Chapter 13: Salt Lake

Salt Lake had twenty thousand seats, and by kickoff every one of them had a person in it who'd heard of me.

Somebody had printed a banner.

It hung over the rail behind the north goal in big black letters.

"WHO'S CLEANING DEX'S BATHROOM TONIGHT?"

Cody came past me in the tunnel and tapped two fingers on my shoulder, the way assistants do before a match.

He left them there one second longer than assistants do.

"Near side's mine," he said. "Every blade of grass. You worry about the rest."

"You said that in Colorado Springs."

"It was true in Colorado Springs."

He hadn't kissed me since Kansas City.

He'd carried my bag through the airport with his other hand in his pocket.

I'd thought about that truck every night since.

The teams walked out.

The noise came down on us like weather.

I put the whistle in my mouth, and for one second I was twenty-three again, with nothing hidden under my shirt.

Then I blew it.

The first half was a war.

Salt Lake pressed high and kicked everything.

The visitors from Seattle sat deep and dived when they could.

I gave four fouls in the first ten minutes and the crowd booed all four.

At halftime it was one-all.

Robin handed me a water and a banana in the tunnel.

"The broadcast keeps cutting to you," she said. "I counted. A dozen times. They showed the ball nine."

"Is Courtney down there?"

"On the far touchline, in a camel coat in July." Robin peeled her own banana. "She's sweating through it. I've never been happier."

Minute eighty-seven.

Still one-all.

The Seattle striker turned his man on the edge of the box and went through.

The Salt Lake center back came across.

He didn't get the ball.

He got the striker's standing ankle, a full step inside the line.

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