Field of Schemes (2 page)

I just got bit by another soccer mom, but my overwhelming feeling was one of victory because I would be going home with a German National Team jersey for Rachel. Now she could impress Coach Gunther by dressing in sportswear from his homeland.

How did I get here? When did this happen to me? And more importantly, once a person crossed the line into the world of crazy sports parents, was there any way back to normalcy?

Rachel was having the game of her life. Granted, her life had only been an eleven-year stint, her soccer career even shorter, but I’d never seen her play like she did that crisp day in November. I don’t know if it was the fact that her team was playing the undefeated Blue Kittens or that it was the final game of her first soccer season, but something lit a fire under Rachel’s cleats.

She was the star of the Purple Sparrows from her first game of the recreational season when she ran onto the field and scored three goals. I wasn’t surprised by her speed, but was a bit rattled by her intensity. When others had the ball, she was unrelenting until they unwillingly gave it up to her. If she had the ball, she was consumed with desire to keep possession of it until it was time for her to shoot. Rachel moved around other players as if they were no more of an obstacle than the orange cones that Coach Andy set up at practice. No one on the field wanted that ball more than Rachel. Her desire was overwhelming.

This came from Steve. My late husband was so competitive that when our doctor told us that Rachel weighed more than any other newborn at the hospital, he proudly declared her the “heavyweight champion of the nursery.” When we got Rachel’s Apgar results, Steve immediately asked, “Ten’s the highest score, right?” When this was confirmed, Steve made a victorious gesture with his fist. At times I wondered if this new side of Rachel was a result of his death, her way of keeping him alive. In college, I remember a girl in poetry class told me that she had her first sip of scotch at her father’s memorial service because she wanted to keep his taste on her lips. She found the burn in her stomach comforting, knowing that this was the same sensation her father experienced when ingesting his nightly elixir. Though my classmate never quite liked the taste of scotch, it became her regular drink as the taste, smell, and fluidity of it kept a bit of her father in her daily life. There was no way I could ask Rachel if she was keeping her father alive through soccer. Even if this were the case, no eleven-year-old would possess the self-awareness to make such an observation. The best I could do was talk about it with her when and if I saw issues arise. The second best thing I could do was be aware of my own feelings when I saw glimpses of Steve through Rachel. It was a rich blend of comfort and pain.

At that first game, when Rachel stripped the ball from another player, I instinctively turned to my right and said, “We got a player!” Intellectually, I knew Steve was not there sitting by my side, but instinct is faster than rational thought, sort of like light vs. sound. It was a pleasant millisecond when I convinced myself that Steve was beside me and all was well in our world.

Though Steve had been gone for nearly a year at that point, I was still startled by the sound of Bobby’s loud voice responding to me. “We sure do,” he said between his hoots. Bobby is what I later learned is a pretty common strain of soccer dad: a loudmouth with few manners and a whole lot of attitude. He had coffee-stained, badly capped teeth and a collection of baseball hats. His leathery skin suggested he worked outdoors, and his volume told me that he was an avid sports fan, the kind who was prone to road rage after his team lost a game. I tried to focus my eyes on the field as I fought the marble rising in my throat. Half of my sadness came from the reminder of Steve’s absence. The other half came from Bobby’s presence.

Thinking I’d opened a conversation, Bobby continued. “Don’t tell me she never played before, Claire,” he said. “Come on, your secret’s safe with me.” Then he let out the labored laugh of an alcoholic who smoked. This was his routine throughout the season. After Rachel scored, Bobby would turn to me and ask if I was certain Rachel had never played before. I assured him that she hadn’t, and he jokingly accused me of lying. This was immediately followed by a fresh phlegm chuckle. Each time it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. For me it was stale the first time around. Yet this one-sided repartee had continued from our season opener against the Kickin’ Chicks until this final game against the Blue Kittens.

The score was 2-0 and Rachel had scored both goals. A bouncy little girl from the Blue Kittens was dribbling the ball when Rachel sped up to her and pulled it away with her foot. Another Blue Kitten began chasing her, but she promptly lost her footing and fell.

“Good job, Layla!” a mom from the other sideline shouted.

“Good job?” Bobby snorted. “How’s falling on your ass a good job?”

“She’s just trying to encourage her daughter,” I said curtly, hoping to end the conversation. I failed. How did I always wind up sitting next to this guy? No matter where I sat, he seemed to show up next to me—even after I moved away from him. I was adept at getting away from people and situations I didn’t like, but could never quite shake Bobby. He kept coming back. Like herpes.

He continued. “Yeah, I get the whole self-esteem thing, but feeding a kid a bunch of crap ain’t doin’ her any favors. ’Member last week when Rachel scored on that Screamin’ Demons’ keeper, and all the parents were carrying on about what a good job she did?” He laughed at the memory. “Her
job
is to keep the ball out of the net. I mean, she tried her best and all, but if she did a good job, the ball wouldn’ta gone in, y’see what I’m sayin’?”

I looked at him with no expression. “Her parents should sell her on eBay.”

“Nah, I’m not sayin’ that,” Loud Bobby continued. “But don’t feed her a bunch of lies and tell the kid that failure is success, ’cause that’s when ...”

Why did he think I cared to hear his musings on sports psychology and parenting? How many different baseball caps does he own anyway? Is it some sort of white trash fashion faux pas to be seen in the same cap twice? Last week it was a Skoal cap and this week it’s some joint called Freddie’s Palace. What woman looked at this and said, “Yes! This is who I want to spend my life with. He’s fascinating, he’s funny, and he has such a wide assortment of hats!”

“… so I always say to Cayenne, give it your best and if that’s not good enough, we’ll practice till y’get it right.”

Is this guy still talking?

The referee blew his whistle and gave us a two-minute warning. I loved his World War II-era clip art look and earnest nature. Seeing him at games always made me want to wear a cardigan sweater and rent
It’s a Wonderful Life
. “Come on girls!” the Blue Kittens’ coach shouted. “We can still win this!”

“Dream on!” Loud Bobby shouted across the field. While the referee was like something you’d see on Turner Classic Movies, Loud Bobby was pure Fox TV. He was the kind of guy who won the stupid tricks contest at local bars by inhaling a silver chain up his nostril and pulling it out his mouth. “Dream on, Coach!” Bobby taunted again.
Was this guy physically capable of speaking below eighty decibels?!
I dropped my head into my hands for fear that someone might mistake me for his wife—or even his friend.

Rushed, the Blue Kittens’ coach began shouting instructions. “Layla, Willow, Annabelle, Emma, push up! Defense, move up! Everyone’s trying to score except Money. Money, you stay back on D. Everyone else, you’re a forward now!”

“Give it up, Coach!” Bobby shouted again. “Nothin’s gonna save y’now. It’s all over, pal.”

The coach glared in our direction.
Not me. I didn’t say a word. Hell, I think Layla did a good job when she fell on her ass. I am so totally not with this guy.

None of my telepathic apologies seemed to transmit. The coach muttered something to the referee, who then pointed at us and blew his whistle. As if in slow motion, every head on the field turned in our direction. Parents on both sidelines stared. Kids gawked. Even families who were passing by, on their way to a game at a different field, stopped to hear what the referee was going to say.

The long whistle stopped. “Warning!”

After a split second of silence, I sighed with relief. Then Bobby responded. “That’s what I was tryin’ to give ’em, Ref,” he shouted. “He can throw the whole damn team up top, but if he leaves one defender back there, our girl Rachel’s gonna blow past her and score on these suffocated kitty cats
once again!”

Our girl?! Our girl?! Do people think this jerk is Rachel’s father?

The referee held up a yellow card and announced perfunctorily, “One more word and I’m asking you to leave, sir.”

Bobby held up his hands in mock surrender. Every girl on the field was staring at Bobby, bewildered and horrified. And little fall-on-her-ass Layla looked particularly devastated. Or not. “Ya jerk,” she muttered at Bobby.

“Yeah, be quiet, y’big old loser,” another Blue Kitten added.

As the referee blew his whistle to resume the game, I noticed a tall black man with ropy, muscular legs and a snappy royal blue Adidas warm-up suit. He held a clipboard and took notes with the interest of a doctor listening to the symptoms of his patient with a rare condition. I’d seen him at a few of our other games, but never really gave much thought to who he was or why he was watching our team. But as he gave a sidelong glare at Bobby, I wondered if he was from the Kix Soccer League, taking notes about which parents were naughty and nice. Maybe Loud Bobby would be banned from games for life.

The ball was deep in our territory. It looked as though the Blue Kittens were finally going to score as the cluster of newly appointed forwards scrambled for the ball. Good enough. Let the Blue Kittens score a goal and feel good about their last game of a successful season, I thought.

It became so crowded in the goal box that it was tough to see what was going on. It looked like a kicking riot. The parents of the Blue Kittens started shouting, “Shoot! Shoot!” Their coach frantically joined in. “Take the shot!”

Parents from both teams were on their feet, leaning their bodies toward the action as if it might help the outcome. Throwing his hands in the air and beckoning the soccer gods, the coach good-naturedly begged, “Someone take a shot already. One shot is all I ask.”

A mother on the other team grabbed her husband’s jacket sleeve and wailed, “They’re gonna score, I can feel it!” I wished Steve were here to grab onto. I wished I could borrow his sweater the way I always had on crisp autumn days. I never fully accepted the chill of fall, always clinging to the hope that Indian summer might continue into the holidays. Even though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, I chose to believe the movie version of Southern California where people walked around in swimsuits year-round. I never owned many sweaters, but was especially glad for this fact when I met Steve and started borrowing his. I loved the way his Shetlands hung down to my thighs. The sleeves needed to be rolled up so many times, it looked as if I had doughnuts around my wrists. I called the look “girlfriend chic,” while my mother dubbed it “frumpy wife.” As I wrapped my bare arms around my t-shirt, I had to accept that it was cold and I was alone.

“Ain’t gonna happen,” Bobby told me.

“It could,” I returned. “They’re very close to the goal.”
Why did I even respond to this imbecile?

“Close, nothin’,” he said, disregarding my comment with a wave of the hand. “Look how they’re all bunched up. Cayenne’s gonna snatch that up, no problem.”

As Bobby predicted, Cayenne laid her goalie gloves on the ball, ensuring that there would be no goal for the Blue Kittens.

“I love their banner,” Celeste, our team mom, whispered to me as she gazed across the field enviously. Despite the efforts of five mothers armed with glue guns, our team banner placed second to the Blue Kittens’ in the opening day parade. While ours was beautiful, it didn’t compare to the elaborate extravaganza the other team put together. Ours had a purple sequined border surrounding an enormous blue felt sky with puffy white clouds. Fifteen fully feathered purple sparrows flew toward a soccer net in the heavens as they clutched soccer balls with their claws. Each bird held a Styrofoam sphere that was painted like a soccer ball, with the girl’s name and jersey number printed on it in purple metallic ink. When the mothers unveiled their masterpiece, I was certain we were a shoo-in for the prize.

After I caught a gander at our competition, I knew we’d be also-rans. The other team somehow managed to get battery-operated blue fur kittens to dance to a rap song,
I’m Smitten by Kittens,
which the team sang and recorded. The music was actually produced in a studio by a mother who had connections at Sony. The kittens were brought to life by a father, an engineer who just so happened to have thirty hours to spare to make sure his kid won the banner medal. If that weren’t enough, another mother designed jewel-encrusted jerseys and actual cleats to fit their little paws. The lunatics from the Kickin’ Chicks made their banner three-dimensional, with a goal net built around a backdrop of Astroturf. “Birds are so hard to work with,” Celeste continued as Cayenne’s foot connected with the ball.

Our goalkeeper’s punting was breathtaking. Often the ball went so far to the other side of the field, it looked as if she might score. This one sailed past the midline. It was our three forwards against their sole defender. Of course, I wanted Rachel to succeed, but I was sort of hoping she wouldn’t score another goal. She’d already had such a great game, another goal wouldn’t make any difference to her. These kittens, on the other hand, didn’t need a third goal scored against them in the final seconds of their final game. Who needed that kind of letdown just hours before their team party?

I was absolutely mistaken in my assumption that one more goal wouldn’t make a difference to Rachel. She charged to collect the ball and began running toward the goal as if these final seconds were the most important of her life. I guess no one told her that the game had already been won. She scrunched her face with determination and looked to her sides for a teammate to pass the ball to. Both were left behind, unable to keep up with Rachel’s speed. It was Rachel against one defender in the Blue Kittens’ territory with less than a minute in the game. She stepped over the ball and kicked it to her side in a fake-out move I didn’t quite follow. Her feet moved faster than my eyes. All I knew was Money, the lone defender, was now behind Rachel and it was my daughter one-on-one with a nervous-looking goalkeeper.