The Abstinence Teacher

by Tom Perrotta

  Pastor Dennis turned to Tim.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You’re an inspiration to everyone in this room.”

  Tim shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “It really wasn’t a big deal,” he explained.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Pastor Dennis told Jay. “Any time a man sticks his neck out for the Lord, trust me, that is a very big deal.”

  ABBY COULDN’T understand why Tim didn’t have satellite radio in his car. As she frequently pointed out, her mother had XM in her Volvo and her stepdad had Sirius in his Lexus, and both services had top-forty channels way cooler than the crappy FM station she was forced to listen to in the Saturn now that Tim had banned her iPod (he’d gotten sick of waiting for her to remove the earbuds every time he asked a question). Even so, her scorn for the idiot deejays and the tacky commercials didn’t stop her from turning on WRZO before they were even out of the driveway, cranking up the volume and singing along with the soulless ballad that came blasting out of his tinny sound system.

  Tim made an effort to humor her—he hated being maneuvered into the role of Uptight Dad—but he couldn’t help sensing something slightly hostile in the way she closed her eyes and swayed in her seat, a deliberate attempt to shut him out, or at least keep the conversation to a minimum. They hadn’t seen each other in a week; it wouldn’t kill her to talk to him for a few minutes. He waited for the song to end, then lowered the volume. Abby opened her mouth to protest, then decided to let it go.

  “So,” he said. “How was school this week?”

  “All right.”

  “Anything interesting happen?”

  “Not really.”

  “Anything funny?”

  “It was just school, Dad.”

  They enacted this tooth-pulling ritual every week without a whole lot of variation. He’d hoped things would improve when she moved to the front seat—she’d only gotten the pediatrician’s okay a month ago—but having her right next to him only made him that much more aware of how little they had to talk about. These rides had been a lot easier last year, when a couple of her teammates carpooled with them—Tim had found it both amusing and instructive to listen to the three girls squeezed together in the backseat, laughing and gossiping the whole way—but neither Natalie nor Jess had qualified for the A team. Tim still missed those girls, Natalie in particular, a sweet goofy kid who would sometimes forget where she was and start turning cartwheels on the soccer field, and who thought it was hilarious to call him “Coachie-Poo.”

  “Take any tests?” The only thing worse than interrogating her like this was sitting in silence, waiting for her to volunteer some information about her life.

  “Just math.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Eighty-seven.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “My teacher’s kind of mean, though.”

  “Don’t tell me. Ms. Holly, right?”

  “She’s Social Studies. Mrs. Harris is Math.”

  “Harris, that’s right. I got them confused.”

  Tim always felt himself at a disadvantage, discussing school with Abby. The decision to enroll her at Elmwood Academy had been made without his participation; he’d only been notified after the fact. Even now, her second year there, he still hadn’t visited the campus or met any of her teachers. All he really knew was that Elmwood had a stellar reputation—“nurturing but academically challenging,” was the word on the street—and cost nearly as much as a top-notch private college.

  “They both start with H,” Abby conceded. “But Holly’s young and nice and Harris is old and crabby.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “You better.” There was a note of affectionate teasing in her voice that cheered him up a bit. “There’s gonna be a quiz.”

  “You still like English best?”

  “It’s not called English. It’s Language Arts.”

  “Back in my day, we called it English.”

  “When was that, the Middle Ages?”

  “Ha-ha. So what are you studying in Language Arts?”

  “We’re doing a unit on biography. This week we wrote an essay on the Man I Admire Most.”

  “Man?” Tim was surprised. From what he’d heard Elmwood was a pretty PC place. “Not person?”

  “We did the Woman I Admire Most two weeks ago.”

  “Oh. Who’d you choose for that?”

  She hesitated.

  “Mom.”

  He nodded, taking this in.

  “Hey, that’s great. Did, uh, everyone pick a parent or grandparent?”

  “Not everyone. This one girl did Condoleezza Rice.”

  “So what did you say about your mother?”

  “I don’t know.” Abby sounded irritated, like he’d asked an unfair question. “Just, you know, how nice she is.”

  Tim didn’t press for details. He could easily imagine Abby’s portrait of a noble single mother who goes back to work full-time after her irresponsible husband falls apart and the bank takes their house away. Times are hard, but she keeps her spirits up, never complains, not even about the shabby apartment that’s the only place she can afford, or the pathetic Mercury Tracer that keeps breaking down on her. The story comes complete with a Cinderella ending: the woman goes on a blind date with a friend of a friend, a wealthy lawyer who falls in love with her at first sight, then whisks her and her child away to a suburban castle where they live affluently ever after.

  “What about the man?” he asked, as if he were simply curious, as if he weren’t already imagining a piece of wide-lined paper, and a young girl’s careful cursive: My parents are divorced, but my Dad is a huge presence in my life. He coaches my soccer team, and all the girls love him. “Who’d you pick for that?”

  Abby looked slightly mortified. She wasn’t always the most perceptive kid in the world, but even she seemed to have realized that the conversation had taken a problematic turn.

  “It was stupid,” she said. “I couldn’t really think of anyone. I just, like, picked someone at random.”

  A horrible thought came to Tim: My stepdad is the greatest guy. He’s really fun and knows more than anyone else in the world about patents and trademarks.

  “I guess that means you didn’t write about me,” he said, hoping to defuse the tension with a joke, but not managing to sound as playful as he’d intended.

  Abby turned her head, suddenly fascinated by the red brick buildings of downtown Gifford. He wondered if it was possible, if she really did admire Mitchell more than him. It was true that she spent way more time with her stepdad, and he bought her everything she wanted. But he wasn’t her father. That had to count for something.

  “If you really want to know,” she said, “I wrote about Donald Trump.”

  Tim’s immediate sense of relief only lasted a second or two.

  “Donald Trump? Are you kidding me?”

  “He’s cool,” she said.

  “He’s not cool, Abby. Trust me on this one.”

  “Yah-huh,” she insisted. “He’s totally cool on The Apprentice’”

  “I can’t believe Donald Trump is your hero.”

  “I didn’t say he was my hero. I just said I admire him.”

  “For what?”

  “Come on, Dad. Everybody admires him. He’s got a skyscraper, a private jet, a casino, and his own TV show. He can do whatever he wants.”

  “That just means he’s rich. It doesn’t mean he’s a good person.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous of Donald Trump.”

  “You have to admit,” she said, “it’d be pretty cool to have a private jet.”

  “I’m sure it would,” he agreed, as they pulled into the SUV-choked parking lot of Gifford Memorial Park, a six-field complex that would have been a prime soccer venue if not for the goose shit the kids were always slipping on. “I’d get one if I had a bigger garage.”

  BECAUSE THERE were never enough play
ing fields to go around, the Stars had to wait for a Boys U-10 game to finish before they could begin warming up. Some coaches focused on stretching and others on passing drills, but Tim liked to get in the goal and have the girls shoot on him at point-blank range. It was a good way for him to interact with his players, to see who was psyched and who might be needing a little extra motivation, which he liked to dispense in the form of some good-natured trash talk.

  Tim felt his spirits lift a little as the balls began whizzing in his direction, concentrating his mind on the here and now. We’re here to play soccer, he reminded himself. Just like any other week.

  “Whoa, Slinky!” he wailed, slapping down a cannon blast from Sara D’Angelo. “Take it easy on an old man.”

  “Come on, Hangman!” he shouted at Hannah Friedman. “My grandma coulda stopped that, and she’s been dead for fifteen years!”

  “Bring it on, Monkey!” he told Maggie Ramsey, who seemed a little more tentative than usual, as if the memory of last week’s shame hadn’t completely worn off. “Show me the Big Foot!”

  Maggie smiled at him—at least he thought it was a smile; the mouth-guard made it hard to say for sure—and began dribbling toward the right corner of the goal. Tim came charging out, modeling the aggressive goal-tending techniques he’d been working on with Louisa Zabel, but Maggie surprised him with a tricky stepover turn, suddenly reversing course to the left. Scrambling back into position, he dove for the shot, but it sailed past his outstretched fingers and into the net.

  “There you go!” he gasped, pushing himself up from the grass and resting for a moment on all fours. He’d hit the ground harder than he’d anticipated and was having a little trouble catching his breath. “Just like that in the game, all right?”

  He stood up gingerly, rubbing at his rib cage. At his age, he really didn’t need to be diving for saves, but he couldn’t help himself. Unlike most of his fellow coaches, he hadn’t been a jock in his younger days, hadn’t gotten the sports out of his system when he was supposed to. For guys like Jerry Writzker of Bridgeton, who’d been the starting point guard on his college basketball team, or Mike Albers of Green Valley, a highly ranked over-forty marathon runner, supervising a team of eleven-year-old girls must have been small potatoes, but for Tim it was a big deal, a weekly blast of adrenaline.

  “Your turn, Nomad!” He bounced on the balls of his feet, shifting his weight from side to side. “Don’t hold back. See if you can take my head off!”

  JOHN AND Candace Roper didn’t show up until a couple of minutes before the opening whistle, after the ref had completed his pregame shin guard and jewelry inspection, and Tim had selected his starting lineup. This wasn’t unusual; with three soccer-age kids, John spent his Saturday mornings rushing maniacally from one field to the next, driving like he had a freshly harvested liver packed in a cooler on the front seat.

  “Praise God,” he said, embracing Tim with disconcerting fervor on the sidelines. “Today’s a big day for the Lord.”

  “They’re all big days,” Tim replied. He extricated himself from the hug and looked at Candace. He could’ve sworn she’d grown a couple of inches since yesterday’s practice. “When we sub, I want you in at midfield.”

  “Midfield?” she groaned. “Can’t I be forward?”

  “Maybe second half.”

  Turning away from the Ropers, Tim clapped his hands sharply and repeatedly until he had the attention of the whole team. It was no small feat, getting a gaggle of fifth-grade girls to stop talking among themselves.

  “All right, guys! No overconfidence today. Let’s get focused and play our game. We pass, we hustle, we anticipate, and we stick to our positions, okay?”

  “We need this one!” John chimed in over his shoulder. “Let’s play strong, just like last week!”

  There was a moment of confusion as the players took the field, when the opposing coach—a cheerfully nerdy guy who wore a Bandits jersey with the words SOCCER DUDE emblazoned on the back—suddenly realized that he didn’t have a shirt for his goalie.

  “I left it in the car,” he explained. “It’s been one of those mornings.”

  Tim offered to loan him a couple of practice pinneys, but the guy begged the indulgence of the referee to make a quick trip to the parking lot.

  “I’ll run,” he promised. “It’ll take two minutes, tops.”

  Uncertain how to proceed, the ref—a nervous high-school kid with spiky hair frosted at the tips—deferred to Tim. A lot of other coaches would’ve made a fuss, but he didn’t think it was worth arguing about.

  “Whatever.” He shrugged. “I guess we can wait.”

  John shook his head as Soccer Dude set off across the field in the direction of the parking lot, which had to be a couple hundred yards away.

  “What a space cadet,” he muttered. “No wonder they’re two and six.”

  Tim thought about calling the girls back to the sidelines for a last-minute strategy session, but instead directed them to take a knee and sit tight. He really needed to talk to John and wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance.

  “Listen—” he began, but John cut him off before he could go any further.

  “Oh, hey, I talked to Marty last night. We’re all set for the Faith Keepers conference on Friday night.”

  Tim was startled by this, but tried not to show it. The Bible Study guys had arranged this outing months ago, but it had always seemed way off in the future.

  “This Friday?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know?”

  “Kinda snuck up on me.”

  “We talked about it at Bill’s the other night,” John told him. “Maybe it was before you got there.”

  “It’s bad timing,” Tim pointed out. “I hate to reschedule practice before the biggest game of the season.”

  “Don’t worry about that. The girls don’t care what day they practice.”

  “Some of ‘em might not be able to make it. They have a lot of commitments.”

  “We have commitments, too,” John reminded him.

  Tim glanced at the dull gray sky looming over the field.

  “I know. I’m not complaining.”

  John squinted in the direction of the parking lot. The Bandits’ coach was jogging toward them at a pretty good clip, a mesh equipment bag slung over his shoulder. Tim knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Listen, John, I know what the Pastor said the other night, but I’m just not feeling right about praying today. A couple of the parents complained to me last week. They don’t think it’s fair.”

  John took this news more calmly than Tim expected.

  “I disagree,” he said. “What’s unfair is depriving these kids of the only thing that’s gonna save them.”

  “It’s not just the parents,” Tim continued. “It’s the Soccer Association. If they hear about it, we’re up the creek.”

  The coach was on the field now, tugging a garish orange-and-yellow jersey over his goalie’s head. The other players rose and began drifting back to their positions. John placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Jesus didn’t want the cup, either.”

  Soccer Dude came jogging back to the sidelines, clutching his side and breathing raggedly.

  “Thanks, guys.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s her lucky jersey. She’s kinda superstitious about it.”

  “No problem,” Tim told him.

  The ref set the ball down at midfield and raised his right hand. Tim looked at John.

  “Jesus took the cup,” he said quietly.

  “He had to,” John replied, as the whistle sounded to begin play. “It was His Father’s will.”

  AS HEAD coach, Tim was responsible for keeping track of the big picture. He had to spread his awareness over the entire field, to make sure his players were where they needed to be at any given moment, and to communicate with them simply and effectively from the sidelines—directing this one to move up, that one to protect the w
eak side, alerting the girls to threats and opportunities before they materialized—while at the same time managing his subs, calculating who to put where, and when to make the changes.

  It was a tall order, but he handled it pretty well, at least when Abby was out of the lineup. When she was playing, he often found it difficult to maintain his focus, to resist the temptation of thinking like a father instead of a coach. As soon as Abby stepped onto the field, his range of vision narrowed, his gaze drawn as if by magnetism to wherever she happened to be, regardless of her proximity to the ball, the game as a whole overshadowed by the riveting spectacle of his daughter in motion. He had to make a conscious effort to tear his eyes away from her, to look around and see what the rest of his team was up to.

  He wasn’t sure why it mattered so much to him, why he felt such a thrill when Abby made a good pass or beat an opponent to the ball, or why all the air went out of him when she screwed up. Part of it was pride, he supposed, the simple selfish desire to see your own kid succeed, to prove herself better than—or at least equal to—other people’s kids. But it went deeper than that, down to something more primal. Because there were moments on Saturday mornings—amazing moments in which his mind and her body were in perfect synch—when he felt such an intimate connection with his child it was almost like they were one person. Just as often, though, in those bad-dream interludes when she flubbed an easy scoring opportunity, or stood frozen in place while an opponent dribbled around her, what he glimpsed was the impossible distance between them, a gulf that he feared would grow wider with each passing day and year of their lives, and it was this sense of hopeless separation that made him clutch his head, and cry out, “Oh, Abby!” with such anguish that John sometimes felt the need to pat him on the shoulder and tell him to take it easy.