Playing for Pizza (Page 41)

The Panthers led 14-7. The punting game took over in the second quarter as both offenses sputtered. Maschi was slowly shaking off the cobwebs and returning to form. Some of his plays were impressive, at least from the safety of the deep pocket where Rick had a good view. Maschi did not, however, seem inclined to return to his kamikaze blitzing. Franco was always lurking nearby, near his quarterback. With a minute to go before the half, and the Panthers up by a touchdown, the game turned on its most crucial play. Rick, who hadn’t thrown an interception in five games, finally did so. It was a curl to Fabrizio, who was open, but the ball sailed high. McGregor caught it at midfield and had a good shot at the end zone. Rick bolted toward the sideline, as did Giancarlo. Fabrizio caught McGregor enough to spin him and slow him, but he stayed on his feet and kept running. Giancarlo was next, and when McGregor juked him, he was suddenly on a collision course with the quarterback. A quarterback’s dream is to murder the safety who just picked off his pass, a dream that never comes true because most quarterbacks really don’t want to get near a safety who has the ball and really wants to score. It’s just a dream. But Rick had been smashing helmets all day, and for the first time since high school he was looking for contact. Suddenly he was a roving hit man, someone to be feared. With McGregor in the crosshairs, Rick left his feet, launched himself, abandoned any and all concern for his own body and safety, and aimed at his target.

The impact was loud and violent. McGregor fell back as if he’d been shot in the head. Rick was dazed for a second but jumped to his feet as if it were just another kill. The crowd was stunned but also thrilled by such mayhem.

Giancarlo fell on the ball and Rick chose to run out the clock. As they left the field for halftime, Rick glanced at the Bergamo bench and saw McGregor walking gingerly with a trainer, much like a boxer who’d been flattened. "Did you try to kill him?" Livvy would ask later, not in disgust but certainly not in admiration. "Yes," Rick answered.

McGregor did not answer the bell, and the second half quickly became the Fabrizio show. The Professor stepped over and immediately got burned on a post. If he played tight, Fabrizio ran by him. If he played loose, which he preferred to do, Rick tossed the ten- yarders that quickly added up. The Panthers scored twice in the third quarter. In the fourth, the Lions engaged the strategy of a double- team, half of it being The Professor, who was by then quite winded and by any means overmatched, and the other half being an Italian who was not only too small but too slow. When Fabrizio outran them on a fly and hauled in a long, beautiful pass that Rick had launched from midfield, the score was 35-14, and the celebrating began. The Parma fans lit fireworks, chanted nonstop, waved huge soccer-style banners, and someone tossed the obligatory smoke bomb. Across the field, the Bergamo fans were still and bewildered. If you win sixty- seven in a row, you’re never supposed to lose. Winning becomes automatic.

A loss in a tight game would be heartbreaking enough, but this was a romp. They rolled up their banners, packed their stuff. Their cute little cheerleaders were silent and very sad. Many of the Lions had never lost, and as a whole they did so gracefully. Maschi, surprisingly, was a good-natured soul who sat on the grass with his shoulder pads off and chatted with several of the Panthers long after the game was over. He admired Franco for the brutal hit, and when he heard about the "Kill Maschi" play, he took it as a compliment. And he admitted that the long winning streak had created too much pressure, too many expectations. In a way, there was relief in getting it out of the way. They would meet again soon, Parma and Bergamo, probably in the Super Bowl, and the Lions would return to form. That was his promise. Normally, the Americans from both teams met after the game for a quick hello. It was nice to hear from home and compare notes on players each had met along the way. But not today. Rick resented the "Goat" calling and hustled off the field. He showered and changed quickly, celebrated just long enough, then hurried away with Livvy in tow.

He’d been dizzy in the fourth quarter, and a headache was settling in at the base of his skull. Too many blows to the head. Too much football.

Chapter 26

They slept till noon in their tiny room in a small albergo near the beach, then gathered their towels, sunscreen, water bottles, and paperbacks and stumbled, still groggy, to the edge of the Adriatic Sea, where they set up camp for the afternoon. It was early June and hot, the tourist season fast approaching, but the beach was not yet crowded. "You need sun," Livvy said as she covered herself with oil. Her top came off, leaving nothing but a few strings where they were absolutely necessary. "I guess that’s why we’re here at the beach," he said. "And I haven’t seen a single tanning salon in Parma."

"Not enough Americans." They’d left Parma after the Friday practice and the Friday pizza at Polipo’s. The drive to Ancona took three hours, then another half hour south along the coast to the Conero Peninsula, and finally to the small resort town of Sirolo. It was after 3:00 a.m. when they checked in. Livvy had booked the room, found the directions, and knew where the restaurants were. She loved the details of travel. A waiter finally noticed them and trudged over for a tip. They ordered sandwiches and beer and waited a good hour for both. Livvy kept her nose stuck in a paperback while Rick managed to drift in and out of consciousness, or if fully awake he would shift to his right side and admire her, topless and sizzling in the sun.

Her cell phone buzzed from somewhere deep in the beach bag. She grabbed it, stared at the caller ID, and decided not to answer. "My father," she said with distaste, then returned to her mystery. Her father had been calling, as had her mother and sister. Livvy was ten days past due from her year of study abroad and had dropped more than one hint that she might not come home. Why should she? Things were much safer in Italy. Though she was still guarded with some of the details, Rick had learned the basics. Her mother’s family was a strain of Savannah blue bloods, miserable people, according to Livvy’s succinct descriptions, and they had never accepted her father, because he was from New England. Her parents had met at the

University of Georgia, the family school. Their wedding had been hotly opposed in private by her family, and this had only inspired her mother to go on with it. There was infighting at many levels, and the marriage was doomed from the beginning. The fact that he was a prominent brain surgeon who earned lots of money meant little to his in-laws, who actually had very little cash but had been forever blessed with the status of "family money." Her father worked brutal hours and was thoroughly consumed by his career. He ate at the office, slept at the office, and evidently was soon enjoying the companionship of nurses at the office. This went on for years, and in retribution her mother began seeing younger men. Much younger. Her sister, and only sibling, was in therapy by the age of ten. "A totally dysfunctional family" was Livvy’s assessment. She couldn’t wait to leave for boarding school at fourteen. She picked one in Vermont, as far away as possible, and for four years dreaded the holidays. Summers were spent in Montana, where she worked as a camp counselor.

For this summer, upon her return from Florence, her father had arranged an internship with a hospital in Atlanta where she would work with brain-damaged accident victims. He planned for her to be a doctor, no doubt a great one like himself. She had no plans, except those that would take her far from the routes chosen by her parents. The divorce trial was scheduled for late September, with a lot of money at stake. Her mother was demanding that she testify on her behalf, specifically about an incident three years earlier when Livvy surprised her father at the hospital and caught him groping a young female doctor. Her father was playing the money card. The divorce had been raging for almost two years, and Savannah couldn’t wait for the public showdown between the great doctor and the prominent socialite. Livvy was desperate to avoid it. She did not want her senior year of college wrecked by a sleazy brawl between her parents. Rick was given this background in brief narratives, almost reluctantly, usually whenever her phone rang and she was forced to deal with her family. He listened patiently and she was grateful to have a sounding board. Back in Florence, her roommates were too absorbed with their own lives. He was thankful for his rather dull parents and their simple lives in Davenport. Her phone rang again. She grabbed it, grunted, then took off down the beach with the phone stuck to her head. Rick watched and admired every step. Other men adjusted themselves in beach chairs to have a look. He guessed it was her sister because she took the call and quickly walked away, as if to spare him the details. He wouldn’t know, though. When she returned, she said, "Sorry," then rearranged herself in the sun and began reading.