Fool Me Once(9)

Alexa doesn’t want you to go to her soccer game.

Maya dialed the number. Daniel answered on the first ring.

“Hello?” he said.

“What’s wrong?”


*

When Maya tapped Alexa’s soccer coach on the shoulder, the big man turned so quickly the whistle around his neck nearly slapped her across the face.

“What?” he shouted.

The coach—his name was Phil, and his daughter was an obnoxious bully named Patty—had been shouting and pacing and throwing tantrums pretty much nonstop the entire game. Maya had known drill sergeants who’d have considered his behavior over the top for hardened recruits, let alone twelve-year-old girls.

“I’m Maya Stern.”

“Oh, I know who you are, but”—Coach Phil gestured theatrically toward the field—“I’m in the middle of a game here. You should respect that, soldier.”

Soldier? “I have a quick question.”

“I got no time for questions now. See me after the game. All spectators need to be on the other side of the field.”

“League rules?”

“Exactly.”

Coach Phil dismissed Maya by turning so that his expansive back was now facing her. Maya didn’t move.

“It’s the second half,” Maya said.

“What?”

“League rules specify that you’re supposed to play each girl half the game,” Maya said. “It’s the second half. Three girls haven’t gotten in yet. Even if you put them in now for the rest of the game, it wouldn’t total half a game.”

Coach Phil’s shorts probably fit him okay twenty, thirty pounds ago. His red polo shirt with the word “Coach” stitched in script across the left breast was also snug enough to double as sausage casing. He had the look of an ex-jock gone to seed, which, Maya surmised, he probably was. He was big and intimidating, and his size probably scared people.

Keeping his back to her, Coach Phil said out of the corner of his mouth, “For your information, this is the semifinals of the league championship.”

“I know.”

“We’re only up by one goal.”

“I checked the league rules,” Maya said. “I don’t see an exception to the half-game rule. You also didn’t play all your players in the quarterfinals.”

He turned toward her and again faced her full-on. He adjusted the brim of his cap and moved into Maya’s personal space. She didn’t step back. During the first half, sitting with the parents and watching the guy’s constant tirades at both the girls and the refs, Maya had seen him slam-dunk that stupid cap onto the ground twice. He’d looked like a two-year-old midparoxysm.

“We wouldn’t even be in the semis,” Coach Phil said as though spitting glass, “if I played those girls last game.”

“Meaning you’d have lost because you followed the rules?”

Patty, Coach’s daughter, chuckled at that one. “Meaning they suck.”

“Okay, Patty, that’s enough. Go in for Amanda.”

Patty smirked her way toward the scorer’s table.

“Your daughter,” Maya said.

“What about her?”

“She picks on the other girls.”

He made a face of disgust. “Is that what your Alice told you?”

“Alexa,” she corrected. “And no.”

Daniel had told her.

He leaned in close enough for her to get a whiff of tuna salad. “Look, soldier—”

“Soldier?”

“You’re a soldier, right? Or you were?” He grinned. “Rumor has it you were a bit of a rule breaker yourself, no?”

Her fingers flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed.

“As a former soldier,” he continued, “you should get this, plain and simple.”

“How so?”

Coach Phil hoisted up his shorts. “This”—he gestured to the field—“is my battlefield. I’m the general, these are my soldiers. You wouldn’t put some dumb grunt behind the wheel of an F-16 or whatever, would you?”

Maya could actually feel the blood in her veins start to warm. “Just to be clear,” she said, somehow managing to keep her tone even, “are you equating this soccer game to the wars our soldiers fight in Afghanistan and Iraq?”

“You don’t see it?”

Flex, relax, flex, relax, flex, relax. Take nice even breaths.

“This is sports,” Coach Phil said, gesturing toward the field again. “Serious, competitive sports—and yes, that’s a bit like war. I don’t coddle these girls. I mean, this isn’t fifth grade anymore where everything is rainbows and sweetness. It’s sixth grade now. It’s the real world. You get my meaning?”

“The league rules on the website—”

He leaned in so that the brim of his cap touched the top of her head. “I don’t give a damn about what’s on the website. If you have a complaint, file an official grievance with the soccer board.”

“Of which you are president.”

Coach Phil gave her a big smile. “I have to coach my girls now. So buh-bye.” He gave her a toodle-oo finger wave and slowly turned back toward the field.