Jenny slapped her big Hulk-smash hand down to mine in a low-five, each of us giving the other a discreet, sly smile. Sure my palm felt like it got hit with a sledgehammer, but I managed not to wince.
I squeezed her fingers. “Freaking ninja skills.”
She chuckled and thankfully refrained from squeezing my fingers back. “I know, right?”
We both laughed.
I’m not positive why I turned around. Whether it was to check and make sure no one was too close behind to overhear what we were saying, or whether it was because my subconscious had picked up on something being different, but I did. I looked over my shoulder and met that distinctively familiar stare.
Maybe for all of ten seconds, I felt bad for celebrating that Jenny had not only blocked Reiner Kulti’s shots, but that I’d managed to score where he hadn’t. Ten seconds of guilt, possibly.
Then I really thought about it and decided I had no reason to feel bad or ashamed. Whatever the hell was going on with him was his business. Wasn’t it? I practiced and practiced some more to keep my skills on track.
But still… how in the hell had he missed so many shots? What a sucker. What a human, mistake-making sucker.
The next day, toward the end of practice, I was working on my PKs again—penalty kicks—this time with one of the other goalkeepers on the team. The woman was about my age and it was her first year on the Pipers after playing in New York for the past two seasons. She was good, but she wasn’t on Jenny’s level yet.
That was the point of practice though, wasn’t it?
The goalkeeping coach was standing off to the side, monitoring us as we practiced against each other for the second time since this season had begun.
I reared back a couple of steps and went in with my right foot, only at the very last minute, switching it up to kick forward with my left. The ball went in with a satisfactory journey as the coach stepped forward to talk to PJ, the goalkeeper, about what she could have done differently.
“You’re anticipating it,” she said. “It’s because you know Sal that you think she’s going to keep going to that right foot when she strikes, but if you didn’t know her, you would have noticed…”
When they kept talking for a couple more minutes, I walked over a few feet and started volleying one of the balls lying around on my knee. I used to do it for hours, to see how long I could keep the ball in the air with whatever body part was closest, my knees, chest, head or foot, every and any combination that included those body parts or my feet. For practice, for fun, both were so tightly wound together they were one and the same. Rain or shine, I could do it in the garage or outside.
“Sal, can you go for it again?” PJ asked.
I dropped the ball and nodded at her. “Same thing?” I checked with the coach, who gave me a nod in response. All right. Six steps back to spice it up; I decided to try the same fake-out again, thinking that she’d assume I’d try to get her with my other foot next time to catch her off-guard. That time, she was watching like a hawk and only just barely missed blocking the ball. Another ball came at me from the goalkeeping coach’s direction and I went for another shot. It went in again.
When the coach approached PJ again, I took in the other girls on the team to see what they were doing. That was when I saw Kulti standing about fifteen feet away, watching me.
Not knowing what else to do I gave him a smile that was probably a lot more grim than it needed to be. Awkward all right, it was downright awkward. Jenny yelled in the background as one of the defenders nailed a shot on her.
He didn’t look away and neither did I. So…
PJ was standing off to the side of the goal with her coach. When I looked back, Kulti was still there. I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking or doing, but I thought back on his missed shots the day before and the next thing I knew, I kicked the ball I’d been using over to him.
If he was surprised that I kicked it over, his face didn’t register it. When those murky eyes met mine again, I tipped my head in the direction of the goal just barely. A silent ‘go for it.’
I wasn’t a very good goalie; I didn’t have the fearlessness in me that was required when people kicked super-fast balls at my face. So was I going to try and block? Hell no. I didn’t want my face coming between a man that had been the leading scorer and a net.
As I turned and began walking back toward the goal, a white object shot past me. It went in effortlessly. I didn’t miss the look PJ or the goalkeeping coach shot each other as they realized who had just kicked the ball, but I wasn’t surprised when neither one of them said a word or made a move to retrieve the ball. I went in, grabbed it and threw it overhead in Kulti’s direction, getting out of the way a second later so that I could watch him go for it again.
For the first time in a long time, at least long enough in recent history, he didn’t let me down. Another shot soared through the hot spring-summer air and caught the back of the net. I didn’t smile or make a big deal out of it as we did it twice more. Me getting the ball and throwing it back at him, Kulti kicking it in.
Four times total, that was it.
It was… I wasn’t sure how to describe it. Beautiful was lame. Nostalgic was weird. It was something to witness in person. This man I’d seen on television a hundred times playing in person just feet away—it was definitely something.
But I’d done this thousands of times with other people, and I reminded myself that it wasn’t any more special because this was Reiner Kulti. It sort of reminded me of when I worked with kids during the youth camps and how excited they were when they improved. Sure he didn’t smile or thank me for kicking a ball back to him, but I let the moment sink in. Just for a second, I let myself accept that this was Reiner ‘The King’ Kulti whom I was kicking a freaking ball to.
And then I looked at PJ and asked if she wanted to keep practicing.
“You know, I was thinking we’d have a better turnout by now,” Jenny noted from her place right next to me.
With a sad look around the bleachers surrounding the field we usually practiced on, I felt inclined to agree with her. While the college team’s stands were decently filled considering it was a weekday, our side had exactly thirty people. Thirty people total.