Field of Schemes (26 page)

“No, now I’m a little nervous.”

“Think I’m analyzing you?” I nodded. “Everyone thinks that at first. It’ll pass. I’m really not. I can clock out and enjoy time with a beautiful woman without needing to look through her baggage.”

“I’m a widow,” I blurted. “I just thought you should know that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He thought I was crazy. He had every right to. Here I said I didn’t want to be a patient, he agreed to it, then I spring this tangential bomb on him.

“Thank you. I just didn’t want to not tell you then have you wonder why I hadn’t,” I explained.

“Okay,” he said.

I laughed. “I just had to get that out of the way. This is my first date since … ” I trailed off.

He smiled kindly. “I’m honored, Claire.”

The evening went on comfortably from there. What we lacked in fireworks, we made up for with a natural ease around each other. Dave was one of the few people who didn’t cut me off when I talked about Steve. It’s not that others were being rude; they just couldn’t stand the discomfort of knowing that I might cry at any moment. They’d always dismiss me by saying, “Let’s talk about happier things,” when the reality was that keeping Steve alive through stories made me quite happy. It was pretending that he never existed that killed me. For someone who was afraid of being viewed as a patient, I sure was acting like one.

Dave had “catch” written all over him, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about women I’d like to fix him up with.

“Why do you think that Mimi asked Preston about roster changes?” I asked. “Be honest with me; you’ve been in club soccer for a long time. Did Rachel look like she wasn’t cutting it?”

“No, she looked fine,” Dave said.

“Really? Or are you just saying that to be nice?”

“She looked good. Not entirely sure of herself, but good. She’s a natural athlete, and she’s going to be great by the end of the season, I guarantee it.”

“She was taken on the bubble,” I said. “Do you know what that means?” He nodded. “It’s just that we went through so much stress during tryouts, and now Mimi’s talking like she wants to kick some girls off the team.” I sighed. “I just want to know when I can stop worrying about this!”

Dave smiled sympathetically. “Whenever you choose to.”

“You’re not going to send me a bill for tonight, are you?”

“No, but I am hoping we can do this again.”

“Really? Even though I really don’t have it together yet?”

“Please,” he dismissed with a wave. “I don’t want to wait around forever for people to get it together. I like you, Claire. You’re funny. And honest. I don’t know about you, but I feel very comfortable around you.”

“Oh my God, that’s exactly the word I’d use.”

“I actually used several,” Dave said.

“Comfortable.” I smiled.

MEMORANDUM

TO: The Team

FROM: Mimi

DATE: June 15

RE: The girls are getting fat!!!!

Two weeks ago another manager called our team the Chub Club when our girls were called up onto the stage to accept their medals at the Manchester tournament! I was mortified and was certainly relieved that none of our girls heard her cruel comment! As nasty as she was, this woman had a point! The girls are getting fat!!! I think they’ve gained 50 pounds collectively! I need parents to remind the girls that fruits and vegetables are healthy snacks! I also need your support in encouraging Gunther to resume fitness training! Let’s all band together for the good of our daughters and get them back on the regimen of health and fitness!

Go Kix!

--------------------

TO: Mimi

FROM: Claire

RE:Re: The girls are getting fat!!!!

DATE: June 15

Rachel and I made some cute soccer necklaces for the girls that we plan on giving the team at the tournament. Just wanted to make sure this doesn’t interfere with any gifts you’re planning on giving the team.

--------------------

TO: The Team

FROM: Mimi

DATE: June 15

RE:FW: Re: The girls are getting fat!!!!

I gave the girls necklaces at the last tournament! I gave them a gift to commemorate their first tournament together as a team! If we give them something every time, it minimizes the significance of the gift, so I’d appreciate it if you did not give them anything more! They need to learn to feel pride internally, not by receiving trinkets! Recent studies on consumerism show that kids whose parents stress materialism wind up depressed!

Why did I even engage with this Queen Bee mom? I refrained from responding, but my buddy, Nancy could not hold back.

Dear Mimi,

I’m not sure if you realize that you’re sending your emails to the entire team, but since you are, I thought I’d respond. While I fully agree that we live in an overly materialistic, consumer-oriented society, I might remind you that it was you who began giving the girls “trinkets” when you gave them “girl power” scrunchies at their first practice and necklaces for their first tournament. Lest we forget the team photo t-shirts and mugs you bought the girls at the tournament. It was also very generous of you to buy the girls “Chicks rock” shoelaces, but I think it somewhat undermines your credibility when espousing your belief that less is more.

Respectfully,

Nancy and Roger Gilman

I would really have to thank Nancy with a bouquet of pollen-free flowers when this season was over.

Hello Team,

Good luck this weekend. Kick some ass and show no mercy.

Violet’s having another surgery, but she’ll be back and that’s a promise.

Raymond

My mother and Blake could not have looked more out of place at the “School’s Out for Summer” soccer tournament. She wore a silk scarf around her head and flung it dramatically over her shoulder. Mothers my age were competing through their children, but the women of the older generation were competing through sunglasses. Whoever could support the biggest pair won, and Barbara was a definite contender. The black, crystal-encrusted frames sat under the hood of her scarf, making her look like a chic strain of Unabomber—the type that sends you champagne with too many bubbles. Blake wore his usual yachting gear. Through his locked jaw, he told Darcy, Ron, and Dave how “spectacular” it was to meet them, then excused himself to “have a word” with Rachel.

“You can’t do that, Blake,” I told him.

Dick and Bobby sidled over to introduce themselves and explain that Mimi doesn’t allow the girls to talk to anyone for an hour before games. “She says she’s got ’em in some sort of zone,” Loud Bobby shouted at a shocked-looking Blake. I don’t think he was expecting to have his hair blown back by Bobby’s voluminous explanation.

“That’s absurd!” Blake said.

Never missing her cue, Darcy shot, “It’s club soccer. Of course it’s absurd.”

As my mother and Blake chatted with some of the Normals before the game, I noticed Mimi arguing with the other team’s manager. Her hands were placed firmly on her hips, her head jutted forward aggressively. The other manager held a panicked expression and slouched posture as she spoke with Mimi. She was a potato-fed woman of considerable girth with hair that extended past her bottom. If the setting were different, one might imagine that Mimi was a celebrity and the other manager was the schlubby assistant getting bawled out for having caffeinated Diet Coke in the movie set trailer. No one could make out exactly what they were saying, but Mimi seemed to be winning the argument.

“What did I miss?” Dave asked as he approached me.

“Hey,” I greeted him. “Don’t know. It just started. Stay here, I want to introduce you to my parents. My mom and her husband, rather.”

Suddenly, the other manager stormed off to talk to Gunther, who was sitting on the sideline with the girls telling them who would be starting. “Excuse me, are you the coach?” she asked.

Dave stood by my side. “Let’s wait till the commercial break,” I said, gesturing toward the unfolding drama.

Mimi arrived seconds later. “Let’s not have a scene, Trudy. You know the rules and you made a choice not to follow them. Accept the forfeit and move on.”

“There is a problem?” Gunther asked.
This guy did not miss a trick.

“What’s the deal?” Dick demanded, his right eye bulging from his head like Rachel’s old Mr. Whoozit.

“The deal is that we won,” Mimi said. Parents started gathering to see what the commotion was about.

“My God!” Gia exclaimed, giggling. “I didn’t even see the game start!”

“Girls, run a lap with Mimi,” Gunther suggested.

“Oh, so now you want fitness training?” Mimi snapped. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Noting the wedge between our team manager and coach, Trudy immediately jumped in with her appeal to Gunther. “I meant to set my dryer for an hour but accidentally put the thing on auto-dry, so our white jerseys were in my dryer all night!”

No one understood why this woman was sharing her laundering woes with us, but she was clearly upset about her dryer working overtime.

Mimi gestured with her hands that Trudy should cut to the chase and said, “Bottom line, they forfeited.”

“We did
not
forfeit!” Trudy said, growing two inches.

Gunther asked Jennifer to lead the girls in a lap around the field. “I don’t understand the problem,” he said as they took off. Now parents from the other team were walking over to see what was going on.

Mimi said, “We’re the visiting team so we choose the jersey color, and they choose the side of the field. I told her we wanted to wear our whites and she freaked out!”

“You said you didn’t care what color you wore until I told you I was relieved because I accidentally shrunk my white jerseys in the dryer last night!
Then
you insisted on wearing your blue tops so we’d have no other choice but white! Why can’t you just wear
your
whites?!”

Gunther knit his brows, still confused.

Mimi escalated the argument. “We
can.
We choose not to, as we have the right to do as the visiting team. You choose the side; we choose the color! That’s the way it works. It’s not my fault that you ruined your white jerseys. If you don’t have your whites, then you have to wear your blue tops! And since we chose to wear
our
blues, your team is not prepared to play by the tournament rules, thus you automatically forfeit this game to us!” She was quite satisfied with her cutting efficiency.

Turning to Gunther, Trudy begged, “Have a heart, coach. This could happen to you sometime.”

“It would
never
happen to us!” Mimi screeched. “My housekeeper would never leave the dryer on all night!”

Gunther looked baffled. “Do we have white shirts with us?” he asked Mimi.

“Of course we do, Gunther!” Mimi said. “I always bring complete uniforms, both color tops. The point is that—”

“We use white tops and let them play in blue,” Gunther said as Trudy sighed with relief.

“No we do
not!
” Mimi shouted so loud that a referee from an adjacent field looked over to see what the fuss was about. “A forfeit is worth seven points! Do you know what we have to do to earn seven points in this tournament? It’s three for a win, a maximum of three for goals scored and a point for a shutout. The only way to earn seven points is to shut them out 3-0. Even if we shut them out 10-0, we still can’t get more than seven points. This forfeit is their fault, not ours. I didn’t ruin her white jerseys, did I?”
Did she?
“We’ll let the girls save their strength and go into their next game fresher than the others who will have already played a game earlier!”