Field of Schemes (17 page)

Rachel looked at me. “How come you don’t make jewelry anymore?” she asked. She tilted her head ever so slightly and knit her brows, an expression she had since infancy. Her face had become that of a young woman, but her expressions were still my baby’s.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I love to bead,” Rachel said. “Maybe we could do it together?”

“Sure,” I promised. “I have to remember where I packed all of my supplies. They’re probably still in the garage.”

“Well, if you can’t find them, there’s a new bead shop that just opened up next to the Soccer Post.”

Sunday was Veronica’s seventh birthday party. As Darcy opened the front door, the sounds of kids’ music, laughter, and horns burst out. Rachel’s eyes shot past us as she spotted Kelly and Sapphire playing a video game. Cara was chatting with girls I’d seen at school. I scanned the room for Mimi and saw her in a heavy conversation with another mother from the team, one of the Jennifers, I believe. Surely it was about her physical fitness program she’d be implementing with the girls this year. We only heard about that for forty minutes at the meeting, so of course there must be more to tell.

Walking in, I saw an elderly woman with sagging knee highs and blue hair sitting in a rocker reading to a group of younger children. When I say blue hair, I don’t mean that she dyed it so black that it had a blue shine, or that it was grey with a slight blue hue to it. She had full-on Cookie Monster-blue hair and wore a quilted robe that matched her slippers. I raised my eyebrows as if to ask who this senile old woman was who forgot to dress for Veronica’s party.

“Aunt Betty,” Darcy answered.

“Yours or Ron’s?” I asked.

Darcy thought I was joking because she laughed. “I know I said no entertainers, but it’s so hard to get Aunt Betty, and when I heard that Susie Atwater had to cancel Barclay’s party, I knew I could snatch her up last-minute.”

The family room was kiddie bedlam. I had hoped I wouldn’t see Ron, but knew it was a ridiculous notion since I was in his home. I caught glances of him interacting with Veronica’s friends and softened toward him. Okay, I’d never actually hardened, but I saw a gentler side of him, which, as luck would have it, I found incredibly sexy. He walked over to Mimi and told her something that made her nod affirmatively. Mimi looked as if she was excusing herself and the two walked off to the hallway. En route, he noticed me staring at him and gave a slight nod of his head and a smile. I loved the way his lips were full and uneven.

I needed an escape. When in the home of another woman, helping her in the kitchen is a perfect excuse to get away from the crowd. Quickening my pace, I walked toward Darcy, who was chatting with Gia and her boobs. “What do you need help with?” I asked.

“Thanks, Claire. We’re all set,” Darcy said. “Gia just finished setting out the juice boxes and Aunt Betty serves the sandwiches.”

Goddamn Gia and Aunt Betty!

I saw Ron, who was now making his way toward us. Panicked, I shot, “What about milk?!”

“Milk?” Gia repeated as though she’d never heard of the stuff before.

“Darcy, you’ve got to offer them milk. What about the kids who are, um, fructose intolerant and can’t drink juice? I’ll go pour some milk in the kitchen.”

I could see the thought bubble over Darcy’s head.
Fructose intolerant?

“Nancy told me about it,” I lied. “It’s very serious. A kid could get really sick.”

“Okay,” Darcy shrugged. “Thanks, Claire.”

I scurried off to the kitchen just seconds before Ron arrived at our cluster. “Oh, hi,” I said, breezing past him. “Nice party.”

As I stood at the granite island, pouring milk into pink paper cups, Ron brushed past me. I felt the sparks of sexual electricity between us. “You’re not avoiding me, are you, Claire?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Why would I do that? Oh, thanks for the goldfish. Rachel really appreciated it.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, the front of his body so close to the back of mine that we were touching. “Oh, excuse me, Claire.” The feeling of his body coupled with the sound of his voice saying my name was almost too much. It was like cold liquid rushing over my hands.
Cold liquid rushing over my hands?
Shit! Shit, shit, shit!!! I was pouring milk over the top of a cup, onto my hands and all over their beautiful granite countertop.

“Oh my God!” I shrieked.

Ron rushed for a cloth from under the sink and tossed it onto the floor to begin absorbing my mess. “Don’t worry about it, Claire. I’ll help.” As Ron knelt down to wipe the floor, I grabbed a handful of paper towels. I laid them on the countertop, never too far from the thought that Ron’s lips were nine inches from my thighs. I wished I’d worn a skirt.
Stop thinking things like that!

As one might expect, my cleaning efforts were about as fumbled as everything else I tried that day. My nervous energy caused me to wipe the milk from side to side without giving it time to absorb into the wad of paper towels. I wound up sending a waterfall of milk onto Ron’s head and neck.

“Oh my God!” I shouted. “I’m so sorry.” I knelt down to the floor where Ron was flicking milk from his hair. “I’m so sorry,” I kept repeating.

“It’s okay,” he said, laughing slightly. “It’s only milk.”

“I’m such a klutz,” I explained, as if
that
needed to be clarified.

“You’re not much in the kitchen, are you?” Ron commented as our eyes locked. We both crouched behind the counter like soldiers in a foxhole. Okay, like secret lovers hiding from the world. God, I wished I was in a foxhole. I was positively the worst person alive. Uncomfortable silence flooded the space between us as the sound of cheering kids swinging at the piñata outside amplified.

“No,” I said, meaning more than the concession that I was not a domestic goddess.

“That’s okay,” Ron said, never releasing me from his gaze. “You’ve got a lot of other things going for you.” He finally looked away and started wiping the floor again, an obvious ploy to stay put.

“I’m really sorry,” I said again, an obvious ploy to keep talking. “Can I, um, wash your shirt?” Thank goodness this offer made sense in the context of having just spilled milk on it because it was actually quite an independent thought. The idea of dancing around my laundry room with Ron’s button-down top was my idea of a hot Saturday night.

“Nah, that’s okay,” Ron said, smirking as if he could see his loose shirt sleeves leading me in a tango. “I get laundry service here.”

Laundry service?
With those words, my heart broke for Darcy. I snapped back to reality.

“Oh. Well, thanks for helping me clean this mess.”

He smiled. “You’ve already thanked me, Claire.”

“Thanks for the goldfish,” I said in the absence of anything else to say.

He smiled again, knowing he had me. “Anything for you, Claire.”

The world stopped moving. This was the moment of truth. I had to put an end to this right now, but had to do it in a way that he could save face. I would make it a mutual thing that “we” had to end so he wouldn’t feel foolish or rejected.

“Listen, Ron,” I said, whispering as we remained tucked away from the rest of the world. My heart was pounding so loudly it was beating in my ears. As I moved closer to him, I contemplated changing my tack entirely and kissing him instead. Thankfully, my good sense returned before I lunged at him. “I think you’re a great guy, but we’ve got to stop this.”

“Stop what?” he asked suggestively.

“This little flirtation between us,” I said. “I mean, if you weren’t married it would be different, but I’m Darcy’s best friend, so ... ” I drifted off.

Ron scrunched his face as if he had no idea what I meant. “Claire, I’m really sorry if I gave you the wrong idea,” he began.
Oh God, let me die right now.
“It was only a goldfish. Sorry if you thought it meant something more.” With that, he offered, “No hard feelings, okay?”

What?!
The world froze. Ron was still kneeling before me, his face cast in an expression of bewilderment. I searched aimlessly for life’s rewind button.
How do I take back that whole exchange? How do I erase Sexy Dad saying, “No hard feelings. It was only a goldfish”?

“Oh,” slipped out softly. “Wow, I’m embarrassed.”
Stop talking! Feelings of humiliation do not need to be shared with source of said humiliation.

“Claire, don’t worry about it. No big deal,” Ron said, shrugging as he stood.

“There you are!” Mimi said as she appeared in the kitchen entryway. “I thought I lost you.”

“Never,” he said.
Oh, so now he’s flirting with her?! Or is this just the way he interacts with women who aren’t his wife? Oh God, let me die now, I’ve made such a colossal ass of myself.
“I was helping Claire clean up some spilled milk.”

Mimi gave a little laugh that would sound like a giggle to a man, but any woman would know was really a cackle. “I hope you’re not crying over it, Claire.”

Oh, hilarious. How long did it take you to come up with that nugget?

“All right, you all set in here?” Ron asked me.

Am I all set in here?

“Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks for your help.”

“It was nothing,” he said, walking away with Mimi.

Okay, got it. Message received.

I watched the two walk away in slow motion, then join the others outside as they beat the daylights out of a rainbow-colored jackass until its candy guts spilled onto the patio.

I mustered just enough gumption to find Rachel and told her that I was leaving. “Come home when the party’s over. I have a headache,” I said before slinking home to crawl under my duvet with the sincere hope that I would suffocate in bed and never have to face Ron, Darcy, or anyone in this neighborhood again.

I took three aspirins and decided to lie in bed and hyper-analyze every discussion I’d ever had with Ron. Every word, nuance, intonation and expression would be replayed, dissected and scrutinized the way only a woman could.

After about an hour of self-flagellation, I dragged myself out of bed and went online to check to see how much I could sell the house for and what housing prices were like in, say, Maine or New Hampshire. Before I could get an appraisal for our home, I heard the postal truck pull up to the front of my house and rushed to the mailbox. Steve always said that I had Cargo Cult syndrome because of my excitement over mail delivery. Apparently there is a group of Pacific Islanders who stand by the shore, convinced that their fortune will be delivered by an incoming ship. Hence the expression about someone’s ship coming in. Whatever the reason, I unfailingly grew excited when I heard the rustling of mail being placed in my box.

Because absolutely nothing could go right today, the mail brought two disturbing notices. In today’s delivery I received a fundraising letter from the Steve Emmet Foundation. (They still hadn’t corrected the spelling of our name!) Under the logo —a set of winged lungs—Maggie Jennings pleaded for my tax-deductible donation to help her group find a cure for non-smoking-related lung cancer. Before I could tear up the letter, I noticed a faux-handwritten message reminding me to save the date for the first annual “Breath of Fresh Air” gala in September.

After tossing that into the trash I found a curious piece of mail—a MasterCard bill addressed to the treasurer of Kix GU13 White soccer team. Somehow, Mimi had guilted me into handling the accounting for the team. When I opened the bill, I found charges for the Marriott in La Perla and a pricey meal at Majorca Grill.

When I called Mimi that evening, she quickly told me I should just give her the bill and she’d take care of it. “How do I account for it on the books?” I asked.

“You don’t. I said I’d take care of it,” she replied curtly.

“But I don’t understand why—”

“Claire, I said I’d take care of it. I need you to give me the bill at practice and I’ll make sure it gets paid.”

“But when did we—”

“Claire, you’re obviously new to this, so let me explain how it works. You make sure everyone pays their registration and coaching fees. You write checks for tournaments and pizza parties, or anything else I tell you we need. I don’t need to spend time justifying every little expense to you, got it?”

“Oh, I’ve got it,” I said smugly.
Mimi was the recruiter of dads. Why didn’t Darcy mention that it was our very own team manager who was taking one for the team?

She sighed, sounding exasperated, but knowing that she had to provide some sort of explanation. “Claire, sometimes we recruit players from other parts of the state and we need to put their families up in a hotel and wine ’em and dine ’em a little. It’s beyond the scope of what the club does, so I’m willing to pay for it out-of-pocket.”

One might think that I’d have a little compassion for people who had just been caught in an embarrassing situation, but Mimi was so nasty to me at the team meeting that I took a little pleasure in twitting her a bit. “That is
so
generous of you, Mimi,” I said, “but don’t we already have a full team? Why are we recruiting new players at the beginning of the season? If a family lives so far from Santa Bella that they need to stay in a hotel, how are they ever going to make it to practices and games?”