Her Cleats in My Car

On the genesis of my marriage to the girl from my soccer team.

Don’t judge, like your cleats ain’t nasty too.

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Above is a photo of Haley’s cleats taken on October 3, 2017. It was a Tuesday, and I know that because in that season of our lives, we played soccer every Monday night on the outdoor fields at Emerald’s Sansom Complex with a ragtag group of mostly acquaintances who I’d occasionally end up trying to fight for not passing the ball or substituting.

Haley had invited me to join that team five months earlier when we still didn’t really know much about each other except that we sometimes wound up on the same teams in the weeknight leagues at Fuse off Papermill Road. The first time I really noticed the skinny girl with the bouncing ponytail and resting game face was on a Friday night there. I asked Kelly, a friend who organized that team, about her. She looks like I kid, I thought. And for all the murmuring and smack-talking she did on the field, she was quiet as a church mouse once we were on the sideline after the final whistle pulling off our socks, complaining about the refereeing, and making plans to grab food and beer. In fact, she was usually the first one out the door. I thought she was some college girl on her way back to grab a shower and head out to a party or whatever kids do. 

I didn’t feel like a kid because I was divorced and pouring everything I could into a Crazy, Stupid, Love-esque personal transformation. I was kickboxing or playing soccer every night of the week and had lost enough weight that I’d bought an entirely new wardrobe of sports coats, tapered jeans, and slim-fitted button-downs. I was in the midst of remaking myself from a dopey loudmouth who’d been tossed aside like spoiled yogurt by a woman who’d vowed to love him but couldn’t into a smooth-talking gentleman that no woman of sound mind could resist.  

Kelly told me she didn’t know much about Haley, other than that she was in school at UT and really close with one of her little sisters, who also happened to play soccer. I was coaching a girls club team at Emerald at the time, so I used that knowledge the next Friday night we played together. Walking over to Haley on the bench, I opened with some small talk—I realize now that it was the first time we’d actually spoken—then told her that her sister should come out to Emerald to try out for one of our teams in May. Heck, I’d even let her practice with my team if she wants to play against some older girls and work on her skills. Without making eye contact, Haley told me that, nah, she wasn’t going to do that.

At the time, I had developed a faultless defense mechanism, based on this simple maxim: A woman was never again going to see Brian Canever weak. If you didn’t make eye contact, or you blew me off when I asked you out for dinner, I shrugged it off with a smirk and a nod, like I was the one doing you the favor by asking. But we’ll get back to that in a second.

Because the Monday night that Haley asked me to join her team was more than a year after that night at Fuse. I was leaving tryouts, and I loved my girls. But I also loved tacos made from a cluster of fried cow organs and served up oily and hot at Esperanza on Washington Pike. That’s where I was off to once I’d handed in my tryout sheet. Then, as I was walking across the field, where the adult league was set to kick off, Carlos shouted, “Hey dude, we need another player for our game, want to hop in?”

“Nah dude, I’m dead. I’m heading to get some tacos,” I said. And then a girl’s voice shouted from somewhere behind him, saying come on, you should play with us. I didn’t recognize it because it was only the second time I’d heard Haley’s voice. But I stayed, played, and eventually joined the team for that season and two others. 

Fact is, the smooth-talking thing wasn’t working out as I’d hoped. I was into my second year of singleness the night Haley asked me to join her team. I went out on a lot of dates, dressed like I belonged in Santo Domingo instead of Appalachia. But I was still a mess of insecurities and anxiety. Most Monday nights, Haley sat off to the side and talked to Jenna, the other girl on the team, instead of me. But I still liked her. 

Between the second and third time she ever spoke to me, I was rolling out my back at South Landing CrossFit with Billy and some other gym dudes. We were talking about women, as men often do, and I brought up my dilemma. I had narrowed my next pursuits down to a girl at the gym who had brown skin and was funny and good-looking, and the skinny kid from my soccer team who had less-brown skin but was also funny and good-looking. The only problem seemed to be that she was nearsighted when it came to my existence. Which was very annoying, because I was putting in work.