Page 68 of Spectacular Things
On Fire
Five months after winning an Olympic gold medal and learning Mia needed a kidney, Cricket finds herself sweating in Trilith.
The air just hits different in Georgia.
At the new U.S. Soccer National Training Center, it’s not yet eighta.m. and Cricket’s jersey already clings to her body from the humidity.
But January Camp is meant to be hard. Cricket is thankful it’s this tough, this all-consuming, because it means she can’t afford to think about anything else.
Nothing like physical pain to make her excruciatingly present.
“Let’s go,” Anders says, blowing his whistle, and the keepers begin their circuit training. Cricket steps into the discomfort. She listens for her mother, but all she hears is the labored breath of Emma and Des on either side of her.
For the first time in her career, Cricket didn’t spend the last month agonizing over whether she would make the cut for January Camp. With Sloane still rehabbing her leg, the starting goalkeeper position on the U.S. Women’s National Team is Cricket’s to lose.
This morning, she wears a tiny microphone to provide fans with a taste of behind-the-scenes candor from training camp.
“Delay, delay!” Cricket shouts when they scrimmage.
A minute later, “Stay! Stay!” she yells at her defenders.
She does not worry if her audio is boring for the social media team; she knows it’s working on the field.
While everyone else naps after lunch, Cricket partakes in three phone interviews because she is the newly crowned star keeper and, ever since she subbed into the Gold Medal match, her Cinderella status has piqued the media’s interest. Cricket commends her manager, Paula, on the variety pack of today’s inquirers: The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Bon Appétit .
When the thoughtful young woman from Bon Appétit asks about her diet, Cricket credits Sloane for her daily pumpkin seed consumption.
It is easy to be gracious from the number-one spot, and it seems as though everyone within the National Team bubble has signed off on Cricket’s sparkling future.
Teague wholeheartedly endorsed her during her latest press conference.
Anders pays close attention to her during training, Cricket’s performance overshadowing Emma’s and Des’s, just as Sloane’s once did.
But there’s also buy-in from the rest of the coaching and training staff, who go out of their way to check in on Cricket.
And from the higher-ups at U.S. Soccer, veteran reporters, eager sponsors, and the well-groomed personnel that run the front office.
In the parking lot of the training center, women in power heels and black blazers call her “Crick” on their way to investment meetings.
Alyssa Naeher, her acclaimed predecessor, tells Cricket to reach out any time.
And if that weren’t rewarding enough, the contract Cricket signed last week with Procter & Gamble is her seventh six-figure endorsement deal.
That evening, after dinner and meetings, Cricket puts her legs up the wall as she runs bathwater and realizes she hasn’t opened her mouth to speak in almost four hours—since the last training session when she shouted directions from the goal line.
She didn’t say a word all through dinner except when Rose asked her to pass the pepper.
Cricket tells herself she’s just focusing, but she knows that’s a lie.
The truth is this: Cricket has never been more alone.
Or more miserable.
As soon as Cricket steps off the field, the chambers of her heart echo with painful absences: Her mother hasn’t appeared on the pitch since she left Mia in the hospital last August. Oliver hasn’t replied to her texts since then, either.
And hardest of all, Cricket hasn’t spoken to Mia, even though it’s Mia—more than anyone—who she wants to call right now and tell her that the captain, Gogo Garba, yelled from across the field and in front of the entire team that Cricket was on fire today.
Only Mia could wholly appreciate what it meant to Cricket when Megan Rapinoe showed up at dinner tonight, offering encouragement and a reminder that this team represents more than excellent soccer.
Did you tell her about Mom? Mia would ask. Did you tell her about going to Paris in 2019? And Cricket would say, Of course I did! But in reality, Cricket didn’t say a word to their hero, because when everyone clapped for Megan, Cricket buckled with shame.
It’s been nearly six months since Cricket spoke to her sister in Mia’s hospital room. Six months since Oliver handed her the donor coordinator’s business card, and Cricket said she would call, but life had come fast.
While Mia and Oliver went silent, Cricket’s manager, Paula, kept reaching out.
Endorsement offers kept flooding in, and then the Chicago Red Stars went undefeated and won the NWSL championship, which meant more notoriety, more interviews, more exhausting days that required an unnatural amount of smiling and lying through her teeth as Cricket insisted on live-recording podcasts and in front of ever-rolling cameras, “I’m so happy to be here. ”