“Wow, that’s amazing. I’ll bet you feel pretty special having the only one.”
“I’ll be wearing it every day for the next few weeks,” Barbara said.
“That’s good.”
“Claire, aren’t you going to ask me what happens in a few weeks?”
“You’ll get sick of it?”
“I certainly will,” my mother said gleefully. “And ask me why I’ll grow weary of it in a few weeks.”
“Because you’re a fickle fashionista who’ll have moved on to setting the next trend by then.”
“You’re partly right,” she said. “It will be a trend by then because everyone will be wearing one. Your lira necklaces are going to be the ‘it’ item of the holiday season. Kathy’s assistant has been taking orders all morning. I finally had to remind her that she works for Garb, not you, so she set up a domain name and all the orders are rolling over to your email address.”
“What!” I said, hoping to stop time. “Back up and tell me what you’re talking about.”
“We’ve been getting calls all day. At first we took orders, but finally had to start telling people to order through your website tomorrow morning.”
“My website? Mother, I don’t have a website.”
“Which is why I’m calling, Claire. You need to set up a website, tout de suite, or should I say pronto?”
“Mother, back up. Kathy took orders for lira necklaces? How did she do that? What did she charge people? How did they pay?”
“You know your sister,” Mother said. “She set up a PayPal account and, I’m sorry, but we had to guess how much to charge people. We couldn’t reach you by cell.”
“Rachel’s class had a field trip,” I explained. “How much did you charge?”
I could see her bony spine curve with trepidation. “Two-twenty, is that enough?”
“Two hundred twenty dollars?” I said, laughing. “No one’s going to pay that for my lira necklace.” I was both disappointed and relieved. There was a part of me that was looking forward to stringing together a few dozen necklaces and starting a net-based business. Since Mother was completely out of touch and priced me out of the market, it looked like that wasn’t about to happen. Another part of me was grateful that I wouldn’t have to hassle with a new venture. Honestly, it seemed as if Rachel’s schedule was enough to fill my days.
Barbara replied haughtily, “They most certainly will. We took more than a thousand calls this morning. Check your email account.”
I gasped as I logged on and the email guy said, “You’ve got a shitload of mail.”
“Mother, I’m not set up for this!”
“Claire, get set up for it, then. You can do this. Sit down this afternoon and put together a plan. We guaranteed delivery by the holidays. Be thankful Hanukkah’s late this year.”
“What?!” I shrieked, scrolling down to peruse my inbox.
“Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday,” Barbara explained. “Sometimes it’s quite early in the season, but this year—”
“Mother! I know about Hanukkah. I’ve got over a thousand orders here. There’s no way I can do this.”
Barbara paused. “Not alone, but you’ll get help. Hire some women from the neighborhood, put out a nice cake and some coffee and it’ll all work out.”
“You want me to set up a sweatshop at my house for suburban housewives?!”
“I said to set out a cake!” Barbara snapped.
The thought was daunting, but also exciting. In my mind I was working out the details. I’d need lira. I’d have to buy crimping beads and tools. Beads wouldn’t be a problem. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed doable if I hired a dozen neighborhood women. The only part of the equation that was missing was a business manager. There was no way I could handle packaging, shipping, and billing without screwing things up royally.
As I hung up the phone, the doorbell rang. Darcy stood at the door holding a box of cereal and snacks. “Can you help me?” she began. “We’re getting exterminated tomorrow and I need a place to park this stuff.”
My response to her question was taking the box from her arms. “I need you to run my business for the next few weeks,” I said urgently.
“I didn’t know you had a business,” she responded. “Everyone and their secret lives.”
“It’s just a temporary thing. I know this sounds bizarre, but my mother just put me in business a few hours ago,” I said as I began explaining. About twenty minutes later, Darcy was my business manager, already vetoing my first decision. I wanted to post signs with the headline, “Need Holiday Cash?”
Darcy shook her head emphatically. “Thank God I’m here. Look, no self-respecting suburban mom is going to admit she needs holiday cash.” Darcy said the word as if it were covered with vomit. “What we need to do is get on the phone and explain to people that you’re in a crisis and need help.”
“But I’m going to pay them.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Darcy explained. “They need to feel like they’re helping you out. Otherwise there’s no reason to do it.”
“Why don’t we just hire women who actually need the money?”
“Do you really want a dozen strangers in your house for the next three weeks?” Darcy asked, raising her brows. For the first time since I’d known her, her presence was commandingly energetic instead of nervous.
“Darcy, can we really do this?” I asked. “I mean, we could just email these people and tell them never mind.”
“Never mind? Why would we do that?”
That afternoon at practice, Mimi called another emergency meeting of the parents. “I have it on good information that Gunther was booted off the German team because he was busted for steroids,” she said, scanning for our reactions.
“Get there first!” shouted Leo, not especially interested in Mimi’s charges. “Leo!” Mimi snapped. “I need everyone paying attention.”
Feeling a little restless myself, I raised my hand and asked if parents still needed to attend every practice. “The season’s over in a few weeks and the holidays are hectic for everyone,” I said to a group that seemed to be in agreement.
Darcy added, “Yeah, come on, Mimi, no other team makes their parents sit through practices.”
“If we want to be a serious soccer team, I need every parent on board. If you can’t make it, Darcy, you can always send Ron. Back to the drugs. Preston told me that Gunther’s career was ended by a head injury, but someone’s lying because right here it says he tested positive for steroids.”
Loud Bobby scrunched his face to the side. “Steroids for soccer?” I reached for Mimi’s notes, but she snatched them back.
“Let me see that paper,” I demanded. “For all we know, it’s a recipe for angel food cake.”
Ignoring me, she continued. “We need to get rid of him and I mean yesterday! We’re talking about our daughters’ safety.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Are you afraid he’s going to punt the girls across the field while amped up on steroids?”
“I need you all to take this seriously. If we’re going to have any chance whatsoever of taking State Cup, we need to cut the dead weight from this team after next week’s game.”
“No fucking way!” the newly renamed Dry Drunk Dick bellowed. A judge ordered him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but he refused to do Step One, claiming that he just had to show up, not admit he was an alcoholic. “She paid her dues like every other player on this team.”
All heads turned to him quizzically. Nancy whispered, “How no one has checked this guy for a head injury is beyond me.”
“What are you talking about?” Mimi asked.
“Tandy. You can’t dump Tandy right before State Cup. I’ll fight you to the death, lady!” Dick said. “Don’t think I won’t jest ’cause yer a chick, either.”
“I’m not talking about Tandy, you fat head! I’m talking about Gunther,” Mimi said. “What’s wrong with you, we talked about this on the phone last night?!”
“Oh,
right,” he quieted.
“After the last game, we’ll all thank him for his efforts this season and tell him no one wants to go to State Cup because the girls are all so fat,” Mimi said.
“We’re not goin’ to State Cup?” Bobby shouted.
Mimi sighed, exasperated. “That’s what we tell him. Then, I’ll enroll us in the tournament with a new coach.”
“And that would be you?” Darcy asked.
Mimi nodded. “I have the license. And I did play in college. Give me two months with these girls and they’ll be warriors.”
Shit, I have necklaces to string.
Jessica said she didn’t like the sound of this. The Jennifers agreed. Gia said she thought it sounded sneaky. Nothing got by that girl.
Mimi crossed her arms. “It’s what needs to be done,” she explained. “Our girls did horribly this season. We’ve got nineteen points, and unless something dramatic happens in the next two weekends, we’ll place seventh or eighth in our division for the season.” Looking at me, she concluded, “Surely, even you can see that sucks, right, Claire?”
I sighed with exasperation. “So is this a safety issue, or are you just upset that the girls aren’t winning every game?”
“And if the team’s so terrible, what makes you think they’ll do well in State Cup?” Darcy asked.
“The difference is the coaching,” Mimi explained. “Gunther’s pissed away a season for the girls, but we can make up for it if we start training hard for State Cup now.”
“I’m sorry, Mimi,” Nancy said, “but is anyone else thinking, so what? I mean, so what if we place seventh or, God forbid, eighth? So what if we don’t win State Cup? Is the world going to come to a screeching halt?”
Several parents stared incredulously. Leo examined this strange creature before him and asked, “She sivious? This is State Cup we talkin’ ’bout.”
“You can sing your freakin’ Kumbaya shit all day long, but I’m with Mimi,” said Dick. “What’s the point if they don’t get in there and at least fight like hell to bring home the State Cup?”
“Are you sivious?!” I shouted. “I mean, serious. Are you serious? What’s the point? My daughter lost her father and had a gaping hole in her life until this team—these girls and this coach—came into her life. She talks about her teammates and practices, Gunther and tournaments constantly! And God help me, she talks about you, Mimi. She talks about your amazing Girl Power bars, and how you played soccer in college, and how even the milk at your house tastes better than ours. That’s what the point is, Dick! The point is that my daughter has found a place in the world at her most vulnerable phase of life. The point is that my insanely rigid mother is watching Telemundo at midnight and recently hung a Mexican flag in her office. The point is that my mother-in-law is back in our lives and we have something to talk about other than how much we miss my husband, her son. That’s what the point is! I don’t give a rat’s ass about winning the State Cup. I don’t care what bracket we play in or what place we come in at the end of the season. From where I’m sitting, having your daughters be a part of Rachel’s life is enough for me. My family has won. I don’t need another thing from this season. We’ve already won!”
There was a long silence. Finally Mimi spoke. “Well, Claire, you certainly have brought more than your fair share of drama to the team this season.”
“Shut up, Mimi,” said Loud Bobby of all people.
The group was still. “I was kidding!” Mimi said. “Of course, we’ve all loved having Rachel and Claire on the team. And of course, there’s more to the season than winning the State Cup, but let’s face it, winning wouldn’t suck, would it?” I could feel the fathers shifting their allegiance back to her. Or maybe I was kidding myself and it had never left her. In any case, she had them. “Let’s all give ourselves time to cool off and talk about this after Saturday’s game.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The girls won their next game, but Dick lost fifty dollars because he bet a two-point spread with one of the dads on the other team. I hadn’t known it until this game, but Dick had a small-time gambling ring going with some of the fathers in our bracket.
In the meantime, Darcy had transformed my family room into a necklace factory with folding tables set up in a horseshoe formation as if we were at a wedding banquet. She had me set up with a temporary license, and had the UPS guy scheduled to pick up orders every day at 4 p.m. And she was right about our employees. Each showed up with a placid smile and told me she was so happy she could help. That didn’t stop a single one from accepting a paycheck at the end of the day, though, Darcy noted as we cleaned up.
Darcy scheduled four-hour shifts that were as informative as they were productive. I learned that the soccer mom who had sex with a player’s father was not in fact Mimi Shasta, but a woman named Irene Shaston, whose kids now both play at Stanford. Another woman advised her friend to eat omega-3-enriched eggs to enhance her flagging libido. And one cluster of moms launched accusations that Debbony Wright bought a black market copy of the Gifted and Talented Education test from an illegal exam dealer she found in Chinatown in Los Angeles.
Another set of women ripped into a teacher for her insistence on using a red pen for grading tests after they’d shown her a study on how doing so was deleterious to children’s mental health. “She said ‘thank you for sharing’ like I was some sort of ninny,” the woman with the short curls, pale skin, and two enormous moles complained.
“That’s so like her,” an over-processed teen wannabe mother replied. “She does whatever she wants in that classroom. It’s as if none of us has any right to say boo.” The mother wore too much base makeup that didn’t quite match the color of her skin, and her hair had been bleached so many times, it had a haggard Rod Stewart look to it.
Darcy walked by them and inspected their clasps. We’d found that this was the weak link of our production line and had to redo a few. If this kept up, we’d never meet our deadline, especially since the website accepted another several hundred orders between the day the magazine hit the streets and the weekend. Still, Darcy couldn’t help getting in on the conversation. “It is her classroom,” she reminded the women.
“They’re our kids!” the mothers said in unison.
“Darcy!” said the blonde. “I know you like to tease us, but Miss Lortel is being difficult just to be difficult. All she has to do is grade papers with a purple or green pen so the kids aren’t jarred by the sight of red all over their tests.” It took all of my self-restraint not to attack her face with a Wet One. Who wears chalky pink lipstick? It looked as though she’d taken a swig of Pepto-Bismol and hadn’t bothered wiping her mouth afterward. The ad caption should read, “Got Gas?” And what was the deal with the green eye shadow? It looked like two parakeets had crash-landed on her face.
Darcy asked, “You’re afraid the kids will think it’s blood?”
“Very funny,” the helmet of curls said. Her fashion statement was that forty was the new fifty. “Darcy, be serious, what’s so hard about switching ink colors? The study said that some kids were very traumatized by the sight of red ink.”
“Why?” I couldn’t help inserting myself into the conversation.
Neither woman being a devotee of Botox, their foreheads compressed like accordions. Parakeet Eyes said, “They feel as if they’re wrong.”
“Aren’t they?” I asked. “I mean, doesn’t this Miss Lortel only red-mark the wrong answers?”
“You’re missing the point, Claire,” Helmet Curls said. “Their answers may be incorrect—”
“I think the term is validity-challenged,” Darcy interjected.
“Darcy’s the neighborhood comedienne, in case you haven’t noticed,” Helmet Curls told me.
And on and on our debate went about whether Miss Lortel should stand by her red pen or succumb to the pressures of mothers who read an article in Psychology Today. At the end of the shift, Darcy wrote their checks in red ink, and smiled as she handed them to the women
. “I hope this will help you form positive associations with red ink, ladies.”
How was it that Darcy always ended her disagreements with women with double-cheeked kisses and plans for lunch? I, on the other hand, had been tackled over a jersey, stabbed by John Hancock, and abused by the team manager.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, dear,” a mom said, leaving.
The next group was one I recognized from Rachel’s days in recreational soccer. Kim, the über soccer mom, shocked me when she went R-rated within five minutes of walking in the door. She asked how I was surviving the season with Loud Bobby.
“He’s actually not the worst of them,” I told her.
“Really?”
“He’s not in the normal faction by any means, but there are two or three dads who have him topped.”
“Well, you know what they say?” she asked with a wink. I looked blankly. She finished, “The bigger the mouth, the smaller the pecker.”
Darcy walked by just as that line was being delivered and laughed. “Kim McNamara! Get you away from your kids and you’re a regular potty mouth.”
“How is it on the dark side?” Kim asked.
“Oh, it’s dark,” I replied.
“Are you guys done yet? When does the season even end?” Kim pulled out a chair and seated herself at the center of the table, where the bride would sit if this were her rehearsal dinner.
Darcy placed a plate of beads in front of Kim and answered the question. “It never ends. Season is a misnomer. We’re lifers.”
“Well, Rachel loves it,” I added. “So it’s worth it, but Darcy’s right, it is a huge commitment.”
A few more mothers from the old team trickled in, and after I looked at the table I asked, “Is this the soccer moms shift?”
Darcy nodded. “Also known as opposition research.”
“What?”
“We hear a bunch of stuff on our end, and they’ve got their own rumor mill on rec, so I figured we’d get the two camps together and see what comes up,” Darcy explained.
After about an hour, I realized Darcy was right. We learned not only about soccer, but who had affairs, who had cosmetic surgery, and who was still holding grudges over bidding wars at last year’s school auction. It was all done very skillfully. The women knew that gossip was unseemly, so they packaged it with the pretty paper and bows of concern. As in: “I am so concerned about Felicity’s butt implants. When Petra had them done, they got infected and it was a nightmare.”
Field of Schemes Page 25
