The Love Bug

by Tara Wimble

  And it doesn’t feel like an empty promise.

  *

  The major media comes a week before the tournament is set to start and Jacque is ecstatic that neither she nor Bella were picked to speak and represent Canada. It means that maybe, just maybe, the conversation will stick to soccer and the excitement of hosting a home tournament and not the stupid fluff pieces they had to contend with during the lead up.

  Instead it’s Whembs and Carla and Oliv that get called to go with John and better them than anyone else.

  They have the most media training and honestly the most to say. The rest of them just hang around in the hotel they’ve been assigned to and try to find a way to pass the time.

  It ends up being a massive game of ‘plan the team bonding trip’ and when get tattoos is predictably suggested by Kathryn and nobody shuts it down Jacque starts to get a little bit nervous.

  That all subsides when Sadie promises to draw them up for she and Bella. Then the idea starts to settle in her mind a little bit more.

  Of course, not everyone decides that this is something they want to do but the bonding is in the going and not necessarily in the receiving. Or at least that is what Bella attempts to argue as she tries to get out of hers but Jacque just shakes her head and playfully pushes her away when they get a few minutes alone and Bella tries to convince her in more enticing ways.

  But once the media day crew returns the excuse works for some. Whemb and Carla flat out refuse to get tattooed while Oliv immediately flocks to Sadie and makes her draw ‘something badass’.

  Actually, the naysayers tend to trend over the age of 30 and, if anything, this only spurns Jacque’s commitment on further.

  Bella tries to argue that she’s not even 30 yet and doesn’t have that particular chip on her shoulder but Jacque just rolls her eyes and puts her in the big van with everyone else.

  There’s a quick glimpse of John waving to them from the hotel lobby as they embark on their adventure and Jacque uses this to reinforce their convictions to Bella.

  The rest of the ride is a mixture of singing, good and bad, until Sadie realizes that in the midst of her solo she’s forgotten where this place is. Which spells trouble for the van that’s following them and almost leads to a really interesting car crash.

  That would have been fun to explain.

  All of them shuffle into the tattoo parlor about ten minutes late with hopeful gazes to the dismay of Sadie’s friend, Nora.

  “You’re lucky that someone cancelled.” She tells them. Sadie separates from them with her sketch book and introduces everyone on their behalf.

  They’re all feeling thoroughly ignored as Nora starts prepping her workspace and asks Sadie to help her transfer some of her sketches onto the photocopier. That’s when Imogen whips her iPhone out and begins her usual torment. “Team bonding exercise!”

  “Tattoos with the Canadian National Team. Subject one: Jacqueeeelina. And who persuaded you to do this?” Imogen puts the camera closer to her face and Jacque repeats. “I got permission to do this.”

  “Permission? From who?” Imogen laughs.

  Jacque says “John” at the same time Kathryn says “Bella.” Both of their answers are drowned out afterwards with laughing and a bashful look being thrown in Bella’s direction. Yet Jacque doesn’t deny anything.

  Because it was definitely Bella.

  “We’re getting tattoos! For luck!” Kathryn and Jan spend a few minutes going through their current collections of tattoos that they’ve gathered during their stay in Seattle. Kathryn seems to be collecting them at a faster rate than anyone, even Sadie, and enthusiastically waves a design drawn by their goalkeeper in front of Imogen.

  Sadie shakes her head. “Should be getting them afterwards but, apparently, they couldn’t wait.”

  A few others have variations of the same design, a tiny maple leaf, naturally. Imogen rounds her camera on Bella who holds up her maple leaf on tracing paper. “I was gonna wait.”

  “She was gonna back out.” Kathryn interrupts. “Because she’s flaking on Canada.”

  “What?” Imogen questions, zooming in with the camera.

  “FLAKING.” Kathryn yells and the tattoo artist turns to glare at her.

  “I was not.” Bella mumbles, staring down at the maple leaf. It’s a nice enough design, she’d had Sadie draw up the ones that she and Jacque were going to get and if you squinted they were complementary in a way.

  If you squinted and knew about it which really only she, Sadie, and Jacque did. And that’s probably the way it was going to stay.

  And really that’s why she’s hesitating despite Kathryn claiming that after all of these years, almost a decade now, that she was going to flake out on Canada.

  Canada wasn’t the problem. Hell, she wouldn’t be saying this to the Americans any time soon but she felt more Canadian every single day. The more time she spent in close quarters with Jacque and the team and the more it solidified. She said ‘sore-y’ the other day and Jacque could only look at her with something resembling pride. And then amusement at her horror.

  It’s just there’s a difference between loving Canada and submitting yourself to a girl with a needle promising that it’s not going to hurt.

  Maybe it’s less about the pain and more about the commitment to it. As if eight years wasn’t enough already.

  Off camera Jacque subtly makes her way to her side, while Imogen is distracted by Kathryn sitting down to get inked, and slides their hands together. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Duh.” Bella shakes her wrist at her displaying the ‘faithfully’ script she has. Jacque knows about the other ones.

  Jacque smirks at that and Bella wonders how they ever managed to fool anyone that they were together when Jacque’s face gives away the game so much right now. “I’ll hold your hand if you want me to.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Being cute.”

  Jacque squeezes her hand. “That’s my line.”

  “Yeah, well.” Bella puffs out her cheeks. “I got nothing.”

  That’s a first for both of them and Bella doesn’t really know what comes over her. She nods along to the sign and ignores that she’s up next for the needle. Jacque kisses her.

  There’s nothing grand about it. Jacque’s hair tickles the side of her cheek when she leans up and their lips meet. It’s chaste and warm and maybe a little dizzy towards the end of it but it’s so familiar that she forgets why it’s not.

  Oh crap. The energy changes in the room and even still attached to Jacque’s lips, lips that seem not to realize anything is going on around them and it’s sweet and terrifying at the same time, Bella remembers why this is weird.

  They hadn’t told everyone that they were back together yet.

  The obvious crew knows but they were waiting until the right time to break the news. As it turns out the right time ends up being a stolen moment in the middle of a tattoo parlor.

  “Get a room!” Kadeisha yells from the chair where they’ve allowed her to sit by the door.

  “Holy shit!” Imogen yells and spins the camera just in time to catch them pulling away.

  There’s a break of silence and then voices start up in unison. “Pay up, bitches.” Rings out from a voice that sounds suspiciously like Kathryn’s and they are really going to have to have a talk about defrauding teammates.

  Maybe later.

  “Tell me everything.” Imogen has the camera right up in their faces. “When? How? Where? Inquiring minds need to know.”

  “Uh, you know what, it’s tattoo time.” Bella stammers out, moving towards the tattoo artist and thrusting her trace paper towards her, throwing an apologetic look over her shoulder at Jacque who is left in the middle of the storm.

  Jacque pouts at her and she knows that there is going to be some serious making up going on later to compensate for leaving Jacque to deal with the hovering masses.

  But it’s not like their version of making up is
exactly a strenuous ask. Hell, it might even be fun once Jacque gets over being annoyed.

  Hopefully.

  For now Bella just closes her eyes and focuses on the feeling of the artist transferring the design from the paper to the side of her left rib cage and when the needle comes out she feels a hand slip into hers and squeeze.

  She doesn’t even need to open her eyes to know that making up just got a little bit easier.

  By the time she returns the favor an hour later the novelty has passed and, aside from a few still stuck in their shocked state, the focus is on to the next thing.

  And, at that, she has to smile. And protect her hand because for someone who just held her hand through this Jacque is about halfway to breaking hers.

  *

  Home red.

  The steady thumping beat of the rowdy crowd bleeds all of the way back into the dressing room and it breathes life where there’s already rumbling excitement.

  It’s electric.

  Bella reaches up and pulls the thick headband up over Jacque's face. She purposely snaps it over her eyes at first, causing Jacque to reach out and slap at her hands trying to fix it herself. She ends up catching Bella's wrists and pulling the headband up with her, keeping her hair out of her eyes. "I have to be able to see remember?"

  Bella grins and cheekily grabs at the open v-neck of the Canadian warm up shirt they’re kitted in, pretending to smooth it down. "I bet you could do it blindfolded."

  They're close enough, Bella bouncing on the balls of her feet, for Jacque to sneak her a chaste kiss without anyone paying them too much attention.

  Except it dazes Bella with a softness that comes with a calming. She stills and leans against Jacque a little more.

  Her hands leave Jacque's chest after pressing the shirt flat once more. Jacque catches the last one and keeps it against her heart.

  "I love you."

  “I love you too.”

  They’ve never won in these shirts. They’ve never lost either. This is a team rising from the ashes of what was into what they want to become.

  This is the marquee matchup. The beginning of the entire World Cup.

  They’ve seen all the buzz on the way into the stadium. The sea of red is never ending as thousands walked and queued in the same uniform they have on their backs tonight. Their names being called, beckoned, so loudly that it becomes a chant lost of all meaning. Just a need.

  Tonight they need to perform.

  Whemb stands from the bench and calls them all into the huddle before they walk out. Her words are only for the team. John stands outside with the rest of the coaching staff while Whemb calms them down, brings them back to the ground. Makes sure ice flows through their veins.

  Winning starts now.

  Their home reds are a stark contrast to the whites of the New Zealand team but they blend in with the block of red that echoes around the stands. This is their crowd.

  It’s something that doesn’t fall too far away from their thoughts when they’re standing in the line up listening to the national anthem being sung by a sellout crowd of around sixty thousand.

  Bella starts on the bench while Whemb and Oliv head out for them first. She hasn’t even sat down when the whistle blows that she knows, in her heart and her head, that they’re going to win this game.

  *

  It’s no surprise that they do.

  3 - 0.

  On to the next one.

  *

  The group stages for all teams are the usual slogging matches. There aren’t any real shocks between their matches and how easily teams like the US, Sweden and Japan breeze through their competition.

  After winning against New Zealand and Columbia though, they come up against their wild card.

  Almost involuntarily they tighten up. It’s not something that they mean to do because they’ve been rolling but not a single one of them, not even the ones who weren’t there, can forget 2011. Losing in front of 70,000 of their fans.

  Suddenly their wild card feels like revenge and there’s nary a spare breath to be had in the locker room or on the training pitch during recovery.

  John tries to ease their minds, tries to instill his normal level of enthusiasm and belief but walking out of the tunnel, even trying to repeat his words in their heads, it doesn’t work.

  They stand a little taller for the tension flowing throughout their bodies.

  The Germans look at home.

  It’s already an uphill battle.

  *

  Group C; Germany v Canada.

  Of all the goalkeepers in the world, Bella has never been as scared to go to goal as much as she has against Germany. It’s not the size or the presence of Nadine Angerer. It’s not her speed or her reach. It’s not even how loud she is when she’s screaming at her backline to stop Bella coming.

  It’s the sheer force that makes her feel like she’s running into a brick wall when the keeper takes her legs, and the ball, sending her flying face first over her body and into the artificial turf. The wind is knocked from her, as well as her confidence, and Angerer gets up off the floor with the ball in her possession as if she hadn’t just taken her out. Or even broken a sweat.

  The next time Oliv lays a ball to her she quivers for a second and her shot goes wide. Angerer is in her head and the burn in her face arises from more than the speckled scrapes the face full of turf has given her.

  “You’re gonna snap out of it.” Oliv crouches in front of her in the locker room. “Repeat. Come on.”

  Bella gulps down water. She’s shaking now that they’re back in the locker room with no one watching her. “Snapping out of it.”

  “You took a hard hit but we patched you up.” Oliv touches the tip of her nose. Faintly joking that it could be worse. “You’re definitely stronger than this. Definitely stronger than her. She’s what? Pushing thirty seven? Come on, Bella.”

  Bella pours some of her water over her hot face and breathes heavily. “What does that mean for you? Pushing thirty five.”

  Oliv grins as Bella comes back out of her trembling nature. “You won’t push thirty if you don’t buck up.”

  “Buck up?”

  The joking is good but it’s hollow. Oliv can see it. So can a few other of her teammates. Jacque doesn’t wander over because Oliv is handling it. She stays kneeling in front of Bella until she’s calmer and less jumpy. Bella squeezes Jacque’s ring while she can, hoping that she can get rid of the flash of fear she gets when thinking about sprinting towards goal.

  Germany is the most physical team they’ve faced, bar the US, and when they get out on the field again they know they have to fight fire with fire.

  They trade bruises as much as they trade passes. Oliv doesn’t hesitate to use her body to get in front of balls and attack the goal. Her whole team rises up and becomes the unstoppable force that John is always screaming at them to be.

  It’s by only the grace of the referee that the game doesn’t come to cards until the 77th minute. That’s when Bella crashes onto the turf again.

  Hard.

  Bella only realizes that it’s not Angerer that’s rushed out and took her down when the referee jogs by her pointing at the spot.

  Penalty.

  She can barely think about the whistle over the sound of the crowd erupting into a victorious roar. Oliv is getting up in Angerer’s face about something and the keeper is giving just as much back. Bella feels Niav or Rachel grab her to stand up and she feels dizzy. She doesn’t like the way her legs buckle again so soon after standing.

  Her story isn’t straight until someone is pushing the ball into her hands.

  The pass she was trying to get off to Whemb was blocked, but so was the rest of her body, as Krahn caught her ankle way before the ball. Now she’s up, she can feel where the cleats had pressed against her.

  “You’re good, you’re good.” Rachel reassures her. It’s then that Bella looks down at the ball.

  “Are you kidding me?” Bella turns around and spots
Whemb passing her. “Am I taking this?”

  Whemb lining up with the rest of the team outside the area is her answer. Now she just feels sick. She doesn’t want to take this. John is shouting on the sideline that she’s not down to take penalties but the team is furious, taking matters into their own hands which they probably shouldn’t, to try and claw their way out of a two goal deficit.

  Angerer steps up.

  Bella puts the ball down and turns her back on Angerer to walk the paces she needs back. She closes her eyes for a second, hoping someone will come and take her place and listen to John. But no one does.

  All she can do is cross herself and face the goal.

  It’s a controlled setting. Angerer isn’t going to rush out at her again. No one is going to take her down. Her mind knows that but her body, that has weathered the beaten floor more times than she can count this game, doesn’t listen.

  The surprising moment comes after Bella makes her go. She makes the shot, Angerer anticipates and she punches Bella’s ball away to her right. The crowd deflates.

  No one sees Carla’s run.

  Everyone sees the ball kiss the back of the neck.

  In a second Bella’s missed penalty is forgotten and Angerer is just another furious German face in the crowd.

  Oliv wraps her up in a hug and pulls her along, jogging to their line. “We got you.”

  It’s their first loss of the competition but the mood in the changing room is optimistic, after John gets through his blistering rant, and no one says anything about her missing. Just to get the next one.

  They’ve got this.

  *

  Group C Result: Germany 2 : 1 Canada

  *

  The only thing that they could possibly do after suffering their first loss in the World Cup is to take stock of the fact that they still earned their six points and a solid second place in their group.

  It’s a far cry from bombing out four years prior and though they’ll have to come up against a number one seeded squad in the quarterfinals it’s something.

  Even if they wanted to dwell and wallow they can’t, John won’t let them. It’s time to look onwards and upwards. To scout the competition they might face further down the road.