Field of Schemes (12 page)

This is not to say Steve became a saint or I transformed into a perfect mother. He was still his narcissistic self, and I still checked for the nearest exit at the first sign of turbulence. “I won therapy today,” Steve would joke as we waited for the elevator outside of Dr. Rosenberg’s office. Then he’d smile and wink at me as he hadn’t since we first started dating.

Lil also loaned us the money to buy our first condo, which turned out to be an incredible investment. More immediately, though, it gave Steve, Rachel and me a second bedroom, a bigger living room and a kitchen two people could be in at the same time. Owning a home also quashed my desire to move to the Pacific Islands and make seashell necklaces that Steve and I could sell to tourists on the beach.

If it weren’t for Lil, our marriage may have very well eroded the way so many of our friends’ had. Perhaps erosion isn’t the right image. Our relationship was more like a lovely piece of furniture that had a layer of sticky resentment slathered onto it. Then a coat of blame. After a year, we couldn’t see the raw material anymore and had to strip the whole thing bare to start over.

I hoped Darcy and Ron would be able to work through their marital build-up the way Steve and I had.

“Mom.” Rachel’s voice returned me to the present. “Earth to Mom, come in Mom. Do you read?”

“Yes, Rachel, I hear you,” I said. “I was just enjoying a moment of quiet.” I looked at my daughter. Her adolescent features marked time for me. It had been so long since Lil came to help baby Rachel, Steve, and me. I wondered what path we would have taken if she hadn’t stepped in. I was so grateful to that woman that it made it almost unbearable to think of seeing her again. She would remind me of everything we had and lost.

Have a great day?

Have. A. Great. Day?!
Did she really just hold the door and tell me to have a
great day
after attacking me for a soccer jersey? Psycho Mom breezed toward her minivan and drove away. Was this a typical Monday morning for her?
Have a great day?
How could it possibly be a nice day once you’ve been bitten by a rabid soccer mom?

Driving home, I glanced proudly at my purchase more than a few times. Maybe I went a little overboard when I used the seatbelt to strap my shopping bag into the passenger seat, but I wasn’t letting anything happen to Rachel’s new top.

I knocked on Darcy’s door and asked if she wanted to catch the lunchtime spin class at our gym. “I hear congratulations are in order,” Darcy said.
Did Rachel make the team?!
“Rachel told us your sister had her baby.”
I suck.

“Yes, a boy!” I said. “He’s big and healthy and cute as can be.”

“How nice.”

There were a few minutes of awkward silence before Darcy spoke again. “Listen, Claire, I don’t want to keep anything from you. Gunther called this weekend and offered Kelly a spot on the team.”

“That’s great!” I said while simultaneously calculating how many other calls he might have made.

Silence.

“Do you know how many other calls he made?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Darcy replied. “You could ask Mimi tomorrow at the callback. Her daughter Cara was on the team last year and she’s the manager. She seems to know everything. You know the type?”

“Did her daughter get a call?” I asked.

“Yeah, she did,” Darcy said. “Ron’s kind of her right-hand man managing the team, so she phoned him last night and they went on for over an hour about tryouts, callbacks, who’s new, who’s gone. Basically, he had to catch her up on everything that’s been going on this last week while she was out of town visiting her father. But thankfully she’s got Ron to keep her up to speed on all things Kix and the road to State Cup.”

“You sound less than excited,” I said. “Isn’t State Cup like the Holy Grail?”

“I know I shouldn’t make fun of her, but Mimi is sooo into the team that it can get a bit annoying at times. She does a lot for the girls, though, so I shouldn’t complain. God knows I have no inclination to manage the team. Anyway, you’ll meet her tomorrow. Ron’s been driving Cara to tryouts while Mimi’s been away, but apparently she got back in town Saturday.”

Later that day, as Rachel was dressing for tryouts, I knocked on her door and went inside. “I got you a present,” I sang.

Rachel opened the Soccer Post bag and gasped. “It’s awesome. So cool. Thank you.” She hugged me, then grabbed her U.S. women’s team shirt and pulled it over her head.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What?”

“What are you doing? I mean, why aren’t you wearing the German jersey I just gave you?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel shrugged.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much.”

“Why aren’t you wearing it?”

“I don’t know, I figured I’d wear this one today. What does it matter?”

I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “It’s just that you wore that last time. Don’t you want to wear something new?”

“Nah,” she dismissed. “This one’s fine.”

“Rachel, put on this German shirt, right now!” I snapped.

Her eyes widened to ask what the big deal was. “Mom, who cares what I wear?”

“If it doesn’t matter to you then humor me,” I said, holding the jersey out to her, practically forcing it into her hands. “Wear the shirt, Rachel. It’ll go nicely with your eyes.”

“Mom, it’s black and white!”

“It’ll bring out your eyes. I want to see you in the jersey. Put it on!”

“Jeesh,” Rachel said grabbing the shirt. “You are, like, way stressed out, Mom.”

Breathe in, out, in, out.
“It looks great on you, Rachel! A perfect fit. Now, since you’re wearing the German National Soccer jersey, you probably want to know about the team.”

“Um, not really,” Rachel said.

“Well, you should know a little something about the team whose jersey you’re in,” I said.

“Oh yeah, like did you know that the U.S women’s team was the first to—”

“Not now, Rachel. We need to talk about Germany first.”

“We do?”

“Yes. We do,” I insisted. “Did you know that Germany has one of the best international records in soccer? They’ve won the World Cup three times and were vice world champions four times?”

“Okay,” Rachel said, looking at me as if I’d lost it.

“It’s better than okay, Rachel. It’s amazing, and you’d do well to give Germany a little respect. The team has been in every World Cup and hasn’t missed a European championship since 1972!”

“Mom, what’s wrong with you?”

“I just like Germany, that’s all.”

“You’re shaking your hands in the air like a maniac,” she said. Lowering them, I inhaled deeply. “Sorry, I’m just a little passionate about Germany, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Because they love soccer and I love you,” I said. Before Rachel could ask what the hell that meant, I told Rachel I had another good luck gift for her. “A book. And I’m sure you’ll want to start reading it on your way to the tryout.”

“
Maze Runner
?!” Rachel asked, excitedly.

“Better,” I said, pulling the book from my purse.

She took the book and looked at it quizzically. “The Portable Nie—Neitz—” Rachel struggled.

“Nietzsche,” I said.

“It looks hard,” Rachel protested.

“Give it a chance. When you get to the field, read a few pages and see what you think.”

“You want me to bring a book to the soccer field?”

“Why not, it’s portable?”

“Mom, I don’t want to start reading a new book ten minutes before soccer tryouts.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “Will you just hold it then?” I placed the book in her hands, cover facing out.

“You are losing it, Mom!”

How wrong she was. I’d already lost it!

As we ascended the staircase to Diablo Field, I watched a small group of girls juggling on the field. Three were wearing the same German jerseys as Rachel.
Would it have killed you to hold the Nietzsche book?!

Drunk Dick and his package were nowhere to be seen, which I assumed meant he got a better offer elsewhere. That meant three fewer players in the running.

I asked Darcy if Kelly wanted to drive with us, but she told me that Ron enjoyed watching every possible minute of Kelly playing soccer. “He wouldn’t miss a strategy session with the general,” Darcy said.

“The general?”

“Mimi,” Darcy shrugged. She made a face as though she was annoyed with this, but I could understand where he was coming from. Watching Rachel play soccer was fast becoming one of my favorite activities. I was going to search out this Mimi person and see if she had the inside track on Rachel’s standing. If she had her finger on the pulse of this club, then I wanted to chat with her whether she was annoying or not. She could be Fran Dresher on crack; I needed to find and befriend her.

As soon as I placed my chair down, I scanned the field for Mimi. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have asked Darcy what she looked like. All I knew was that she was a mother, which narrowed it down to about half the adults on the field. Well, half minus one if you counted the barely legal stepmother, Gia, who walked over to me and asked, “Is there room for me?”

It’s a huge field and you’re the size of an action figure so I’d have to say yes.

“Sure!” I said instead. “Grab a seat.”

I wondered why she was cozying up to me. I’ve always found that women like her have a lot more male friends than they do female, simply because in order to be a cock tease one needs to be in reasonable proximity to them.

“So, is Mimi around?” I asked Gia.

“Oh, is she back?” she perked. “I need to call her.” Gia looked as though she just got back from Barbados with her long hair in cornrows hanging over her tan face. “We just got back from a little weekend getaway,” she said. “The whole family. Fun, but sad too.”

Boo hoo.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked Gia.

“I’m always hot,” she said. “Guess I’m lucky that way.”
Among others.

“So which one’s yours?” I asked with my eyes locked on the field.

“Sapphire,” Gia answered.

I resented that the trophy bride thought I should just
know
who her little gem stepdaughter was. “And which one, pray tell, is Sapphire?”
Don’t be snotty. Breathe deeply and be nice to the woman-child.

She giggled. “Oh right, you don’t know the girls. Sapphy’s the one with the sapphire earrings.” Then she pointed at her.

Sapphy?

Sapphy was also the only one wearing a bright red jersey. She was the only one with tie-dyed socks. She was the only one with yellow shorts, and yet Tropherella thought I’d first and foremost pick up on the earrings. Brilliant.

“She already made the team,” she told me casually. “How ’bout your daughter? Did she get the call yet?”

“No,” I replied, trying to mask the utter dismay I felt.

“No worries. The only girls Gunther’s called were from last year’s squad.”

Why did you mention it then? Shut up. Shut up and don’t say another word to me, you Bo Derek wannabe.

Not picking up on my telepathic messages, Gia continued. “I heard that some of the girls from last year didn’t get the call and you know what? They’re not going to. They’re getting dropped to the blue team.”

Really? How many are getting dropped? Is it true that two girls didn’t come back to tryouts this year? How many spots are left? How many girls are in the running? Do you have any real information in that thimble-sized head of yours?

I looked back at the field where Rachel and her group were now playing a game on a small field. “Did Sapphire enjoy playing on the team last year?”

“Totally,” she said, extending the word for emphasis. “I’m so stoked that Gunther’s the coach this year. He’s the best.”

“Really, who did they have last year?”

“Oh my God, this totally great guy from Morocco. Toumi. He was the best too.”

“Sounds like it’s been good for you guys. I’ve heard some horror stories about club soccer.”

“Oh yeah, they’re all true,” Gia laughed. “It’s good and bad, though. I’d say fifty-fifty, mostly good.” Noticing me watching the field, Gia gave a sympathetic nod. “Stressful?”