Playing the Field

by Foster, Zoe

  ‘Fuck me! Mum, what the hell are those things on your legs?’

  Mum, who always took more notice of Col’s opinion than mine, looked at her pants, and then, grumbling and huffing, removed them so that she was standing in her white lacy knickers.

  ‘Colette, I don’t know what you think is attractive about that gutter mouth.’ She folded the offending pants and placed them back in her suitcase. ‘There. Are you happy now? S’pose you’d prefer me to wear a ball gown, the way you carry on.’

  ‘Mum, they’re lovely. Honestly. It’s just that, well, maybe some plain black pants would be more … suitable? Oh, and I have a good top you can wear!’ Col took off down the hall to her bedroom while Mum begrudgingly pulled some black pants out of her suitcase and put them on.

  I didn’t realise they had stirrups.

  Oh, and look – there are enormous gold zips on the front, too.

  Part of me wanted to plant a bow in her hair, hand her a mic and let her be the eighties pop sensation she knew deep down she was meant to be.

  We arrived at the stadium and were met by Frank, who ushered us up to the members area, where we were greeted with pies, fries (with tomato sauce and ketchup: Frank’s rules) and red wine. His mum was running late, which was good, as it was all quite hectic getting settled before the starting siren blew.

  I watched the cheerleaders with great interest; they all seemed to be exactly the same height and weight, and to patronise the same hairdresser. Their knee-high white boots and lycra midriff tops troubled me deeply: they looked better suited to a dimmed stage dotted with poles than to a football field.

  ‘So, Janine, how long are you staying with your beautiful daughters?’ Frank was playing Ultimate Guy in front of Mum.

  ‘Oh, just the weekend, Frank. Have to be back Monday because Godfrey’s not too good at minding the newborns.’

  ‘I love your top, by the way. Colette told me you were a very snappy dresser and now I can see for myself.’

  I rolled my eyes. Col snorted at his sycophancy. Mum put her hand on her chest and gasped.

  ‘Oh, Frank, that’s the thing! It’s not even my top! I had a very smart pair of jeans that I wanted to wear but they insis—’

  ‘Hello there!’ An elegant, feminine voice piped up from behind, and a beautiful face framed by choppy salt-and-pepper hair, and punctuated with vibrant pinky-coral lipstick and kind dark blue eyes, appeared. She was wearing black man-style pants, a white blouse with its collar up, a large, glorious turquoise necklace and shiny, heavy-looking silver drop earrings. She was very, very chic.

  ‘The traffic! Used to be able to get here in a spiffy twenty minutes, now it takes me almost an hour! Madness.’

  She shook her head and placed a large brown leather handbag on the spare seat next to Frank. He kissed her on the cheek and passed her a glass of wine.

  ‘Ladies, this is Kerrie; Kerrie this is Janine, Jean and the beautiful Colette.’

  ‘Frank!’ Colette blushed and held out her hand to Kerrie. ‘Lovely to meet you, Kerrie.’

  ‘And you. I’ve heard a lot about you in a very short space of time. Couldn’t wait to meet you.’ Her eyes sparkled mischievously. I immediately understood where Josh got it. She kissed Col on the cheek, taking her in approvingly, before shifting her blue eyes to Mum and me.

  ‘Janine, gorgeous earrings. Look at them, would you? Jane, nice to meet you.’ She nodded, enthusiastically moving her eyebrows up and down at each of us.

  ‘It’s Jean, Mum,’ Frank said.

  People always called me Jane. I’d tired of correcting people, and explaining I was named Jean because Mum had an obsession with France when she had me. Ditto Colette. Not surprisingly, our ‘weird’ French names provided the perfect fodder for schoolyard teasing in a place where everyone was called Jenny or Kim or Rebecca.

  ‘Sorry, Jean, got the hearing of a wombat.’ She smiled warmly, sincerely, and a surge of guilt tore through me for wishing Mum was as elegant, witty and stylish as Kerrie Fox.

  Suddenly, Kerrie squealed. ‘Oh, look! They’re coming on!’

  My eyes flew to the field. Sure enough, Josh’s team were running on, only they were so small down there that I couldn’t tell which one he was. Reading my mind, Col piped up.

  ‘Frank, which number is Josh?’

  ‘Number one,’ Kerrie said proudly. ‘He’s the full-back, up under the goalpost there. Obviously the best player on the team. No bias whatsoever. Isn’t that right, Frankie?’

  Now that I knew who he was, I couldn’t take my eyes off him: his legs, his back, his bum, his face when it came up on the big screen. He was the vision of athleticism, screaming up and down the field, catching high balls and even, at one point, scoring. My absence from the conversation wasn’t noticed. Frank and Colette had swapped seats so Kerrie and Mum could chat; they barely even watched the game, they were so deep in conversation about purebreds and Pomeranians and Persians.

  I remained silent, watching the field as if I understood what was going on. Really I was just visually marking Josh, but no one seemed to notice, so I didn’t need to pretend otherwise. Half-time came, and with it more wine. I downed mine so quickly, anxious about seeing Josh and meeting The Amazing Tess at the after-match party, that Mum gave me a ‘look’.

  ‘That’s not very ladylike, Jean,’ she said, pretending to whisper but actually speaking quite audibly.

  The Bulls lost, which Frank kindly explained was the fault of someone called ‘Bippo’, and a complete tragedy. I watched him and Col as we gathered our things and set off for the function. I’d noticed that whenever he’d put his arm along the back of her seat, or said something adoring and patted her on the knee, she’d slowly but surely wriggled out of his affection zone. She wasn’t into him. This would be the last time we ever saw him. Which meant this could be the last time I saw Josh. Bugger.

  ROUND 9

  Tess vs Any Other Female

  The function room was ye olde style grand, with roof-to-floor blood-red curtains, sea-green and white patterned carpet, and gold fixtures galore. Furnishing the room were not very many chairs, lots of tables with infant-sized meat pies, the occasional cheese platter, bored-looking wait staff and what appeared to be around three billion attractive blonde women.

  I took them in as fast as I could without staring. One gaggle had Bulls-jersey-clad children racing around them, smashing into their legs and demanding lemonade. The women carried on with their talking and wine, stopping only to tell the children to ‘go back to the creche!’, which appeared to be located at the far end of the room, behind a partition – or, at least, I guessed it was, as that’s where children spilled from, like froth on boiling pasta.

  I noticed a nectarine-sized rock on the finger of one woman – a tall, Nordic-looking girl who was breathtakingly beautiful in that disturbing, bad-for-your-self-confidence way. Make that two rings of the stone-fruit variety. Three. Okay, so these women would be the players’ wives. Wow. From their incy-wincy bums and lusty-busty cleavage, it seemed impossible that some of them had actually grown small humans inside. Maybe they knew the doctor who delivered Victoria Beckham’s babies. Via her ear.

  Just to the right of the pram-pushers was a group of long-haired, loud, thickly glossed girls who appeared unburdened by large, heavy rings or three-year-olds. The girlfriends? One looked to be no older than twenty. She was pretty, so pretty. All chestnut hair and green eyes and ballet slippers. She was the exception. A few wore boots and dresses, and some wore jeans – but the denim was merely the bread in their outfit sandwiches, helpfully holding in place the same four-inch heels, lacquered nails, bust-drenched singlet tops and constellation of Tiffany jewellery favoured by the mums. It was a chilly autumn evening but this didn’t inhibit bare legs and arms. Not all of them were housing merely tendons and bones, either; there were all shapes and sizes, just as there was a range of ages and flashy handbags amongst the group.

  As a collective, these women were a sight to behold. No wonder they la
nded the country’s most famous and successful sportsmen. It seemed most were the epitome of Hot Girl: everything about their appearance was finely constructed to make them as attractive as possible to the opposite sex, from long hair to skinny-leg jeans, terrifyingly spiky high heels and an emphasis on cleavage. I touched my brown hair, and considered my paltry B-cup and pale skin. I wouldn’t last sixty seconds in that group, and if I did it would only be to do up someone’s zipper or fetch them another drink. I took in their gesticulations, their long, square-tipped nails and their immaculate eye makeup. It looked a hard world to be a part of – like trying to fly nonchalantly into a beehive unnoticed when you’re a fruit bat.

  It occurred to me that I was being granted access to a secret world, a world that usually exists only for people in weekly magazines or page 9 gossip. This made it extremely difficult not to stare, like when someone says, ‘Don’t look now, but the hot guy behind you has taken his shirt off and is rubbing honey all over his chest.’

  ‘The boys take forever in the sheds,’ Kerrie said with a wave of her arm, interrupting my study session. ‘Josh is usually last, doing his hair and putting on his makeup.’ She winked at Mum and me.

  I turned to check on Col, and saw her standing with Frank, who was on his phone, and a tall, genetically flawless blonde. A tall, genetically flawless blonde called Tess Clifton – I recognised her from my Internet research. Even from behind I could tell Tess was employing the kind of big hand gestures and laughter and dramatic hair-flicking that Col despises. And from the glazed look in Col’s eyes, I could tell that her brain was slowly frying. She caught me looking and, using only a split-second widening of her eyes, issued an urgent SOS. I nodded towards Mum and shrugged, smiling smugly. Col ever so slightly snapped her head and pursed her lips: the non-vocal equivalent of Get The Fuck Over Here Now.

  I didn’t want to meet Tess. It would only depress me. But then, some part of me needed to meet her, wanted to study her, to know every morsel there was to know about her, so that I could figure out what made her so special. I looked to Mum, who was having a glorious time with Kerrie. She’d be fine without me.

  ‘Tess, I want you to meet my sister, Jean.’ As soon as I arrived, Col interrupted whatever long tangent Tess was on, to draw me into the conversation. I was dying to know why Col was so pained in Tess’s presence. Was the girl stupid? Bad breath? Infuriatingly patronising?

  One look at Tess’s red, lazy eyes answered my question: she was pissed as a newt.

  ‘Oh, hiiiiii,’ she said, kissing me on the cheek. ‘God, you two don’t look anything alike – different dads?’

  Ouch.

  She backtracked in the way that implied she didn’t need to, being her, but would for our sake.

  ‘I mean, you’re both absolutely stunning, dongetmewrong, but, just so different!’ She giggled and swigged from her champagne. I smiled and tried to ignore Col aggressively pinching my arm.

  I was amazed that despite the fact Tess had obviously polished off a small French region’s worth of grapes, her presentation remained magnificent. Her Hitchcock-blonde hair was full, thick, long and impeccably blow-dried. I thought of my plain brown hair, and the blow-dry I thought was perfect until I saw hers. How did you get those flicks and waves? She was probably born with them. Same with the perfectly applied smoky-eye. And the engagement-ring-sized rocks in her ears.

  ‘So, Jane, your sister tells me you design jewellery.’ She flicked her hair to one side, all the better for showing off that outrageous lobe candy, and looked at me with her head tilted.

  ‘It’s Jean,’ Col interrupted.

  ‘Um, yes, well, I mean, a little bit, yes,’ I smiled self-deprecatingly.

  ‘Ohhh, that’s so cute.’

  Awesome. My career had just been reduced to one word, and it was the same word used to describe baby ducks. Tess looked back to Col.

  ‘You have awesome style – very Nicole Richie. I just love it. Do you work in fashion at all? You must, with that style. Tell me everything.’

  Uh, no, Colette doesn’t, but I just told you I did. I took a deep breath and tried not to be offended. She knew naught about me, and her booze-saturated off-the-cuff remarks meant nothing. I was not to take it to heart, I quietly reassured my wilting confidence.

  A tall, beautiful brunette with a long fringe, swishy hair and dark, heavily made-up eyes suddenly interrupted without so much as a look at Col or me. She was wearing a short black dress and black over-the-knee boots, and clutching a red wine and a shiny mobile phone in one hand, and a pack of Cartier cigarettes in the other.

  ‘Ummmmm, so Morgan is totes drunk and can’t remember where she put her new bag. Did you have it? She thinks someone took it from the box and she’s looked everywhere and she’s losing her shit ’cos she only bought it today.’

  Tess rolled her eyes and sighed.

  ‘Jesus, she’s always doing this. I told her she shouldn’t drink white wine. No, I didn’t pick it up from the box. Tell her to chill, it’ll show up.’

  Fringey nodded and, giving Col and me a quick glance, turned and disappeared back into the crowd.

  ‘So,’ Col asked, clearing her throat, mountains of icing sugar coating her words, ‘what did you say you do, Tess?’

  Tess closed her eyes and smiled, ‘Well.’ Small pause. ‘I actually want to be a TV host.’ Eyes opened for effect. Dramatic pause (for the compliments and/or applause to roll in) …

  Col folded her arms, smiling wickedly.

  ‘Wow. You’d sure be great at that. Let me guess, you’d do a sports show! Why, it just makes sense, with your dad being the chairman of the club, and Josh and all …’ Oh, Col was evil when she was having fun with her prey.

  Tess laughed, missing any derision.

  ‘Oh God, no! There’s way too much football in my life as it is. I always tell Josh he chose the wrong sport: far more money in Formula 1, not to mention all that travel …’ Her eyes drifted dreamily for a second before snapping back. ‘No, I’m about to start as guest host on a kids’ TV show on cable called Betty’s Place, and Daddy’s sure he can get me a full-time spot, what with all his contacts at the station and all.’ She smiled as if we knew exactly what she was talking about. I nodded.

  ‘You’d be super. You’re just made for the camera – such pretty eyes,’ Col said, sprinkling her comment with a brand of sarcasm only a sibling could pick up.

  Suddenly Tess’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Josh!’ she dumped her empty glass on the table to her right, hoicked her bag (enormous, gold and tan, Gucci) back up onto her shoulder, and pushed aggressively through the crowd to reach him. Frank, who was finishing his phone call, was one of her casualties, stepping back to let her fly past.

  ‘She must have picked up on the scent of a platinum credit card,’ he joked.

  I tried not to snigger, but Col let out a loud, boisterous laugh.

  ‘Sorry to leave you with that,’ he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Tess’s trail. ‘She’s even worse when she’s pissed, if it’s possible.’

  ‘Ohhh, come now, she’s not that bad,’ Col offered. Frank raised one eyebrow. She smiled. ‘I don’t mean to speak out of school, Frank, but how the fuck did she and Josh end up together? She’s torture.’

  ‘Oh, trust me, I struggle with it every time I’m forced to endure another story about how massively and totally incredibly famous and awesome she’s about to be,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She didn’t used to be that bad,’ he continued, looking around to make sure neither of the parties being discussed was in range. ‘She’s gotten worse the more famous Josh gets. So insecure. Overcompensates. And you know her dad is Josh’s boss, right? Anyway. They’ve been on–off, on–off for years, but between you and me, I think Josh is about to pull out his get-out-of-jail-free card. I told him to prepare for a delivery of decapitated wildlife.’

  ‘Really?’ My mouth ejected the word with speed and with excitement but without permission. I immediately regretted it; it gave away too mu
ch. Frank looked at me, a slow smile spreading over his face.

  ‘Why, Jeanie – fancy stepping in to take Tess’s spot?’ He poked me on the collarbone and made cooing noises before launching into a chant: ‘Jeanie’s got a cru-sh, Jeanie’s got a cru-sh …’

  ‘Frank, cut it out,’ I said, blushing furiously.

  ‘Who doesn’t have a crush on Josh?’ Col stepped in to protect me.

  ‘Not you, I hope,’ he said to Colette. ‘You’re meant to have a crush on me.’

  She squirmed noticeably. Frank saw it.

  ‘Did you just cringe? You did! You cringed!’ he was pointing at Col and shaking his head, smiling incredulously. ‘I can’t believe you just cringed at having a crush on me.’

  ‘Don’t be a schmuck,’ she said dismissively.

  Frank looked over his shoulder, still shaking his head in apparent disbelief. ‘Get ready, girls – the much better looking Fox is on his way over.’

  I took a deep breath.

  As Josh walked over to our little group, he was stopped by people every half-step. Tess stood by his side, smiling as though it were she who had played the game, and perhaps created Josh in a laboratory, too. Just as he neared us, Kerrie swooped in from stage left to give her boy a big kiss and a hug. I could just hear her telling him he had played a wonderful game, despite the result, and asking whether he was okay, and had they fed him, and what on earth was that bandage around his wrist.

  He nodded, telling her he was okay, before dumping his enormous bag and rotating his shoulder a few times, wincing. Kerrie skittled off to get her star progeny a drink, and Tess immediately put her perfectly French-manicured fingers – they had to be acrylics, they were far too long and square – on his shoulder and gave it a small rub. He looked at her and smiled, and she kissed him on the lips. As he pulled his head away, he saw me watching them. I snapped my head down. Ooooh, that’s not good. Creepy that he busted me watching them kiss. I kept my head down for a few seconds before slowly raising it to face Col; but my eyes remained locked in Josh’s direction. He was looking at me, bemused, with those blue, blue eyes. I melted in the same way a front-row fan melts when Enrique Inglesias sings half a lyric in her direction, mid-concert: I knew it meant nothing, but I so wanted to believe it did.