"Legitimate is not a review. Legitimate is a legal term. I'll need to verify in person."
"So you're coming?"
"I'm coming."
He walks back to his stall. I pull my tape from the shelf. Two rolls. Even pressure. The pattern I have been using since I was fourteen.
Before warm-ups, I walk past the equipment closet to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The one nobody uses because the light buzzes and it’s further from everything. I push the door open.
The mirror is above the sink. The fluorescent tube flickers twice before holding. I put my hands on the counter and I look at myself. The suit. The left sleeve, the collar sitting wrong, the back bunched between my shoulders. Three months ago I would have gone home and changed before anyone on this team saw me like this.
The guy in the mirror hasn’t shaved for three days. I didn’t choose to stop shaving. I just did not start again. The stubble is darker along the jaw, thinner under the chin.
I run the water. I wash my hands. I dry them and look at the mirror one more time.
The face is fine. Thompson will forget about the suit by the first period. Marchetti asked once and I answered and the answer was enough. Wes asked earlier and I told him I was fine. Nobody is going to bring any of it up again because I was making them laugh and making him believe me and the laughing and the believing are the same work, people hearing what I gave them and not hearing what I didn't.
I straighten the collar. It does not help. I go back and the locker room is louder now. Pre-game volume. Marchetti catches my eye as I sit down and I give him a nod and he nods back.
I pick up my phone from the shelf. The screen lights. Blue water, white railing, palms. I put it face down on the bench.
?
Chapter 14: Wes
THEN
The pork is in the oven and Berger is standing in my kitchen holding a lime.
"This lime is a six," he says. He turns it over in his hand. "The skin is thick. Thick skin means less juice. Less juice means the marinade suffers. The marinade suffers, the whole meal shifts."
"Put the lime down and cut the onions."
He sets the lime on the counter with a deliberateness that implies he is not done with it. He picks up the knife and starts on the onions, and his cuts are better than they were three months ago when he first stood at this counter and burned the garlic and told me the garlic was defective.
"They already like you," I say.
"They don't know me."
"They've been hearing about you for months. Kevin asks about you."
"Kevin asks about me because Kevin is polite."
"Kevin is not polite. Kevin is nosy. There's a difference." I check the pork. "Grant asked about you two weeks ago."
"Grant asked about me?"
"He asked how the kid was settling in."
"The kid." He looks at me. "He calls me the kid."
"They all call you the kid."
"I am twenty-two years old. I am a professional athlete. I am an actual adult."
"You are still the kid."
He points the knife at me. "I am not the kid. I am Luca Berger. I have a name and a position and opinions."
