Defending Irene (7 page)

The story traveled through the middle school of how I had tried to put the ball into my own goal. I smiled a patient smile and told everyone how I was feeding it to the goalie. Hadn't they ever seen a defensive player do that on television? Yes? Well then, they understood.

Luigi overheard me repeating my explanation to a group of popular girls. I had picked them out quickly in the first few days by their hair, nails, clothes, and tendency to travel in packs. He promptly stepped between Giulia and me and into the conversation. His voice took on the rhythm of an announcer doing a play-by-play:

“Both Mendichela and Irene Benenati race for the ball. My heart beats in my chest. I know the signs. The crazy
Americana
plans to shoot the ball into her own goal—my goal.”

“It was a pass,” I said.

Luigi ignored me. “Irene's eyes drop. She brings her foot back.
Puuut!
The spectators gasp. Mendichela gasps. The ball comes directly to me—to my chest. It is a pass. I know it. But I am still afraid. Will it knock me backward into the goal?” Luigi paused. His eyes slid sideways to look at me, offering me a chance to protest. I did not take it.

“But no!” Luigi continued, gesturing widely. “I pull the ball into my arms. For now, it is safe from Mendichela and his team.”

“Uaou!”
said one of the girls. “How
bello
!
Brava
, Irene!”

Luigi grinned at me.

“But Luigi, isn't it dangerous for Irene to play with the boys?” a girl named Elena asked. As far as I could tell, she tended to do most of the talking for her group.

“Weren't you listening to me?” he asked. “It is
my
head that is in danger.”

“If only,” I said.

“Monte Catino at Merano 2000 is more dangerous, Elena,” Giulia pointed out. “And you ski down that like a crazy woman.”

“Monte Cattivo,” someone else said, which could be translated as “Bad Mountain.”

Elena smoothed down the front of her shirt, looking pleased. “
Sí.
But the trees and course markers don't move themselves on the mountain. Matteo told us how the ball hit you in the stomach and the
mister
called you off the field. Matteo was so worried.”

Oh, yes. Worried that I might get up again. Worried that I would keep getting up no matter what.

“It was so cute,” another girl cooed. “Maybe Matteo has fallen in love with you.”

“Ha!” I said. The syllable jumped out of my mouth before I could stop it. Giulia snorted. Luigi covered his ears with his hands.

“Madonna!”
he said. “Has Matteo asked for your phone number too?

“Too?” echoed an appreciative crowd.

“No.” I said, trying to sound calm. “Emi asked for my phone number so I could meet Giulia. Matteo promised me that if I wanted a boy to fall in love with me, I was in the wrong place.”

“Too bad,” someone murmured. “Or I would start to play soccer.”

“And be a
maschiaccio
?” a girl named Sonia asked. “Not I. It's not worth the trouble.”

Ma-ski-AH-choh? I didn't recognize the word, but the “choh” sound at the end almost guaranteed it was not a compliment.

Elena frowned at Sonia. “Don't worry, Irene. Maybe it is like an American film. A man and a woman—they do not like each other when first they meet. Then everything changes. Love!”

Denials crowded through my brain so thick and fast they paralyzed my vocal cords.

Giulia stepped in before the silence ran too long. “In this case I think not,” she said.

“But this morning, I heard him say to Irene, ‘How are you,
cucciola
?'” another girl said.

This brought on another round of giggles. And horror of horrors, I blushed.

“Oooh!”

“Enough!” ordered Elena. “I have a favor to ask of Irene. There is an American song that really pleases me, and I want to know what it means. Will you help me?”

“Certainly,” I said. Now it all made sense why Elena was being so nice. Apparently she didn't want the walking, talking, English/Italian dictionary to get mad and stomp away before doing a few translations.

Elena sang a few lines. Her pure Italian vowels made it difficult to understand the words, but I recognized the melody.

“Love?”
Luigi picked out the English word with horror. “I must go. Really. I cannot stand this chatter about love anymore. See you later, Irene. I am so glad I could help you explain what happened at the game.”

“Help me again and your head will really be in danger,” I told him.

“You're welcome,” he said. His grin told me that he wasn't particularly worried.

I spent the next five minutes singing and explaining lyrics. Elena and her friends were entranced.

“
Uaou
, Irene. You sound just like the radio!” Sonia said. Was that her apology for implying that I was a
maschiaccio
? (Whatever that meant.) If so, I had a feeling it was directed at Elena more than me.

“What is a
maschiaccio
?” I asked Giulia after the bell rang.

She blinked. “You don't know?”

“No.”

“Hmm. After school someday, I must teach you the words that you should never repeat at home. Otherwise, your
papá
will tell your
mamma
that I am not a good girl to know.”

“Is
maschiaccio
that bad?” I asked.

“No. But it is not very…polite. You have never heard it? Not even as a joke?”

I shook my head. “What does it mean?”

“It is a girl who does that which a boy does. Not in a positive way.”

Yes. I could see it now. Changing
maschio
, which means male, to
maschia
and tacking on
-cio
, an ending signifying that something was awful or brutal, made
maschiaccio
into a very negative Italian word. Something worse than tomboy, I suspected. In Italy that would be a huge insult.

“There's so much I don't know. What would I do without you, Giulia?”

“Become a friend of Elena?” Giulia tilted her head and looked up at me.

“No thanks,” I said. “She reminds me of Matteo. Nicer, maybe but…I don't know. I prefer you and Barbara.”

Giulia laughed. “Elena is not so bad. I remember once when we were angry with a boy in elementary school, we sent Elena to punch him for us. For her, it was safe.”

“Really? Why?”

“Almost all the
ragazzi
had fallen in love with her. And those who weren't in love with her were afraid of the others.”

“Does she still punch guys? I could send her after Matteo.”

Guilia shook her head. “She would not believe you about Matteo. She never believed me.”

The clock was winding down in our third game. But how much time was left? Three seconds? Thirty seconds? More? I only hoped that the whistle blasts signaling the end of the game would come before the team from Appiano erased our one-point lead. I was tired. Our team was tired. The air, thick with pollution and humidity, was difficult to breathe. Low clouds hid the four old castles that perched a few hundred feet above the river valley.

The Appiano team attacked again. Giuseppe challenged the forward, who dribbled down his sideline. I backed toward the penalty box. My attention shifted between the ball and the players pounding up the field. When would the crossing pass to the middle come?

Instead, the ball spun out of bounds. I couldn't tell whether Giuseppe had touched it or the player from Appiano had lost control.

With the action stopped, both of the coaches sent in their substitutes.

Werner, who had been out for a short rest, loped onto the field. I trotted toward him, knowing that I was being replaced.

“No! Stop yourself, Irene!” the
mister
called. “Giuseppe, come here.”

I was still in the game? In the last critical seconds?
Me?
I felt a rush of unexpected energy.

Giuseppe, who had been resting the heels of his hands against his lower thighs, straightened. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. A protest? Or a complete lack of air? He walked to the sidelines, his head down, his hands clutching his sides, his cleats kicking up swirls of dirt.

The
mister
put a hand on Giuseppe's shoulder and said a few quiet words. Giuseppe shook his head. The
mister
spoke again, patted Giuseppe's back and gently shoved my teammate in the direction of the bench.

In the meantime, Appiano finished rearranging itself for the throw-in. The referee handed the ball to one of Appiano's midfielders, Number 10. He held the ball above his head with both hands. His eyes flicked up and down the field, looking for an open player.

Werner marked Appiano's best forward, matching the shorter, thinner player almost step for step. He looked almost as fresh as when he started the game. That couldn't last long, but all we needed was another minute or maybe two. But not three. Please, not three.

Number 10 threw in the ball to a midfielder who had been hanging back by the centerline. The boy drilled the ball downfield into an empty space on the field ten feet in front of me.

This was not the time to move the ball slowly up the field. A booming kick with plenty of power—that's what was needed.

A midfielder from Appiano was closing rapidly, but I was sure I'd have time to launch it over his head. I planted my right foot. My left foot swung forward, catching the ball with the top and side of my shoe to give it lift and plenty of forward momentum.
Whump.

But I miscalculated. The ball slammed into the midfielder's face like a cannonball that didn't make it over the castle wall. He staggered back a step or two as the ball ricocheted off his forehead—no, his nose, I realized as a burst of crimson stained his jersey.

I kept going and played it off his face the way I would have played it off a cement wall. I could make sure he was all right once the ball was safely on the other side of the centerline. Again came that satisfying
whump
. A successful takeoff this time. The ball's flight lacked the height and distance of one of Werner's better efforts, but as the ball came down, our side of the field emptied.

Davide positioned himself under the ball. It bounced up and off his head like a flat rock skipping across a glassy pond. This was not just a lucky move. It was a skillful one known as
fare il ponte
, making the bridge. The ball sailed over a line of defenders and landed at Matteo's feet.

Matteo dribbled rapidly down the field. Only one defender stood between him and the goalkeeper. The others streamed behind him, trying to catch up. Emi and Federico were also charging hard down the field to force Appiano to defend against a possible pass. Not that Matteo would give up the ball if he had a chance to score. So why did I find myself shouting
“Dai,
Matteo,
dai!”
with the rest of them?

I don't know whether Matteo heard the footsteps behind him. But instead of taking the ball all the way in, Matteo kicked it from just over the chalked line of the penalty area. The goalkeeper lunged, but he wasn't even close. The orange netting stretched taut.

“Goal!” shouted our team and our fans. They actually used the English word—although the
o
was rounder and from further back in the throat.

I was only one touch away from an assist, I realized. The closest I had come all season. The ball would have never made it near Matteo, of course, without Davide's header.

“
Bravo
, Davide!” I shouted. “You have made a beautiful bridge!”

He had been jumping up and down, pumping his fist, and cheering Matteo. When he heard my voice, he stopped and looked at me. His mouth twisted in a grimace of some sort. Anger? Outrage? No, pretended pain. He rubbed his head, grinned at me, and gave me a thumbs-up. It was the first friendly gesture he'd shown me since I watched the
mister
lecture him for coming to practice late.

I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up in return.

The midfielder from Appiano stood next to me, clutching his nose and looking a bit wobbly.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“Brutta strega,”
he said.

Ugly witch. Well, I had been called worse. And given that we had just scored, I suppose my question hadn't been phrased in the most diplomatic way possible. But then he added another word, one that Giulia had taught me after school.

I searched my new, small collection of words for something appropriate to say back to him. Then Werner appeared from one direction and Luigi from another. The boy from Appiano stalked off, still pinching his nose.

“Well done, Irene! We have taught you many things, no?” Werner said proudly. “Ah, the things you will show your friends in America.”

“
Dai
, Irene,” Luigi murmured. “Must you try to take off the head of someone at every game?”

“I didn't mean to do it.”

“At least this time, it was not my head,” he said. He brushed the back of his hand across his forehead.

“Oh, it pleases Irene to do that?” Werner asked. “I will stay attentive.”

I just grinned at him.

The celebration was ending now on the other end of the field. Luigi backpedaled to the goal before the
mister
could complain about our chattering. I took my place in one of the straight, evenly spaced lines for the kickoff.

The team from Appiano looked determined, but all the determination in the world can't make a dent in a two-goal lead with ten seconds left in the game. The whistle blew three times.

Our fans—parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and a few kids from school—cheered. I looked up into the stands for my family. Dad sat near a cluster of other parents, but I didn't see everyone else. My grandparents were supposed to arrive by train from Milan a few minutes before my game started. Dad didn't look worried, though, so everything must have been all right. Maybe their train was late. Or they might have missed a connection.

As usual, the
mister
focused on the negatives: poor passing, lack of hustle, lack of energy. Oh, yes, he told us, we were happily standing on the sidelines with a final score of three to one, but how close had we come to letting Appiano score? How could we start so strongly and finish so very poorly?

Something—it might have been a slight change in our faces or our breathing—told him we felt that we had actually finished the game rather well.

The
mister
snorted. “Matteo never would have scored if Appiano had not been so aggressive. They were pressing us very hard and keeping nothing in reserve. Thanks to heaven that Giuseppe, Werner, and Irene stopped them.
Bravo,
Davide, you have done well the bridge. Until Monday.”

We scattered before he could think of anything else to say. Leaving the circle, I found Matteo on my right and Giuseppe on my left. Someone else was directly behind me, breathing on my neck and stepping on my heels like an eager puppy. Federico? Matteo's new shadow.

“Let me give you some good advice,
cucciola
,” Matteo said. “Maybe in America, you kick the ball into the face of another player. But here in Italy, we think it works better to kick it over his head.”

“Were you angry with him?” Giuseppe asked. “Did he call you something?”

“No. Nothing,” I said. Not until afterwards anyway. “It was an accident.”

“An accident,” Giuseppe echoed. “So you admit that you cannot control the ball?”

“If you could have done better,” I said, showing all my teeth, “the
mister
would have left you in the game.”

Giuseppe's nostrils flared. A low blow, I guess. But I hadn't started this. I was tired of it. I had proved myself repeatedly as a hardworking substitute. Polite answers to rude remarks had done nothing. Here they were again, hoping to make the little puppy, the
cucciola
, yap and snap at them. Well, I wouldn't bark, but my words might bite.

“And you, Matteo,” I added. “I have heard you tell Federico that you have scored in every game for the last two years. Right, Federico?” I stopped abruptly and turned around. The boy bounced off my shoulder and backed away.

“Ehm…sí.”

“Matteo is marvelous, right, Federico? You think so, I think so, and it is absolutely certain that Matteo thinks so. But without my pass and without the bridge that Davide made, that streak would have ended. Enough.” I dusted off my hands, an Italian gesture meaning “And that's that.”

My quiet attack had taken them completely off their script. Good. I'd had the last word, and I meant to keep it, so I strode forward to meet Giulia who was standing at the gate. Matteo the Egotistical could run after me if he wanted to.

Giulia's eyes sparkled. “What did you say to Matteo?” she asked.

I told her.

“Bella. Molto, molto bella,”
she said. “But be careful. He can be tricky.”

“
Ciao
, Irene. Giulia,” my dad called. He examined me. The right corner of his mouth lifted. “You are very dirty today, Irene.”

“I know,” I said, glancing down. The dust of the field coated my arms and legs like an uneven tan.

“If you wash your face and hands—” he broke off. “No. That won't work. You have need of a shower.”

“I know,” I said. “Where are the grandparents?”

“At home. Your
nonna
was, uh, too tired after the trip. And as for your
nonno
, well. His back hurts him. To seat himself on a hard bench after spending the entire morning on the train—it was not a good idea.”

“Too bad. It was an exciting game, no?” Giulia said. “They would have enjoyed themselves.”

Dad pressed his lips together, looking uncomfortable. “The
mister
found it a bit too entertaining at the end, I think. But you did well, Irene. My
papá
would have cheered.”

“And Nonna?” I asked.

“Ópla!”
Dad exclaimed. “Oh my! It's better to tell you the truth,
cara
. Your
nonna
loves you well, but she does not think you should play soccer.”

“What? But I've always played soccer. She knows that.”

Dad shrugged. “But now you're doing it in Italy with the boys. That makes it…different.”

Giulia nodded. “That does not surprise me. She and my
nonna
are in agreement.”

“She loves you well, Irene,” Dad repeated. “But…” His search for the right thing to say seemed unsuccessful.

“It's nothing,” I said. “Don't worry yourself.”

“Are you sure?” He frowned.

“Of course.”

“Listen, Irene. It could be best if we do not speak of the game when you arrive home. Then all will go well, I'm sure.”

I was sure too. If I could handle Matteo, I could certainly handle my
nonna
.