest. He was just a man with parents that pooped and peed and slept like the rest of us. Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.

  Right.

  I was good. I was really fine.

  Until Jenny tapped her elbow against my lower ribs unexpectedly, her face getting up in mine while she did these huge goofy eyes, barely tipping her head in Kulti’s direction. It was the universal friend sign for there’s that guy you like. Do you see him?

  This bitch. I made my own eyes go wide and mouthed ‘shut the hell up’ to her, moving my lips the least amount possible.

  Like any good friend, she didn’t do what was asked. She kept elbowing me and giving me that crazy, stupid look and strained head-tipping, trying to be inconspicuous and failing miserably. I didn’t look at him for very long, just that first initial glance from more than fifty feet away, and then another quick look right afterward.

  Poop. Remember: poop. Right.

  The silence on the field said more than enough about what everyone was thinking but couldn’t actually say out loud.

  But dumb Jenny knocked her foot against mine while we put on sunscreen, grinning when she caught my eye, which I was purposely trying to ignore because she made me laugh. I knew in my gut that I was never going to hear the end of this. Never. I’d gotten over my crush-slash-infatuation when I was seventeen, when I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t have a single shot of ever playing against him—obviously—and… there was no chance in hell that he’d ever be interested in me, the Argentinian-Mexican-American tomboy thirteen years younger than him. There wouldn’t be a marriage in my future or soccer-playing super-babies.

  It was the worst non-break-up ever in the history of imaginary relationships with a man who didn’t even know I existed.

  My poor, innocent heart hadn’t been able to handle the only love I’d ever known marrying someone else—Reiner Kulti hadn’t known he was supposed to fall head over heels in love with me one day.

  But like every unrequited first love, I got over it. Life moved on. And then all the shit with Eric happened shortly after that, and the posters on my wall had turned into an even bigger betrayal to the guy in my life who had always let me tag along for impromptu soccer games with his friends.

  “Keep it up, bitch,” I whispered to Jenny while we she rubbed sunscreen on the parts of my back I couldn’t reach.

  She snorted and hip-bumped me as we walked toward our designated stretching area. There was already a small group waiting, their voices still a lot lower than they would be normally. Sure enough, Kulti was standing nearby with Coach Gardner and Grace, our team captain and a veteran defender who had been playing professionally since I was still in middle school. She’d been with the Pipers four years at the beginning of this season, just like me.

  “He’s taller than I’d thought he’d be,” Jen muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

  I looked out of the corner of my eye at where the coaches and Grace were standing without being completely obvious. With only twenty feet of distance between us, we were closer than I ever could have expected, and I nodded because she was right. He was spectacularly tall compared to a lot of the male forwards—also called strikers by some, or in the way my sister described the position: ‘the people that hung out by the other team’s goal and tried to score.’ The best forwards tended to be a lot shorter, not six-two or six-three depending on what analyst or know-it-all you asked. Considering how unparalleled his footwork was, it was a—

  Stop. Stop, Sal.

  Right.

  Poop.

  I could look at him without fan-girling, I could be unbiased. So I tried my best to do just that. He looked bulkier than he’d been a couple of years ago when he’d stepped out of the spotlight. Like most players, he’d been muscular but extra lean and long from all the endless running. Now, he looked a bit heavier, his face was more filled out, his neck looked a little thicker and his arms—

  Poop. Fart. Peeing in a urinal. Right.

  All right.

  The guy was more muscular. A hint of his tattoo peeked out from beneath the sleeve of his shirt and he still had that even flawless skin tone that was somewhere between a creamy white and a perfect light tan.

  His hair was that same perfect brown as it’d always been and if it hadn’t been for the touches of gray at his temples, that familiar aspect would have been the same. Basically, it was obvious he’d gotten older and he wasn’t on his feet as much as he’d been for the largest chunk of his life. His build had become more gym-rat than swimmer, and there was not a single thing wrong with that.

  But when I zeroed in his face, something just seemed… off. He’d always been good-looking, really good-looking, in his own untraditional way. Kulti didn’t have the symmetrical high-boned features that companies usually looked for when they endorsed athletes. His facial structure was more raw, smart-assedness oozing from the fullness of his mouth and from the bright color of his eyes. He was such a supreme athlete it had never mattered during his career that he didn’t have a patrician face. His confidence was blinding. Clean-shaven for once, the sharp bones of his jaw and cheeks that made his profile so masculine were on all-out display. A few more lines creased out from the corners of his hazel-green eyes than had been there before.

  I forgot he was turning forty this year.

  The puzzle pieces were all there, but it was like they weren’t put together properly. I knew it wasn’t anything different outward about him. Being in stealth mode, I couldn’t figure out what it was, and it bothered me. My gut recognized a difference in him, but my eyes couldn’t. What was it?

  “Will someone pass me a band?” a girl nearby asked, snapping me out of the human Rubik’s cube I was playing.

  Realizing I was the closest person to the mini-bands we used for stretching, I grabbed one and passed it to my teammate.

  “Everyone circle around!” Gardner called us, like a shepherd calling his sheep.

  Which I don’t think any of us really appreciated but all right. Like zombies, the group flocked to him silently, hesitantly. We were bugs being called to the bug zapper, the shiny bright thing that could potentially kill us, only with a man as the attraction. Gardner and Kulti stood together along with the fitness coach and a few other staff members shaking hands and greeting each other.

  I fought the urge to swallow because I knew one of the idiots around me would see, and I didn’t need to give Jenny any more room to give me shit about my former Kulti obsession.

  “Ladies, I’m pleased to introduce your new assistant coach for the season, Reiner Kulti. Let’s break the ice real quick before we start. If you could go around and introduce yourselves and tell him what position you’re playing…” Gardner trailed off with an eyebrow that dared us all to tell him how stupid and elementary school this was. I hated it then and I wasn’t a fan now.

  Without missing a beat, one of the girls closest to Gardner started off the circle of introductions.

  I watched him, his face and his reactions. He blinked and tipped his head down each time a player finished talking. One after another, half the group went, and I realized I was near the middle of the semi-circle when Jenny piped in.

  “I’m Jenny Milton,” she grinned in that way that always had me grinning back no matter what kind of mood I was in. “Goalkeeper. Nice to meet you.”

  I didn’t miss the way his cheek hiked up a millimeter more in reaction to her greeting. You’d have to be the freaking Grinch to not appreciate Jenny. She was one of those people who woke up in an excellent mood and went to sleep with a smile on her face. But when she was mad, I wouldn’t hold murder past her.

  Then it was my turn and when those light-colored eyes landed on my face expectantly, I thought poop. Lots
of poop. Clog-the-toilet amount of poop.

  Like a pro, I amazed myself by not squeaking or stuttering. Those green-brown orbs that were said to be the windows of a person’s soul were right on me. “Hi, I’m Sal Casillas. I’m a forward.” More like a winger, but what was the point in being specific?

  “Sal did your press conference,” Sheena, the public relations employee, commented.

  I cringed on the inside, and I didn’t miss the tiny snort that escaped Jenny. I ignored it. Bitch.

  By the time I looked back at where he was I’d been dismissed. His attention had gone right on to the girl next to me without a moment to spare.

  Well. Okay.

  I guess I should have been glad I cancelled our wedding preparations years ago.

  I gave Jenny a look out of the corner of my eye. “Shut up.”

  She waited until the next player stopped talking before replying. “I didn’t say a word.”

  “You were thinking about it.”

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about it,” she admitted in a whisper that was way too close to a laugh.

  My eye twitched on its own. Neither had I.

  * * *

  I had just laid down on my bed after dinner when my phone rang. My legs ached after my morning run, our fitness test and then the landscaping job I helped Marc with most of the afternoon. Considering it was eight at night and I had a tiny number of friends that actually called me occasionally, I had a pretty good idea of who it was. Sure enough, a foreign area code and number showed up on the screen.

  “Hi, Dad,” I answered, sliding my cell into the crook between my shoulder and ear.

  The man didn’t even beat around the bush. In a quick rush he blurted out, “How was it?”

  How was it?

  How could I tell my dad, a die-hard Kulti fan despite the fact that he had no business still calling himself a fan, that the day had been one big whooping disappointment?

  A disappointment. I could only blame myself. No one had ever given me the impression that Reiner Kulti was going to blow our minds with tricks and tips we hadn’t even thought of—especially not during a day set aside for fitness tests—also known as cardio-all-day-until-you-were-on-the-verge-of-puking. Or maybe I’d anticipated that that infamous temper that had gotten him red-carded—ejected out of games—more times than necessary, would come out? There was a reason he’d been called the Führer back when he played, and it was part of the reason why people both liked him and disliked him so much.

  Today though, he hadn’t been an asshole or greedy or condescending. All the characteristics I’d ever heard of from people who had played with him were nonexistent. This was the same person that had gotten suspended from ten games for head-butting the hell out of another player during a friendly game—a game that didn’t even count for anything. Then there was the time he’d gotten into an altercation with a player who had blatantly tried to kick him in the back of the knee. He was the train wreck you wanted to watch happen and keep happening… at least he had been.

  Instead, he’d just stood there while we introduced ourselves and then afterward, watched us when he wasn’t talking to Coach Gardner. I don’t even think he touched a ball. Not that I was looking that much.

  The single thing that I’m pretty sure any of us had heard him say had been “Good morning.” Good morning. This simple greeting from the same man that had gotten in trouble for bellowing “Fuck you!” during an Altus Cup on major television.

  What the hell was wrong with me that I’d be complaining about Kulti being so distant? So nice?

  Yeah, there was something wrong with me.

  I coughed into the phone. “It was fine. He didn’t really talk to us or anything.” And by ‘didn’t really’ I really meant ‘at all’. I wasn’t going to tell Dad that though.

  “Oh.” His disappointment was evident in the way he dropped the consonant so harshly.

  Well I felt like an asshole.

  “I’m sure he’s just trying to warm up to us.” Maybe. Right?

  “Alomejor.” Maybe, Dad said in that same sort of tone he used when I was a kid and I’d ask him for something he knew damn well he wasn’t going to give me. “Nothing happened, then?”

  I didn’t even need to close my eyes and think back on what had happened that day. Not a single thing. Kulti had just stood back and watched us run around executing a variety of exercises to make sure we were all in shape. He hadn’t even rolled his eyes, much less call us a group of incompetent idiots—another thing he’d been known to call his teammates when they weren’t playing to the level he expected.

  “Nothing,” and that was the truth. Maybe he’d gotten shy over the years?

  Yeah, not likely, but I could tell myself that. Or at least tell Dad that so that he wouldn’t sound so disheartened after he’d been so over-the-moon when he’d first found out Kulti would be our coach.

  “But hey, I had the best times during each sprint,” I added.

  His laugh was soft and possibly a little disappointed. “That’s my girl. Running every morning?”

  “Every morning and I’ve been swimming more.” I stopped talking when I heard a voice in the background.

  All I heard was my dad mumbling, “It’s Sal… you wanna talk to her?... Okay… Sal, your mom says hi.”

  “Tell her I said hi back.”

  “My daughter says hi… no, she’s mine. The other one is yours… Ha! No!... Sal are you mine or your mom’s?” he asked me.

  “I’m the milkman’s.”

  “I knew it!” He finally laughed with a deep pleased sigh.

  I was smiling like a total fool. “I love you too, old man.”

  “I know you do, but I love you more,” he chuckled.

  “Yeah, yeah. Call me tomorrow? I’m pretty tired, and I want to ice my foot for a little bit.”

  A ragged sigh came out from him, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything. His sigh said it all and more; it was a gentle wordless reminder that I needed to take care of myself. We’d gone over this a hundred times in person. Dad and I understood each other in a different way. If it had been my brother saying something about needing ice, I probably would have asked him if he thought he’d live and Dad would have told him to suck it up. It was the beauty of being my father’s daughter, I guess. Well it was the beauty of being me and not my baby sister, who he constantly fought with.

  “Okay, tomorrow. Sleep good, mija.”

  “You too, Dad. Night.”

  He bid me another goodbye and we hung up. Sitting up on my bed in the garage apartment that I’d been renting for the last two years, I let myself think of Kulti and how he’d just stood there like a golden gargoyle, watching, watching and watching.

  It was then that I reminded myself about him pooping again.

  Chapter Four

  The next few days went by uneventfully and yet as eventful as they normally were. We had to get our physicals for the team one day and the next day we got measured for our uniforms. After each small chunk of a morning, I’d go to work afterward where I’d be harassed by Marc about whether I’d gotten Kulti’s autograph for him yet. Then each evening, I’d practice yoga or go swimming or do some weight training, depending on how tired I was. Then I’d get home and talk to my dad or watch television.

  Everyone wanted to know what Reiner Kulti was like, and I had nothing to give them. He showed up to whatever we were doing and stood in whatever corner was available, and watched. He didn’t really talk or interact with anyone. He didn’t do anything.

  So… that was kind of disappointing for everyone who asked.

  A small part of me was surprised the vultures hadn’t descended on his unmoving ass. If he ever needed the money, he could work as one of those living statues that painted their bodies in metallic colors and hung out in Times Square, letting people pay them tips to take pictures with them. His apathy was that bad.

  But no one said anything about the press conference from hell, or brought up stuff about Eric and Kulti, a
nd there weren’t any more questions about me rejoining the national team. Overall, there was nothing really for me to complain about. I could act like a normal human being with some dignity, not a stuttering idiot that a decade ago had a crush on the man that everyone was talking about.

  So really, what was there to complain about?

  * * *

  On the morning of our individual photo shoots, I should have known how the interview was going to go when the first thing out of the journalist’s mouth was a mispronounced “Salome!” Suh-lome. Then even after I corrected him he still said it the wrong way. Which wasn’t a big deal; I was used to having someone butcher it. It happened all the time.

  Suh-lome. Saah-lome. Sah-lowmee. Salami. Salamander. Salmon. Sal-men. Saul. Sally. Samantha.

  Or, in the case of my brother: Stupid.

  In the case of my little sister: Bitch.

  Regardless, when someone continuously messes up your name even after you correct them… it’s a sign. In this case, it was a sign that I should have known this guy was a moron.

  I had tried to get away from him. Usually I tried to sneak away, but lately there were so many of them, it was impossible. The minute I spotted the group of television reporters and journalists by the field where the photographs were set to be taken, my gut churned. I didn’t have a problem walking around in my sports bra in front of everyone and anyone. I could play games just fine in front of thousands of people, but the instant a camera came around when I wasn’t doing those things…

  No. No, no, no.

  So as soon as I spotted them, I started to circle my way as far from their location as possible. Let them get the other girls first. The furthest group from the entrance stopped Grace, the captain and veteran on the team. Thank you, Jesus. Then I saw another group swoop in on Harlow, and I felt a bolt of relief go through my stomach.

  Fifteen more feet to go. Fifteen more feet and I’d be clear. My heart started beating that much faster and I made sure to keep my eyes forward. No eye contact.