Field of Schemes

Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer Coburn

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

Book interior layout by Lisa DeSpain

Cover image licensed through Shutterstock

Cover design by Suzette Durazo

ISBN: 978-0-615-73957-1

Also by Jennifer Coburn

The Wife of Reilly

The Second Wife of Reilly
(part of This Christmas, a three-novella collection)

Reinventing Mona

Tales from the Crib

The Queen Gene

Brownie Points

In memory of

Alex Pogman

and

Howie Hawver

Great coaches who left the field far too young

During my daughter Katie’s seven years playing club soccer, our family met hundreds of parents, kids, coaches, and referees. Our teams traveled hundreds of miles to small towns and big cities in broiling heat and freezing cold to watch half-pint soccer, often regarding it with greater importance than the Olympics. Most of the time club soccer was an absolute joy. On occasion, people lost their minds, myself included. This book is dedicated to all of the parents who give their time, energy and money so their children can enjoy the many benefits of participation in team sports.

Thank you to all of the parents who shared their stories about club soccer. I appreciate your candor and self-deprecation.

Before my daughter played club soccer, I spent two seasons coaching the recreational team, the Kickin’ Chicks. I look back on those days with great fondness for the kindergarteners and first-graders who have all blossomed into beautiful high school students. And because I knew absolutely nothing about the game of soccer, I am eternally indebted to my terrific assistant coaches: Eric Williamson, Mike Poltorak and Marv Mittleman. All of our team parents were gems, always cheering wildly, creating winning banners, and slicing endless oranges.

I appreciate the good friends who read early drafts of this manuscript and offered feedback. Thanks to Edit Zelkind, Lisa Taylor, Joan Isaacson, Deborah Shaul, Rachel Biermann, Jacquie Lowell, and Matt Levy. And I would be sorely remiss not to acknowledge Christopher Schelling, this story’s most tireless champion.

Suzette Durazo came up with exactly the front cover design I had envisioned and I am grateful for her artistic talent and endless patience. Thank you to Lisa DeSpain for her formatting expertise, and to Phil Lauder and Leslie Wolf Branscomb for their eagle eyes that caught most, if not all, of my errors.

As always, thanks to my wonderful husband, William O’Nell, the best choice I ever made. He is supportive beyond the call of duty and I love him more than a shutout against a premiere team in the final game of the State Cup.

Thank you to readers, bloggers, librarians and bookstore owners for supporting my work, telling friends about my novels and inviting me to your book clubs. I greatly appreciate the tweets and posts on social media. Without you, it is impossible to do what I love most.

“Let go!” the sculpted brunette demanded as she tugged the sleeve of the soccer jersey stretched between us.

Staring at her with steely determination, I wrapped my fist tighter around the other sleeve and yanked back. “You let go!” I replied with volume that surprised even me. Softening a bit, I tried to approach the situation rationally. “I understand you want the jersey, but I picked it up first.” Shrugging ever so slightly, I added, “Fair is fair.”

“If you had it first, it would be in your hands right now,” she growled through perfectly veneered teeth. She narrowed her eyes with pure unadulterated hatred for me. At first glance, this woman wearing Lilly Pulitzer ribbon-trimmed Capri pants epitomized the well-maintained suburban soccer mom. Her chocolate brown hair was perfectly highlighted with subtle auburn undertones, and pulled back by a puffy headband wrapped in the same ribbon that trimmed her pants. Her nails were slick with a fresh manicure, clean square tips dangling beneath a diamond tennis bracelet. When she opened her mouth, though, it was clear that there was no love in her game. “Let go, I said,” she barked.

“No. The shirt is mine! It
is
in my hands!” I reminded her. It was clear she was not going to politely back down from our tug-of-war over the black-and-white German National team jersey, the last one on the table at Soccer Post.

“It’s in your
hand
, singular,” she snapped, “
and
in mine. If you’d taken full possession of it, you’d have both hands on it.”

Was this true? Was there some sort of two-hand rule?!

Like synchronized swimmers, we each placed a second hand on the jersey.

This was crazy. Perhaps the store had another jersey in the back, I thought. At the very least, they could special order another one for this psychotic mother, and I could take mine home for Rachel today. This woman probably didn’t need the jersey right away as I did.

At the very moment I opened my mouth to suggest we ask for an inventory check, Psycho Mom gave the shirt a little tug to assert her dominance. Her muscles flexed impressively, the sinewy biceps and forearms of a woman with free time. Since I was bound to lose the battle of the brawn, I tried to appeal to her better nature. “Look, this jersey is very important to my daughter,” I said softly, aware of a few customers staring at the two moms caught between the taut German National Team jersey. “She’s had a rough year and I want to—”

Yanking the jersey again, the mother snapped, “Not my problem. Now hand over the jersey and—”

“And what?” I demanded. A woman stopped and stared, alarmed, tapping her husband on the shoulder before he hurried off to get help. “And no one gets hurt? Are you threatening me over a soccer jersey?” Then, I had a glimmer of sanity. It was just a black-and-white striped polyester soccer jersey. Without the German team emblem, and player number on the back, it could’ve passed for a prison uniform, which is exactly what I’d be wearing if I made a habit of getting into retail brawls with other soccer moms. I decided to let go of the overpriced jersey, drop the fight and walk out of the Soccer Post with my dignity intact. Well, maybe half my dignity.

Just as I resolved to forfeit this petty battle, the insane soccer mom did something I never expected. She pulled the jersey with full force, causing me to fly toward her and lose my balance. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, only that somewhere on our way down to the floor, the two of us knocked over the clearance rack and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mia Hamm. As we landed, I noticed two things. One, Mia was still smiling, even though she was on her back with her eyes completely covered by men’s shorts. And two, neither Psycho Mom nor I had let go of the now-torn jersey. “Look what you did!” she shouted as we lay on the store’s Astroturf flooring.

The clerk rushed over to us, nervously asking what happened. “She attacked me,” said Psycho Mom as she pointed at me. “She wanted my jersey, so she jumped on me and started going nuts.” At this point, at least a half-dozen sets of eyes were on me, waiting for an explanation. A four-foot boy with a military buzz cut and goalkeeper jersey shook his head as if to say he thought now, in his entire six years, he’d seen it all.

“That’s simply not true!” I defended. As I stood up, I realized that neither Psycho Mom nor I had loosened our grip on the jersey. “I was holding the jersey when she came out of nowhere demanding that I give it to her.”

The teen clerk looked at the two of us, then glanced at the small goalkeeper and joined him in shaming head-shaking. “Ladies, I’ve got plenty of German team jerseys in the back. It’s not like this was the last one, y’know?” The clerk shook his head again. “Why don’t I run back and get another one? What size?”

In unison Psycho Soccer Mom and I mumbled, “Small.”

I never thought I’d be one of those parents who became overly invested in their children’s lives, yet here I was with half of a torn jersey in my right hand and a clump of another mother’s hair in my left fist. (I swear it was an accident. I needed to grab something as I tried to regain my balance.)

I’ve always been appalled when I heard news reports about Little League and hockey parents’ fights. I cried when I read about the mother who shot a cheerleader so her daughter would have a better chance of making the squad. Then there was that French dad who drugged his daughter’s tennis rival. When I say drugged, I don’t mean that young Fifi started seeing butterflies and lollipops dancing on a rainbow. I mean the poor kid took a swig of her Evian and dropped dead. It was truly ghastly, yet here I was having my very own fight with another soccer mom over a jersey. This crazy bitch even bit me after we landed on the floor! Now she brushed her hands against each other as if the whole experience had sullied her.

“Yeah, uh, listen, ladies,” the clerk said. “Someone’s gonna have to pay for this ripped jersey here.”

Our words toppled over each other’s again. “Not me.” For someone so completely unlike me, this Psycho Mom certainly was reading from the same script as I was.

“Why don’t you ladies split it?” he suggested.

“Looks like they’ve already done that, dude,” a spectator couldn’t resist injecting.

“Who won?” the little goalkeeper asked.

“It was a tie,” said the staring mother. “Nice example you’re setting,
ladies
.”

“Mind your own business!” Psycho Mom snapped back.

The clerk’s placing a new jersey in her hands had a sedative effect on Psycho Soccer Mom. While she was hardly friendly, I no longer feared for my safety. “Why don’t we just split the cost of this one and call it even?” I offered.

“Fine,” she said.

I didn’t have the energy to continue with this madness. Besides, in my very own hands was a brand new German National Team soccer jersey. I had mine, she had hers. All was right in the world. As we finished our transactions, both Psycho Mom and I walked toward the exit of the store, sporting Soccer Post shopping bags. When we reached the door, she pushed it open and held it for me. Though I secretly feared she was going to pull a Zidane and head butt me in the chest, Psycho Mom was surprisingly pleasant. She smiled and gestured with her hand that I should walk ahead of her.

“Thank you,” I said tentatively.

“No worries,” she said. “You have a great day now!”

I stood motionless in the parking lot, staring agape as Psycho Mom bopped toward her minivan.

Have a great day? Did she really just tell me to have a great day just minutes after sinking her teeth into my left hand?

How did this happen? What had become of me? I’ve always been one of those people who saw the world as having enough for everyone, even when it didn’t. My husband, Steve, used to tease me about this, telling me that while everything isn’t a zero-sum game, some things absolutely are. That is, if there’s only one spot left on the fencing team, there’s only one spot. They’re not going to simply adopt my hippy dippy philosophy of creating one big, all-inclusive team where every nearsighted klutz is given a saber.