CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (42 page)

“No, it doesn’t matter.  Thanks.”  Marika
hung up, immediately feeling a frigid chill pass through her heart.  Well below
the fever pitch that she had been experiencing a moment earlier.  She waited
until one in the morning, wrapped up in a plaid blanket with her headphones
over her ears, but even after another hour of impatient waiting, she got no
return call.  From the noise in the background, Marika understood that Matteo
was with a group of people, and maybe it was true that he couldn’t come to the
phone – at least not for her.  Miles away and entranced by the exciting newness
of Milan, where nights were made for young athletes and celebrities in the
street bars and clubs, he probably had better things to do.

Corso Como, Milan
.  The watchword
here was: party!  Legendary clubs, elegant by day and transgressive by night,
which cater to the whims of the beautiful people, with music, cocktails, and
fun guaranteed.  Where high society goes to play.  The lodestone for all the
big events in the worlds of fashion, sports, and entertainment.  The perfect
spot for dancing all night long, every day of the week, coming up for air only
at brunch time the following day.  Center of the good life for soccer players
and models, who crowded into the VIP lounges of the hottest clubs of
Brera/Garibaldi, neighborhood where art and nightlife knew no bounds.

“Let’s go into the champagne lounge.” 
Ninho was already pushing his way through the flashing lights and laser effects
that bounced off the silver walls of the nightclub.

“Us, in the VIP?”  Matteo was astonished
by the way Ninho was chatting with various players from Serie A amongst the
blinking led and strobe lights.

“We know everyone on the major league
team.”  Ninho stopped to say hi to a couple of players, wiggling out of the
grips of various girls who were hanging on to him.

“Most of us Brazilians have the same
agent,” Pão said in explanation, “who just happens to be the same as yours. 
Everyone uses Canosi’s agency.”

“Come on over here!”  Ninho waved them
over to sit down next to him and his female friends.  “Have you ever seen so
much pussy in one place?” he said to Matteo, while he flirted with a pair of
models that he had set his eyes on and who seemed to know him very well.  “The
choice is yours!”  He was provoking him, challenging him.  “You can do one,
two, three of them, for all I care!  Just make sure there are a couple left
over for me.”  Ninho had been on Matteo’s case for days about freeing himself
from the quagmire of his past, because Marika had no place in their world and
thus deserved none of their attention.  “It’s cool, man!  It’s like scoring on
Bregant here,” he said, joking with the goalkeeper of the first squad, a big
kid from Friuli who was rather quiet, but a real monster in front of the net,
though his goal kicks still left a bit to be desired.  “It’s like shooting fish
in a barrel.  They’ve got a soft spot for soccer players,” he said, just before
sticking his tongue down the throat of the mannequin on his right.

Most soccer coaches believe that players
and nightclubs make for a lethal cocktail, because after late nights in the
club, athletes start to lose their natural circadian rhythms and become sluggish
for days.  But the players can’t help themselves!  They’re young, handsome, and
filthy rich, and the clubs offer them a steady diet of idolizing Barbies,
starlets, fashion models, and Miss Everythings.

Matteo stretched his arms out across the
back of the couch next to Pão, smiling sheepishly.

“Go on, choose.  Which one do you want?” 
Meninho slid in next to him, proud as a peacock.  “They’re all the same to me.” 
His eyes flitted from one friend to another, describing each one’s
talents
: 
“The brunette over there is on TV... a dancer... she’s got some moves boy!”  He
used his hands to express the extent of her erotic performances.  “That blonde
is a lingerie model.  Need I say more?”  He looked around lustily.  “Or just
pick a card, any card.  You’ve got showgirls, dancers, models galore... and
they never say no.”  He sounded like their pimp.

“Listen, I don’t need another agent.” 
Matteo lifted his drink from the low table in front of them.  “I can do just
fine on my own.”

“I never doubted it.”  Ninho lifted his
hands in mock arrest.  “But I’m also sure that you’ve never seen girls like
this before.  Ciao, gorgeous!” he said to yet another long-legged friend who
shimmied up next to him as he stretched further back into the plush sofa.  “Take
advantage of it.”

“I know girls who are even more beautiful.” 
He took a long sip of beer.  “And we’ve got our own share of strippers and
hookers even in my home town.”  He indicated with a flip of his chin a group of
very young, very scantily dressed girls who were blatantly throwing themselves
at men three times their age and a million times more wealthy.

At four in the morning, back at the
residence, after a quick shower and a short chat with Pão, Matteo pulled his
phone from his jeans to place it on the bedside table.  That’s when he noticed
that he had missed a message...

“Ciao.  It’s Marika: new #! Tried 2 call u but
u were busy :-|  No big deal, just wanted 2 thank u for what u did”

He checked the log of incoming calls, and
there it was: someone had answered the phone.  And if it wasn’t Pão, who was
it?

The next morning at breakfast, he asked
his teammates about it, and they pointed at the Brazilian striker.  “Did Marika
call yesterday?” Matteo asked him.

“Maybe,” Ninho mumbled, his mouth full of
food.  “I don’t remember.”

“What the hell do you mean?”  His tone
became harsher and harsher as the truth was revealed.  “How can you not
remember?”

“OK, fine, she called,” Meninho huffed,
buttering a piece of bread.

“Why didn’t you give me the phone?” 
Matteo grabbed Ninho’s hand as it was headed toward his mouth.

“Because that girl is wrong for you.”  He
ripped his arm from Matteo’s grasp and bit into his toast.

“Who died and made you king?”  He walked
angrily away.  “You don’t know a damn thing.  You don’t know me, and you sure
as hell don’t know her.”

“I was just trying to do you a favor,” he
called out, defending himself.  “To get you to relax and enjoy things a bit. 
Give you a ride on the roller coaster of life.”

“Well listen, don’t do me any more favors!” 
Matteo clenched his teeth as he slammed the door behind him and got on the team
shuttle that was waiting to take him to school.  Ninho and Pão stayed behind;
they had already finished their mandatory schooling before coming to Italy.

Ninho, in particular, had started playing
indoor soccer at the tender age of four.  After finishing middle school in
Italy, and just before his fourteenth birthday, he signed his first contract
with
Salvação
, for whom he debuted at age sixteen in the Brazilian major
leagues.  Since then, he had dedicated his life to soccer, and only soccer. 
The choice had not disappointed him, and he had no reason to regret a minute of
it.

Pão, on the other hand, would have liked
to study more, and had considered continuing with school even past the age of
compulsory education, but it was too late for him now.  Soccer had become
everything: it was a ticket out of poverty and misery, away from a life where
problems were many and solutions too few.

 That very afternoon, Matteo’s family came
to visit him in Milan.  They wanted to spend a bit of time together before the
final rush of the try-outs commenced.  It wasn’t their first time ever in
Milan, but it wasn’t the third either.  They went to all of the sights: the
Cathedral with its Gothic facade and the copper and gold-leaf statue of the
Virgin Mary illuminated on top; the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery that opens up
onto La Scala theater; the Sforza Castle with its magnificent garden; the
fashion district, one of the most famous stretches of road in all the world;
and obviously Corso Buenos Aires – not far from Matteo’s Hotel Residence de
Neige – a very busy, very cosmopolitan shopping district where they had also
booked their hotel.  A city center composed of shops and grand old buildings
with gorgeous, mostly hidden internal courtyards, all bathed by the waters of
the Navigli canals that, in the very heart of the city, run underground.

And so, while they were people-watching in
Piazza Duomo, in the shadow of the Madonnina, back in their home town, Marika
was taking driving lessons from Federico, who was stoically explaining how to
start the engine without flooding the carburetor.

“I can’t believe I’m this bad!” she
moaned, her foot hovering indecisively over the clutch and accelerator.

“A bit more gently, Marika,” he told her
with the patience of Job.  “Turn the key.  OK now, slowly, release the clutch
and... give it some gas!”

“We’re moving!  Look, we’re moving!”

She wasn’t eighteen yet, and she didn’t
even have her learner’s permit, but he had been kind enough to act as her
teacher anyway; that’s why she felt obliged to act happy, even though she had
always thought that it would be Matteo to teach her.  “I’ve started doing the
practice quizzes for the written test, but there are so many of them, I don’t
understand very much.”   She pulled the workbook out of her backpack, hiding
her smartphone in an inner pocket as she did so, still not having found the
courage to read the text which had arrived earlier.  “Will you help me with
them?” she purred.

***

Three weeks later,
after hours of practicing and reams of multiple-choice quizzes, and almost two
months since Matteo had left for Milan, two months with practically not a
single word exchanged between the two of them except for this laconic message:

“Hey Marika, sorry i didn’t get ur call last
nite, but u don’t need 2 thank me. i’d do it 4 u a million x’s ;)”

...and when the countdown was getting so
close that her starter engines were already on fire, Federico decided to take
her to see the Castles of Romeo and Juliet as a surprise.  His excuse was that
she needed to practice getting into first gear on hills, but his intention was
otherwise.  But the surprise was all his when Marika began to panic as soon as
he turned onto the road into Montecchio Maggiore, so much so that she forced
him to turn around and take another road up into the hills.  “What’s wrong with
you?”  He was so shocked that he couldn’t hide his reaction.  “You’re being
ridiculous.”  He pulled over to the side of the road.  “You can’t still be
thinking about him!”  Federico shook his head, fighting against the ghost of
that other guy, who was still so damnably present in her thoughts.  “He hasn’t
been in touch with you once, not the whole time he’s been gone.  Not a single
phone call, no contact whatsoever... not even a postcard.”

“You have no right to judge him.”  Marika
was shaking violently from her bewilderment and had to undo her seat belt in
order to breathe.  “You know he’s a part of my life,” she reminded him harshly,
“and you’ve always known that.  From the very beginning!”

“What the fuck!  That asshole has probably
been banging every last starlet in Milan, and you can’t even find the strength
to go to the top of a fucking hill in Montecchio?”

“Very nice!  Very classy!”  She felt like
puking.  “What the hell do you know about it?  About me?  About him?”  She wasn’t
the only one who wanted answers to all of these questions.

“About him, nothing.  But I know you, more
than you want to admit.”  Federico turned down the music and focused on her
face.  “And even if I wished with all my soul that you would be a part of my
life forever, you can’t stop me from suffering when I see you still acting like
this because of him.”  He ached for her, and fell back against his seat.  “It’s
time for you to let go of the past, Marika, and move forward.”

“I don’t want to let go of the past,” she
said in an angry tone, grinding her teeth menacingly.  “Don’t force me to
choose between the two of you because....”  She stopped herself before striking
that fatal blow.  But the pin was already out of the grenade, and the effects
were already visible in his eyes.

“Right,” he groaned, her meaning painfully
clear.  “Because you wouldn’t choose me.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she stuttered,
regretting her words.  “Please, I....”

“Don’t even say it.  Just shut up!” he
broke in, his jaw set.  “I don’t want to listen to it.”  His head was spinning
and his muscles felt limp.  “I don’t want you to say another word.”

“
But I don’t...?!  No.  I can’t lose
you too
.”  Marika was doing her best to hold back the tears, terrified by
the thought of having pushed him away forever.  “Don’t be that way.”

“And just what do you want me to do now?” 
Federico couldn’t look her in the face.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to hear
what you’re about to say to me.”

“
What I’m about to say
?”  She could
hardly breathe.  “I don’t want to say anything to you.  The two of you are not
in competition, and you never have been.”  She cursed herself, wishing there
were some way to turn back time.  “You both have places in my heart.  Different
places, but equally important.” 
Why did it have to be so difficult?
  “You
elbowed your way into my life and now I can’t live without you.  You are even
more important to me than Carlotta.”