Janey
On Saturday, I got ready for my first soccer game. I was loathe to admit it, but the thought of seeing Adrien again sent a flurry of butterflies in my stomach.
But soccer? The last thing I wanted to do was spend my Saturday watching a soccer game.
This is ridiculous. He just wants to show off.
But already, I’d begun to suspect that Adrien Rousseau was much deeper than the cocky front he presented. It kept slipping off of him like a poorly-fitting mask. And I liked what I saw beneath.
I told myself this was a journalistic endeavor as I pulled on my jeans. If I wrote a fantastic article, maybe Antoine would assign me bigger stories.
Or maybe you’ll get stuck with the sports beat permanently.
I paired my jeans with a pretty peasant blouse that had colorful embroidery along the collar and sleeves, and put on lip gloss. I hardly ever wore makeup. I wondered why I bothered today.
For Adrien...?
“Oh, knock it off.”
I blew air out of my cheeks. Adrien Rousseau was a mass of contradictions, and that made him intriguing to me as a journalist. That was as much as I was willing to admit. I didn’t come to Paris to get tangled up with a soccer player, no matter how interesting he was. I could only hope the Big Story I sensed in him was worth it in the end.
With my convictions locked firmly in place, I headed to Stade Jean-Marc to watch Paris Central—the home team—play against Consolat Marseille, the team currently holding first place in the division.
The stadium wasn’t small—larger even, then the football field back at UCSB. The stands were benches, not seats, but the crowd was large. I guessed at least a thousand people had turned out in the sticky humidity to watch Division 3, semi-pro soccer teams play.
“Note to self,” I muttered under my breath, “soccer is a really big deal.”
I headed toward the front line near one of the goals, where other journalists were lined up taking photos and smoking cigarettes. All men. A few muttered to one another, and jerked their chins at me as I approached. A few leered at me; a few snickered at my camera hanging from my neck. I ignored them and pushed my way to the front to get a clear shot of the field where the game was already in progress.
The press pool was clustered near Consolat’s goal. The Marseille team wore red and blue. Paris Central was in red jerseys with black shorts. It took me no time at all to spot #9.
Adrien Rousseau was a streak of fire flying between defenders, dancing with the soccer ball between his feet to dodge his opponents’ attempts to steal. He passed to another PC player who nearly lost the ball; it glanced off his foot. A Marseille defender raced for it but Adrien was quicker. He beat the defender to reclaim possession and didn’t pass again. With a few taps and sweeps of his feet, he got a clear shot. The goalkeeper made a valiant dive but Adrien’s kick was too fast; too hard. The ball sailed between the diving goalie’s gloved hands and was snagged by the net.
A swell of cheering rolled from the crowd, and around me, the journalists’ cameras’ clicking was like a swarm of locusts. I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo, but had watched with my mouth ajar.
I lifted my camera to get a shot. Adrien’s teammates crowded around him, cheering and slapping him on the back. His smile was wide but it faded almost instantly. My camera shutter clicked again and again.
I photographed him as his eyes scanned the stands, as if he were looking for something. Or someone.
Then he spotted me.
My breath caught when Adrien’s smile returned. It lit up his entire face the way scoring the goal never did. He nodded his head once, and I nodded in return, ignoring how my heart was pounding. Then Adrien turned and ran back to center line to take position.
The game resumed, and all I did was take photos of Adrien Rousseau. I told myself that’s what I was there for; just doing my job, but I took far more than I needed—certainly too many for a simple interview. By the second half, I managed to drop the camera to watch him play. To watch the strength in his legs as he raced—so fast—toward the ball whenever it came anywhere near him. To watch how his muscles moved under the tight-fitting jersey. To watch the power in his legs as he ran, stole, and kicked the ball with a speed and grace that almost defied reality.
He plays with a speed and grace that defies reality, I jotted on my notepad. As if he’s out of his body, moving with instinct instead of thought.
Adrien scored twice more before the game ended, defeating Marseille 3-0.
He jogged to the end of the field where I stood, sweaty and breathing hard. Up close, I took mental photographs of him; my eyes seeking to capture every little detail. The way a lock of hair stuck to his forehead, plastered there with sweat. His jersey clung to his chest too; a streak of grime across the thick muscles of one thigh; the tuft of grass sticking out of his shin guard. He played hard and it was all over him.
Without warning, the mental photographs became a moving picture show of Adrien holding his body to mine, sweat and the scent of cut grass enveloping me as he bent to kiss me…
I jerked my head out of the reverie with a gasp to see Adrien nod his head toward a section of the stands, midfield. I followed with my gaze to Sophie sitting with an austere-looking woman—Madame Rousseau, I guessed—amid a small crowd of guys and girls I recognized from La Cloche the other day. The footballers’ friends and girlfriends.
The other journalists called out to Adrien but he ignored them all—his attention was only for me. I nodded in understanding, and he grinned and ran to the locker room across the field with the rest of the players.
“Gentlemen,” I said, and pushed through the cloud of smoke and lewd comments, to make my way to the stands.
Sophie saw me approach and rose shakily to her feet. “Janey!”
“Hi, Sophie,” I said, and we kissed cheek to cheek. “Good to see you again.”
The crowd of girls noticed my approach and I felt their attention on my back.
“I’m so happy you came to see Adrien play,” Sophie said. “He’s so fast, and can run with the ball like no other. Did you see him?”
“She has eyes, dear.”
The middle-aged woman, her dark hair in a perfect bouffant, rose to her feet. A cloud of expensive-smelling perfume around her warred with the scents of cut grass, cigarette smoke, and the sausage sandwiches the crowd favored at half time. Her blue dress looked like a throwback to the 50’s, flaring at her knees and fitted at the waist. But like her house, her clothing looked a little frayed around the edges.
“And who is your new friend, Sophie?” A tight smile touched the woman’s lips as she regarded me. “Or is she one of Adrien’s women? And an American, no? This is new.”
One of Adrien’s women.
My hackles went up, and if I hadn’t just been fantasizing about him kissing me. Adrien left me confused and flustered; I’d always prided myself on never being the kind of girl who got boy crazy.
Forget it. I’m not going to let him.
“This is Janey Martin,” Sophie was saying. “She’s a journalist doing a story on Adrien for the university. Janey, this is my mother.”
Madame Rousseau’s entire expression brightened with the news that I was there to write about her son.
“How marvelous,” she said. “I’m Nathalia Rousseau.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
Mme. Rousseau’s handshake was tight and dry and I instantly wanted my hand back. She held on, pulled me a step closer.
“I do hope it will be a flattering article? What am I saying?” she laughed. “What could anyone say against our dear Adrien? He is a pride and a joy.” She glanced at her daughter, her lips turning down in a frown. “Sophie, you must’ve tired yourself. You should sit.”
“I’m fine, Maman…”
“Sit.”
Sophie looked as if she were about to protest, but smiled tightly at me, and eased herself back down to the bench.
Mme. Rousseau’s gaze flitted to the camera around my neck. “And did you take many photos of Adrien?” She laughed again, too hard—a cocktail party laugh—with her head thrown back. “He’s so fast, your photos might turn out a blur.”
I smiled faintly. “Yes, maybe so.” I glanced over my shoulder to see some of the soccer girls watching. One—a pretty brunette with a sweet face—was biting back a smile. She shot me a commiserating look.
“I do hope your article is flattering to my Adrien,” Mme. Rousseau was saying. “Scouts are constantly trying to talk to him but he keeps pushing them off until the end of the season.” She smiled tightly. “Perhaps in the course of your interview, you might convince Adrien to take a meeting?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I muttered.
The rest of the fans were filing out of the small stadium, and I wished I could go with them.
“Hey,” said the brunette from behind me. “Hi, I’m Brigitte.”
“Janey Martin.”
“I heard. You’re interviewing Adrien?”
“For the Sorbonne paper.”
“Then we’re classmates,” Brigitte said, indicating her group of eight friends. Her smile was genuine and friendly, and I liked her immediately.
“Come with us to La Cloche,” said a pretty blonde in a colorful beaded blouse. “It’s a club we hang out in…basically all the time.”
I smiled. “I think I’ve heard of it.”
“So you’ll come?”
“Um, yeah, that sounds great,” I said.
Brigitte craned to speak to Sophie. “You’re welcome to join us,” she said. “And you too, of course, Madame Rousseau.”
“No, thank you,” Mme. Rousseau said, and favored her daughter a stern look. “In fact, Sophie and I must be getting back. Come.”
The hopeful smile on Sophie’s face died as she pulled herself back to standing. Mme. Rousseau turned to me. “I look forward to reading your article.” Her cold blue eyes gave me a final once-over. “A woman journalist. Must be hard to prove oneself in such a male-dominated profession.”
I started to tell her most professions were male-dominated, but I only smiled and watched, with a pang in my heart, as she prodded Sophie out of the stands.
“Tell Adrien I said he was wonderful,” Sophie said to me on her way.
I nodded, then frowned. Won’t she see him when he comes home?
Brigitte and the others moved in to surround me as soon as Adrien’s mother and sister were gone.
“You’re American, no?”
“From New York?”
“Your French is very good.”
We chatted amicably and I learned that Brigitte was the girlfriend of Robert, the goalkeeper for Paris Central. The blonde was Lucie, and she was dating a midfielder named Thomas. Nine of the eighteen Paris Central players attended the Sorbonne and this was their group. The girls all had long hair, flared jeans, and billowy peasant blouses; the boys with longish hair and button down shirts, just like my friends back home. A tight-knit, mini-tribe of friends and girlfriends that hung out together. To be welcomed into their fold kicked my Loneliness right in the ass.
The rest of the team, Brigitte told me, were blue-collar workers, struggling at dead-end jobs.
“Most have to go straight to their work after a game,” she said. Her kind face brightened. “Today’s win gave them enough points to get into third place. Only the top three teams of every division advance. If Central advances to Ligue 2, they can quit their jobs and play football professionally.”
“What about the players who go to the Sorbonne?” I asked casually. “What happens to their studies?”
“They quit, of course!” Lucie said with a laugh. “Who wouldn’t rather play football than study all day? And some players, like Adrien, Robert, and my Thomas, have a real chance at signing with a Ligue 1 team.”
“Paris Saint-Germain,” Brigitte said, grazing her teeth over her lower lip. “Mmm, it’s a dream.”
“Is there a lot of money in Ligue 1 or 2?” I asked, while fishing my pencil and notepad out of my bag. “Enough to live off of?”
Lucie and Brigitte exchanged incredulous glances.
“Is she for real?” Lucie asked.
Brigitte smiled gently. “You have professional sports stars in America? It’s like that.” She leaned closer to me. “I’m very proud of my Robert, and Thomas is a great player, but only Adrien is a super star.”
A strange sense of pride that I had no business feeling swelled in me. I recalled Adrien’s off-the-record confession that there were more important things in life than soccer, and formulated my next question very carefully.
“Can Paris Central advance to the next division without Adrien?”
Brigitte pursed her lips. “They might advance if they can hold third place or higher. But to stay? Adrien is their top scorer by half. They need him.” She cocked her head at me, a glint of suspicion in her eye. “Why do you ask? For your article?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, and offered a sheepish laugh. “I know nothing about soccer.”
“Football,” Brigitte said, her warm smile returning. “And if you stick with us, you’ll hear more about it than you ever wanted to in your life.”
I returned her smile while my thoughts turned to the players on the team Brigitte had mentioned. Those who worked other jobs in the hopes of making it Ligue 2.
What happens to this team if Adrien quits?
I scribbled a final note on my pad to ask him this question and a dozen more. I was buzzing with them now. A bigger story, hidden behind an innocuous interview.
“See there?” Brigitte said. She nudged my elbow and nodded her head at a locker room door across the field. The stands were nearly empty now and a few players, newly showered and changed, were emerging. “Here they come.”
The group headed out onto the field to meet them, and Lucie—long hair and beaded shirt flying behind her—flew across the grass and into the arms of the tall, red-haired Thomas. He picked her up and swung her around, and they kissed almost violently. All lust and dueling tongues.
I hurriedly looked away and my gaze landed on Brigitte as she slung her arms around Robert—a tall, handsome man with broad shoulders. They gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes before kissing softly, as if no one else existed. In that moment, no one else did.
My heart ached inexplicably at both scenarios. I’ve never been so unabashedly passionate with a man, nor so in love that the rest of the world faded away in his arms. I didn’t know where to look and so cast my gaze to the ground until a shadow joined mine.
“Janey.”
My heart stuttered at that voice. I glanced up. Adrien wore jeans and a white polo shirt that hugged his lean muscles. The scents of his cologne and shower soap wafted to me on the humid air. His damp hair brushed his shoulders in loose waves, and he wore a thin leather headband across his brow.
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
A smile spread over my lips. “Me too.”
“Shall we?” Robert said, his arm slung around Brigitte, practically burying her, he was so tall. He eyed me. “Will she be joining us, Adrien?”
A blush colored my cheeks, though I didn’t know if it was because I was presumed to be with Adrien as yet another one of ‘his women’ or because I was presumed to be with him at all. I scolded myself for being so moony, and thrust out my hand to Robert.
“Janey Martin. I’m writing an article on Adrien for the newspaper.”
“She’s writing about the team,” Adrien said quickly, and flashed a winning smile. “And football itself, for that matter, since she knows nothing about the sport.”
I turned to glare at him, but he had on what I now called his Soccer Mask. The bright, devil-may-care expression of a cocky star player, but his eyes were speaking a different story as they met mine.
Robert shook my hand warmly. “Excellent! We could use the exposure. But we are now in the promotion zone, my friends. Therefore first…we drink.”
On the sidewalk, just outside the small stadium, we congregated at a corner to decide the best mode of transportation for our group.
“Oi! Hallooooo!”
We all turned toward the sound. A drunk vagrant staggered down the walk from a small side street, about thirty yards from us.
“Hoi, there! Did I miss it? Is it over?” He flapped his torn coat to take a swig from a whiskey bottle. A rivulet spilled over his salt-and-pepper beard, down the front of his stained shirt. “Did I miss it or is there still time to see the stars?”
He spun in a shaky circle, arms to his sides, as he approached us.
Robert and Adrien exchanged glances and a small nod.
“I’ll help this old fool find his way,” Adrien said. “You guys go ahead.”
“Come on,” Robert said. “I think we can make the next train.”
He ushered us down the street, but I loitered and walked slowly, glancing over my shoulder to watch Adrien approach the bum. They spoke a few words—Adrien seemed to be calming the older man down—and then he turned the bum around to return the way he had come.
I don’t know what possessed me; my insatiable curiosity maybe, but I broke from the group and jogged back toward the side street. Adrien and the bum were heading back the way the man had come, their backs to me, walking together. When the old man stumbled, Adrien’s hand was there to steady him.
I lifted my camera, always around my neck, and snapped a photo just before they rounded another corner, out of sight.