by Josie Brown
Well, at least he won’t have to concern himself as to whether or not Tammy can keep up with him. I’m guessing her malicious compliance will next show itself in road rage.
Just in case I’m right, I let Brooke ride shotgun.
14
“Marriage is nature’s way of keeping us from
fighting with strangers.”
—Alan King
5:46 p.m.
R U coming?
Right as I hit the send button, I stare down at the message I’ve just typed into my cell. Since it has nothing to do with any balls other than the one being tossed around here in the Bohemian Grove Middle School gym, this ain’t exactly sexting. . . .
Yet I wonder if the message’s recipient, my husband, will see the irony in this double entendre.
I doubt it.
Damn it, Ted, it’s been too long. I need to get laid. . . .
I’m sure he’s feeling frustrated too. Not about our sex life, but that he’s not here to cheer Tanner on. It’s not like him to miss our elder son’s basketball games, especially one this important. By hook or by crook, Ted always finds a way to slip away from the tedium of courting new clients. To him, even the thrill of closing a multimillion-dollar deal is nothing compared to the swoosh of a ball falling through a net. It’s even sweeter when that ball is shot by his son.
It’s one of the things I love most about him.
Of course, he’s not alone. Besides students and mommies, this day game is attended by the most avid fans of all: fathers who were once players themselves. The American gymnasium experience is a hotbed of neuroses. Projected onto our kids are our own shattered dreams. Each squeak of a sneaker on these highly polished wood floors is the audible reminder of a wrong turn, a missed opportunity, a woulda-coulda-shoulda moment that, for whatever reason, just didn’t connect. The chance to relive our youth through our offspring is a parental perk, particularly if our kids are better at the things we never mastered ourselves. This is why our primal instincts push us away from even those faces that make our hearts go pitter-patter, if long strong limbs aren’t also part of the package—or anything else indicating superhero genes that, when combined with our own, ensure the next generation’s athletic achievements will be better than any Mini-Me could possibly be.
The purr of my cell can barely be heard over the crowd on our side of the gym, which is chanting for Jake Wilder, our team’s captain and a starting forward, to make his foul shot. When he misses it, I pat Harry on the shoulder. After the carpool incident, he needs all the TLC he can get. I wait for his wry smile before reading Ted’s response:
Big deal going down. Keep me posted, OK?
I sigh and flip my phone shut. Tanner will be disappointed. It is the fourth quarter of the Division IV play-off game that decides the first-place standing between these archrivals. For the past half hour, the momentum has swung from one team to the other, the lead tipping back and forth between the two. When the spectators’ eyes aren’t following the players bolting up and down the court, they gravitate to the wall holding the scoreboard, where a large banner proclaims:
WE OWN YOU!!!!!!
This is meant both literally and figuratively, as the founding fathers of this private hallowed institution were the last century’s captains of industry.
If there is any doubt to the contrary, the team’s name is the CEOs.
As posh as we thought we had it, Bohemian Grove puts us to shame. There is enough nonskid Paraguayan beeswax on the African hardwood floor to make it glisten within an inch (make that two) of its life. Below the scoreboard is a JumboTron that magnifies every zit on the players’ otherwise cherubic faces: overkill, to say the least. Forget bum-numbing bleachers: the tiers of lumbar-control captain’s chairs climbing both sideline walls rival what you’d find in the best club-level suite in the Staples Center or on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
In this setting, Paradise Heights is the public ghetto school.
All the more reason why we must win this game. This is a grudge match between archrivals. A thrilla in vanilla, you might say.
Yes, Harry was right to goad us into coming. For the first quarter, these deluxe surroundings threw our Red Devils off their game. Playing catch-up was a bitch, and they needed all the support they could get. Besides Brooke, Tammy, Harry, and me, Margot is here too, in her capacity as official squad mom of PH Middle School’s cheer squad. She and her girls not only attend home games, but follow the boys to their rivals’ courts as well. Her Mercedes GLK SUV, laden with lithesome tween beauties who double as human jumping beans, brings to mind the slatternly caravan that followed General Hooker’s Union army into battle. I’ll readily admit it’s their uniforms, which hug breasts, expose navels, and graze butts, I find so off-putting: certainly fitting attire for both cheering and hooking, depending on what pom-poms are being shaken. (I pray that by the time Olivia reaches puberty, the turtleneck and chastity belt will have reemerged as must-have fashion statements.) Today, though, I appreciate all they are doing on our boys’ behalf. Besides ratcheting up the tension with husky-voiced chants clapped out with a robotic precision, they are a lusty distraction for our opponents. The thong-wearing flyer, launched in the basket toss, stops them dead in their tracks every time.
Isabelle is here too, in her unofficial capacity as the Red Devils’ loudest fan. This makes her the bane of son John-John’s existence, specifically when she warbles “THAT’S MY JOHNNIE!” at his every layup attempt, be it successful or not. Should he follow his father into litigation, I’ve no doubt she’ll wangle her way into the courtroom in order to be his one-woman peanut gallery, or, worse yet, figure out how to get on the jury, whereupon she will proceed to badger the other peers into a favorable finding for her son’s client. Here’s hoping his partner bonuses assuage his shame.
Colleen is the only AWOL member of our momtourage. She is minding Brooke’s Ben and my Olivia, along with McGuyver. I presume Harry begged her to take Temple too, since he didn’t have her in the car with him. Colleen has always discouraged third-grader McAllister and eighth-grader McCawber from playing, since sports are at odds with her earth-mother sensibilities. In her universe, there are no winners or losers, just journey takers. To that end, McCawber’s own path has him exploring his innate talents for makeup application and T-gurl couture. In fact, the cheer squad’s uniforms are his design, so in his case Colleen’s philosophy has paid off beautifully.
If only we all had the courage of our convictions.
Tensions are running sky-high, now that the Patek Philippe tourbillion clock on the wall has ticked down to the final minute of the game. Only in this last quarter have the Red Devils finally caught up. I have to give the boys’ coach, Pete Shriver, credit for this. He is a true Obi-Wan who nurtures, drills, and inspires each boy to attain his personal best. “Alex, shift!” and “Connor, less Kobe” are part of his patter, a secret code between him and his team that keeps them focused and cohesive.
Today it pays off with some excellent ball handling. I’m especially proud of Tanner, who’s had two successful foul shots and a three-pointer that barely beat the third-quarter buzzer (make that chimes, which are calibrated to sound like Big Ben an hour past noon).
Unfortunately, today Harry can’t claim similar pride in Jake. Besides the missed foul shot, our team’s captain is having an off day of epic proportions. Seems that every time he gets hold of the ball, it slips from his grasp and rolls out of bounds, or his shots skim the rim, then fly faithfully into the hands of our opponents.
I’ve no doubt Tammy’s tongue-lashing of his father has something to do with this. Then again, Shannon Brown’s mojo would have evaporated under her icy-hot glare.
Harry, on the other hand, isn’t letting Tammy’s cold albeit elegant shoulder kill his enjoyment of the game. He smiles and cheers and pretends he’s still adored by all of us, even her. In fact, he taunts Tammy by directing most of his remarks to her. I sit between them hoping to deflect her anger, but my nervous laug
hter is thin coverage for the daggered glances she aims at him. I almost lose it altogether when he taps her shoulder and offers her his hot link. “Care for a bite of my dog?” he asks with a very innocent smile.
“Omigod! Did you see what that little bastard just did to John-John? Did you?” Isabelle, who sits on his other side, thinks nothing of shouting out Tourette’s-worthy play-by-play descriptions. Harry has to yank her back down into her captain’s chair before she attacks the CEO guard who dared to cross her son’s airspace. Unfortunately, that puts Harry close enough for her to pierce his arm with her lavender-hued nails. “YES! YES! YES! My Gawd, you’re DAH BOMB, JOHN! DAH BOMB!”
Harry’s eyes widen. The horror of witnessing her Jocastian lust is reflected in his dilated pupils.
But this is just the lull before the tempest that drowns Jake in a perfect storm of shame and pain.
With only twenty-three seconds left on the clock and the score tied, he finds himself with the ball. Granted, he’s got a wide-open shot, but with the luck he’s been having, maybe he should consider a Plan B that’s obvious even to me, and certainly to his coach and his teammates: to pass it to John-John, who is standing directly under the basket.
Jake hesitates only a nanosecond before making his choice:
Redemption.
If only.
He sets himself. Perfectly poised, he releases, letting the ball roll off the tips of his fingers toward its final destination. It has only begun its perfect arc when the towering CEO forward (a six-foot-three-inch ringer whose parents are both Russian Olympic team alums: mom was a gymnast, dad played basketball) floats high up above Jake and snatches the ball from midair—
And just a second ahead of the buzzer, it is swooshing through the CEOs’ hoop.
Jake’s eyes shift through a kaleidoscope of emotions: Disbelief. Horror. Shame.
So do Harry’s: Pride. Sadness. Sympathy.
“What are you, some sort of idiot?” Jake may be a head taller than Isabelle, but her words, finding him over the cacophony of the CEOs’ whoops of joy, cut him down to size.
Harry grabs her by the arm and spins her around. “How dare you talk to my kid that way!”
“Well, what else could he be? John-John was wide open! Jake saw that and blew it! Yeah, I’d say that qualifies him as an idiot!”
Margot, Brooke, and I freeze. If this were a clash of offspring as opposed to parents behaving badly, the pair would be shushed and separated, and the ride home would be a Kumbaya of penitence. Instead, this train wreck of emotions leaves us all speechless. We expect Isabelle to go off the deep end. Each of us has been there/done that with her, too many times to remember. Not for love, but survival: keep friends close, and enemies closer, right? So, like chinchilla-swaddled starlets confronted by a PETA activist with a blood-engorged balloon, we duck and dodge her vitriol as best we can—
And keep on smiling.
But not Harry.
In a boardroom he may be Machiavelli, but his skills in playground politics are remedial at best. He’s finding out firsthand that there is no beast in the corporate jungle half as fearsome as the mother tiger protecting her cub’s shot at MVP glory.
But before she can pounce again, Harry uses the only weapon available to an unarmed man: his roar. “You bitch! Who the hell do you think you are?”
The gym goes silent. His words have choked the air like a LeBron James powder toss.
Suddenly it’s a free-for-all. Pete jumps in between the two of them, trying to calm them down. I can imagine, though, that he’s glad someone finally had the nerve to tell Isabelle where to get off.
Jake, ashamed of himself and for his father, can’t take it anymore. He runs out of the gym before the other guys catch on that he’s teared up.
Just then, my cell phone buzzes. I fully expect it to be Ted calling for the wrap-up score, but no, the number is Colleen’s.
“Lyssa? Where are you guys? I thought you’d be back by now!” Even when Colleen is miffed, her voice is barely above a whisper. Between all the screaming going on around me and little McGuyver’s rebel yell on the other end of the line as he shoots some imaginary gun at Olivia, it’s surprising I can hear Colleen at all. McGuyver bucks her peacenik teachings with a vengeance, which just goes to show you how strongly nature trumps nurture.
“So sorry, Col! Really I am! We—well, we thought we’d take in a few minutes of the boys’ game. You know, for moral support.”
“Oh, you’re at the game? Is Harry there too?”
I hesitate before answering. Tammy’s crush on Harry may be over, but Colleen is true-blue through and through. “Yeah, he’s here. Why do you ask?”
“Miss Judith called from the preschool. She was wondering if I’d seen him, because Temple—”
“Wait. Isn’t Temple with you?”
“No, silly! Why would you ever think that?” Colleen’s giggle is the trill of a Disney princess high on life. “I told her that Harry was at the game, and that maybe Harry asked DeeDee to do pickup for him today. . . .”
As if.
To make his implosion complete, I yank him off to the side to give him the bad news: that, inexplicably, he’s forgotten his daughter.
When he hears that DeeDee has been called, the color drains from his face, as does his anger. It is replaced by an ashen dread. “Great! Just . . . great. Why the hell didn’t Judith just call me? Why did she go and do that?”
The way he’s flexing his hands, I know he feels like strangling someone. If I tell him it was Colleen’s doing, I know who his victim will be, so I stay mum.
“Do you realize how DeeDee will spin this in court?” Harry shrugs helplessly.
“Look, if we leave now, maybe we can get there before she does.”
He hears me loud and clear. Without another word, Harry shoves his way through the crowd and out the door, to his car and his son. Realizing that this was Tanner’s ride home, I shout out to Brooke that Tammy should give him a lift back to the Heights; that after picking up Temple, I’ll have Harry swing around to Colleen’s, where we’ll grab her Ben and Olivia.
Tammy clucks her tongue in mock despair. “No wonder DeeDee left him! What kind of man forgets his own kid?”
15
“Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.”
—G. K. Chesterton
6:11 p.m.
Game face.
We all have one. It takes your smile and sharpens it into a grimace. Rocked by an emotional earthquake, the gentle planes of your face shift into stone. The happiness once beaming from your eyes is now refracted inward, focused with laser-sharp concentration on the dark matter at hand.
Harry’s is one I don’t recognize. I’ll admit it: for the past few weeks his dimpled smile and courtly manners have been the icing on the cake of my day. And while courting the league board, he was sweetness and light. Now, though, devoid of any joy, his smile has curdled into a snarl.
What I’m seeing now sends icicles through my veins.
He is ready to do battle with DeeDee the Ice Queen.
Temple won’t be the only collateral damage. In the side-view mirror, I see Jake. He sits silently in the back, just staring out the window, his damp red-rimmed eyes as wide as those of the ghoul in The Scream. I can only imagine what he’s thinking: that all of this—not just the lost game, but his father’s fall from grace, even his parents’ breakup—is his fault.
If I could, I’d reach back there and hold his hand. And yet, as the mother of one of his friends, the only place I hold in his life is that of an abstract acquaintance.
What am I doing here, anyway?
Almost as if reading my mind, Harry places his fingers on my arm and pats it absentmindedly. That tells me what I need to know: I’m here because I’m the only friend Harry has in this gated, well-landscaped corner of the world.
We pull up to the front of Paradise Waldesorri Preschool and Kindergarten just in time to see DeeDee walking out with Temple and Miss Judith, the head of the school
. DeeDee’s silk blouse and cashmere slacks look almost militaristic next to Miss Judith’s gauzy flowing skirt and Birkenstocks. If Miss Judith’s attire isn’t the broadest hint that she is the community’s one and only holdover from the days when Paradise Heights was a hippie commune (hence the first portion of its name, before the place was elevated into the economic stratosphere), her head scarf, tied over flowing gray curls, is a dead giveaway. Whatever DeeDee is saying has Miss Judith shaking her head in dismay. This causes the beaded fringe on her scarf to jiggle. She glances sympathetically at Temple, whose eyes are starred with tears, her pillowed lips bitten into a pout.
The way the car screeches as it comes to a halt undermines Harry’s attempt at indifference. Jake slumps down when his mother comes into view. Either he’s hoping she doesn’t see him and ask him to recap his inglorious day, or he has his own bone to pick with her.
“Stay here,” growls Harry. I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to Jake. But in the mood he’s in, neither of us plans on disobeying him.
He’s out of the car in a flash. Because he’s keeping his voice low and level, I can’t hear every word, but I do catch the phrases “very sorry” and “won’t happen again.” Miss Judith nods sympathetically, but tired uncertainty shades her pale gray eyes; it is obvious that whatever DeeDee has been telling her has colored her view of Harry.
Temple slips her hand into her father’s, but does not let go of DeeDee’s either. In fact, she squeezes it even tighter, as if to prove, if only to herself, that they are still joined in some way.
This only seems to amp up their feelings toward each other—and their voices. “I’ve told you, I’ve got it under control,” Harry insists.
“My God, Harry! I wouldn’t be here now if that were the case. And if Temple feels more comfortable going home with me . . .” The way DeeDee’s voice trails away makes the offer seem so inviting, I’m surprised her daughter doesn’t leap at it. When it comes to their parents, most children possess innate neediness.
