“Is this almost over?” the player to my right sighed. She was one of the new additions to the Pipers.
“I think so,” Genevieve, a girl in the row directly behind me, answered. This was only her second season playing in the WPL.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the assistant rearranging the women in the top row. Harlow was standing off to the side, scowling at whatever the woman was saying, and it made me smile. “They’re almost done with the big broads up there, then it should start and it’ll be another twenty minutes tops.”
There was a collective groan from the six people around.
“Casillas!”
Oh hell. No. No. “Twenty-three! You’re in the wrong place!” the photographer yelled from her spot right next to the Pipers’ public relations employee.
“See you later, guys,” I muttered.
It took everything in me to not hang my head and drag my feet toward Sheena, who had appeared out of nowhere. I’d been keeping an eye out for her. Bah. I understood that she was watching out for me, doing me a favor by helping me out of the predicament that the past had gotten me into simply by association. But as I thought about those emails that went unread in my inbox, I decided it was probably worth it to just keep my mouth closed and do what I needed to.
Apparently, none of that mattered. I swallowed, put my Big Girl Socks on and took a deep breath as I walked like a normal sane human in the direction I was being pointed.
“Sal, squeeze in right there one row below Mr. Kulti, next to Miss Phyllis.” Miss Phyllis, the fitness coach who resurrected herself year after year to make sure the team was in shape. It also happened that we were around the same height, so Sheena’s thinking made sense. If you didn’t take into consideration that the human Berlin Wall was at least six inches taller than the player standing next to him.
I threw my shoulders back and pretended like I didn’t notice the way he ignored everything and everyone around him even when I stood less than a foot away.
But I took it like a champ, not letting him get to me.
Much.
Unfortunately just because I knew better than to try and engage him, didn’t mean everyone else was on the same page. I’d barely been standing there two minutes when I overheard the player standing somewhere behind me ask, “Could you tell me what time it is?”
Anyone who knew even a little bit about Kulti was well aware of the fact that he had a watch endorsement. He always wore one.
We’d all been instructed to leave our cell phones in our bags, so I wasn’t surprised that no one had a watch on. I’d played with one a long time ago, but didn’t want to risk breaking the face.
“No one knows what time it is?” the player asked again.
Nothing.
Not a single response from the man who was paid to wear a watch.
Jeez. I finally turned around and said, “I don’t have a watch on me, Vivian. Sorry.” Because I hated when I asked something and no one responded. It was rude and awkward.
But what was more rude and awkward was being able to give an appropriate answer and not do so. From the look on the player’s face, she knew he could have answered.
And he’d chosen not to. Classy.
I kept my face forward after that and smiled at the camera when the time came.
* * *
Things didn’t get any better when the videographers showed up two days later to film practice. Sheena kept waving me over in the general direction of where the coaches were standing. “Go on,” she whispered to me when I got close enough. “Just a few shots.”
It was just a few shots with a man who had said three sentences to me in a month.
Bah.
I picked up my pride, shook it off and placed it around my shoulders before gradually easing my way toward the coaches who happened to be standing together.
I made a point to make conversation with Gardner, while Kulti stood nearby with those fantastic flexed biceps crossed over his chest, and his attention elsewhere. Every time I looked at him, he reminded me more and more of a soldier in some branch of the military with his crew cut and blank face. Meanwhile, in my head, I flicked him off with both hands at the same time. Maturity was definitely a personal strength of mine.
Not.
But I did what I had to do. Always. That’s what put a smile on my face and made me talk to people I was actually fond of while the videographers walked around. It had to be good enough.
I brushed off thinking about the German ignoring life itself and paid attention to the girls standing around me; Gardner began speaking to someone else.
“I’m ready to get this over with. Anyone know what we’re doing tomorrow?” I overheard Genevieve ask.
Another girl responded, “I think we’re meeting at the offices tomorrow to pick up the rest of our uniforms, aren’t we?”