Field of Schemes (40 page)

Last week, when I told Lil about Ron straying, she nodded her head as if she already knew. “He seemed the type,” she said.

Holy crap, did he hit on her too?!

“Can I tell you something awful?” I asked.

“You just did, sweetheart.”

“No, I mean, something awful about myself, about my reaction to Ron’s affair with Mimi.”

“You were jealous,” Lil said.

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “I mean, I really put myself through the wringer over this. I felt horribly guilty over my thoughts. And once, oh God, I can’t even believe I’m going to say this aloud, but once I wondered if it would be so terrible to follow through on my feelings because what Ron and I had together was so clearly special,” I said, laughing at the absurdity.

“But you didn’t,” Lil said forgivingly. I shook my head emphatically. “And you wouldn’t have. Claire, you’re not the first woman to feel hurt when she learns that the neighborhood lothario views her as no more than a fungible unit of sex.” I giggled as Lil brushed the hair from my face.

“A fungible unit of sex?”

Lil smiled. “Should I have said ‘booty’?”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Lil, you’re the best,” I said, resting my head on her shoulder.

“What you must always remember, Claire, is that you are special. Not because some handsome cad pays attention to you. Why give that jerk so much importance? You’re special because
I
love you.”

It was a new year and time for the battle of our lives. When we saw the sign reading “Welcome to the California State Cup,” my heart was beating in my throat. Every pore was open and I felt like my innards were going to drop through my pants. Kelly and Rachel carried on in the back seat, a blend of nerves and excitement.

An hour earlier, as the girls watched
Bend It Like Beckham
(or as Darcy called it,
My Big Fat Sikh Wedding
), I whispered, “How did you get Ron to agree to let Kelly play for Gunther again?”

Darcy glanced back at the girls, who were fully immersed in the movie, and whispered, “It’s in Ron’s best interest to disassociate himself from Mimi.”

“Did you confront him?” I begged.

“I did,” she said. “I’ve done my homework on Miss Shasta, and my husband’s not the only one she’s been screwing.”

Peeking back at the girls again, I whispered, “Do tell.”

“Oh, you’ll find out. But you know Mimi’s stellar college soccer career she always reminds us of?” I nodded. “She played intramural.”

“No!”

“Yep, the biggest game she’s ever been in was a rivalry match between the Tri Delts and Kappa Kappa Gammas.”

“I’m loving this!”

“It gets so much better, Claire.”

“Why do you tease me like this?!” I said, swatting her.

“Claire, you will not leave this tournament this weekend without knowing everything.”

“Do you think we have any shot of advancing to the next weekend?” I asked.

“Honestly, no,” Darcy said before reconsidering. “Maybe next week, but no further than that. You know I love our girls and I think our patchwork team is pretty darned solid, but the teams that go on to the semifinals and finals of State Cup are amazing. The good news is that Mimi’s team won’t advance either.”

“Yeah, she had to take half of the B-team just like us. Basically, we both have A-minus teams.”

“Pretty much,” Darcy said. “But Mimi wouldn’t advance to next week if she had Mia Hamm and the Women’s National Team playing for her.” She smiled mischievously.

Shockingly, we won both of our first two games in tight, hard-fought battles. The girls from the B-team were far better in games than they looked in practice. And the parents were so much more pleasant on the sidelines than I’d expected. There was no sideline coaching, no disparaging other players and no secret pow-wows second-guessing Gunther’s plays. We had a sudden infusion of Normals, including, I’m happy to say, Raymond. After his first “Noooo mer-saaaaay!” Leesha placed her hand on her husband’s leg and said, “Mercy is a good thing, honey.” He looked at her and nodded in agreement. It was a private reference that quieted him instantly.

When we faced Mimi’s team on Sunday, the mood became decidedly tense. This was no longer just a soccer game; it was a battle between good and evil. Then I looked across the field and saw Tandy’s bony arm waving at Rachel. She called back, “Good luck, you guys!”

Okay, maybe it was just a soccer game.

As we watched the game, I was filled with pride over how much the girls had improved over the season. Sure, girls like Violet and Kelly came to the team with superstar status, but Rachel had really grown this season. And Tandy—wow! At the beginning of the season, she tripped over the ball. Now she was doing scissors and crossovers as if they were second nature to her.
The sideline was awkward with Darcy and Ron sitting beside each other as Dave and I shared a canvas bench with a soccer ball pattern. Their conversation was clipped, and that’s when they spoke to each other. Thankfully, Paulo came to sit with us and struggled through an apology in broken English. He was almost weeping with remorse as he explained that he had no idea what Mimi was doing when he agreed to let Giovanna play for her break-off team. Looking at his rosary-clad mother, I wondered what his penance was for this transgression.

Gia and her boobs—and her fiancé—were at the State Cup jumping around wildly like, well, kids. Sadly, Tom couldn’t make it, as Anne had taken a turn for the worse and he wanted to be by her bedside. I made a mental note to call him when we got back to Santa Bella. I had a list of the top ten worst things to say to the spouse of a terminally ill person, and promised not to utter a single one of them. Unless, that is, Tom was the type of person who found comfort in humor. If that were the case, the two of us could share war stories. I didn’t know, but would make a point of finding out who Tom really was, instead of assuming I already knew.

Nancy and her CFO husband huddled together under a wool blanket, while some of the Normals showed us seat warmers they bought earlier that day. Everyone clutched a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, or cider.

I watched Ron as he averted his eyes from Darcy, me—and Mimi, which was actually quite challenging since she was directly across the field from us.

Dick, Bobby, and Leo looked absolutely hammered, which wasn’t surprising since it was the last game of the day. We could always count on them to start the party early and keep it going till the cleanup crew broke down the goal nets.

When it was time for me to bring the girls out to the referee, I walked out to the center of the field, where I was met by Dry Drunk Dick, who, I guess, was Mimi’s team manager. “We’re taking the kickoff,” he snapped.

“Team captains flip a coin,” I reminded him.

How many games have you been to now, Loser?

As if he heard my thoughts, Dick’s head snapped up from its limp state and he shot at me, “D’unt matter cause we’re gonna kick yer friggin’ asses no matter who kicks off.”

When the whistle blew, everyone moved forward in their seats a few inches. Despite their marital issues, despite family illness, despite language barriers, we all had one thing bonding us. We wanted our girls to leave this tournament with a victory. As much as we may have liked individual girls on Mimi’s team, we still wanted to beat them. Not because we were competitive, but because we wanted all of the girls to see that right always wins in the end. We wanted to have our Disney ending, then have a meaningful chat about it on the drive home in the minivan. It wasn’t that we wanted to stick it to that pigtailed bitch in Nike sweats. It was about teachable moments.

In the final minutes of the game, the score was tied at one, and as luck would have it, my daughter fouled Cara in the box. Just in case anyone missed the implications of this—or might have had to wait a whole thirty seconds to see it—Mimi started shouting, “Right on! Penalty kick! Mariah, take the kick.”

Uh-oh.
I’d seen Mariah’s boot. And I’d seen our goalkeeper. McKenzie was doing a lovely job, but was no match for Mariah’s precision bombs into an unreachable corner of the net. “This is not going to be pretty,” I said to Dave.

Dave nodded his head and pursed his lips as if he were about to agree, but also added an optimistic twist. He looked as if he were going to tell me that kids grow emotionally from losing “the big game.” I thought he might also share a statistic about the low percentage of penalty kicks that make it. (God, I hoped it was a low percentage!) Instead, he leaned in and whispered, “She’ll choke under pressure.” I looked at him in mock horror, and he winked. “Ten bucks says it’s wide.”

Unfortunately, thanks to psychologists like Dave, kids like Mariah were unflappable, mentally balanced, grace-under-pressure little buggers. I got to watch the whole thing in slow motion, frame by frame. First, the young Jodie Foster look-alike sniffed while shrugging her shoulders to loosen them. Already, I was intimidated by her and the way she paced around, scouting the spot from which she would begin her approach. A year ago I would have thought the kicker simply stood in front of the ball and took a single chip at it. Through the intense faces of twelve-year-old strikers, I learned that there was a whole technique to this. And an entire psychological dance that goes on between the shooter and the goalkeeper. In the match-up between Mariah and McKenzie, the winner was pretty clear. McKenzie probably peed.

At the sound of the whistle, Mariah ran toward the ball from an angle and reached her right leg back. With the slow-motion effect, I could see the ropy definition of her quads. It was like something from a biology classroom poster. I was also struck by the tension in Mariah’s neck as she contorted her face with determination.

When Mariah’s foot connected with the ball, the impact sounded like thunder. I’ve seen her shoot beautiful arches where the ball drops down into the corner of the net, and I’ve watched Mariah shoot straight, fast, hard shots into the upper corners of the net. Today she was shooting arches, which reminded me of Cupid’s arrow being released from his bow. There was no way any goalie could have caught Mariah’s shot. I almost wish she hadn’t tried because it was embarrassing for everyone when McKenzie fell back and got her arms tangled in the back of the net. She appeared almost Christ-like when her head dropped to her chest as her hands splayed in the ropes.

With the referee having blown the two-minute warning whistle just before the foul, Mariah’s goal had probably ended the game. “There’s still time,” Dave said, patting my hand as if he had been reading my mind.

“It’s over,” I said.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this game,” he said.

“Me too,” Darcy chimed in. Ron sneered at her as if he had something to be angry about.

Looking at Dave, I said, “Look how your last prediction worked out.”

As we were talking, Rachel stripped the ball from Sissy and passed it to Kelly.
Oh my God, they’re going to do this!
The referee looked at his stopwatch, then looked up at the field. A girl I only knew as the Scab Defender approached Kelly, who made a move around her and then passed the ball to Violet, who was out wide, just outside of the eighteen. “If they tie this game, we’re still in,” I said to Dave.