by Tom Perrotta
“Hey, get a load of this.”
What he wanted them to see was the white stretch limo parked in front of the Carusos’. A small crowd of curious neighbors had gathered around to admire the vehicle—it was gleaming in the dusk, giving off a soft shimmery luster—some of them chatting with the uniformed driver, others circling the car, peering into the windows and kicking the tires, as if they were thinking about buying one for themselves.
“Must be the prom,” Ruth’s mother said.
Ruth’s father was a man who liked to know what was going on. Whenever an ambulance or fire truck appeared on Peony Road, no matter what time of day or night, he headed out to investigate, buttonholing as many bystanders and emergency workers as he could, then returning home with the bulletin: Mrs. Rapinksi was short of breath, it was a grease fire in the oven, the old man felt dizzy. Ruth wasn’t surprised to see him putting on his shoes.
“This oughta be interesting,” he said.
“Who’s his date?” her mother asked. “Is it that big girl? The baseball player?”
“How should I know?” Ruth snapped.
Her parents headed outside, unable to resist the glamorous pull of prom night. Ruth stayed in, staring out the window, wishing she had the courage to return to the kitchen and continue loading the dishwasher but finding it impossible to turn away from the spectacle.
The limo driver—he was an older man with a carefully expressionless face—had just pulled out a handkerchief and begun rubbing at something on the windshield when the people around him began to clap, as if applauding his diligence. It took Ruth a moment to realize that Paul and Missy must have just emerged from the house, though she couldn’t see them from where she stood. Even with her face pressed against the glass, her field of vision only encompassed the bottom half of the front lawn, where Paul’s father and another man—a burly guy in a windbreaker who must have been Missy’s dad—were kneeling and snapping flash pictures.
Onlookers shouted out jokey-sounding comments that Ruth couldn’t quite make out; she saw her own mother and father laughing on the sidewalk. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore, the sense of being cut off from the action, of being stuck in here while it was all happening out there.
She headed for the front door, hesitating for a moment as she took stock of her unflattering outfit—baggy sweatpants and an old South-side Johnny T-shirt inherited from her sister—nothing you’d want to be seen wearing in public. She wondered if there was time to at least grab a jean jacket from her room or run a brush through her hair, but there wasn’t.
She stepped onto her porch just in time to see Paul and Missy making their way toward the limo, where the driver was waiting, holding the back door open and extending an eloquent gesture of invitation with his free hand. They stopped by the curb, posing for one last photo, Paul bulky and imposing in his rented tux, Missy a bit awkward in a sleeveless orange dress with a poufy skirt, a tight bodice—an unwieldy corsage had been pinned directly over her left breast—and spaghetti straps that emphasized the powerful girth of her shoulders. Her blond French twist seemed strangely luminous, almost iridescent, as she kissed Paul on the cheek, straightened his bow tie, and then ducked into the car. He was just about to follow her when he turned suddenly, as if drawn by Ruth’s gaze, and looked straight at her.
That moment of eye contact couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two, just long enough for Ruth to see that he’d gotten a haircut—nothing drastic, just a trim of a couple inches all around—and to notice his peculiar expression, as if his face had gotten stuck halfway between a fake smile for the cameras and a mute apology to her.
Or maybe she was imagining the apology part, because what did he have to apologize for? Ruth wasn’t his girlfriend, never had been. They’d just had some fun, and now it was over. She had no right to be jealous, no right to wish herself inside the limo in a pretty dress after having just been applauded by her neighbors, no right to call out and ask him to reconsider, to remember how he’d stroked her hair and told her that she was the kind of girl guys wrote love songs about.
He held his arms close to his body and shrugged, as if to say there was nothing he could do. She had the feeling he was about to say something, but the limo driver stepped in before he had the chance, placing his hand on Paul’s shoulder and guiding him gently into the car. He was still looking at her as the door slammed shut, his face baffled and unhappy, then lost behind the tinted window.
Who Do We Appreciate?
RUTH ARRIVED LATE AND MILDLY HUNGOVER FOR HER DAUGHTER’S soccer game on Saturday morning. Smiling queasily, she made her way down the sideline, nodding hello to the more punctual parents, many of whom she hadn’t seen in quite a while. A few of the spectators were sitting in collapsible chairs, but most were on their feet, chatting in sociable clumps as they sipped from state-of-the-art, stainless-steel travel mugs, giving the whole scene the air of an outdoor cocktail party.
As usual, Ruth’s ex-husband, Frank, had removed himself from the talkers, his attention focused solely on the game. He stood like the baseball player he’d once been—knees bent, hands resting on his thighs—observing the action with an expression of intense absorption that Ruth might have mistaken for disgust if she hadn’t known him so well.
“Morning,” she said, tugging gently on his sleeve. “How we doing?”
“Tied at two,” he muttered, shooting her a reproachful glance. “First half’s almost over. Maggie thought you forgot.”
“I overslept.”
“Ever hear of an alarm clock?”
“Didn’t go off,” she explained, leaving out the part about how she’d unplugged the thing in a fit of three-in-the-morning insomniac misery. Because, really, what was worse than lying wide-awake in the dark, watching your life drip away, one irreplaceable minute after another?
“Come on, blue!” Frank bellowed through the loudspeaker of his cupped hands. “Move the ball! You’re dragging out there!”
Ruth squinted at the field, cursing herself for forgetting her sunglasses. She’d actually had them on the first time she left the house, but she’d decided to dart back inside for one final pit stop, knowing all too well that once she got to the game, her only alternative would be an off-kilter Port-A-Potty at the edge of the woods. She must have removed her shades to use the toilet—not that she couldn’t pee perfectly well in the dark—because they were no longer on her face when she pulled into the gravel parking area at Shackamackan Park.
“Candace!” Frank had both hands above his head and was waving them like one of those guys with the sticks on the airport tarmac. “You’re sweeper! Get back!”
Candace Roper, a very pretty girl whom Maggie had known since preschool, had drifted up near midfield, apparently unaware that one of her opponents—they wore shiny yellow jerseys with the word Comets emblazoned on the front—had slipped behind her and would have a clear path to the goal if her teammates could get her the ball. Candace glanced over her shoulder, clapped one hand over her mouth in guilty surprise, then scampered back into position.
“Jesus,” he said. “We’re sleepwalking out here.”
“Where’s Eliza?”
Frank jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Ruth turned to see her older daughter sitting at a picnic table beneath a fiery red maple that had already lost half its leaves. She was engrossed in a magazine, most likely a back issue of O or Martha Stewart Living that Frank’s lady friend, Meredith, made a point of passing along, knowing how much she enjoyed them. Ruth waved and called out a greeting, but Eliza didn’t notice—probably too busy boning up on recipes for low-fat crème brulée or color schemes to beat those stubborn winter blahs. Ruth watched her for a moment, struggling against the combination of exasperation and pity that Eliza so often provoked in her. She was fourteen going on forty, for God’s sake. Wasn’t it past time for a little adolescent rebellion?
“Come on, ref!” Frank slapped his thigh. “Open your eyes! She’s throwing elbows!”
“Easy,
” Ruth warned him. Both her daughters had recently complained about their father’s obnoxious behavior at soccer games. “You’re not allowed to harass the referees.”
“Number fourteen’s going to hurt someone!” he continued, as if Ruth hadn’t said a word. “She’s playing like a thug!”
He yelled this loudly enough that the thug in question—a big, rosy-cheeked girl who wore her blond hair in Valkyrie-style braids—turned and gaped at him, her arms spread wide in a gesture of puzzled innocence.
“That’s right, honey!” Frank jabbed an accusatory finger. “I’m watching you!”
“Enough,” Ruth said. “She’s just a kid.”
She spoke more forcefully this time, and Frank actually listened. His expression turned sheepish, and he shook his head, as if trying to clear away the cobwebs.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get a little worked up.”
“No kidding.”
“It’s crazy. These Bridgeton girls are a bunch of bruisers. What’re they putting in the milk over there?”
It was true, Ruth realized. The Comets were unusually big for their age—aside from one nimble Asian girl, they looked like a tribe of Viking warrior maidens—and they played a tough physical game, lots of pushing and shoving and body-checking. But you had to give Maggie’s team credit; what they lacked in size they made up for in quickness and skill, frequently beating their opponents to the ball and moving upfield in a rat-a-tat-tat series of pinpoint passes. If not for several spectacular but risky saves by the Comets’ goalie, who had no qualms about coming way out of the net to challenge the shooter, Stonewood Heights would have held a commanding lead.
Ruth was especially impressed by her daughter’s performance. Maggie had always been a natural athlete, but in the past she’d seemed oddly tentative in the field, too polite for her own good. If a girl on the other team wanted the ball badly enough, Maggie would just stand aside and let her have it. Today, though, she was playing with a competitive fire that took Ruth by surprise, a beady-eyed intensity uncannily similar to her father’s. She was all over the field, leading the breaks on offense, helping out on defense, fighting fiercely for control of the ball. She talked a lot during the game, barking incomprehensible instructions to her teammates—she wore a mouthpiece to protect her orthodontia—who seemed to understand exactly what she wanted from them.
“Wow,” said Ruth. “She’s come a long way.”
Frank nodded. “She’s been like this all season.”
UNTIL HER divorce, Ruth had been a dutiful soccer mom, surrendering countless Saturday mornings to the dubious pleasures of watching little kids kick a ball up and down a grassy field, often in unpleasant weather. Now that Frank had the girls on Saturday, though, he’d become point man for weekend sporting events, a piece of parental turf Ruth had surrendered without complaint. God knew she spent enough time ferrying the girls back and forth to various lessons, practices, and friends’ houses during the rest of the week.
Besides, Frank enjoyed the games more than she did, especially once Maggie began qualifying for the stronger teams. In the past couple of years, he’d become her advisor, practice partner, and biggest fan; besides taking her to numerous high-school and college games, he supervised her development, enrolling her in instructional clinics and expensive summer programs (this past July, she’d spent two weeks at a sleepaway camp run by former members of the USA Women’s National Team). Eliza—a lackluster athlete who’d quit sports as soon as she was given a choice—frequently complained about Frank’s favoritism toward her little sister, how all he could talk about was Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, soccer, soccer, soccer.
The irony of this was not lost on Ruth, who remembered quite vividly just how disappointed Frank had been to have a second daughter, rather than a son he could “play ball with.” He used this phrase all the time, as if male children existed for the sole purpose of playing ball with their fathers. He pressured Ruth to reconsider the two-child policy that had been in place since the beginning of their marriage, and changed his mind about going in for the vasectomy he’d agreed to get once they reached their quota.
In retrospect, Ruth could see that Maggie’s birth had marked the beginning of the end of their marriage. Slowly but inexorably, Frank began drifting away. Without consulting her, he signed up for graduate courses in Education, and threw himself into his studies with an energy that would have seemed admirable under other circumstances, earning his Master’s in Administration in only two years while holding down a full-time teaching job. Only his family life suffered, but Ruth understood that that was the whole point—he’d gone back to school precisely so he could get the hell out of that house full of females, away from the unendurable torment of not having a boy to play ball with.
But now he had a girl to play ball with, and everything was forgiven. Ruth didn’t begrudge him the pleasure, or his closeness to Maggie, not anymore. As far as she was concerned, he was welcome to stand out in the rain and scream at the refs to his heart’s content, as long as it allowed her to spend her Saturday mornings waking up slowly in a warm, quiet house. This privilege had seemed doubly luxurious during the dark days of last spring’s Sex Ed scandal, when running the gauntlet of concerned soccer parents ranked somewhere beneath oral surgery on Ruth’s list of Fun Things to Do.
Maggie had seemed perfectly fine with this parental division of labor until a couple of months ago, when she’d been chosen to play for the Stonewood Stars, the town’s elite traveling team for girls eleven and under. It was a high honor, and it had made her happier than Ruth had ever seen her. She slept in her team jersey—royal blue with a white star over the heart—and wore it every day in the yard, where she spent an hour dribbling between cones and kicking the ball against the side of the garage. And every Friday, just before Frank came to take her and Eliza for the weekend, Maggie would remind Ruth about the game on Saturday, and beg her to please come and watch her play, and this week Ruth had finally run out of excuses.
THE SCORE was still tied at halftime, but the Stars seemed relaxed and silly on the sideline, as if they’d already won. Several players were fussing over a black Lab puppy with a purple bandana around its neck; three others were teaching a dance routine—it combined elements of the Macarena, the Swim, and the Bump—to their coaches, an incongruous pair who seemed genuinely interested in mastering the complicated sequence of moves. After a moment of uncertainty, Ruth recognized the bulkier of the two men as John Roper, Candace’s dad, though he’d lost most of his hair and put on about fifty pounds since she’d first seen him dropping off his daughter at Little Learners seven years ago. She didn’t know the other coach—he was younger, unexpectedly hippie-ish for Stonewood Heights, a small compact man whose dark hair could easily have been gathered into a respectable ponytail.
Oblivious to the festivities, Maggie sat on the grass nearby, caught up in conversation with her friend, Nadima, a Pakistani-American girl with huge brown eyes and disconcertingly skinny legs. Nadima was scowling thoughtfully, nodding the way you do when you want your friend to know that you understand what she’s saying and sympathize with her position, even if you don’t completely agree with her. Ruth approached cautiously, hoping she might be able to overhear a few scraps of their conversation—they looked so endearingly serious, like grown women discussing a complicated relationship or a thorny problem at work—but her cover was blown by Hannah Friedman, who glanced up while scratching the puppy’s belly.
“Hi, Mrs. Maggie’s mother!” she called out, in a loud, stagey voice. Unlike most of the girls on the team—they were eleven and under, after all—Hannah had already begun to develop real breasts and an annoying adolescent personality to go along with them.
“Hi,” Ruth replied, uncomfortably aware of several faces turning in her direction at once. “You girls are doing great.”
With a startled cry of delight, Maggie scrambled to her feet and rushed over to her mother, greeting her with a hug several orders of magnitude stronger than usual. Ruth squeeze
d back, feeling the clamminess of her daughter’s skin through the mesh weave of her jersey.
“Mommy!” Maggie’s voice sounded as theatrical as Hannah’s, but her eyes were full of honest emotion. “Thanks for coming.”
“Happy to be here,” Ruth told her. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
Maggie stepped back from the embrace, tugging at her uniform to get everything back in order. Ruth was unexpectedly moved by the sight of her, as if she were being offered a glimpse of two Maggies at once: the little girl she still was—a dirty-kneed tomboy straight out of Norman Rockwell—and the happy, confident young woman she was already on her way to becoming.
“Did you see when I scored?” she asked, kicking an imaginary ball. “The goalie dove, but it went right through her hands.”
Ruth frowned an apology. “I’m sorry, honey, I got here a little late. But I can’t believe how well you’re playing. You’re like the Energizer Bunny out there. I’m so proud of you.”
“You should be,” said a man’s voice. “She’s our spark plug.”
Ruth turned and saw the long-haired coach approaching with a friendly expression and a slight bounce in his step, probably a byproduct of the dance lesson.
“Can I interest you in an apple slice?” he asked, extending a Tupperware container. “The girls barely made a dent.”
Maggie took one, but Ruth declined.
“You sure?” The coach looked a bit put out by her refusal. “They’re nice and fresh. I squeeze lemon juice on ’em so they don’t turn brown.”
“Good thinking,” said Ruth. “Can’t go wrong with lemon juice.”
Nodding as if she’d uttered a profound truth, the coach shifted the container to his left hand and extended his right.
“Tim Mason. I’m the fearless leader of this motley crew.”
They shook. His hand was unusually large and a lot warmer than hers.
