Field of Schemes

by Coburn, Jennifer

  So much for my resolution to be a better person.

  Rachel really needed to stop chatting with this girl. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her fraternizing with the competition, but the coach might see her and think she wasn’t paying attention. They need focused players, Rachel! Stop talking and watch, I said through more secret eyeball messages. Better yet, you take notes as if you are going to incorporate their technique into your own juggling, which, I’m sorry to say, needs work!

  My descent began.

  All right, my descent continued.

  I decided to stop watching and take a walk and get some air. I was already outside, but figured if I was moving, I’d create a breeze and give myself more much-needed oxygen. All right, I was talking crazy now. Oh look! Another one bites the dust! Excellent.

  As I watched the final three jugglers, I noticed one was Kelly Greer. I looked around for Darcy but didn’t see her anywhere. Before I could ponder why she hadn’t offered to carpool, a stout father with a reddish brown goatee and thinning hair sidled over to me and asked how old my daughter was. “Eleven,” I replied. “Her birthday’s in July so she’s trying out for the Under Thirteens.” Apparently that was the right answer because he perked up immediately.

  “You don’t say. Which one is she?”

  I pointed to Rachel in her cheap purple jersey, a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t researched the tryout process better. I should have asked Darcy what the girls would be asked to do, or at least what the dress code was. All of the other girls wore soft club jerseys with the logos of Kix or other local soccer clubs printed on them. No one except Rachel wore a rec jersey with her name printed on the back in white iron-on letters.

  He nodded. “Not bad,” he said. “I been watchin’ and she’s one of the better ones. What’s her speed like?”

  “I haven’t clocked it for a while,” I bluffed.

  “Y’gotta keep on top of these things. Make sure they’re improving. Trackin’ the improvement. Chartin’ it to see where they need work,” he advised. Holding out his pale, beefy hand, he introduced himself. “Dick Merrick.”

  “Claire Emmett,” I returned. “Which is your daughter?”

  “I got three girls out here goin’ for U13,” he said. “They’re with yours. See them with the green headbands?” he pointed to a chunky blonde, a vanilla brunette and an athletic black girl. “Easier for me to keep track of ’em that way.” Dick had a slightly off look about him with one eye bulging and a smile that showed every tooth, molars included. He was one of those people you could exchange a few words with before realizing he was only one fender bender away from being put into an inpatient mental facility. Like I was one to talk with my secret eyeball messages and negotiations with God.

  “You have three daughters this age? Are they, um, adopted?”

  “They’re my girls, not my daughters! Maybe you didn’t notice that I’m white,” he laughed again. This really wasn’t all that funny. His wife might be black, or he could’ve adopted an African-American daughter. “One’s my kid. The other two I brought out here ’cause they’re a package deal.” I said nothing, returning my gaze to the field. Dick pressed, “Know what I mean, a package deal?”

  “They’re friends and they want to play together?” I looked around for Darcy—or anyone I could talk to instead of this wild-eyed soccer dad.

  “Yeah, well, Tandy’s kinda dead weight, but we can get her on a team if we tell these clubs that they ain’t gettin’ the other two unless they take all three.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about, but nodded anyway because I really didn’t care. I began to walk away when he started talking again. “See, I shop the package to different clubs and see who’ll offer us the best deal,” he said, holding out his covered can to offer me a swig. I declined. “Beer?” he asked, nodding toward a cooler near his chair.

  “No thanks,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on the field. I’d hoped Dick would read my body language and move on to someone else, but I had no such luck. I waved at no one and excused myself. “I see a friend I need to catch up with. It was a pleasure meeting—”

  “What do you know about this group?” Dick asked.

  “Kix?” I asked.

  “Nah, these girls,” he said. “Who’s in, who’s out? I mean, you got any intelligence?”

  Apparently not if I’m still here talking to you.

  “Do I have any information?” I clarified. Intelligence sounded a little too CIA to me. I looked at Dick as he let out a satisfied exhale after he finished his beer, and realized that he was the end of the spectrum that I was slowly walking toward. Rooting for your child—hoping she’ll make the team – was normal. Dick was what became of parents when hope slid into desperation, then plunged into obsession. Looking at him was just the slap in the face I needed to return me to my normal self. With the Italian accent of Cher in Moonstruck, my inner voice urged me, “Snap out of it!”

  My inner voice was not heard by Dick, though. “Yeah, what do you know about these kids? I heard that they’re cutting four girls from last year,” Dick said. “One moved to San Diego and the other burned out and is playin’ tennis now. The other two suck.”

  “Oh, gee, I really don’t know. Well, Dick, it’s been—”

  “You remind me of myself four years ago,” Dick said. “You gotta know what you’re up against, Claire, or these fuckers will screw you upside your head.” Maybe that’s what happened to his eye. “First year we did club, we were total pussies.” Did he just say … and that reminds him of me?! “We took Kylie out to one club. They told us who they wanted, who they didn’t. It was bullshit. We were totally at their mercy and guess what?” My eyes shifted around the field looking for someone—anyone—to rescue me. “They took Mariah and Kylie and sent Tandy back to rec. Now, I make sure we’re in the driver’s seat. We got leverage now.”

  As he cracked open another can of beer, covered in a foam jacket, I had the perfect opportunity to leave. I should have left. A normal person would have left. But I just had to know what he meant.

  “Leverage?” I asked.

  “I mean they’re a package,” Dick answered as if to question whether or not I’d understood a word he’d just said. “I’m like their agent, and when I shop ’em around to clubs, I tell these fuckers that they take all three or none. And I tell them I’m takin’ ’em to five clubs in the county and if they want this package, they’re gonna need to make it worth our while.”

  “You actually said this to Preston?”

  “Not yet,” Dick snorted. “I let ’em see what Mariah and Kylie can do out on the field first. The timing needs to be right on these things.”

  I felt better about my own sanity.

  This guy was like a reality TV show without the commercial breaks. I knew that a man who characterized himself as an “agent” for eleven-year-old soccer players was an imbecile. I knew that his efforts to put together a package deal and leverage the players set the bar at a new high in parental stupidity. There was something sickly entertaining about it all. Stop it! This man is an undiagnosed nut job. He is not here for your entertainment. Be the good person you know you can be and walk away from this guy.

  “Your daughter and her friend Mariah must be excellent players,” I said.

  “They rock,” he said too loud. “I tell these other coaches their choice is to take the three girls or watch them kick your ass on the field this season. Y’ever hear the expression, ‘The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain’?” I shook my head. “Means these guys want Kylie and Mariah, but more than they want ’em on their team, they don’t want to lose ’em to another club.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and said, “Yer kid’s lookin’ good. Can I give ya a tip?” Package her with Kelly Greer and leverage it? I am so already on it, my friend! “Bring her in a real jersey for callbacks. She’ll look better, she’ll feel better, they’ll think she is better if she’s not in that purple thing. It’s all mental.” It certainly is.
That is as clear as day.

  “Dick, it was a pleasure meeting you,” I said in my I’ll be going now voice. I went between deriding this man and taking him seriously, neither of which was a good choice. “I’m going to check on—”

  “Claire!” I heard a familiar male voice booming. It was Loud Bobby swaggering onto the field as Cayenne ran to join the girls. “I see you met the guru of all things soccer.” He gestured to Dick, who punctuated his introduction with a belch. Yeah, uh, guru isn’t the first word that came to mind. “Truck broke again,” he told us both. “How fucked am I?” Quite, but it really has little to do with your truck. Bobby reached into Dick’s cooler as if he knew it would be stocked with alcohol.

  “Slip this on,” Dick said, handing Bobby a foam cover that concealed the Bud logo. Now it could pass as a Diet Coke, though neither of these tanks would ever be mistaken for weight watchers. Bobby wore a cap that read “Muskrat Love” and showed two rodents embracing as a heart floated between their heads. His hands were leathery and smelled like beef jerky, which was a disturbing thing to notice from such a distance. Dick patted his friend on the back and assured him he’d take care of it, gesturing to the Palmolive ladies. “You lemme take care of that. Make sure y’get her here on time Friday, ’kay? Only so much I can do.”

  The sky grew dark and the field would have been black if not for the temporary stadium lights that were rolled onto the field. It looked as if we were on a movie set.

  It seemed odd that instead of simply starting the tryouts a half-hour earlier and finishing at dusk, Kix would go through the trouble of lugging huge lights for the last half-hour. I decided not to suggest this to Preston, though. I’m sure that Kix was a well-managed club that had already considered these organizational issues.

  Dick continued. “So I see yer finally takin’ the kid pro.”

  Bobby laughed. “Her mom kept puttin’ me off about it, but I told her this is Cayenne’s last chance to make the switch.”

  “Um, excuse me,” I broke in. “Why is it her last chance?”

  “Too old,” they said in unison.

  “What?! She’s eleven.”

  “Yeah,” said Dick. “After this she’s too old to make the switch.”

  “She is? It’s now or never?”

  “Pretty much,” Bobby said. “Don’t sweat it, Claire. She was recruited. By Preston. She’ll make it.”

  She will?

  “Not necessarily,” Dick added. “He brought six girls out last year and didn’t take a one of ’em.”

  How do you know that? Why would Preston do that?! Why am I listening to this guy?

  “Hey, it was nice meeting you, Dick,” I lied. “Bobby, good to see you, but I need to go see my friend, um, Jane. See you later.”

  “See ya, Claire,” Bobby shouted.

  “Nice lady, but clueless as all get out,” I heard Dick report as I walked away.

  A few steps later, I heard Bobby shouting at Cayenne. “Get the lead out! I need you first to the ball every time. You’re with the pack. Speed it up!”

  Chapter Nine

  As we started our hike, the leaves crunching beneath our boots, I suggested Rachel grab her sweatshirt. “Last chance to get it from the car. From here on in it’s you, me and the woods.” She rolled her eyes and told me she didn’t need it.

  A few minutes into our walk, I told her that I was pleased with her spring report card. I had a definite agenda for us—refocus on things other than soccer. Since the first tryout, all Rachel wanted to talk about was soccer. All I could think about was soccer. As much as Rachel wanted to make the Kix team, I wanted it for her more. Not so much for the soccer, but because it gave Rachel such purpose. If she was a normal adolescent, this would be important. Considering she’d recently lost her father, soccer was a lifeline.

  When we didn’t get a call right away, I dialed Preston to see if Rachel was invited to callbacks. I tried to act cool and tell him that I was “just getting our schedule together” and wanted to see if we should block out time for tryouts, or do something else equally fabulous. Better, even. I’ll bet I really pulled one over on him. He chuckled a bit, which I found a little condescending, and said he would have to check his notes. After an eternal few seconds, he said that Rachel was one of the girls they wanted to have a second look at. “Great,” I said, then paused hoping for more. Nothing over the top. Just a little reassurance, like “Rachel is a naturally gifted player who will undoubtedly be an asset to our top team.” No such luck.

  When I took Dick’s advice, I knew I’d gone off the deep end. I actually went to the Soccer Post to buy Rachel a nice, soft jersey from the women’s United States National Team. Just a subtle message that Rachel was on her way to the World Cup, and Kix really should get in with her on the ground floor before she signed a Wheaties endorsement contract and forgot all about them.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said of my comment on her grades. “I got that ‘good’ in math up to an ‘excellent,’ ” she reminded me. Rachel was her father’s child. Tenacious, competitive and hard-working. Any soccer team would be lucky to have her. Any school! Any youth orchestra. Any art class would be lucky to have her. There’s more to life than soccer.

  “I noticed,” I said. “You really worked hard at that. I’m proud of you, Rachel.”

  “Thanks,” she replied. “When is Aunt Kathy supposed to have her baby?”

  “Any day now,” I said. “Are you excited?”

  So far, so good. Not a word about soccer.

  “Yeah. Babies are so cute.”

  “Aren’t they? How are things in your Girl Scout troop?”

  “Well, Natalie’s super mad at Mindy ’cause she says she only started liking Josh after she liked him first, and everyone’s taking sides.”

  “Oh, where do you stand?”

  “I don’t care about any of this stuff,” she said. “Josh is a dork.” After a few steps, Rachel continued. “Can I ask you a question?”

  I smiled. This was the moment when she let me see her soft underbelly. She would ask me a deep, perplexing question that would open up a discussion about life. Let the bonding begin, I thought. “Sure, Rachel, you can ask me anything.”

  “Do you think I made the team?”

  “Rachel,” I sighed. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about soccer.”

  “We weren’t?” she asked. “How come?”

  Oh right. I hadn’t filled her in on my abstinence pledge. “I, um, well, it’s just that there are so many other things to talk about. Like nature. Look at the beautiful bird that just flew into that tree. Did you see how the bottoms of his wings are blue, but the tops are black?”

  “You want to talk about birds?’ Rachel asked.

  “It doesn’t have to be birds. Look around at all of these gorgeous plants and leaves coming back to life.”

  “Okay,” Rachel shrugged. “That one’s pretty. What’s it called?”

  “The plant?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a, um, I don’t know.”

  “Okay, what about that bird? How come its wings are like that?”

  “Its wings?” I repeated. “They … they … they’re black on top so they can absorb sunlight to keep them warm. And, um, the blue bottoms are to, um, let their babies in the nest know that they’re coming in for a landing.”

  “Really?!”

  “I don’t know, Rachel,” I said, half laughing. “I’m just trying to get us to remember all the other wonderful things in the world other than soccer. I really don’t know anything about nature. I’m from L.A., sorry.”

  Rachel laughed, forgiving me. I was so sorry that the parent she was left with was tearing at the seams. She prattled on, “So, Lisa says that Brandy’s older brother had a Harry Potter bar mitzvah and that—”

  “A Harry Potter bar mitzvah?!” I shrieked. “What the heck is that?”

  “They turn the place into Hogwarts and do a Triwizard Tournament and—”

  “They transform a
temple into Hogwarts?” I asked, appalled.

  “Of course not, Mom. Just the reception hall.”

  I told Rachel I remembered going to bar and bat mitzvahs when I was a kid. Sounding like, well, a mother, I asked, “You know what the themes were? Bar and bat mitzvahs. Not Harry Potter!” Darcy told me that her family had been invited to a seventies-style disco bat mitzvah where invitations were printed on vinyl and slipped into a cover that read “Saturday Morning Fever.” What remained of the Bee Gees actually showed up and gave one of their hits a Semitic spin—“Now You’re a Woman”—for little Katie Cohen.

  “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about,” Rachel said.

  “Sorry, honey.” What was I doing? She wanted to talk about unkosher bar mitzvahs and I was going off on some ridiculous tangent. “Go on.”

  “So, Lisa says that Brandy’s older brother got thirteen blow jobs in the bathroom from girls in his class,” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t want to ask her, but what’s a blow job?”

  As I coughed my tongue out from the back of my throat, I tried to regain my composure. I wondered if there was a city we could move to where I could shelter Rachel from all of this. Another country? Planet? A plastic bubble?

  I took a deep breath and looked Rachel square in the eye. “I think you have a very good chance of making the soccer team.”

  “Really?!” she cried. “I hope so. I mean, I feel good about the tryout, but there were so many awesome girls there. I feel like why would Preston ask me to come if he didn’t want me on the team? But he did say he couldn’t make any promises, so it’s not like he said anything’s for sure, but still. I did do well on the shooting drills. I can’t juggle, though. Did you see how many Kelly did? She was at, like, 250 before she missed. I can’t believe they make girls from last year’s team try out again. Doesn’t that seem totally unfair?”