Field of Schemes (30 page)

That night my heart raced as I dialed Lil’s number. She would have had every right to greet me with a chill after more than a year of avoiding her. Worse, I kept her from Rachel. I did return some of her calls, but only during times I knew she wouldn’t be there. If the tables were turned, I’m not sure how forgiving I would’ve been. “Hello Lil? It’s Claire.”

“Claire,” she said softly, extending the word like a mother’s stroke against a child’s cheek. “How are you, sweetheart? How have you been?”

“Okay,” I said, ashamed of how selfish I’d been. “How are you?”

“Okay, too.” After a moment thick with silence, she spoke again. “There isn’t a day I don’t think of him. Whoever said time heals all wounds never lost a child.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t called. I just—”

“I know, sweetheart. You tried to call. It just so happened to always be at the exact same time I’ve been volunteering at Children’s Hospital for the past thirty-four years.” (And she was really volunteering, not on some flubbed stakeout.)

“Lil, I’m—”
busted.

“Claire, I understand. I have to tease you a little, though. You deserve that much.”

“It was just too hard to—” I started before a lump formed in my throat.

“It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re calling now and I’m so glad you did. Tell me something happy before we get each other going. How is your new home? Is Rachel adjusting?”

“She discovered soccer and life hasn’t been the same,” I said. Lil laughed, coaxing me to tell her more. “The team is quite good, but some of the parents seem to think the girls are training for the World Cup. Some kids have their own private coaches, one’s already had two knee surgeries, and the manager ... ” I paused. “Don’t even get me started on that nut.”

“Is Rachel on a travel team?” Lil asked.

“Yes, how did you know?!”

“You remember all of Stevie’s trophies? If you want to hear some crazy stories, I have a few of my own from Little League. One of the parents on Stevie’s team sued the coach for malpractice.” She laughed at the memory, though clearly it couldn’t have been funny at the time.

“I didn’t realize there was such a thing as coaching malpractice.”

“There isn’t. This father was trying to set a legal precedent to spare future children from being the victims of bad coaching.”

“Wow, was the guy abusive or something?”

“Have you ever heard of a child suffering long-term emotional trauma over losing a Little League championship?”

“A child, no,” I said. “A father, I can see it. I can’t imagine a lawsuit over it, though.”

Sounding like a damsel in a film noir, Lil said, “Stick around, sweetheart. You’ll see it all by the time Rachel gets to high school. The case was dismissed on summary judgment. Thankfully, the judge once played varsity football and understood how crazy parents can get.”

“What have I gotten us into?” I said, laughing.

“I’d love to see her play sometime,” Lil said. “When’s Rachel’s next game?”

“Tomorrow, actually, but it’s up in San Luis Obispo. Our first game isn’t until two, so we’re driving up in the morning. The next time we’re in L.A. is—”

“Claire!” Lil cried with the joy of discovering a fortunate coincidence. “My sister lives in that area and I’m going to visit her for the holiday weekend! I’m driving up in the morning. I was packing my travel case when you called.”

“I was packing too!” I matched her excitement level.

A drum roll marked the start of the Patriots Freedom Cup Parade. A male voice that sounded like the guy who narrates movie trailers welcomed us to the official kickoff of California’s oldest and largest kids’ soccer tournament. Though I wore a tank top and white shorts, the humidity made me sluggish as I stood with Lil and Darcy on the “Old Town” sidewalk. If a sheep hadn’t pooped three feet away from us, I would have been in better spirits. There was nowhere to relocate as thousands of parents stood shoulder-to-shoulder, moist arms smearing against each other. I spotted Leo and Bobby chatting with Dick about our team’s lineup. With his freshly-shaved face, Leo told the guys, “Nah, if we keep Savannah as sweeper, it don’t matter who they put up top.
Sivious,
nothin’s getting by my girl.”

Dick set them straight. “That bitch Mimi put us in the gold bracket, so we’re up against three teams that made it to the semifinals of State Cup last year, and one that
won
it. We’re getting our lunch handed to us, and she knows it.”

Bobby disagreed, saying that he wasn’t impressed with the Piranhas’ new team. “I watched them last week in the Turf Cup and they’re not so hot. They may have been a factor last season, but they lost half their girls when the coach went over to Corinthians. They’re nothin’ now.”

Leo asked, “Why you was at Turf Cup? You got another kid?”

“Checkin’ ’em out,” Bobby said. “I knew we’d face ’em here so I wanted to scope ’em out.”

“Dude, you sick,” Leo said while high-fiving Bobby, who had also shaved his head.

I leaned in to Lil and whispered, “Those are dads on our team.” She nodded. Lil wore a floral pattern sundress that reached all the way down to her wedge sandals, and held a lacy white fan that she occasionally waved in an attempt to battle the heat. Darcy waved to us and pushed her way through the crowd to stand beside us. “Darcy, this is Lil. Rachel’s grandmother,” I said.

After they exchanged greetings, I asked where the rest of her posse was. Okay, I wanted to see where Ron was. “Helping Mimi get the girls warmed up,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Tough job in this weather, right?” Darcy wore her hair in a bun, but sweat formed around the crown. She stroked her throat often. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to accomplish, but she seemed committed to it, so I didn’t question her.

Trailer Guy’s voice boomed importantly. “We enjoy our freedoms and liberties today because of the fearless sacrifices made by those who came before us. It all began when a brave band of Pilgrims set forth on the
Mayflower
to seek a better life in the New World.” With this, a giant
Mayflower
float sailed by the cheering crowd. Pilgrims on board waved their fifty-star flags with unbridled enthusiasm not typically associated with Puritans.

“A fifty-star flag,” Lil whispered. “Ah, the fruits of the California educational system.”

One long-haired teenage boy in a black Puritan hat and large white collar gave the crowd a hang-ten gesture and threw his head back and forth as though he were listening to Boiling Lead on his iPod. A middle-aged couple in the same get-up did the bump seventies-style, while one sexy little thing clad in black-and-white blew kisses at the crowd very suggestively. It wasn’t a friendly “love ya!” gesture. It was more like something from
Puritans Gone Wild
.

“The slutty one looks like Gia,” I whispered to Darcy.

Darcy gasped. “It is Gia!”

“How did Gia get on the
Mayflower
?!” I shrieked.

Lil smiled and quipped, “Now, now, she’s obviously seeking religious freedom like the rest of them.”

Gia spotted us and began jumping up and down excitedly, which was never a good idea on a float. Tom chuckled and waved at us, “Hello, ladies!” That man disgusted me.

“My goodness, you can see quite a bit of cleavage through that bib,” Lil remarked. We all looked more closely and realized that Gia had a slightly different costume than the rest. While most of the Pilgrims wore the traditional white bibs over black smocks, Gia had white fishnet covering the scoop neck of her black leotard. I thought I’d escaped the porn costumes at soccer tournaments in Manchester. Thankfully, Rachel was with her team and nowhere near this site, lest I have to explain to my fresh-faced twelve-year-old why Miles Standish had a boner.

Trailer Guy continued. “After years of living under English tyranny, the settlers revolted against the king and declared their independence.” A dozen men wearing bright blue jackets and white wigs marched by, playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on their flutes. Behind them were two drummers and a flock of Founding Fathers displaying a replica of the Declaration of Independence. The voice dropped an octave and proclaimed, “Let freedom reign!”

The next voice I heard was a familiar slur. “What the —?!”

All heads in our area turned to Drunk Dick, who was standing agape pointing at Thomas Jefferson. “That’s friggin’ Danny Cartwright!”

Dave found us and asked, “What did I miss?” He leaned in to kiss me hello, but I quickly turned my head down to look for nothing in my purse. Nervously, I introduced Lil to Dave, stressing her status.

I turned to Dave and provided an update. “Dick’s had a bit too much to drink.”

Dick bellowed, “Danny Cartwright, you thought you saw the last of me, didn’t you?! You’re gonna pay this time!”

Danny Cartwright looked terrified, his eyebrows like parentheses. He pointed at himself and mouthed,
Me?

“Don’t you play dumb!” Dick shouted. All of the Founding Fathers and the Pilgrims on the stern of the
Mayflower
were now watching the drama unfold. “I’d know your ugly mug anywhere, wig or no wig! Yer nothing but a two-bit cheater.”

Darcy wiped her brow. “I’ve never really trusted Thomas Jefferson. Did you know he had slaves?”

As Lil, Dave, and I laughed, Dick lunged into the parade and grabbed Jefferson/Cartwright by the collar and started shaking him. Soon, a blue jacket lay on the ground with the jackhammer of Dick’s fist thrusting into it. The Founding Fathers shouted for help but nary a one of them jumped in to break up the fight. Okay, the ass-kicking.

The crowd screamed when Dick picked up Jefferson and threw him through a drum. Lil gasped, “Claire! Do something!” Without thinking, I jumped into the brawl, grabbing George Washington’s ax on my way.

“Dick, get off him!” I demanded, holding the ax.

Dick looked up at me and informed me, “The ax is plastic, Claire!” and continued beating this poor soul. “He deserves it anyhow for cheatin’ me!”

Weakly, pleadingly, the bloody-faced man uttered, “I have no idea who—”

“You think I’m stupid, Cartwright?! You think you can walk outta a poker game and screw Dick Merrick outta forty bucks and get away with it?! No sir, sooner or later, I’m gonna catch up with you and kick your fuckin’ ass, buddy!”

Hardly a time to be calling another person “buddy.”

“Please,” Jefferson said weakly. My God, Dick was out of his mind! He was actually going to kill this man over a forty-dollar poker dispute. Finally, John Hancock came to Jefferson’s rescue, running toward Dick wielding his quill pen overhead.

A man of many fights, Dick knew what to do when someone came at him. He flew out of the way like a matador’s red cape and left Hancock plunging toward—me! My right thigh to be exact. And while George Washington’s ax was plastic, John Hancock’s quill was very real and very sharp. Whoever said that the pen was mightier than the sword had obviously been stabbed with one. The cut required eight stitches at the local hospital.

The upside of my stabbing was that I won the Emergency Room Injury of the Day. Apparently, the staff awards the most bizarre accident of each day and posts a photo of the patient on its wall of fame.

I realized that in my short time as a club soccer parent, I’d grown more competitive. I felt a bit of pride as I held the shining trophy with the wings supporting a Beanie Baby of Eeyore. (I suppose the message was that this was the jackass award.) I was a little disappointed to learn that the trophy stayed at the hospital. “The glory is yours forever,” my doctor said, stitching me up. “You have stiff competition on holidays too, with all your barbecues and fireworks and the like. So what did you do to piss off John Hancock so bad, anyway?”

“She did a very brave deed,” Lil told him. When the doctor excused himself, she said, “Claire, I cannot get over your actions today!”

“You told me to do something,” I replied.

“I meant something like calling security.” We laughed. “It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I must say it was good to see you running toward a problem rather than away from it.” After an awkward silence during which Lil seemed to be deciding whether or not to continue, she went on. “Remember when Rachel was born and you wanted to move to Bali because California had too many earthquakes?”

“I believe it was Bora Bora,” I said, feigning indignation.

“Well, wherever it was, it was good to see a different side of you today, though I must say, you might have chosen a safer forum.” She kissed my forehead. “You’re a braver person than you once were, Claire Emmett.”

As Lil and I left the hospital, I posted my photo on the corkboard and smiled. It wasn’t a fist full of medals, but a soccer mom had to take her victories where she could.

Lil and I made it back to the field in time to watch the last few minutes of Rachel’s second game. While I was the most bizarre injury at the hospital emergency room, I certainly wasn’t the most serious, which meant a long wait for treatment. Every time I grew impatient and asked Lil to step outside and call Darcy for a score, the giant double doors would swing open and bring in another cracked skull or broken arm. It was late in the day, and all the parents we passed on our way back to the field seemed at their wit’s end. Fathers were lecturing their sons about what they could’ve done better, and one mother had gone totally Joan Crawford on her daughter. “You made me sick the way you played today,” she barked.
Are you sure it’s not the portrait-sized piece of funnel cake you’re scarfing down?
The daughter hung her head. “You don’t deserve to wear that jersey. Take it off right now!” The girl looked incredulous. “I said take it off!”