Field of Schemes

by Coburn, Jennifer

  “Oh,” I said, noticing Mimi smirking at my mistake. “Very good, then. Okay,” I said as I clapped. “Brava, Violet!”

  After the game, Mimi jogged to an enormous white board where team managers with clipboards were all gathered taking notes. When we made our way to her, she reported, “Okay, we’re in really good shape, but in order for us to win the tournament, Turf needs to shut out Conquistadors then lose to the Patriots, or Hot Shots needs to beat or tie Turf this afternoon and we need to win our next two games by at least two goals, unless we shut out one of the teams, in which case we’ll only need a one-goal margin.” Huh? The other parents just nodded their heads and started asking about games that were going on. Mimi instructed two dads to go to those games and report back to her with scores.

  “You guys didn’t get called on any of your fouls,” one of the Manchester dads, their Loud Bobby, shouted to our group as he walked by. “You pay the ref or something?”

  “It’s your tournament, moron,” Mimi quipped. “So actually, you paid the ref.”

  Their Normals stifled a laugh while ours looked mortified. “You got a smart mouth, lady,” the Manchester Moron said, walking closer to Mimi.

  “I suggest you step back right now,” Ron said.

  Darcy furrowed her brow quizzically.

  “And you’ve got a dumb one,” Mimi escalated.

  “You want a piece of me?” the Manchester Moron snapped at Ron.

  “God knows, there’s enough to spare,” Mimi shot back.

  “How ’bout we take the girls to get a bite?” Dave asked me.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Darcy, let’s take the girls to one of the concession booths for lunch.”

  My friend nodded. “We need to be back at the field in an hour?” she reminded me. “Ronnie, Kelly, let’s go,” she said, leaving Ron and Mimi to fight this battle on their own.

  Mimi must have bionic hearing, because although the Manchester Moron’s friend, Drunk Roger, joined in the shouting match, she still managed to hear us making lunch plans. “No meat!” she shouted as we walked away. “I’m serious, no meat before games, Claire. Make sure they eat something healthy.”

  As we left the crowd by the white board, Gunther passed by us with a bratwurst fully loaded with toppings. “Good playing, girls,” he said. “Very nice soccer.”

  Amazingly, we shut out the next two teams, beat another in the semifinals, then won the championship game on Monday morning. Even Preston showed up for the championship game, shaking hands with all of the dads and talking about other games being played at the tournament. “Did you come to watch us play, Preston?” Katie asked, tilting her head up at him like Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

  “Oh, no,” Preston said, laughing good-naturedly. “I’m recruiting players for next season.” The parents who heard this looked at each other incredulously as Preston caught his faux pas. “But, of course my main reason for coming was to watch you girls play in the championship.”

  The impromptu team meeting seemed to be over until Mimi chimed in. “When does the window close for making roster changes for the regular season?” Preston appeared confused and looked to our coach for clarification. “Gunther?”

  “I want no changes,” he said.

  “But if we did, when would those need to be done?” Mimi asked.

  “Mimi,” Preston said in a placating tone. “We’ve made a commitment to these players. If we’ve invited them on the team, they’re on the team for the rest of the season.” Three parents, including me, sighed with relief.

  “Cal South allows roster changes until August,” Mimi said. “Why would Kix put our team at a disadvantage by not allowing us to make changes when every other club in the regional league can? Come on, if we made mistakes in selection we should be able to correct them just like Conquistadors, Turf, and Hot Shots can!”

  Preston answered. “We have to think about the integrity of the club.” I knew I liked him. “We made a commitment to these girls.” That’s what it’s all about. “Plus, we’ve cashed everyone’s checks.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  As we left Santa Barbara on Monday evening, Mimi congratulated the girls several times for winning “a fist full of medals” and bringing home the first tournament victory of the season. In her parking lot speech, she told the team that this was what girl power was all about. Yep, one team of girls goes home happy, the rest go home disappointed, woo-hoo! I didn’t have any real issues with the competitive nature of tournaments, but Mimi’s characterization of victory as some sort of feminist tenet seemed illogical. Mimi congratulated the girls as a group, then individually, then again with a thumbs-up as her minivan passed ours on the drive back to Santa Bella.

  To the parents, however, Mimi sang a different tune. When I logged onto my email that evening, I received two notes from team parents. One pleasant, one not so much.

  Dear Claire,

  I enjoyed meeting you at the tournament. Looking forward to dinner this weekend. Wondering, do you like Chinese or is Thai better? Jess said the Thai place on Via Del Mar is under new management and the service is just as good as the food now. I don’t know if you’d eaten there before, but you had to beg for your water, and you were SOL if you dropped your chopsticks. Wanna give it a try?

  Dave

  --------------------

  MEMORANDUM

  TO: Team Parents

  FROM: Mimi

  DATE: May 31

  RE: Manchester Tournament

  First, let me congratulate the girls on their victory this weekend! Wins are always great confidence-builders, but all victories are not created equal! I want the girls to maintain that awesome feeling that comes from walking away from a tournament with a fist full of medals, so I ask that you keep this discussion among parents only! As the adults, there are some serious issues we need to address!

  When Gunther killed my fitness trainings, I immediately noticed that the girls lost speed and endurance! If I may speak plainly, some are getting a bit chubby!!! I don’t want anyone to have body issues! Girls need to love their bodies! Part of loving their bodies means treating them with respect! Exercise and nutrition are key components of health! We must start up fitness training again before this problem balloons, no pun intended!

  Last week, I called Manchester United and requested that the girls be moved from the gold bracket to the bronze! Usually they don’t accommodate last-minute requests like this, but the tournament director owes me more than one favor, so he moved the girls two full brackets down! Naturally we won! At the risk of sounding cruel, the girls essentially won the Special Olympics! There were even one or two rec teams that participated!

  If we are going to be serious contenders for State Cup, we must resume fitness training NOW!!!

  Go Kix!

  I looked at the addressees and not surprisingly, Gunther was not receiving Mimi’s email. I hit “reply all” then added his name to the recipients.

  Hey Everyone:

  Has anyone heard from Violet’s parents? Leesha said that she and Raymond were taking her to their orthopedist when they got back. Does anyone know how that went? Do you think they got to see a doctor over the holiday weekend? I’m concerned. That fall looked seriously painful.

  Claire

  Hours later, Drunk Dick responded. I imagined him sitting at the keyboard baring his molars with his one biscuit eye bulging.

  Team,

  They did look sucky, those other teams. I looked them up online and Mimi’s right, they’re pretty bottom of the barrel. Two got knocked out of the last State Cup in the first weekend and the others didn’t even go. I did find their records from last year and whoa, suck city. We should play real teams next time. I videotaped the game cause we always watch game tape. I attached the video file to this email so you can look at it too. We should bring the girls to my house and show them the games on my big TV. I got a thing where I can stop action and point stuff out. It’s one thing to talk about the plays on the drive home
but there’s nothing like seeing it live on TV. I hear what Mimi’s saying about getting the girls in shape to play real teams. We should do that. I always say to my girls no pasta except before games. That keeps them trimmed up.

  Your Friend,

  Dick

  At the last practice before the tournament, when Dick offered to bring his camcorder and record the games, I thought he was nuts. After my weekend in Santa Barbara, I realized that making “game tape” for future analysis was part of the normal landscape of club soccer. There were the fresh white lines painted onto the grassy fields. There were the goal nets defining the ends. There were referees in yellow and black striped tops and their line assistants with matching uniforms and small flags to indicate when a ball was out of bounds. There were also fathers on the sidelines with video cameras focused on their kids’ games. The camera-to-penis ratio was impressive, with one in four fathers sporting his own equipment.

  When Darcy was near Nancy, she could convince her to stay out of Mimi’s line of fire. But with Mother Earth home alone in front of her email, there was no stopping her from responding.

  Dear Team,

  The Special Olympics has been a meaningful and rewarding experience for my family for many years. We have volunteered as “huggers” at finish lines and have felt no greater joy than that which comes from a developmentally challenged youngster running into our arms. To dismiss less-skilled soccer players as “the Special Olympics” is insensitive and degrading to this entire team.

  And yes, how is Violet? I must say it was heartening to see Leesha stand up to Ray and insist that they take her home at halftime of our second game. When that madman shouted to his injured daughter, “You can hop faster than that!” my faith in humanity dimmed.

  I suggest that we parents work on our psychological and spiritual fitness a bit more as we go into our next tournament.

  Respectfully,

  Nancy and Roger Gilman

  --------------------

  MEMORANDUM

  TO: The Team

  FROM: Mimi

  DATE: May 31

  RE:Re: Re: Manchester Tournament

  Thank goodness we have Claire to remind us of our obvious concern for Violet! As it happens, I had already placed several calls to Raymond and Leesha and was waiting for them to reply with the results of Violet’s medical evaluation today! Sadly, Violet will be out for many months as her ACL heals —again! The doctor said she will not be able to play soccer again until November, or possibly even December! This means that until then we are down a player! Many of you already know Sissy, who played on the team last year and is now the shining star of the blue team! She’s been working with a private trainer (not a bad idea for all of the girls!) and is going to be a force to be reckoned with by State Cup! I suggest we snatch her up for the regular season!

  So, Sissy is working with a private coach after all. Why should I expect honesty from a woman who has a strategy for winning a food drive?

  Almost immediately, Dick responded.

  Team,

  I have the upmost respect for Mimi but got to disagree with her on the Sissy thing. If we only need eleven on the field, let’s give our own girls more playing time. If this Sissy kid was so great, she wouldn’t have got cut from the team this year. How many games have they played that she’s such a shining star? This was the first weekend Cal South had any tournaments. I know she’s your friend’s kid, Mimi, but I got to speak my mind. Let her be the superstar with the B-team and let’s shorten our bench a little.

  Your Friend,

  Dick

  On behalf of the Richards and Jelineks too

  --------------------

  Dear Team!

  I just wanted to say that I totally agree with what all of you are saying! Sapphy’s dad and I had the best time this weekend. It’s so nice to get away from real life and be part of the excitement of a tournament. The energy was so amazing! Sooo awesome to win too! Yay for the FFOM (that’s fist full of medals)!

  xoxo Gia

  --------------------

  Team,

  Mimi and me will talk about team in privates. We are disgusting this later.

  Coach Gunther

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “I feel a little guilty about going out with Dave,” I confessed to Darcy as she stood above me pulling my hair through her flat iron. It was more than the sadness of going on living after Steve had died. I also felt guilty that the night earlier I had the most unbelievable dream sex with her husband. Let me be clear. I don’t mean I had sex with Ron and it was surreal. I mean it happened after I fell asleep, when my subconscious mind took over and allowed my inner-marabou-wearing wild-child to evict the good girl in L.L. Bean. Intellectually, I knew I shouldn’t feel guilty about my dreams, but I still did. Perhaps after I focused my attention on Dave, these inappropriate feelings would cease. God, I hoped so.

  “Don’t feel guilty,” Darcy said, releasing a sheet of straightened red hair. “Don’t you think Steve would want you to be happy?”

  “Not with another man,” I said, laughing because it was half true. Okay, ninety percent true. Because our eyes never met in the makeshift salon of my bathroom, I had the courage to pry into her marriage. “Would you want Ron to date after you died?”

  Though she delivered it as a joke, she articulated what I also suspected. “What makes you think he’s waiting till I’m dead?” Pulling my hair through the iron, Darcy’s tone grew more serious. “I’m pretty sure he’s having an affair with someone at the hospital.” It was the first time I saw Darcy’s eyes well with tears. It was the first time I wasn’t expecting a flippant one-liner to follow.

  “Have you done any investigating?” I asked.

  “You mean like checking his cell phone bills, credit card receipts, deleted emails and all that?”

  “I take it you’ve done this already?” I asked.

  “Ron’s a smart guy,” Darcy said. “He’s not going to leave a paper trail.”

  “Darcy, put your suspicions to rest and check!” I insisted. “If Ron’s carrying on with someone, he’s going to slip up somewhere.”

  I looked at Darcy through the mirror and she gave a perfunctory smile. “When you start handling your husband’s pants like evidence on CSI, there’s a certain line that you cross, do you know what I mean? It’s like you’re not who you thought you were and you don’t have the marriage you thought you had. I guess I’m not ready to concede that yet,” she said with a faint laugh. “He’s always been a big flirt. I might just be imagining things because I’m so mad at him.”

  “What did he do this time?”

  “Nothing,” Darcy said. “That’s the problem. We’ve got so much old shit that we don’t even need to have a fight for me to be angry with him. He’s got a shit credit with me.”

  Dave and I had the same low-key chemistry we had on the soccer field at the Manchester tournament. He was extremely handsome, smart and easy to talk to. He had such keen observations about club soccer, parenting in the modern age and the intensive cultivation of children. “I met this ten-year-old kid last week who can give this brilliant analysis of the book he’s reading with all the cultural context and literary influences, but then that same kid doesn’t know how to tie his shoes.”

  “Maybe he needs a private shoe tying coach,” I suggested.

  “Don’t laugh, there’s a potty training coach in San Paulo who’s making a killing,” Dave said.

  I learned that he had two brothers and grew up in Lake Tahoe, where his parents ran a ski shop. He gave me an insightful and compassionate description of his family dynamics until I had to ask just how much therapy this man had gone through. “Plenty,” he said with a laugh. “I’m a therapist. I thought you knew that.”

  “No, now I’m a little nervous.”

  “Think I’m analyzing you?” I nodded. “Everyone thinks that at first. It’ll pass. I’m really not. I can clock out and enjoy time with a beautiful woman without needing to look through her ba
ggage.”

  “I’m a widow,” I blurted. “I just thought you should know that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He thought I was crazy. He had every right to. Here I said I didn’t want to be a patient, he agreed to it, then I spring this tangential bomb on him.

  “Thank you. I just didn’t want to not tell you then have you wonder why I hadn’t,” I explained.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I laughed. “I just had to get that out of the way. This is my first date since … ” I trailed off.

  He smiled kindly. “I’m honored, Claire.”

  The evening went on comfortably from there. What we lacked in fireworks, we made up for with a natural ease around each other. Dave was one of the few people who didn’t cut me off when I talked about Steve. It’s not that others were being rude; they just couldn’t stand the discomfort of knowing that I might cry at any moment. They’d always dismiss me by saying, “Let’s talk about happier things,” when the reality was that keeping Steve alive through stories made me quite happy. It was pretending that he never existed that killed me. For someone who was afraid of being viewed as a patient, I sure was acting like one.

  Dave had “catch” written all over him, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about women I’d like to fix him up with.

  “Why do you think that Mimi asked Preston about roster changes?” I asked. “Be honest with me; you’ve been in club soccer for a long time. Did Rachel look like she wasn’t cutting it?”

  “No, she looked fine,” Dave said.

  “Really? Or are you just saying that to be nice?”

  “She looked good. Not entirely sure of herself, but good. She’s a natural athlete, and she’s going to be great by the end of the season, I guarantee it.”

  “She was taken on the bubble,” I said. “Do you know what that means?” He nodded. “It’s just that we went through so much stress during tryouts, and now Mimi’s talking like she wants to kick some girls off the team.” I sighed. “I just want to know when I can stop worrying about this!”