The Real Soccer Moms of Beaver County

T
HE REAL SOCCER
MOMS OF BEAVER COUNTY

Copyright © 2016 by HJ Bellus.Small Town Girl Books, LLC. & Magan Vernon Beautifully Broken Books, LLC

Edited by: Ultra Editing Company (Emma Mack)

Proofreading by: Alissa Glenn PA

Formatting: HJ Bellus & Magan Vernon

Cover Designer: Golden Czermak @FuriousFotog

Photographer: Crystal Spackman Photography

Cover Model: Brandon Scott Tesch, Jenna Frazier, Leslie Lancaster, & Shannon Haener

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of HJ Bellus.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

D
edication
-

To all of the sideline moms everywhere-

We raise our BPA free flask to you.

B
lanche Morningwood

Back to Loserville

“Mom, why did you take daddy’s favorite car?” Sadie combs through her doll’s hair.

“He told me to take whatever I wanted,” I reply knowing more of these questions will be coming my way. The bastard didn’t even care about his own daughter or how many States away we were fleeing.

“But why didn’t you take the minivan?”

“Sadie, I took daddy’s Cadillac Escalade. It’s the least he could do for us.”

“I’m happy, Momma,” Sadie pauses and looks over to me. “You won’t cry anymore because of him.”

He was the only reason I left Beaver Falls, the one and only hope left out there. I thought I had discovered that in Luis. He’d promised me everything, sexed me over good in college, and then…treated me like trash.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, girl.” I reach over and cover her tiny free hand.

“Life’s a bitch, right Mom?” Sadie’s contagious toothless smile dances across her face as she clutches her favorite American Girl doll to her chest.

“Yeah, life’s a real bitch,” I mumble back.

My dark aviators block the sun from my eyes as I drive down the endless highway back to my hometown that I fled from the day after graduation. I haven’t been back since. I ventured to L.A. with the dream of being the next Julia Roberts or Demi Moore, but to only be trapped into a loveless marriage.

Luis Antonio was crashing through the model scene like a tornado and fell in love with me in our senior year of college. He modeled for every big brand and his face was plastered across all the big billboards. Looking back, I’m not even sure the self-cynical, greedy model knows what the word love means.

When he opened The Exes Modeling Agency I finally thought it was my turn to shine, but again I was dead wrong. The closest I came to breaking through the blinding Hollywood lights, was scrubbing J-Lo’s toilet. Then the news of my sweet Sadie growing in my belly hit, Antonio was old news in the modeling world and his agency even began to struggle from all of his inappropriate business moves.

Walking in on him with his next big modeling client down on her knees deep throating his cock, was the final fucking straw for me. I’d gone to his office that day to tell him I was expecting another baby, but never told the asshole. I made my way to his attorney, filed for divorce and asked for nothing, but my Sadie and a car.

When Luis signed the papers giving up all parental rights to his daughter it crushed me beyond words. I think that hurt more than the actual cheating and divorce put together.

I reach up under my shades and wipe away a stray tear, and then feel the anger boil up inside of me. How could I let myself be treated worse than scum for years and even bring up a child in it? I admit that I did my best to shelter her from all of it, but it wore me down.

“Momma, I have to pee,” Sadie chirps out, tugging me away from my self-punishment and grueling thoughts.

“Perfect timing, dollie.” I point to her right. “Looks like it’s time to grab lunch and a potty break.”

She squeals in delight. “Oh man, I hope they have a sushi bar here.”

She claps her hands together and stares out of the window with very high hopes. Sadie has no idea the level of culture shock she’s about to go through. She’s only known the lifestyle in L.A. and now we’re leaving that for my hometown in Iowa. I can’t even bring myself to come up with a damn analogy for this move.

I watch my adventurous, and very naïve, eight-year-old bound out of the car and trot into Peppy Peter’s Pickle truck stop in search of a sushi bar. I breathe in the fresh Utah air and can only hope that Sadie and I adjust to the way of life in Beaver Falls. So many damn faces that still live there that I never ever wanted to see again, much less think about.

“Mom,” Sadie shouts to me. “Booth or table?”

“Um, you pick.” I walk up to her and we are greeted by the waitress who seems to be missing more teeth than she actually has.

“Booth, please,” Sadie beams up at the waitress with a happy smile.

I pat her shoulder, proud of her manners.

“Thank you.” I acknowledge the waitress when she points to a booth in the corner.

“Our special is veal. Ginny will be your waitress.”

The frumpy woman whirls around on her heels and heads back up to the front counter.

“Bathroom, missy, before we order.” I clutch Sadie’s hand in mine.

“Mom, I can go by myself.”

“No, Sadie. This is a new place with new people and strangers. No one knows us here. You’re going to have stick by me…”

“Mom, it’s fine.” She gently squeezes my hand and begins leading me to the restrooms.

Something inside me tells me that Sadie will be my champion getting through showing my face in my hometown and dealing with my scorned ego. After giving her the lecture of not touching a damn thing in the less than desirable bathroom, I lean back on the stall door and feel my stomach somersault.

I do my best to silently swallow my dry heaves and push away the impending sickness that comes with pregnancy. If this baby is anything like when I was pregnant with Sadie then I’ll be upchucking from month one to mother freakin’ nine.

“You okay, mommy? You look pale,” Sadie asks, as he begins washing her hands.

I pull a long string of paper towels out for her to dry her hands off and then another string of them to use to open the door. As soon as we are out of the bathroom I give her healthy squirt of hand sanitizer.

“I’m fine, sweets, just tired and ready to be done driving.”

“How many more hours?” She asks, sliding into her side of the booth.

“About thirteen.”

She reads through the menu and without looking up at me, says, “Holy Shitake Mushrooms, that’s a long time.”

I laugh at her improvised cuss word. We’ve had quite the struggle with her foul mouth, but it makes it damn impossible to reprimand her when I could make a sailor blush with my daily vocabulary. Even when tossed dead center in the L.A. scene my Beaver Falls vocabulary was alive and well. At the most boring events amidst the rich and famous, I’d play games seeing how uncomfortable I could make someone feel.

Well there was that, and the shitty cat dollar game that my high school friend and I perfected back in the day.

The look on someone’s face when they find a twenty-dollar bill on the ground and then pick it up to only find fresh cat shit in the middle, is priceless. Tacky and classless, but one hell of a good laugh when you felt all alone in the big world

“No sushi.” Sadie plants her elbows on the counter top cupping each of her cheeks with a forlorn expression blanketing her face. I see the tears begin to well up in the corners of her eyes and it shatters my heart. My poor baby is exhausted, and has been torn from her home and everything she knows.

“Um let me see, Sissy.” I slide out of my side of the booth and squish into her side of the booth. I push all the way in until I hear her muffled giggles.

“Mom, you’re squishing me.”

“Oh, man, I didn’t see you there, Sissy.”

“Mom.” She rolls her eyes.

“Sadie.” I roll my eyes right back at her.

“I just want…” she trails off and the tears begin to roll down her cheeks.

“You can tell me, Sadie.”

“I just wished Dad loved us more.” She keeps her face buried in the palm of her hands. “Then I could still be at my house.”

My world has officially shattered, turned upside down, spiraled out of control and any other way you could describe it. I pull Sadie closer, hugging her tight to my side, and letting her sob into my arms.

“Sadie, I promise you that we’ll make a new life and it’ll be even better than L.A.,” I pause fighting to hold back my own emotion. “It will take time, but trust me baby, we will have a great life in Beaver Falls.”

Those last five words are words I never thought would roll off my tongue. Not only do they roll off my tongue, but also I force myself to believe them and make it my mission.

“You ladies ready to order?” I peek up to see our waitress, Ginny. She has all of her teeth, and beams with a caring and positive attitude unlike the grouch who sat us.

“Um, yeah, we are.” I sit up tall in the booth keeping Sadie cradled to my side. “I haven’t had a chance to look, but do you happen to have chicken fried steak?”

“Yes, ma’am, we do and it’s even hand breaded.”

“Even better, this will be perfect.” I give Sadie a hopeful squeeze, silently praying she’ll snap out of this. “We’ll share the dinner size with French fries, brown gravy, and two side salads with ranch.”

“Perfect. I’ll get that coming.” She whirls around and pauses before she gets too far. “To drink?”

“Two Shirley Temples?” It comes out as a question instead of a firm answer.

“You got it.” Ginny sends a welcoming wink my direction. A silent understanding drifts between us. I can tell she’s a mother as well.

I turn back to face Sadie and hold her even closer if that’s possible.

“Sissy.”

I give her a few moments until I wait for her to answer. Her sniffles grow louder as she begins to control her sobs.

“I ordered Grandma’s favorite meal to make. You’ll be eating chicken fried steaks, pot roast, or Salisbury steaks every Sunday at Grandma’s house. She gathers the whole family and creates a feast for us.”

Sadie’s sob fade, but she fights to talk between her streams of tears. “So, instead of sushi, I’m going to have to eat a fried chicken with brown gravy?”

I can’t help the giggle that escapes. “Baby, it’s not chicken. It just has a weird name and it’s super yummy. One of my favorite meals.”

“You never made it for me, so it can’t be that special.”

“Well, Sadie I never took the time to learn how to cook it since my mom spoiled all of us,” I pause wondering if I should tell the next story. “I tried to cook it once for your dad before you were born, and let’s just say it was an epic disaster and your dad forbid me to fry anything else, ever.”

“Why?” She peeks up, her curious face.

“Well, one, the meal tasted like burnt plastic dog shit and two, I set the kitchen on fire when I threw water on a grease fire.”

The whites of her eyes grow in size. “I bet dad was pissed.”

“Oh honey, he wasn’t pissed. He was irate because the pristine white kitchen was scorched black from the flames and smoke.”

“What did he do?” Sadie sits to full attention.

“He hired a chef and not so kindly told me to never ever cook again, under no circumstances.”

Our drinks are pushed in front of us, but we don’t break our conversation. I peel the wrapper from both of our straws and push her drink in front of her.

“But you cook.” The features on her face are puzzled.

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “But it took a few years and when your dad wasn’t the top dog model in L.A. I had to learn to cook, but never did I fry anything again.”

“Explains a lot.”

“What?” I smile down at her.

“Why we ate a lot of food from the Farmer’s Market and you pretended to cook it.”

“Sometimes you’re too damn smart for your own good, Sissy.” I lean down and kiss the top of her head. “Try you’re drink.”

“It’s a pretty color, mom, I love the pink color and fizz.” Sadie leans over and grabs the end of the straw with her lips.

I study her face as she has her first taste of a Beaver Falls signature drink. While all of our parents had their own Shirley Temples bathed in whiskey, us kids had our own version of it. Secretly, I loved it for the cherry that always topped the drink.

Her little nose wrinkles at first and then she takes a long swallow of the drink. “Momma.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s freakin’ awesome. Is there soda in it?”

“Yes, sweetie and some other super sweet syrup.”

“I’m not allowed to drink soda, remember?”

“Sissy, dad doesn’t get to have any rules over us anymore. We’ll drink soda when we want, have a hot fudge sundae before bed, and even wear dirty socks if we want.”

“It’s our future, uh?” Her tears reappear with no warning.

“Yes, Sissy. It’s our future and only ours.”

“Mom, I know daddy didn’t want me. I heard him talking to his lawyer. I’m not trying to be a brat, but it’ll take time for me.”

She shocks me with how mature she really is and I never ever want her to think about his again. Now my tears finally stream down my cheeks. “Sadie, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m always here for you.”

“Holy shit, Mom.” Sadie points to the plate the waitress just set on the table. Her eyes pop out of her head whens he locks her vision on the plate over flowing with brown gravy and crispy golden fries.

“Sissy, today is the day that you’ll be inducted into the gravy fry hall of fame and trust me you’ll never be the same.”

I dip one of the long golden fries in the homemade brown gravy and let Sadie munch on the end of it. She’ll fit right in at Beaver Falls.

“My mom won Miss Beaver.” Sadie smiles brightly at the waitress.

The shocked look covering the waitresses face in a small town diner in the middle of Nebraska is classic. Oh, the jokes I’ve heard from this one small fact about me. Luis was always entertaining the crowds at dinner parities with my title of Miss Beaver. I know every single one-line joke and comebacks about beavers.

“Sadie, why don’t you eat?” I force a grin and hope she catches up on my irritated mom voice.

“Yep, she’s the only one to ever win three years in a row. It’s a Beaver County record,” Sadie chirps. Unlike, Luis who retold and retold the story to make a joke a my own expense, Sadie is proud. Loud and proud at that, since I notice three other booths full of trucker men staring us down.

So help me God, if one of these slimy mothertruckers even attempts to crack a joke about wanting to pet or feed my beaver, I’ll Don Juan, karate kick combo their testicles to the ground.

“You should be awfully proud of her. You have a beautiful mom and I can see she passed on all of her good looks to you.”

I manage to offer the waitress a small and very pathetic grin. Sadie fell in love with chicken fried steak. . We finish devouring the meal in silence and then hit the road again.