The Real Soccer Moms of Beaver County (16 page)

S
tuffing

I'd earned my taxidermy certificate online during my senior year of high school. At the time I was toting around an almost two-year-old, trying to finish school, and working as the crematorium cleaner. The matriarch of the Morningwood clan was the one to approach me about taking the course and said she would even pay for it. That meant more to me than my mother agreeing to pay for all of my years of dance classes, since she got a discount because she was screwing the manager and giving him private dances.

Almost eight years later and I had to say I was really good at the job, as Blanche liked to point out, I'd had my hand on a lot of hard things and was the best at stuffing them.

I was wrist deep in a deer ass when I heard a knock at the door. I figured it was Luna coming for lunch so I yelled, "Hold on, let me adjust this deer's nuts and then we can get lunch."

"That wasn't the way I planned on asking you on a lunch date, but I guess I'll take what I can get," a familiar voice said.

My eyes widened and immediately I pulled my hand out of the deer’s ass, and whirled around to see Miles standing in the doorway. His unruly curly hair was gelled down as much as it could be and he had a bouquet of pink daises in his hand.

I grabbed a towel from the nearby rack and wiped my hands off. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you."

"Do other men usually come and take you on lunch dates?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not unless Luna counts, but really I wasn't expecting you. I would have, um, maybe not had my hand up a dear's ass?"

"So, does that mean you aren't free to grab a quick bite?" Miles asked.

I sighed and wiped my hands off on a towel then doused my hands in hand sanitizer. "Look, Miles, you're a really nice guy. Almost too nice. The kiss and the walk home the other night was nice, but I'm really not in a place for any kind of a relationship, especially not with my kids Coach."

Miles sat the flowers on my desk then looked up at me with a tight-lipped smile. "Fine. Then we'll just fuck," he said as if he just told me today's History homework.

I raised an eyebrow. "You don't seem like the friends-with-benefits type and I'm not sure this is the best idea..."

"How’s this for friends-with-benefits type?" Miles pushed the flowers and all of the embalming tools off the table, falling to the wooden floor with a loud clank.

"What the hell did my stuffers do to you?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

Miles grabbed me by my waist and I yelped a little, as he lifted me up and set me on my desk. "I'll stuff you," he said, pushing my knees apart and standing between my spread legs.

I couldn’t help but laugh. "Really? That's the line you come up with?"

"Did it work though?" Miles asked, whispering into my lips.

"Maybe," I replied, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. If I was going to hell for flirting with Miles and we already had the one kiss, my body that was definitely lacking action, needed something more.

But before I could even press my eager lips to his, the doorknob to the office turned. Quickly I pushed Miles back, which only caused him to fall on his ass. I stood up and pulled my dress down just in time for Brannigan's dad to walk in.

Doug was one of the biggest mistakes of my life and now I was stuck with the man forever. At first I could stand being around him, but only because he was really pretty and at least I could get off. But the years hadn't been so kind to Doug and now he was at least one-hundred-pounds overweight with a curly mullet and pornstache. Now his inner personality matched his outward.

"Doug? What are you doing here?" I asked as Miles got to his feet and dusted off his khakis. Part of me wanted to tell him that he was pushing around dust from a poodle's ballsack, but I decided not to.

"I should ask Coach here the same thing," Doug said, hiking up his stonewash jeans.

I really wanted to snap back and ask him about his night with Queenie, but instead decided to avoid that can of worms all together.

"Oh, uh, Miles and I were just discussing burial rights for his mother's cat," I said, coming up with something on a whim.

"Yes. Mother wants a proper burial for good ol' Fluffy," Miles said, hooking his arm into a weird little "alrighty then" motion.

Doug shook his head. "Whatever. I don’t want to hear about this cat shit. I was just on my way to the car wash in Dollywood and wanted to tell you I can’t take Brannigan this weekend."

My eyes widened. "What? It's your weekend."

By his weekend that usually meant that his parents, the owners of Dollywood Dazzlers carwash and the new Beaver Falls Bubble & Suds wash, spoiled her rotten and she came home even more of a brat than usual.

"Yeah, some things came up at the car wash that I gotta take care of," he said, looking everywhere but at me, which meant he was lying.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "So you're picking up extra cashier hours? Maybe then you'll actually get your child support payment in on time and Brannigan can finally get braces."

"Aw, geez, Mo, can you cut that shit about money? Damn, maybe if you got your beaver on the pole instead of sitting in this musty old place and stuffing people's dead animals, you would finally move out of that shitty apartment and stop bitching at me for money."

I opened my mouth to speak, but was too shocked to say anything. Never mind that it was true I could make money stripping. I'd lose the little self respect I had left if I did the "Three generations of strippers" show.

"Um, Moira, would you be able to show me that stuffing technique you thought would be good for Fluffy?" Miles asked, breaking up the tension.

Doug put his hands up. "I’m out of here. I don’t want to hear about whose stuffing who. I'll send the check next week. Tell Brannigan I'll see her next month," Doug said before he shut the door.

The air was thick around us and Miles finally spoke after what seems like forever. "So you and Doug...?"

I shook my head turning toward Miles. "He was a stupid hook up while I was in high school. He was with Blanche and I wanted to get with the hot senior jock. It ended up with me having Brannigan. See? Like I said, I'm a stupid slut."

Miles put his hands on each side of my face and forced my eyes to meet his. "You're not any of those things. One mistake doesn't define you."

"Two mistakes, and a lot of other things," I muttered.

"The point is, no guy should talk to you like that no matter who he is. He also shouldn't treat his daughter like she's a chore."

"Yeah, if I didn't need his check every month, even though he barely see's her, I'd take over full parental rights of Brannigan."

Miles smiled, putting his hands down and taking my fingers, intertwining them with his. "How about we all do something after the game on Saturday?"

"All of us?" I raised an eyebrow.

Miles smiled. "Yes. You. Me. Brannigan. Harry. I don’t know what we'll do, but I'm sure we'll find something."

"Are you sure you want to do that Mr-I'm-okay-with-just-being-a-hook-up?" I folded my arms across my chest.

Miles leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on my forehead. "A hook up can be a friend too."

D
ate Night

"I have a date," I whispered, bumping Luna's shoulder as we walked to the soccer fields.

"A date? Like dinner and drinks with a man who doesn't ask you “how much” afterward?" Luna asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously that only happened with like five guys I met on Tinder and never again."

Luna looped her arm through mine. "Okay, who is this non-Tinder date with then?"

"Well, maybe it’s more of a hangout. Brannigan and Harry are coming, and we're going to the end of the school year carnival."

"Just freaking tell me who it is!" Luna squealed, pinching my side.

I squirmed and laughed. "Okay! Okay! It's Miles."

Luna stopped and blinked, staring at me. "Geeky Coach Tucker? Are you sucking him off so Harry gets more playing time?" she whispered.

I rolled my eyes. "No, we just kind of started talking and one thing led to another. We haven't even slept together yet, I mean we were close, but then Doug walked in, being all douchey as usual."

"Wait. Hold up!" Luna put her hand up. "You haven’t slept with him? And what's this about Doug?"

I sighed and gave her all of the details of the Piggly Wiggly, and being in the office, and Doug refusing to take Brannigan for the weekend.

Luna shook her head. "I don’t know, Mo. This could end very badly, you know."

"Don’t you think I know that? But it's like the more I push him away and the more he sees the bad sides of me, he still keeps coming back for more. So basically, I have nothing to lose."

"Maybe your kid’s spot on the soccer team," Luna mumbled.

I smiled. "We only have a month left and besides, if things really go bad, I'm sure the team wouldn't hurt too badly if Harry didn't play next season."

I glanced up at my little boy who stopped to pick a few flowers and told Saige that he was going to tell Sadie a poem before he presented them to her. Maybe having my little guy hang out with someone who wasn’t Douchey Doug and a better role model wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

C
arnival Time

"Why are we here anyway? You hate cotton candy and you hate the people in this town even more," Brannigan grumbled, not even looking up from her phone, another gift from Doug's parents since he couldn't see her for the weekend.

"I thought it would be fun for us to all do something together," I said, putting my arm around Brannigan and the other around Harry.

"That or your chance to scope out single dads," Brannigan muttered.

"Moira! Harry! Brannigan! Fancy seeing you guys here," Miles said, approaching us near the shaved ice stand. Really subtle.

Brannigan finally looked up from her phone with her eyes wide and squeaked out something, then furiously started typing again.

During soccer practice, Miles and I decided it might be better to meet at the carnival and have it look like a strange coincidence. I didn’t think he'd take it as far as the cheesy line, but I couldn't put anything past the guy wearing khakis and a sweater vest when it was seventy degrees out at five pm.

"Hi, Miles," I said, trying to muster a smile, but I'm pretty sure sweat was dripping down my armpits and soaking my dress.

"Coach Miles do you want to ride the Ferris Wheel with me?" Harry asked, jumping up and down.

"Hey, sure, that sounds great. Let me just get us some tickets," Miles said, not missing a beat and putting his hand on Harry's back, like they were old pals just out for a stroll and this wasn’t some weird set up.

"Ladies and Gentleman, folks of all ages," a really cheesy announcer called over the speakers.

"If you turn your attention toward the Grand Stand on the baseball diamond, you'll see that we're setting up for the annual pie eating contest and we need a few more volunteers!"

Harry grabbed Miles arm. "Coach, you should volunteer! Mom always says she bets you're great with your mouth!"

My jaw fell open staring between Miles and Harry. I put my hands on Harry's shoulders. "You know by that I mean coaching, Harry." I tried to save myself, but by Miles smile I think he knew exactly what I was talking about.

"I guess we should put my mouth skills to the test. Let's go sign up!" Miles said and Harry clapped enthusiastically.

Miles and Harry headed toward the stage, while Brannigan and I reluctantly followed. Brannigan didn't look up from her phone the entire time.

"You know if you stare at that thing too long you may go cross-eyed," I said, bumping her shoulder.

"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes.

I didn't think the teenage years started at ten and if Brannigan turned into the hellion I was, then I’d have to start drinking more.

"Hey, I didn't know you guys would be here," Luna said, approaching us with a kid in each arm and a huge grin on her face.

"Yeah you did, Momma. You were the one who said we had to come and make sure Moira was behaving herself," Saige said, bouncing up next to her.

"Saige, remember what Mommy and Daddy said about repeating everything we say?" Luna's six-foot-four dreamboat of a husband, Brady Morningwood said, as he put his arm around his wife and the other around Saige.

"I didn't think that was a bad thing," Saige whined.

"It's fine," I said, forcing the biggest fake smile I could. The one I was pretty much used to wearing on the daily.

"Where's Harry?" Saige asked.

"He's..." Before I could finish my sentence, our little circle was joined by Blanche arm-in-arm with Clancy, and Queenie following close behind with Anna and her winged eyeliner that looked better than any stripper or drag queen I'd ever seen, and the girl was freaking eight.

"Moira, Brannigan, we didn't know you guys would be here," Queenie said in his high-pitched voice he usually reserved for new clients and when he was sucking up to PTA moms.

I put my hands up. "Okay, enough, I know Luna told you all I was going to be here with Coach Miles and you wanted to check on me. I'm fine. He's up there signing up for the pie eating contest with Harry."

Everyone stared at me wide-eyed in silence until Brannigan finally looked up from her phone and spoke. "You planned a date with my history teacher? What the hell?"

"Brannigan!" I yelled.

"Whatever. If you're just going to ditch for me a guy, like Glamma always said you would, I'm just going to call Grandma and Grandpa Douglas to pick me up."

"Brannigan, wait!" I said, but she was already starting to turn with the phone up to her ear.

"Excuse me," I muttered, pushing past our group and power walking as fast as my heels could carry me on the hot cement toward Brannigan.

I grabbed the phone from her ear while she was in mid-sentence, then hung it up before shoving it in-between my boobs, which were very nicely pushed up thanks to the bra Luna let me borrow.

"What the hell, Mom?" Brannigan asked, staring at me with her mouth hanging open.

"If you want your phone then come and get it," I said, mustering up more courage than I'd had in the last ten years.

"Ew, I'm not going in your boobs," Brannigan said, wrinkling her nose.

I took a step closer and put my arm around her. "Baby, I know I'm not always the best mom and I mess up a lot. Okay, I mess up most of the time. But know that I do love you and I'm trying. I'm really freaking trying. I work all day stuffing people's dogs so you can go to drama camp and buy those skinny jeans. You, Harry, and I may not have the perfect family, and I may not be the perfect mom, but know that I will do anything for you. And if you don't want me to see Miles, I wont."

Brannigan blinked. "You would stop seeing him just because I asked?"

I smiled. "As much as I do like the guy, yeah. People have come and gone from our lives, but you and me Brannigan? We're forever. Even though you may be embarrassed of your stripper grandma, and great-grandma, and your mother who stuffs beavers. You can't pick your family, Bran, but we'll always be here for you."

Brannigan sighed. "Yeah. I guess you do a lot more than I give you credit for. More than I should give Douchey Doug."

I smiled, but quickly shook it away. "Hey, what did I say about repeating what I say about your father?" I asked.

Brannigan grinned. "That it's totally justified."

I shook my head and hid my ghost of a smile. "Okay, let's head back to our little group."

"And watch your boyfriend win the pie eating contest," Brannigan added.

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Well, then the guy who has to put up with you," Brannigan replied, and I squeezed her shoulder before we headed back toward the grandstand.