Field of Schemes (24 page)

“What was that?!” Raymond screamed and his wife tried to quiet him. He paced the sidelines, sweating and flicking his hands as if he was trying to get paint off of them. “Why don’t ya pick it up and
bring
it to her next time?! Maybe you want to wrap it up and put a bow on it? Girl, this ain’t a birthday party, no gifts, no gifts!”

Paulo’s mother started shaking her head and making a
tsk, tsk noise.
She said something to her son in Italian and he replied in kind. I had hoped it translated to, “Mama Mia, this man needs to settle down,” with Paulo replying, “I know, Mama, these American parents are crazy.” But in my short time in club soccer I came to expect less of people. She probably really said, “Stupid girl should shoot to the corners.” Her son likely replied, “Americans know nothing about this game.”

“No problems,” Gunther told Violet. She smiled crookedly, as if to say,
You try going home with this freak tonight and you’ll see that I DO have problems.

Mimi chimed in. “Nice try, sweetheart. Not right to the keeper, next time, okay?”

Gee, y’think?

“Shoot it like you want it next time!” Crazy Raymond shouted.

Much to my surprise, Loud Bobby shouted, “Nice catch, Keep!”

I looked at Dave, who explained, “Everyone loves the goalkeeper, no matter what team they’re rooting for.”

“Good job, goalie!” I shouted.

Mimi turned around so quickly, she created a breeze. “Claire, sideline coaching is not cool,” she snapped. “You’re not in rec anymore.”

I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity. Ron came to my defense. “Come on, Mimi. Have a little mer-saaaay on poor Claire.”

Darcy giggled and nudged him.

Mimi narrowed her eyes at Ron, then turned her attention toward me. “Rachel needs to learn when to pass the ball,” she snapped. “Who’s she training with?”

“Training with?” I repeated, noticing the other parents start to look at us.

Repeating herself slowly for the benefit of my dim wits, Mimi said, “Yeah,
training with,
as in working with outside of regular soccer practices.”

My heart pounded like the drum section of a virgin sacrifice.
Stay cool, stay cool.
“Gee, Mimi, that would be
you.
”

A collective laugh released from the sidelines. And one of the moms let out a “You go, girl.” Though when Mimi turned to see who lent me support, they all acted like they weren’t looking.

Walking close to me, hovering over my seat, Mimi growled, “Claire, trust me when I tell you that you do not want to be on my bad side.”

Okay! You’re right. I’m sorry.
Instead of letting these internal thoughts escape from my lips, I stood to meet her gaze. “Really? Am I on your good side right now, Mimi? Because frankly a change of scenery would be quite nice.”

Ron guffawed at this one, which gave the others permission to laugh aloud. She stormed away after telling me that she’d deal with me later. Ron shouted after her, “Come on, Mimi, lighten up!”

While the parents were embroiled in our drama, the girls moved the ball down the field and penetrated the other team’s eighteen-yard box. (That’s the area that’s eighteen yards from the goal line. It’s the outermost white lines. The little box around the goal net is called “the six,” Dave explained. Ignorance had its benefits.) Like last time, Violet passed the ball to Kelly, who passed it back to her when she repositioned herself in front of the goal. “Noooooo mer-saaaaay!” shouted Raymond. This time, though, she shot it straight into the left corner of the net.

We all rose to our feet and I refrained from shouting, “No mercy!” The referee held his hands in the air and blew his whistle to indicate a goal.

“That is what I’m talkin’ ’bout, girl!” Crazy Raymond said, shaking his head rabidly. “That’s my girl. That’s
my
girl!”

Bobby and Leo started shaking Ray’s hands to congratulate him. “Nice job, man,” Dick said.

I smiled at Dave and wondered aloud, “What did
he
do?”

“Living through your kids is one of the few socially acceptable forms of narcissism,” he said.

I could definitely like this guy.

During halftime, someone from the other team let his puppy run around on the field chasing a ball. The ball was the same size as the little guy, so his clumsy wrestling was utterly charming. Until he began humping the ball, that is.

By the middle of the second half, our girls were ahead by four goals and it looked as if we were headed toward a shutout. One might think that this would have a calming effect on parents, but the fat four continued shouting as if they were trapped in a burning building and all exits were blocked.

“Nooooo mer-saaaaay!” shouted Crazy Raymond as Kelly shot the team’s fifth goal.

Later in the game, Manchester scored a goal, but Dick started screaming, “Offsides! That’s offsides, ref, no goal!”

Dave looked at me and smiled. “Ron cracks me up, but if he keeps that up, one of these nut jobs is going to blow a gasket one of these days.”

“What?” I asked.

“You haven’t noticed?” Dave asked. I shook my head. “Keep an eye on Ron.”

Oh no, I don’t think you understand what very bad advice that is.

As the game continued, I saw that Ron was pacing behind Dick, provoking him by softly muttering things like, “Whoa, there’s a slide tackle. Is this ref going to call anything?”

Within seconds, Dick would erupt, “Come on, ref! Call that slide tackle. Whaddya, blind, man?!”

And I got reprimanded for lauding their goal keeper!

Dave laughed at Ron and said, “You’re a sick man, Greer!”

Ron nodded back and held his finger in front of his lips, looking toward Darcy as if to say,
Don’t get me in trouble with the wife.

“So, do you live near Ron and Darcy?” Dave asked.

“Very. We’re next-door neighbors,” I told him as I watched our girls score yet another goal. I enjoyed chatting with Dave in the context of a kids’ soccer game because it allowed me to keep my eyes focused on something other than him. If we’d met in a coffee shop or an office, I’d have to face him straight-on, and that was something I was just not ready for. An occasional glance was about all I could handle without blushing. I was most grateful to have the action of the game to fix my gaze on.

In the final minutes of the game, the other team’s parents started unraveling. I can understand that they didn’t like seeing their girls lose, but a few of the fathers were downright unkind. “Come on, Chloe, you’re faster than that pork chop,” one shouted. His comment was only slightly mitigated by the fact that his wife swatted him. The truth was, though, that our team was looking kind of chunky lately—even Rachel, who inherited my string bean body and speedy metabolism. I hated to admit it, but maybe Mimi was right about the girls needing fitness training. In just the two weeks since Gunther discontinued fitness training, everyone but Cara looked as though she’d packed on a few pounds. Since Mimi was still doing fitness training with her daughter, Cara remained slender. The weight of our one-girl control group seemed to make a convincing case for resuming training, though Mimi had not made an advocate of me. If she had such overwhelming parent support, let her use it.

The non-pork chop from Manchester sped by our last defender and took a shot on our goal. As soon as the ball was released, Bobby shouted, “Nooooo mer-saaaaay!”
Oh God, now he was going to start saying it?

As Cayenne tipped the ball away from the goal net, I asked Dave when mercy got such a bad rap. “I mean, why can’t we let them have a pity goal? Would that be so terrible?” Ron jumped into the conversation and informed me that teams receive extra points for shutouts. “How sweet,” I said.

“So their goal didn’t count?” I asked.

“It was offsides, Claire,” Ron said. “No goal.”

During the final kickoff, Violet dribbled the ball downfield, where she was greeted by a behemoth defender from Manchester who clumsily reached her foot out to steal the ball. Sadly, she tripped Violet in such a way that the top of her leg went one way and the bottom went the other.
My
knee hurt just watching. She lay on the ground clutching her leg, crying as Gunther ran out onto the field. Raymond stood, devastated. Leesha placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder. In this moment, I no longer thought of him as Crazy Raymond. I looked at his watery eyes and felt compassion for him as a fellow parent. He may have been a little out there, but at the crux of it, he was—

“Shake it off, baby!” he shouted. “On your feet, girl. Run through it!”

Violet wrapped her arm around Gunther’s neck as he helped her hobble off the field.

The absolute maniacs on the other side of the field started clapping! I thought I had seen the lowest of parenting until this. These people were animals. Then
our
parents started clapping too.

“What is wrong with you people?” I couldn’t hold back.

Dave reached for my arm and pulled me back down into my chair. “Claire, they’re clapping because she’s okay, not because she’s hurt.

“Oh,” I said, noticing Mimi smirking at my mistake. “Very good, then. Okay,” I said as I clapped. “Brava, Violet!”

After the game, Mimi jogged to an enormous white board where team managers with clipboards were all gathered taking notes. When we made our way to her, she reported, “Okay, we’re in really good shape, but in order for us to win the tournament, Turf needs to shut out Conquistadors then lose to the Patriots,
or
Hot Shots needs to beat or tie Turf this afternoon
and
we need to win our next two games by at least two goals, unless we shut out one of the teams, in which case we’ll only need a one-goal margin.”
Huh?
The other parents just nodded their heads and started asking about games that were going on. Mimi instructed two dads to go to those games and report back to her with scores.

“You guys didn’t get called on any of your fouls,” one of the Manchester dads, their Loud Bobby, shouted to our group as he walked by. “You pay the ref or something?”

“It’s your tournament, moron,” Mimi quipped. “So actually,
you
paid the ref.”

Their Normals stifled a laugh while ours looked mortified. “You got a smart mouth, lady,” the Manchester Moron said, walking closer to Mimi.

“I suggest you step back right now,” Ron said.

Darcy furrowed her brow quizzically.

“And you’ve got a dumb one,” Mimi escalated.

“You want a piece of me?” the Manchester Moron snapped at Ron.

“God knows, there’s enough to spare,” Mimi shot back.

“How ’bout we take the girls to get a bite?” Dave asked me.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Darcy, let’s take the girls to one of the concession booths for lunch.”

My friend nodded. “We need to be back at the field in an hour?” she reminded me. “Ronnie, Kelly, let’s go,” she said, leaving Ron and Mimi to fight this battle on their own.

Mimi must have bionic hearing, because although the Manchester Moron’s friend, Drunk Roger, joined in the shouting match, she still managed to hear us making lunch plans. “No meat!” she shouted as we walked away. “I’m serious, no meat before games, Claire. Make sure they eat something healthy.”

As we left the crowd by the white board, Gunther passed by us with a bratwurst fully loaded with toppings. “Good playing, girls,” he said. “Very nice soccer.”