Page 66 of Just One Look
She’dheardof “school colors” and so forth. She’d just never paid any attention. The only color she’d ever cared about was a white coat.
The redhead called down the row, “Move down one!” and waved an arm, and everybody did. Women. Babies. Toddlers. Preschoolers. Teenagers. It was ridiculous. The beautiful woman moved herself, then said, “Here you are. Sit by me.” And when Elizabeth did, said, “Nyree told me you were coming, and to look after you. Of course, that was an easy yes, since you’re a doctor and I’ve got four kids. Always good to be prepared, eh. Hi. I’m Josie.”
She looked like that, and she had four kids? Including a new baby? She might be dressed in jeans, boots, and a puffy jacket, but the glamour was obvious, from the long, lustrous dark hair to the tall, slim, curvy body and perfect face, the bone structure that had been fashioned by a master craftsman and yet owed nothing to plastic surgery. She was Maori, Elizabeth was pretty sure, and probably the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
She wasn’t being insecure anymore, though, right? That was the whole point of this. Everybody had their own life and their own struggles, including Piper.EspeciallyPiper. All you could do was be comfortable in your own skin.
Easier said than done, unfortunately.
“And I’m Jenna,” the woman beside Josie said. “I havefivekids here, so I’m hogging the doctor, too. I also started out American, as you can probably hear, which makes me the obvious welcoming committee. My husband’s a coach now, but they still let me sit with them, as long as I preserve a policy of discretion. You see Zora beside me, holding Josie’s other twin?” A dark-haired woman beyond her must have heard her name, because she leaned forward and waved. Jenna said, “She’s theheadcoach’s wife. This is a dangerous spot to sit, clearly. You could be innocently revealing all of Luka’s training lapses, andthenwhat will happen?”
“What happens with the WAGs stays with the WAGs,” Josie said. “Oh, come on. Comeon.”
Oh. The game. Elizabeth took a bite of her hot dog and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Most of the players were down the field a little bit to her right, except for a man hanging back who was probably … guarding the backfield, or something, in case the ball came that way in a hurry. Vague terms like that came to her. Offense. Defense. Kickoff. Touchdown. Outfield. Wait, that was baseball, wasn’t it? She said, “I have no idea what’s happening. Tell me if Luka does something important.”
“He’s always doing something important,” Josie said absently. He’s the No. 8.”
Oh. The No. 8. Right. Elizabeth said, “Uh …” and took a sip of beer. “Assume I know nothing.”
“Not much like American football, eh,” Josie said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve never actually watched American football.”
“It’s more like soccer, really,” Josie said.
“Also ignorant of soccer,” Elizabeth said. “This is the first sports game … sporting event … I’ve ever attended.”
Josie took her eyes off the field and stared at her. “How?”
“Uh … surgeon?”
“You must have gone to school, though,” Josie said. “Don’t they do sport in school over there? Oh. Sorry. Is there … some reason for that?”
“All sorts of reasons, probably,” Elizabeth said. “Some could possibly be a little pathetic, so I won’t go into them. If you could sort of … do a commentary, though, that’d be great. Luka’s going to ask what I thought, and I’m going to say, ‘Everybody sure ran around a lot! And looked very strong!’”
Josie laughed. “The score is 10 to 6 in favor of the Blues, but the Stormers have the ball with less than fifteen minutes to play. They’re in the black strip. South African team, and the forwards are big, notice that?”
“The forwards,” Elizabeth said. “The bashing people.” She didn’t ask what “strip” meant. Shirt, maybe, because one teamwaswearing black shirts. Why would a strip be a shirt, though?
Josie laughed again. Her laugh was as beautiful as everything else about her. She had a voice like melted chocolate, smooth and rich. It was a voice you could listen to for hours. “Youdoknow something about rugby.”
“My gay friend told me. Apparently, the forwards are especially desirable.”
“Well,Ithink so,” Josie said.
“Which is your husband?” Elizabeth asked.
“Hugh Latimer. The skipper. The number seven. Loose forward, like Luka. He’s in the breakdown now, the one with the beard who’s trying to snaffle the ball from the Stormers’ seven. On the ground,” she added, “but still on his feet, because you have to keep your feet. Takes some strength to keep your feet, eh, when you’re reaching forward like that.”
“Oh. All right.” Elizabeth got “on the ground.” She didn’t get any of the rest of it.
Some clapping from the crowd, and Josie said, “The Blues have driven the Stormers back for about a minute now. They’re not getting anywhere, so they’ll probably kick the ball away for territory.”
Elizabeth wanted to ask why they’d do that, since clearly, the point would be to holdonto the ball, but she didn’t. The ball went backwards from one of the Stormers’ hands—somehow without the player looking—and was caught by a slightly smaller man who kicked it up into the lights. A player in blue jumped for it, so high and with so much balletic grace, it was hard to believe, then came down and got tackled immediately. After that, she got a little confused, until a shorter player threw the ball, fast as a bullet, in full stride and into the arms of another running player, who barely touched it before it was streaking to a man running up the field closest to them, near the train-track white lines at the edge.
Wait. That was Luka. She jumped up, spilling beer on her jeans, and yelled, “Go!”
Somebody in a black shirt who was as big as Luka dove and got him around an ankle. Luka started to fall forward as he was tripped, but flicked the ball behind him as he went. Another Blues player caught it, and thenhewas running, but Elizabeth wasn’t watching that. She was watching Luka crash hard to the turf on his left side, jump to his feet, then start running to get involved in the play again. Fast. Shaking hisarm.
