Field of Schemes

by Coburn, Jennifer

  A group of us unfolded our chairs and placed them behind the sideline where another bunch of parents were watching their boys play. Dick cracked open a can of beer wrapped in a red foam jacket, then reached into his cooler and distributed drinks to Crazy Raymond, Loud Bobby and Gangsta Leo. I understood that Leo shaved his head to keep him cooler in this smoldering heat, but couldn’t understand why he chose summer as his time to grow a devil beard. Bobby was sunburned to the point where he looked like an angry tomato with all of his skin pulling toward the center of his face at his pug nose. Crazy Raymond’s summer look was that of an ancient torture device. Rather than having cornrows sitting neatly against his head, his hair was twisted into dozens of short spikes. If we were friends, I might joke about playing a game of ring toss with his new do, but I dared not offend him any further than I unwittingly had already.

  A ruler-straight line of girls dressed in Manchester green uniforms ran in perfect synchronicity to an area right beside the field. My God, these girls had better timing than the Rockettes. A coach with a thick English accent (though I’m not sure he was actually English) commanded the girls to “stop, drop, and give us ten.” Our girls stood agape as the Manchester team loudly counted their perfectly timed push-ups. A little showy, I thought.

  “What the heck is this?” I asked Darcy, who was nonchalantly looking in her bag.

  “Pre-game head games,” she answered. “Did you bring extra sunscreen?”

  Handing her my sunblock, I asked her what she meant. “You know, the psychological warfare and intimidation that goes on before the games.”

  “Is this normal?” I asked.

  “Claire, get used to it. Nothing’s normal in competitive soccer.”

  I gulped at the sight of Ron’s arms flexing as he planted an umbrella into the grass. “Don’t do that now! We’re gonna have to move it in ten minutes when the boys’ game is over,” Darcy said to Ron.

  “So, I’ll move it. What do you care?” he shot.

  The Manchester team was now running around the periphery of the field in lock step. It was amazingly machine-like. “If these girls are this in tune with each other during warm-ups, what must they be like on the field?” I wondered.

  “It’s all showmanship, Claire,” Ron told me. “Doesn’t make any difference in how they play. They probably suck if this is what they spend their time working on.”

  Then an unfamiliar male voice added, “If they could balance the balls on their noses, that’d be different. Those are the really good teams.” Darcy, Ron and a few others turned around and gave a collective greeting.

  “Hey buddy,” Ron said, grabbing hands and slapping backs. “Long time no see. How’s it going?”

  “It’s going,” the man said. He had an open, kind face that was handsome and humble with chiseled features and a neat patch of brown hair combed to the side. He looked at me and smiled.

  “Hey, Dave, do you know Claire?” Ron asked. “Claire’s our new halfback’s mother.” Ah yes, just how every woman wants to be described. “Dave is Katie’s father.”

  Dave smiled as we shook hands and I sensed a glimmer of attraction between us, though I immediately reminded myself that if he was Katie’s father, he was either Jessica’s or straight Jennifer’s husband. I put on my most professional voice and asked if his daughter was Katie the halfback, fullback or forward, impressed with my new vocabulary. “Katie Engle,” he said. The fullback. Ah ha, so he was Jessica’s husband. “Mind if I sit with you guys?” he asked, directing the question toward Ron.

  “Jessica’s over there,” I told him, pointing to her, then shouting her name and waving.

  She smiled and walked over to us. “Hey Dave,” Jessica said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “How’s it going?”

  How’s it going? Ahhhh, they were an amicably divorced couple. Jackpot!

  A silver-haired guy followed suit and came over to say hello. “Hi Dave.”

  “Hey Sam. You’re looking well,” Dave said.

  So civilized.

  Jessica asked what time Dave planned to return Katie on Monday, because she and Sam had a party to go to. As they hammered out the details, I turned to watch the boys’ team wrap up their game and grinned. Darcy caught me and smiled back. Thankfully, she had the good sense not to say anything until later.

  “There you are!” Mimi said to Gunther as he ambled onto the field, looking lost. “Nice of you to show up.”

  “We will talk about this after game,” Gunther said, annoyed. I wondered if she told him to go to the wrong field or gave him the wrong kickoff time. Perhaps Mimi was infinitely more creative. I laughed at the vision of our coach handcuffed to the hotel bed headboard being whipped by a dominatrix that Mimi had hired.

  “We’ll have to,” she snapped, looking at her watch.

  When the referee’s whistle sounded for the girls’ game, it was like the start of a horse race. Everyone leaned forward and several of the parents began rooting for their daughters. “Come on, Savannah, work the channel, sivious, work that channel,” Leo said as a quiet woman with long black hair and humongous hoop earrings sat beside him. Every parent had a suggestion for the players.

  “Look left!” one would shout.

  “Find feet,” said another.

  “You’ve got time.”

  “Space!”

  “One move and go!”

  “Turn and burn.”

  “See Kelly, see Kelly right.”

  Then in the loudest voice I’d ever heard—louder than Bobby’s even—Crazy Raymond started shouting, “No mercy!” Repeatedly. It was a hoarse, drawn-out command that sounded like a general leading his troops into battle. Spit flew from his lips and he cried, “Nooooo mer-saaaaay!”

  Gunther turned to Mimi and said, “I need them quiet!”

  “You need to coach this game, Gunther!” she snapped. He was a rather hands-off coach, but he may have just been inhibited by all of the parental noise.

  “I have train them in practicing. They know what to do at game. The shouting is no good,” Gunther said.

  Dave looked at me and raised his brows. “Whaddya think? Gunther one, Mimi zero?”

  “I’d say she’s less than zero,” I said, smiling.

  “Ah, an Elvis Costello fan?” Dave replied.

  “More like a fan of anyone arguing with Mimi.”

  “I see Mimi’s still picking on the pretty moms,” Dave said.

  Two points for you, Dave!

  I smiled. “She’s really got it out for me.”

  “I can see why,” he said. Dave shook his nonexistent long hair and pouted his lips. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

  “Will you stop?!” I said, more than a little embarrassed.

  I leaned my elbows onto my knees and continued watching the game as the girls skillfully passed the ball. Every pass made it to the player it was intended for. Girls looked around and planned their next move, accounting for the others on the field, moving the ball as if it were an extension of their own body. It looked like connect-the-dots rather than a swarm of bees buzzing around a hive. So this is what soccer is supposed to look like.

  “Exciting, isn’t it?” Dave asked. Darcy was smirking, trying to act as if she didn’t notice the flirtation. Ron looked less amused.

  “Very,” I said. I liked the context of this interaction because I could keep my eyes fixed on the game, Rachel in particular. She looked okay, but not her usual stellar self. It was almost as though she didn’t know how to act when she had an entire team of competent players with her—and opposing her. Several times she should have passed the ball to an open teammate, but tried to make a move and go around a defender. These fullbacks were not falling on their butts. They snatched the ball away from her and regained possession.

  “Pass the ball, Rachel!” Dick shouted, annoyed at her mistake. “That kid’s a ball hog, man,” he muttered to Crazy Raymond.

  “Cracker’s girl?” he asked. Dick nodded. Distracted by Katie’s intercept
ion, he shouted, “That’s right, girl. Work the channel.”

  Then the Italian started. Paulo shouted a series of instructions to Giovanna, who held the most intense expression on her face, her tongue clinging to the bottom corner of her lip. She dribbled with the ball until she passed the midline of the field, made a move that faked out the Manchester player, then released the ball before another player tried to strip her of it. Violet ran down the right channel of the field, then passed it to Kelly. My heart raced. Kelly looked as if she was going to shoot the ball, then quickly passed it to Violet who was now directly in front of the net. “Nooooo mer-saaaaay!” shouted Raymond as his daughter released a shot that went straight into the goalie’s arms.

  “What was that?!” Raymond screamed and his wife tried to quiet him. He paced the sidelines, sweating and flicking his hands as if he was trying to get paint off of them. “Why don’t ya pick it up and bring it to her next time?! Maybe you want to wrap it up and put a bow on it? Girl, this ain’t a birthday party, no gifts, no gifts!”

  Paulo’s mother started shaking her head and making a tsk, tsk noise. She said something to her son in Italian and he replied in kind. I had hoped it translated to, “Mama Mia, this man needs to settle down,” with Paulo replying, “I know, Mama, these American parents are crazy.” But in my short time in club soccer I came to expect less of people. She probably really said, “Stupid girl should shoot to the corners.” Her son likely replied, “Americans know nothing about this game.”

  “No problems,” Gunther told Violet. She smiled crookedly, as if to say, You try going home with this freak tonight and you’ll see that I DO have problems.

  Mimi chimed in. “Nice try, sweetheart. Not right to the keeper, next time, okay?”

  Gee, y’think?

  “Shoot it like you want it next time!” Crazy Raymond shouted.

  Much to my surprise, Loud Bobby shouted, “Nice catch, Keep!”

  I looked at Dave, who explained, “Everyone loves the goalkeeper, no matter what team they’re rooting for.”

  “Good job, goalie!” I shouted.

  Mimi turned around so quickly, she created a breeze. “Claire, sideline coaching is not cool,” she snapped. “You’re not in rec anymore.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity. Ron came to my defense. “Come on, Mimi. Have a little mer-saaaay on poor Claire.”

  Darcy giggled and nudged him.

  Mimi narrowed her eyes at Ron, then turned her attention toward me. “Rachel needs to learn when to pass the ball,” she snapped. “Who’s she training with?”

  “Training with?” I repeated, noticing the other parents start to look at us.

  Repeating herself slowly for the benefit of my dim wits, Mimi said, “Yeah, training with, as in working with outside of regular soccer practices.”

  My heart pounded like the drum section of a virgin sacrifice. Stay cool, stay cool. “Gee, Mimi, that would be you.”

  A collective laugh released from the sidelines. And one of the moms let out a “You go, girl.” Though when Mimi turned to see who lent me support, they all acted like they weren’t looking.

  Walking close to me, hovering over my seat, Mimi growled, “Claire, trust me when I tell you that you do not want to be on my bad side.”

  Okay! You’re right. I’m sorry. Instead of letting these internal thoughts escape from my lips, I stood to meet her gaze. “Really? Am I on your good side right now, Mimi? Because frankly a change of scenery would be quite nice.”

  Ron guffawed at this one, which gave the others permission to laugh aloud. She stormed away after telling me that she’d deal with me later. Ron shouted after her, “Come on, Mimi, lighten up!”

  While the parents were embroiled in our drama, the girls moved the ball down the field and penetrated the other team’s eighteen-yard box. (That’s the area that’s eighteen yards from the goal line. It’s the outermost white lines. The little box around the goal net is called “the six,” Dave explained. Ignorance had its benefits.) Like last time, Violet passed the ball to Kelly, who passed it back to her when she repositioned herself in front of the goal. “Noooooo mer-saaaaay!” shouted Raymond. This time, though, she shot it straight into the left corner of the net.

  We all rose to our feet and I refrained from shouting, “No mercy!” The referee held his hands in the air and blew his whistle to indicate a goal.

  “That is what I’m talkin’ ’bout, girl!” Crazy Raymond said, shaking his head rabidly. “That’s my girl. That’s my girl!”

  Bobby and Leo started shaking Ray’s hands to congratulate him. “Nice job, man,” Dick said.

  I smiled at Dave and wondered aloud, “What did he do?”

  “Living through your kids is one of the few socially acceptable forms of narcissism,” he said.

  I could definitely like this guy.

  During halftime, someone from the other team let his puppy run around on the field chasing a ball. The ball was the same size as the little guy, so his clumsy wrestling was utterly charming. Until he began humping the ball, that is.

  By the middle of the second half, our girls were ahead by four goals and it looked as if we were headed toward a shutout. One might think that this would have a calming effect on parents, but the fat four continued shouting as if they were trapped in a burning building and all exits were blocked.

  “Nooooo mer-saaaaay!” shouted Crazy Raymond as Kelly shot the team’s fifth goal.

  Later in the game, Manchester scored a goal, but Dick started screaming, “Offsides! That’s offsides, ref, no goal!”

  Dave looked at me and smiled. “Ron cracks me up, but if he keeps that up, one of these nut jobs is going to blow a gasket one of these days.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You haven’t noticed?” Dave asked. I shook my head. “Keep an eye on Ron.”

  Oh no, I don’t think you understand what very bad advice that is.

  As the game continued, I saw that Ron was pacing behind Dick, provoking him by softly muttering things like, “Whoa, there’s a slide tackle. Is this ref going to call anything?”

  Within seconds, Dick would erupt, “Come on, ref! Call that slide tackle. Whaddya, blind, man?!”

  And I got reprimanded for lauding their goal keeper!

  Dave laughed at Ron and said, “You’re a sick man, Greer!”

  Ron nodded back and held his finger in front of his lips, looking toward Darcy as if to say, Don’t get me in trouble with the wife.

  “So, do you live near Ron and Darcy?” Dave asked.

  “Very. We’re next-door neighbors,” I told him as I watched our girls score yet another goal. I enjoyed chatting with Dave in the context of a kids’ soccer game because it allowed me to keep my eyes focused on something other than him. If we’d met in a coffee shop or an office, I’d have to face him straight-on, and that was something I was just not ready for. An occasional glance was about all I could handle without blushing. I was most grateful to have the action of the game to fix my gaze on.

  In the final minutes of the game, the other team’s parents started unraveling. I can understand that they didn’t like seeing their girls lose, but a few of the fathers were downright unkind. “Come on, Chloe, you’re faster than that pork chop,” one shouted. His comment was only slightly mitigated by the fact that his wife swatted him. The truth was, though, that our team was looking kind of chunky lately—even Rachel, who inherited my string bean body and speedy metabolism. I hated to admit it, but maybe Mimi was right about the girls needing fitness training. In just the two weeks since Gunther discontinued fitness training, everyone but Cara looked as though she’d packed on a few pounds. Since Mimi was still doing fitness training with her daughter, Cara remained slender. The weight of our one-girl control group seemed to make a convincing case for resuming training, though Mimi had not made an advocate of me. If she had such overwhelming parent support, let her use it.

  The non-pork chop from Manchester sped by our last defender and took a shot
on our goal. As soon as the ball was released, Bobby shouted, “Nooooo mer-saaaaay!” Oh God, now he was going to start saying it?

  As Cayenne tipped the ball away from the goal net, I asked Dave when mercy got such a bad rap. “I mean, why can’t we let them have a pity goal? Would that be so terrible?” Ron jumped into the conversation and informed me that teams receive extra points for shutouts. “How sweet,” I said.

  “So their goal didn’t count?” I asked.

  “It was offsides, Claire,” Ron said. “No goal.”

  During the final kickoff, Violet dribbled the ball downfield, where she was greeted by a behemoth defender from Manchester who clumsily reached her foot out to steal the ball. Sadly, she tripped Violet in such a way that the top of her leg went one way and the bottom went the other. My knee hurt just watching. She lay on the ground clutching her leg, crying as Gunther ran out onto the field. Raymond stood, devastated. Leesha placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder. In this moment, I no longer thought of him as Crazy Raymond. I looked at his watery eyes and felt compassion for him as a fellow parent. He may have been a little out there, but at the crux of it, he was—

  “Shake it off, baby!” he shouted. “On your feet, girl. Run through it!”

  Violet wrapped her arm around Gunther’s neck as he helped her hobble off the field.

  The absolute maniacs on the other side of the field started clapping! I thought I had seen the lowest of parenting until this. These people were animals. Then our parents started clapping too.

  “What is wrong with you people?” I couldn’t hold back.

  Dave reached for my arm and pulled me back down into my chair. “Claire, they’re clapping because she’s okay, not because she’s hurt.