Field of Schemes

by Coburn, Jennifer

  Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer Coburn

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  Book interior layout by Lisa DeSpain

  Cover image licensed through Shutterstock

  Cover design by Suzette Durazo

  ISBN: 978-0-615-73957-1

  Also by Jennifer Coburn

  The Wife of Reilly

  The Second Wife of Reilly

  (part of This Christmas, a three-novella collection)

  Reinventing Mona

  Tales from the Crib

  The Queen Gene

  Brownie Points

  In memory of

  Alex Pogman

  and

  Howie Hawver

  Great coaches who left the field far too young

  Acknowledgements

  During my daughter Katie’s seven years playing club soccer, our family met hundreds of parents, kids, coaches, and referees. Our teams traveled hundreds of miles to small towns and big cities in broiling heat and freezing cold to watch half-pint soccer, often regarding it with greater importance than the Olympics. Most of the time club soccer was an absolute joy. On occasion, people lost their minds, myself included. This book is dedicated to all of the parents who give their time, energy and money so their children can enjoy the many benefits of participation in team sports.

  Thank you to all of the parents who shared their stories about club soccer. I appreciate your candor and self-deprecation.

  Before my daughter played club soccer, I spent two seasons coaching the recreational team, the Kickin’ Chicks. I look back on those days with great fondness for the kindergarteners and first-graders who have all blossomed into beautiful high school students. And because I knew absolutely nothing about the game of soccer, I am eternally indebted to my terrific assistant coaches: Eric Williamson, Mike Poltorak and Marv Mittleman. All of our team parents were gems, always cheering wildly, creating winning banners, and slicing endless oranges.

  I appreciate the good friends who read early drafts of this manuscript and offered feedback. Thanks to Edit Zelkind, Lisa Taylor, Joan Isaacson, Deborah Shaul, Rachel Biermann, Jacquie Lowell, and Matt Levy. And I would be sorely remiss not to acknowledge Christopher Schelling, this story’s most tireless champion.

  Suzette Durazo came up with exactly the front cover design I had envisioned and I am grateful for her artistic talent and endless patience. Thank you to Lisa DeSpain for her formatting expertise, and to Phil Lauder and Leslie Wolf Branscomb for their eagle eyes that caught most, if not all, of my errors.

  As always, thanks to my wonderful husband, William O’Nell, the best choice I ever made. He is supportive beyond the call of duty and I love him more than a shutout against a premiere team in the final game of the State Cup.

  Thank you to readers, bloggers, librarians and bookstore owners for supporting my work, telling friends about my novels and inviting me to your book clubs. I greatly appreciate the tweets and posts on social media. Without you, it is impossible to do what I love most.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Let go!” the sculpted brunette demanded as she tugged the sleeve of the soccer jersey stretched between us.

  Staring at her with steely determination, I wrapped my fist tighter around the other sleeve and yanked back. “You let go!” I replied with volume that surprised even me. Softening a bit, I tried to approach the situation rationally. “I understand you want the jersey, but I picked it up first.” Shrugging ever so slightly, I added, “Fair is fair.”

  “If you had it first, it would be in your hands right now,” she growled through perfectly veneered teeth. She narrowed her eyes with pure unadulterated hatred for me. At first glance, this woman wearing Lilly Pulitzer ribbon-trimmed Capri pants epitomized the well-maintained suburban soccer mom. Her chocolate brown hair was perfectly highlighted with subtle auburn undertones, and pulled back by a puffy headband wrapped in the same ribbon that trimmed her pants. Her nails were slick with a fresh manicure, clean square tips dangling beneath a diamond tennis bracelet. When she opened her mouth, though, it was clear that there was no love in her game. “Let go, I said,” she barked.

  “No. The shirt is mine! It is in my hands!” I reminded her. It was clear she was not going to politely back down from our tug-of-war over the black-and-white German National team jersey, the last one on the table at Soccer Post.

  “It’s in your hand, singular,” she snapped, “and in mine. If you’d taken full possession of it, you’d have both hands on it.”

  Was this true? Was there some sort of two-hand rule?!

  Like synchronized swimmers, we each placed a second hand on the jersey.

  This was crazy. Perhaps the store had another jersey in the back, I thought. At the very least, they could special order another one for this psychotic mother, and I could take mine home for Rachel today. This woman probably didn’t need the jersey right away as I did.

  At the very moment I opened my mouth to suggest we ask for an inventory check, Psycho Mom gave the shirt a little tug to assert her dominance. Her muscles flexed impressively, the sinewy biceps and forearms of a woman with free time. Since I was bound to lose the battle of the brawn, I tried to appeal to her better nature. “Look, this jersey is very important to my daughter,” I said softly, aware of a few customers staring at the two moms caught between the taut German National Team jersey. “She’s had a rough year and I want to—”

  Yanking the jersey again, the mother snapped, “Not my problem. Now hand over the jersey and—”

  “And what?” I demanded. A woman stopped and stared, alarmed, tapping her husband on the shoulder before he hurried off to get help. “And no one gets hurt? Are you threatening me over a soccer jersey?” Then, I had a glimmer of sanity. It was just a black-and-white striped polyester soccer jersey. Without the German team emblem, and player number on the back, it could’ve passed for a prison uniform, which is exactly what I’d be wearing if I made a habit of getting into retail brawls with other soccer moms. I decided to let go of the overpriced jersey, drop the fight and walk out of the Soccer Post with my dignity intact. Well, maybe half my dignity.

  Just as I resolved to forfeit this petty battle, the insane soccer mom did something I never expected. She pulled the jersey with full force, causing me to fly toward her and lose my balance. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, only that somewhere on our way down to the floor, the two of us knocked over the clearance rack and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mia Hamm. As we landed, I noticed two things. One, M
ia was still smiling, even though she was on her back with her eyes completely covered by men’s shorts. And two, neither Psycho Mom nor I had let go of the now-torn jersey. “Look what you did!” she shouted as we lay on the store’s Astroturf flooring.

  The clerk rushed over to us, nervously asking what happened. “She attacked me,” said Psycho Mom as she pointed at me. “She wanted my jersey, so she jumped on me and started going nuts.” At this point, at least a half-dozen sets of eyes were on me, waiting for an explanation. A four-foot boy with a military buzz cut and goalkeeper jersey shook his head as if to say he thought now, in his entire six years, he’d seen it all.

  “That’s simply not true!” I defended. As I stood up, I realized that neither Psycho Mom nor I had loosened our grip on the jersey. “I was holding the jersey when she came out of nowhere demanding that I give it to her.”

  The teen clerk looked at the two of us, then glanced at the small goalkeeper and joined him in shaming head-shaking. “Ladies, I’ve got plenty of German team jerseys in the back. It’s not like this was the last one, y’know?” The clerk shook his head again. “Why don’t I run back and get another one? What size?”

  In unison Psycho Soccer Mom and I mumbled, “Small.”

  I never thought I’d be one of those parents who became overly invested in their children’s lives, yet here I was with half of a torn jersey in my right hand and a clump of another mother’s hair in my left fist. (I swear it was an accident. I needed to grab something as I tried to regain my balance.)

  I’ve always been appalled when I heard news reports about Little League and hockey parents’ fights. I cried when I read about the mother who shot a cheerleader so her daughter would have a better chance of making the squad. Then there was that French dad who drugged his daughter’s tennis rival. When I say drugged, I don’t mean that young Fifi started seeing butterflies and lollipops dancing on a rainbow. I mean the poor kid took a swig of her Evian and dropped dead. It was truly ghastly, yet here I was having my very own fight with another soccer mom over a jersey. This crazy bitch even bit me after we landed on the floor! Now she brushed her hands against each other as if the whole experience had sullied her.

  “Yeah, uh, listen, ladies,” the clerk said. “Someone’s gonna have to pay for this ripped jersey here.”

  Our words toppled over each other’s again. “Not me.” For someone so completely unlike me, this Psycho Mom certainly was reading from the same script as I was.

  “Why don’t you ladies split it?” he suggested.

  “Looks like they’ve already done that, dude,” a spectator couldn’t resist injecting.

  “Who won?” the little goalkeeper asked.

  “It was a tie,” said the staring mother. “Nice example you’re setting, ladies.”

  “Mind your own business!” Psycho Mom snapped back.

  The clerk’s placing a new jersey in her hands had a sedative effect on Psycho Soccer Mom. While she was hardly friendly, I no longer feared for my safety. “Why don’t we just split the cost of this one and call it even?” I offered.

  “Fine,” she said.

  I didn’t have the energy to continue with this madness. Besides, in my very own hands was a brand new German National Team soccer jersey. I had mine, she had hers. All was right in the world. As we finished our transactions, both Psycho Mom and I walked toward the exit of the store, sporting Soccer Post shopping bags. When we reached the door, she pushed it open and held it for me. Though I secretly feared she was going to pull a Zidane and head butt me in the chest, Psycho Mom was surprisingly pleasant. She smiled and gestured with her hand that I should walk ahead of her.

  “Thank you,” I said tentatively.

  “No worries,” she said. “You have a great day now!”

  I stood motionless in the parking lot, staring agape as Psycho Mom bopped toward her minivan.

  Have a great day? Did she really just tell me to have a great day just minutes after sinking her teeth into my left hand?

  How did this happen? What had become of me? I’ve always been one of those people who saw the world as having enough for everyone, even when it didn’t. My husband, Steve, used to tease me about this, telling me that while everything isn’t a zero-sum game, some things absolutely are. That is, if there’s only one spot left on the fencing team, there’s only one spot. They’re not going to simply adopt my hippy dippy philosophy of creating one big, all-inclusive team where every nearsighted klutz is given a saber.

  I just got bit by another soccer mom, but my overwhelming feeling was one of victory because I would be going home with a German National Team jersey for Rachel. Now she could impress Coach Gunther by dressing in sportswear from his homeland.

  How did I get here? When did this happen to me? And more importantly, once a person crossed the line into the world of crazy sports parents, was there any way back to normalcy?

  Chapter Two

  Four Months Previous

  Rachel was having the game of her life. Granted, her life had only been an eleven-year stint, her soccer career even shorter, but I’d never seen her play like she did that crisp day in November. I don’t know if it was the fact that her team was playing the undefeated Blue Kittens or that it was the final game of her first soccer season, but something lit a fire under Rachel’s cleats.

  She was the star of the Purple Sparrows from her first game of the recreational season when she ran onto the field and scored three goals. I wasn’t surprised by her speed, but was a bit rattled by her intensity. When others had the ball, she was unrelenting until they unwillingly gave it up to her. If she had the ball, she was consumed with desire to keep possession of it until it was time for her to shoot. Rachel moved around other players as if they were no more of an obstacle than the orange cones that Coach Andy set up at practice. No one on the field wanted that ball more than Rachel. Her desire was overwhelming.

  This came from Steve. My late husband was so competitive that when our doctor told us that Rachel weighed more than any other newborn at the hospital, he proudly declared her the “heavyweight champion of the nursery.” When we got Rachel’s Apgar results, Steve immediately asked, “Ten’s the highest score, right?” When this was confirmed, Steve made a victorious gesture with his fist. At times I wondered if this new side of Rachel was a result of his death, her way of keeping him alive. In college, I remember a girl in poetry class told me that she had her first sip of scotch at her father’s memorial service because she wanted to keep his taste on her lips. She found the burn in her stomach comforting, knowing that this was the same sensation her father experienced when ingesting his nightly elixir. Though my classmate never quite liked the taste of scotch, it became her regular drink as the taste, smell, and fluidity of it kept a bit of her father in her daily life. There was no way I could ask Rachel if she was keeping her father alive through soccer. Even if this were the case, no eleven-year-old would possess the self-awareness to make such an observation. The best I could do was talk about it with her when and if I saw issues arise. The second best thing I could do was be aware of my own feelings when I saw glimpses of Steve through Rachel. It was a rich blend of comfort and pain.

  At that first game, when Rachel stripped the ball from another player, I instinctively turned to my right and said, “We got a player!” Intellectually, I knew Steve was not there sitting by my side, but instinct is faster than rational thought, sort of like light vs. sound. It was a pleasant millisecond when I convinced myself that Steve was beside me and all was well in our world.

  Though Steve had been gone for nearly a year at that point, I was still startled by the sound of Bobby’s loud voice responding to me. “We sure do,” he said between his hoots. Bobby is what I later learned is a pretty common strain of soccer dad: a loudmouth with few manners and a whole lot of attitude. He had coffee-stained, badly capped teeth and a collection of baseball hats. His leathery skin suggested he worked outdoors, and his volume told me that he was an avid sports fan, the kind who was pr
one to road rage after his team lost a game. I tried to focus my eyes on the field as I fought the marble rising in my throat. Half of my sadness came from the reminder of Steve’s absence. The other half came from Bobby’s presence.

  Thinking I’d opened a conversation, Bobby continued. “Don’t tell me she never played before, Claire,” he said. “Come on, your secret’s safe with me.” Then he let out the labored laugh of an alcoholic who smoked. This was his routine throughout the season. After Rachel scored, Bobby would turn to me and ask if I was certain Rachel had never played before. I assured him that she hadn’t, and he jokingly accused me of lying. This was immediately followed by a fresh phlegm chuckle. Each time it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. For me it was stale the first time around. Yet this one-sided repartee had continued from our season opener against the Kickin’ Chicks until this final game against the Blue Kittens.

  The score was 2-0 and Rachel had scored both goals. A bouncy little girl from the Blue Kittens was dribbling the ball when Rachel sped up to her and pulled it away with her foot. Another Blue Kitten began chasing her, but she promptly lost her footing and fell.

  “Good job, Layla!” a mom from the other sideline shouted.

  “Good job?” Bobby snorted. “How’s falling on your ass a good job?”

  “She’s just trying to encourage her daughter,” I said curtly, hoping to end the conversation. I failed. How did I always wind up sitting next to this guy? No matter where I sat, he seemed to show up next to me—even after I moved away from him. I was adept at getting away from people and situations I didn’t like, but could never quite shake Bobby. He kept coming back. Like herpes.

  He continued. “Yeah, I get the whole self-esteem thing, but feeding a kid a bunch of crap ain’t doin’ her any favors. ’Member last week when Rachel scored on that Screamin’ Demons’ keeper, and all the parents were carrying on about what a good job she did?” He laughed at the memory. “Her job is to keep the ball out of the net. I mean, she tried her best and all, but if she did a good job, the ball wouldn’ta gone in, y’see what I’m sayin’?”