Field of Schemes

by Coburn, Jennifer

  This is not to say Steve became a saint or I transformed into a perfect mother. He was still his narcissistic self, and I still checked for the nearest exit at the first sign of turbulence. “I won therapy today,” Steve would joke as we waited for the elevator outside of Dr. Rosenberg’s office. Then he’d smile and wink at me as he hadn’t since we first started dating.

  Lil also loaned us the money to buy our first condo, which turned out to be an incredible investment. More immediately, though, it gave Steve, Rachel and me a second bedroom, a bigger living room and a kitchen two people could be in at the same time. Owning a home also quashed my desire to move to the Pacific Islands and make seashell necklaces that Steve and I could sell to tourists on the beach.

  If it weren’t for Lil, our marriage may have very well eroded the way so many of our friends’ had. Perhaps erosion isn’t the right image. Our relationship was more like a lovely piece of furniture that had a layer of sticky resentment slathered onto it. Then a coat of blame. After a year, we couldn’t see the raw material anymore and had to strip the whole thing bare to start over.

  I hoped Darcy and Ron would be able to work through their marital build-up the way Steve and I had.

  “Mom.” Rachel’s voice returned me to the present. “Earth to Mom, come in Mom. Do you read?”

  “Yes, Rachel, I hear you,” I said. “I was just enjoying a moment of quiet.” I looked at my daughter. Her adolescent features marked time for me. It had been so long since Lil came to help baby Rachel, Steve, and me. I wondered what path we would have taken if she hadn’t stepped in. I was so grateful to that woman that it made it almost unbearable to think of seeing her again. She would remind me of everything we had and lost.

  Chapter Twelve

  Have a great day?

  Have. A. Great. Day?! Did she really just hold the door and tell me to have a great day after attacking me for a soccer jersey? Psycho Mom breezed toward her minivan and drove away. Was this a typical Monday morning for her? Have a great day? How could it possibly be a nice day once you’ve been bitten by a rabid soccer mom?

  Driving home, I glanced proudly at my purchase more than a few times. Maybe I went a little overboard when I used the seatbelt to strap my shopping bag into the passenger seat, but I wasn’t letting anything happen to Rachel’s new top.

  I knocked on Darcy’s door and asked if she wanted to catch the lunchtime spin class at our gym. “I hear congratulations are in order,” Darcy said. Did Rachel make the team?! “Rachel told us your sister had her baby.” I suck.

  “Yes, a boy!” I said. “He’s big and healthy and cute as can be.”

  “How nice.”

  There were a few minutes of awkward silence before Darcy spoke again. “Listen, Claire, I don’t want to keep anything from you. Gunther called this weekend and offered Kelly a spot on the team.”

  “That’s great!” I said while simultaneously calculating how many other calls he might have made.

  Silence.

  “Do you know how many other calls he made?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” Darcy replied. “You could ask Mimi tomorrow at the callback. Her daughter Cara was on the team last year and she’s the manager. She seems to know everything. You know the type?”

  “Did her daughter get a call?” I asked.

  “Yeah, she did,” Darcy said. “Ron’s kind of her right-hand man managing the team, so she phoned him last night and they went on for over an hour about tryouts, callbacks, who’s new, who’s gone. Basically, he had to catch her up on everything that’s been going on this last week while she was out of town visiting her father. But thankfully she’s got Ron to keep her up to speed on all things Kix and the road to State Cup.”

  “You sound less than excited,” I said. “Isn’t State Cup like the Holy Grail?”

  “I know I shouldn’t make fun of her, but Mimi is sooo into the team that it can get a bit annoying at times. She does a lot for the girls, though, so I shouldn’t complain. God knows I have no inclination to manage the team. Anyway, you’ll meet her tomorrow. Ron’s been driving Cara to tryouts while Mimi’s been away, but apparently she got back in town Saturday.”

  Later that day, as Rachel was dressing for tryouts, I knocked on her door and went inside. “I got you a present,” I sang.

  Rachel opened the Soccer Post bag and gasped. “It’s awesome. So cool. Thank you.” She hugged me, then grabbed her U.S. women’s team shirt and pulled it over her head.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “What are you doing? I mean, why aren’t you wearing the German jersey I just gave you?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel shrugged.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much.”

  “Why aren’t you wearing it?”

  “I don’t know, I figured I’d wear this one today. What does it matter?”

  I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “It’s just that you wore that last time. Don’t you want to wear something new?”

  “Nah,” she dismissed. “This one’s fine.”

  “Rachel, put on this German shirt, right now!” I snapped.

  Her eyes widened to ask what the big deal was. “Mom, who cares what I wear?”

  “If it doesn’t matter to you then humor me,” I said, holding the jersey out to her, practically forcing it into her hands. “Wear the shirt, Rachel. It’ll go nicely with your eyes.”

  “Mom, it’s black and white!”

  “It’ll bring out your eyes. I want to see you in the jersey. Put it on!”

  “Jeesh,” Rachel said grabbing the shirt. “You are, like, way stressed out, Mom.”

  Breathe in, out, in, out. “It looks great on you, Rachel! A perfect fit. Now, since you’re wearing the German National Soccer jersey, you probably want to know about the team.”

  “Um, not really,” Rachel said.

  “Well, you should know a little something about the team whose jersey you’re in,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, like did you know that the U.S women’s team was the first to—”

  “Not now, Rachel. We need to talk about Germany first.”

  “We do?”

  “Yes. We do,” I insisted. “Did you know that Germany has one of the best international records in soccer? They’ve won the World Cup three times and were vice world champions four times?”

  “Okay,” Rachel said, looking at me as if I’d lost it.

  “It’s better than okay, Rachel. It’s amazing, and you’d do well to give Germany a little respect. The team has been in every World Cup and hasn’t missed a European championship since 1972!”

  “Mom, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I just like Germany, that’s all.”

  “You’re shaking your hands in the air like a maniac,” she said. Lowering them, I inhaled deeply. “Sorry, I’m just a little passionate about Germany, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they love soccer and I love you,” I said. Before Rachel could ask what the hell that meant, I told Rachel I had another good luck gift for her. “A book. And I’m sure you’ll want to start reading it on your way to the tryout.”

  “Maze Runner?!” Rachel asked, excitedly.

  “Better,” I said, pulling the book from my purse.

  She took the book and looked at it quizzically. “The Portable Nie—Neitz—” Rachel struggled.

  “Nietzsche,” I said.

  “It looks hard,” Rachel protested.

  “Give it a chance. When you get to the field, read a few pages and see what you think.”

  “You want me to bring a book to the soccer field?”

  “Why not, it’s portable?”

  “Mom, I don’t want to start reading a new book ten minutes before soccer tryouts.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. “Will you just hold it then?” I placed the book in her hands, cover facing out.

  “You are losing it, Mom!”

  How
wrong she was. I’d already lost it!

  As we ascended the staircase to Diablo Field, I watched a small group of girls juggling on the field. Three were wearing the same German jerseys as Rachel. Would it have killed you to hold the Nietzsche book?!

  Drunk Dick and his package were nowhere to be seen, which I assumed meant he got a better offer elsewhere. That meant three fewer players in the running.

  I asked Darcy if Kelly wanted to drive with us, but she told me that Ron enjoyed watching every possible minute of Kelly playing soccer. “He wouldn’t miss a strategy session with the general,” Darcy said.

  “The general?”

  “Mimi,” Darcy shrugged. She made a face as though she was annoyed with this, but I could understand where he was coming from. Watching Rachel play soccer was fast becoming one of my favorite activities. I was going to search out this Mimi person and see if she had the inside track on Rachel’s standing. If she had her finger on the pulse of this club, then I wanted to chat with her whether she was annoying or not. She could be Fran Dresher on crack; I needed to find and befriend her.

  As soon as I placed my chair down, I scanned the field for Mimi. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have asked Darcy what she looked like. All I knew was that she was a mother, which narrowed it down to about half the adults on the field. Well, half minus one if you counted the barely legal stepmother, Gia, who walked over to me and asked, “Is there room for me?”

  It’s a huge field and you’re the size of an action figure so I’d have to say yes.

  “Sure!” I said instead. “Grab a seat.”

  I wondered why she was cozying up to me. I’ve always found that women like her have a lot more male friends than they do female, simply because in order to be a cock tease one needs to be in reasonable proximity to them.

  “So, is Mimi around?” I asked Gia.

  “Oh, is she back?” she perked. “I need to call her.” Gia looked as though she just got back from Barbados with her long hair in cornrows hanging over her tan face. “We just got back from a little weekend getaway,” she said. “The whole family. Fun, but sad too.”

  Boo hoo.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I asked Gia.

  “I’m always hot,” she said. “Guess I’m lucky that way.” Among others.

  “So which one’s yours?” I asked with my eyes locked on the field.

  “Sapphire,” Gia answered.

  I resented that the trophy bride thought I should just know who her little gem stepdaughter was. “And which one, pray tell, is Sapphire?” Don’t be snotty. Breathe deeply and be nice to the woman-child.

  She giggled. “Oh right, you don’t know the girls. Sapphy’s the one with the sapphire earrings.” Then she pointed at her.

  Sapphy?

  Sapphy was also the only one wearing a bright red jersey. She was the only one with tie-dyed socks. She was the only one with yellow shorts, and yet Tropherella thought I’d first and foremost pick up on the earrings. Brilliant.

  “She already made the team,” she told me casually. “How ’bout your daughter? Did she get the call yet?”

  “No,” I replied, trying to mask the utter dismay I felt.

  “No worries. The only girls Gunther’s called were from last year’s squad.”

  Why did you mention it then? Shut up. Shut up and don’t say another word to me, you Bo Derek wannabe.

  Not picking up on my telepathic messages, Gia continued. “I heard that some of the girls from last year didn’t get the call and you know what? They’re not going to. They’re getting dropped to the blue team.”

  Really? How many are getting dropped? Is it true that two girls didn’t come back to tryouts this year? How many spots are left? How many girls are in the running? Do you have any real information in that thimble-sized head of yours?

  I looked back at the field where Rachel and her group were now playing a game on a small field. “Did Sapphire enjoy playing on the team last year?”

  “Totally,” she said, extending the word for emphasis. “I’m so stoked that Gunther’s the coach this year. He’s the best.”

  “Really, who did they have last year?”

  “Oh my God, this totally great guy from Morocco. Toumi. He was the best too.”

  “Sounds like it’s been good for you guys. I’ve heard some horror stories about club soccer.”

  “Oh yeah, they’re all true,” Gia laughed. “It’s good and bad, though. I’d say fifty-fifty, mostly good.” Noticing me watching the field, Gia gave a sympathetic nod. “Stressful?”

  “A little,” I lied.

  “Totally reminds me of my pageant days,” Gia said. This was my cue to ask her about her dippy little beauty contests as if I cared. How would she feel if I hijacked the conversation and made it about me and my vile interests? I really need to look into a prescription for nice pills. I was out of my mind today! Where is this Mimi person? Is she carrying some official looking team manager bag? Maybe I should call Darcy and get a description of her.

  “Oh, there’s Mimi,” Gia said, pointing behind me. Finally! When I turned around, I expected to see a high-strung, slightly butch soccer enthusiast who held the answers to my questions. I was more than a little surprised to see what Mimi really looked like.

  Our eyes met in a moment of recognition. I tried not to shudder, but instinctively braced myself in case she decided to attack again. It was Psycho Mom, and standing beside her side was Sexy Dad. She was anything but masculine in her royal blue sweat suit with two low hanging brown pigtails sweeping across her shoulders. She may have been mentally unstable, but she certainly was pretty, which is undoubtedly how she landed that delicious husband of hers. Sexy Dad walked beside her, the two engaged in an intense, albeit pleasant, discussion. Happy couples give me a twinge of jealousy. This one assaulted me with both envy and fear.

  I glanced at her in horror, then refocused on Sexy Dad, who gave me a quick wink. Oh God, please don’t let her have seen that. If she was willing to bite me over a soccer jersey, imagine how possessive she’d be about her husband! Mimi swatted Sexy Dad. “What?” he replied like a mischievous little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “What are you doing here?” Mimi spewed.

  Sexy Dad snorted a little laugh. “Gosh Meem, who can imagine, with all that’s going on here today,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the field, occupied only by young girls in soccer gear and their parents.

  I liked his bitter sense of humor, and the fact that it was directed at his miserable excuse for a wife. I was also saddened by the fact that Sexy Dad was definitely unavailable, not only for a real relationship, but now for sexual fantasies too. I knew myself too well to even go there. I wouldn’t even get to have an imaginary kiss with him before Mimi would enter the scene, fangs glistening. No, Sexy Dad was definitely bad news. Married, dangerous bad news. Sexy, though. Lamentably friggin’ hot.

  “Are you coming?” Mimi asked her husband.

  “Nah, bring me back something,” he dismissed.

  Mimi looked irritated as she stood with her hand on her hip. “Cream and sugar? Venti?”

  “Surprise me,” he said, still looking in my direction. “Something different.”

  “Cool, you going to Starbucks?” Gia asked. “I need to caffeinate something serious. Mind if I tag along?”

  As Gia stood from her seat, Sexy Dad answered for Mimi. “Sure, g’head, Gia.”

  Mimi muttered annoyedly. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I wondered what came first, the bitchy wife or the wayward husband. Was she a bitch because he was a jerk, or did it work the other way?

  As the two women left the field, I sat next to Sexy Dad in a cloud of delicious tension, keeping my eyes focused on the girls. Finally, the silence became too awkward. “So, I’m Claire,” I said, extending my hand.

  “I know,” Sexy Dad said. Our eyes locked in mutual attraction as we willed the corners of our mouths to stop rising. “It’s about time we met, don’t you think?” I nodded, afr
aid that the next words out my mouth might be wildly inappropriate. “I’m Ron,” he said.

  There was little to add other than that it was nice to meet him, which, pathetically, I did three times. “So, Germany did a great job hosting the last World Cup, don’t you think?” Oh shit, that’s my Gunther script.

  Ron laughed slightly, seeming to enjoy my nervousness as it confirmed what he already knew—there was chemistry between us. “Do you think Rachel’s going to make the team?”

  He knows my name. He knows my daughter’s name. This man is a seasoned flirt.

  “I hope so,” I replied. “It would mean the world to her, but the competition is so tough. I hear Gunther’s already made offers to some of the girls.”

  “Word is he’s got thirteen commitments,” Ron answered. “He needs two more girls, a halfback and a fullback.”

  “There are so many girls here!” I fretted.

  “She’ll make it,” he assured me, though clearly he was just saying this to be kind. “She’s better than some of the girls he took from last year, and she’s sure as hell better than the one from that Hot Shots trio.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “He took them?” Ron nodded. “Gia said Gunther only made offers to last year’s players. Why aren’t the three Hot Shots here?”