It's difficult to find the way everything fits into place once it's broken, even if a surgeon gives you a pretty significant first push. Alexia's recovery is progressing with hope. Her knee is responding well to rehabilitation, but she doesn't feel...
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Mía's POV
"Mía Martínez?" I straightened up and blinked. The man holding a list of names, including mine, looked me up and down, and I silently thanked myself for trying on every piece of clothing in my closet, attempting to figure out which jacket gave me a more professional appearance.
He nodded upon seeing me in front of him and silently led me through a long corridor. All the doors were made of glass, allowing me to see many empty offices, meeting rooms in the midst of presentations or people typing away in outfits much more suitable for the situation than the one I had chosen.
Finally, we reached the last door, slightly larger and well identified with a golden plaque on the adjacent wall that read "Joan Laporta."
"Joan," the man accompanying me spoke, poking his head through the door. "Mía Martínez is here."
"Yes, of course," the president responded. "Let her in."
He bid farewell with a nod, holding the door open for me to enter the office before leaving.
"Mía!" he greeted me warmly. "Finally! Alexia has told me a lot about you." I swallowed. What kind of expectations could she have set for him? "Please, have a seat."
Following his words, I took one of the black chairs in front of his desk and sat down, trying to control my nervousness by smoothing my dark blazer.
"Good morning," I replied, still not daring to look him in the eyes, clearing my throat as much as possible.
"I'm Joan, the club president," he said, as if it wasn't obvious. "Well, perhaps you already knew me, but it's always good manners to introduce oneself."
His attitude made me feel a certain level of trust and comfort in the situation. His face was friendly, and his tone was soft and calm. He didn't try to intimidate me or question me about the time I hadn't worked or my lack of professional experience.
"In that case," I extended my hand towards him, "I'm Mía Martínez."
He shook it gracefully and leaned back in his chair, which was undoubtedly much more cushioned than mine.
One wall of the office was a huge window that offered a view of a couple of training fields where some boys and girls from La Masía were starting to warm up for their morning practices.
Behind me were bookshelves filled with books, statistics, photos for history, and a framed jersey. Everything here was beautifully decorated, down to the smallest detail, so that anyone who spent time inside would feel more "culé" with each passing second.
"We won't talk about your resume or your experience. I know you have the necessary qualifications, and that's enough in that regard. I want to hear about your project," his dark eyes focused entirely on me.
"My project?" I stammered. No one had told me that I needed to prepare a presentation or proposal of any kind.
"Yes," he affirmed resolutely. "As you know, we're trying to professionalize the women's teams as much as possible, and that includes the coaching staff. In order for our players to perform at their highest level, we need to focus not only on their physical condition but also on their mental state," I nodded in agreement with his words. "We have a team of sports psychologists. Unfortunately, we don't have enough professionals, and they usually focus more on La Masía. Although they're always available for the first team, the men's team has its own psychologist in addition to the club's, and the women's team should have access to the same resources."
"So, would my role be as the sole psychologist for the first team?" I asked.
"That's the idea," he cleared his throat. "Perhaps when you have more free time, you'll have to accompany some of the subsidiary teams, and on other occasions, the psychologists from La Masía will accompany you. We're all a team."
I waited for the interview to start, to talk about how quickly I learned and my eagerness to work, to mask my lack of experience. But the president remained smiling, satisfied, and silent.
"Aren't you going to ask me anything?" I dared to say.
"No. The job was already yours. I'm exited to see what you can create here"
"Why? How?"
Laporta shrugged.
"Alexia is the most serious and committed person to this club that I know. She recommended you as the psychologist for the first team, not for just any position. There's no one I can trust more in that sense. If she saw that you're the right person for this, then you are," the desire to know exactly what Alexia had said about me, for Laporta to not hesitate for a moment in hiring a girl who had just recently graduated from college, consumed me. I wanted to ask, I wanted to know, but I didn't feel like I could simply ask him to narrate the conversation. "So, I'm curious to see what you have inside you, this project of yours and how it will improve my players."
(...)
Irene let go of my arms. I took a long sigh and sat back down on the red chair of the restaurant. She had insisted on celebrating. Probably not just my new job, but also my recent breakup, which, although I was certain it made her infinitely happy, she still didn't feel me ready to openly declare her joy.
"I still can't believe Alexia got you into Barça," she blurted out without reservation. "Doesn't she have anything for me? Even if it's just a ball girl position."
"It's not a favor!" I complained.
"'If she saw that you're the right person for this, then you are,'" she repeated sarcastically. I rolled my eyes. "You'll have to thank her..." she suggested with a mischievous smile.
"You're an idiot."
"Are you going to tell me that she did it out of goodwill and not because she wants to get her tongue in every place you let her?"
"Irene!" I shouted. She raised both arms in a peace gesture. "She's not interested in me in that way. When she came to see me after what happened with Marc... I got carried away. She had the opportunity, and she wasn't interested. That's it."
"Of course, because showing up at a waitress's house you find just nice is the most normal thing in the world," she scoffed.
"Well, yes. Maybe she doesn't have many places where she can freely make friends without worrying about trivial things."
"Do you think a footballer lives in a cave?" she interrupted.
"Also," I ignored her, "now I'm her psychologist. If she wanted to get close to me so badly, she wouldn't have mentioned my name to Laporta. Now I can't touch her with a ten-foot pole, and I'm sure that's going to be more difficult for me than for her."
