15 years ago at Danica and Peotre’s house.
“Writing?! You want to be a writer? Little brother, you are talented at a lot of things, but writing isn’t one of them. Face it, man, you’re the physical one. You’d be a fool to not even attempt to use that gift.” Without giving his brother a chance to reply Stefan turns to his brother’s new, very young, very beautiful wife. “What do you think Dani? Do you think Peotre should keep you in this hovel until he writes a bestseller?”
Dani lifts her chin and says, “I am his wife. Wherever he is I will stand beside him.”
Gloria, married to Stefan, looks at her and says, “This isn’t what you signed on for.”
Shrugging Dani replies, “It is what it is.”
“Do you think Peotre has writing talent?”
“Yes,” Dani replies instantly. Gloria, twenty-six and worldly, waits. “Peotre has many talents,” Dani continues. “But…one is being recognized right now.”
“Not you, too, Dani!”
“You know I believe in you, but how many bestsellers would you have to write to earn what you would in one year of playing football? There is a reason most writers, even the well known ones, work as journalists or professors.”
“I don’t love football.”
“But you’re damned good at it,” Stefan points out.
“You have your whole life to be a writer. Hell, write and play. But, yes,” Dani says. “It’s kind of crazy to walk away from this.”
“What is this, an intervention?”
Gloria raises her cocktail. “This is people who love you giving you advice.”
Peotre looks at Dani and feels a part of himself wilt, if not die outright. “Fine. Two years.”
Two years later.
Dani is walking to her spacious downtown loft arm in arm with her best friend, Alex. She is holding an expensive bottle of chilled champagne to celebrate the end of Peotre’s contract.
After a few failed attempts at various careers Dani ended up going back to school. Business. She’d always been good with money and is now Peotre’s wife and financial manager. She is good at it, too. She’s more than doubled the money from Peotre’s initial 800,000 Euro contract. More than enough subsidize his writing career for the next few years. And she is determined to keep growing their wealth. Football is over. Now she gets her husband back.
“You seem happy.”
Dani thinks about it a moment, “I am.”
“You won’t miss the hype?”
Life as a football wife had not turned out to be as glamorous as she had imagined. “You mean sitting at home, alone, in my nightgown watching my husband on television?” At least it was a very large television. “Between training, preseason, the season, and post season we’ve barely said two words to each other the last two years.” Not to mention the lack of sex, of intimacy. She is twenty, he twenty-two. They should be on each other like bunnies. But he is too often too tired. Dani had long since begun to wonder if it was only from football. “No. I miss my husband.”
“It really is insane you two marrying so young.”
“We were, are, in love.” But even as she says the words she wonders how true they are. How can you love someone you barely know anymore.
Alex gives her the side eye and shrugs. At the building she leaves Dani to her private celebration with her husband.
Upstairs Dani opens the door to find Peotre already home. She runs to him and kisses him enthusiastically. He returns the kiss, briefly, before pulling away and setting her down. “Dani,” he tells her, “I have news. They’ve offered me another contract.”
“That’s hardly surprising,” she replies walking across the loft to take down a couple of champagne glasses. Peotre takes the bottle from her hand to open it.
“Another two years.” The champagne cork pops. “At five million Euros.”
Dani pauses for a moment in the pouring of the champagne. “That’s a lot of money. What did you say?”
“Yes, of course. Dani! It’s five million Euros!”
“Did you sign anything?”
“Not yet. Contracts will be ready in the morning.”
Her back to him as she picks up the glasses Dani asks, “What if I asked you not to?”
“Why would you do that? You’re the one who told me I was crazy to walk from the first offer and this is five times as much. More!”
“That was when we had so little.”
“And now we can have so much more.”
“What about being a writer?”
“Like you said, I have my whole life to write.”
“I miss you,” she whispers.
“I’m right here,” he says. And he kisses her. If the kiss tastes like tears, they both ignore it. They make love. The next morning he signs the contract.
13 years later
They are at a christening. The first child of a younger sister of Peotre and Stefan. Anna, the youngest on their mother’s side. Their mother has been married five times and bore each husband a child. Peotre and Stefan’s father she married twice. Of her five children only they, ten years apart, are full brothers. Their father has also been married five times. They have many half and more complicated siblings.
Gloria and Nikoli, her business partner, are there. Danica and Peotre haven’t seen Gloria and the kids since Stefan’s funeral almost five months earlier. A heart attack he would probably have survived if he hadn’t been driving, a little drunk, at the time. He was barely forty-five. Their three kids six, nine, and eleven, are running around with their cousins.
Peotre ended up playing a total of seven years. By the time he finished Danica barely knew him. Since leaving football he’s done everything but write. And touch her. Not that she has any illusion that he is celibate. She’s had her own discrete indiscretions. She is only human. Though she no longer feels that way. Human. Just cold. But not empty. She isn’t sure why they were still married. Habit?
“Well, if it isn’t the happy couple.”
“Gloria, be nice.”
“I’m a widow, Nikoli. I don’t have to be nice.”
“It’s okay, Nikoli.” Peotre assures him. “Gloria is just picking up where Stefan left off. It’s almost touching.”
“Don’t you say his name!” People look over at the two couples, including her oldest child. Gloria lowers her voice. “You hadn’t seen him, talked to him, in two years when he died. I was surprised to see you at the funeral.”
“He hadn’t seen or talked to me either.”
“Now he’s dead. Are you happy?”
Peotre shakes his head. “Not for a very long time.” He walks away.
Gloria looks Danica up and down. “You’ve put on weight. I guess you are human after all.”
Danica smiles and shakes her head. “Not really. Good to see you Nikoli.”
“You too, Dani. You look different. In a good way.”
“Thanks, I feel different in a good way.”
The two exchange a long gaze. Then Nikoli nods. “I forget that you’re a woman, now. Good luck.”
Dani’s lips quirk. With a quick glance a Gloria she returns, “You too.”
When she leaves Gloria asks, “What was that about?”
“Just a mutual understanding.”
“She slept with Stefan, you know. That’s why he and Peotre stopped talking.”
“Actually, she didn’t. Stefan told me about it. She turned him down.”
“I just assumed…”
“So did Peotre.”
On the balcony.
“I never asked you. You’ve fucked other men. But why him? Why my brother?”
Dani comes up next to him and leans on the balcony railing. Without looking at him she asks, “Why do you think?”
“Because it would hurt me the most.”
Dani laughs and even she is surprised by the bitterness in it. She’s barely into her 30s but feels like she’s lived so very long. “Of course you would think it’s about you. How can someone so talented, so handsome, so loved be so overwhelmed with self pity?
“I never slept with Stefan, Peotre.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“You’re right. I don’t have to lie to you. I never slept with Stefan. What you saw was me turning down the advances of my slightly inebriated brother-in-law. My last naive act was underestimating how toxic your relationship was. I never thought he’d let you believe we were sleeping together.” She laughs again. “I never thought you’d believe him. Why didn’t you leave me?”
It was Peotre’s turn to laugh bitterly. “I can’t. Being around you is unbearable but being without you is worse. The thought of living without you leaves me shattered. The thought of you living without me is enraging.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up.”
Peotre laughs again, but this time it’s real. “How do you do that? Just when I think I hate you more than I love you.”
“I know the feeling,” is Dani’s desert reply. “It’s time, Peotre.”
“Why now?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Who’s the father?”
“A legitimate question. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I after what happened, or, more correctly, what didn’t happen with Stefan – with you – I gave up on men. The doctor says I’m about five months along.”
“The night of the funeral.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I wanted what happened. To feel you again. To feel again.”
“So, what now?”
“I want you. But it has to be all of you. I can’t continue to live with a ghost.”
“What if there is nothing else left?”
“I refuse to believe that.” Dani blows out a quick, surprised breath.
“What’s wrong?”
Dani grabs Peotre’s hand and places it on her lower abdomen. He feels a flutter and looks into her eyes. “Our baby.”
She nods, tearing up. “Our baby.”
A year later a novel by a previously unknown author writing under what is obviously a pseudonym hits the bestseller list where it stays for several months. It is about the fraught relationship between a professional athlete and his wife. The inside information is so accurate there is speculation that the author may possibly be an agent or involved in sport in another way. No one thinks it could possibly be a player.
On a slow day in the society pages it is noted that former footballer Peotre Ivanovich and his long time spouse, Danica, had a small vow renewal. Their daughter, Stefanie, was cradled in Danica’s arms during the ceremony.