Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.
A chorus of “good morning” greetings came back to me, even from the ancient demoness known as our fitness coach who was yet again standing by the former German superstar.
It was the same German super-athlete who was now only about five feet away.
I went to the Louvre once years ago, and I remember looking at the Mona Lisa after standing outside of the famous museum for hours trying to get in and being disappointed. The painting was smaller than I’d thought it would be. Honestly, it was just a painting. There was nothing about it that made it so much better than any other painting ever at least to my untrained eye. It was famous and it was old, and that was it.
Simply standing mere feet away from the man that had led his teams to championship after championship… seemed weird. It was like this was a dream, a very weird dream.
It was a dream with a man who looked better than any thirty-nine-year-old ever should.
“Casillas? It’s your turn, honey. I got your uniform right here,” one of the women working behind the tables called out to me with a smile.
I blinked and then smiled back at her, embarrassed that she caught me daydreaming. “Sorry.” Walking around the coaches, I took the plastic-wrapped bundle she handed me. “Need me to sign anything?”
She handed me a clipboard with a shake of her head. “What size shoe do you wear? I can’t read whether it’s an eight or a nine.”
“Eight,” I said, signing the area to the side of my name.
“Give me a second to find your socks.” She turned her back to me and started rifling through an organized container behind her.
“Mr. Kulti, I have you down for a medium shirt and large bottoms, does that sound right?” the other employee who wasn’t busy asked, her voice sounding a little high, a little breathless. Her hands were folded and pressed to her chest, her eyes only just barely holding that glint of nervous excitement in them.
“Yes,” was the simple answer that rumbled out deeply; his enunciation was sharp with just the slightest hint of an accent that had been watered down from living in so many different countries over the years.
I felt his tone right between my shoulder blades. I could remember hearing him talk about whatever game he’d just finished playing dozens of times. Poop, fart, hemorrhoids. Sal. Get it together.
I swallowed hard, unable to get over how different he looked. Back when I’d been a fan, he’d gone through every hair style from dyed tips to a mohawk. Now standing there, his hair was shaved short and his arms were loose at his sides, his spine rigid. A hint of his cross pattée tattoo—a cross with arms that narrowed toward the center—appeared beneath the hem of his T-shirt sleeve. It wasn’t huge from what I remembered, maybe five inches high and five across and he’d had it for a long time. When I was younger, I thought it was kind of neat. Now… meh. I liked tattoos on men, but I liked big pieces, not a collection of random little ones.
But whatever, it wasn’t like anyone was asking me for my opinion.
“Here you go, Sal, I got ‘em,” the staff member said, hanging me another sealed packet out of the corner of my eye. “We’ll have the rest of your gear later.”
“All right. Thanks, Shelly.” Holding the uniform under one arm, I took another glance at Kulti, who was steadfast keeping his attention forward and fought the anticipation that pooled in my chest. My feet wouldn’t move, and my stupid eyes wouldn’t move either. At no point in my childhood had I ever really expected to be so close to this man. Never. Not once.
But after a second of standing there awkwardly, hoping for a look or possibly a word? I realized he wasn’t going to give me either. He was making a point to keep his eyes forward, lost in his own thoughts; maybe he wanted to be left alone, or might have purposely not wanted to waste his time speaking to me.
That thought went like a mortal blow straight to my chest. I felt like a preteen girl that wanted the older guy to pay attention to her when he didn’t even know she existed. The hope, the expectancy and the following disappointment sucked. It just sucked.
He wasn’t going to acknowledge me. That much was clear.
All righty, then. While I wasn’t exactly a Jenny who made friends with everyone, I liked being friendly with people. Obviously this guy wasn’t going to win a Mr. Congeniality award anytime soon, since he wouldn’t even bother looking at me standing there two feet away.
So… that didn’t sting at all. My heart didn’t feel funny either.
Then I remembered the crap with the journalist outside and the effect that kind of attention could have on me. I tried my best to keep under the radar. I just wanted to play soccer, that was it.