Even though Dad paid alimony and child support, Mom worked at a real estate title company as a file clerk in charge of all the documents or whatever from home sales. She wanted a job downtown as a title assistant for commercial real estate deals or something excruciatingly boring like that, and she was taking a bunch of dull classes at the community college to build her résumé. While Dad dated, Mom buried her head in textbooks. She almost never went out at night except if the college had a guest speaker she wanted to see. She had mostly stopped cooking except for casseroles she’d make on the weekend to last us through the week. She didn’t even have time to watch Charlie’s Angels with me these days.
She’d put men on the back burner, or on ice completely, and she almost never asked me about boys, either. It was like she thought our period talk and the anatomy lesson were all I needed. Not that I was complaining, necessarily. It’s not like I would have much to say if she did ask.
I went into the kitchen and saw Mom’s friend Jacqueline there, wearing a shiny gold blouse with a deep-cut neckline that showed off the big gold Capricorn medallion that hung to her breasts. Her hair was curled in glossy rolls away from her face, where her eyes were smothered beneath glistening purple eyeshadow. Mom’s textbooks were open and scattered across the kitchen table, along with what looked like the contents of Jacqueline’s makeup bag.
“Dierdre, I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to school. I’m just saying you shouldn’t go to school like that.” On the word “that,” Jacqueline gestured to what seemed like Mom’s whole body and every life experience and choice she’d ever made while living inside it.
“Jackie, I’m not going to school to catch a man,” Mom said. “I’m going to catch a better job and more self-sufficiency. I’m working on me.” She said this like she had to remind herself of these things, not just Jacqueline.
Jacqueline looked up and saw me, and her face dropped before breaking into a fake smile. I’d once heard her say to my mom how she’d give anything to have been born later because the “young girls are going to get to have all the fun now that everything is changing.” I wasn’t so sure about that, because I didn’t really know what things had been like before, or if I was having any fun, but regardless, she didn’t seem to like me.
“Susan, tell your mom a little lipstick wouldn’t kill her.”
“If it’s poisoned it could,” I said, grabbing the can of Cheez Balls off the counter and popping three into my mouth at once, which seemed to disgust Jacqueline.
“What happened at school today?” Mom asked, looking up briefly from her math book.
“We’re getting a soccer team. I’m going to try out.” If she asked more, I decided, I’d tell her about Bobby. Not all about Bobby, but I’d say, “Coach McMann seems nice.” Just so his name could float around our house.
Mom nodded. “Hmm, sounds interesting,” she said, but nothing else. I thought she’d be impressed, since I never went out for things. Tina’s mom had probably already started deciding where Tina’s trophies would go.
“Soccer?” Jacqueline said, and poured white wine into one of my mom’s Snoopy coffee mugs. (Mom had let Dad take the wineglasses.) The wine, Jacqueline had probably brought over. Mom didn’t drink all that often. “I know someone who played once. Such a rough sport. But you’re built for it.”
I ignored what had to be an insult as Mom said, “You’ll have to tell me how it goes, honey.” She scratched some numbers out on a legal pad next to her and frowned, then looked up like she’d remembered something important. “You left your light on while you were at school. The power bill doesn’t pay itself.”
“Let Albert pay it,” Jacqueline said, at the same time I said, “Doesn’t Dad pay for that?” The tiniest flicker of irritation crossed my mom’s face, and I wondered why she couldn’t be maybe a little bit like Jacqueline. Mom’s quest to prove she didn’t need help from anyone meant that instead of me being the girl who got to live with a Fun Divorced Mom who took her out for manicures and clothes shopping, I got stuck with my mom, who wanted to be practical and intellectual.
Maybe she felt stuck with me, too. It would be easier for her to work on herself if she were by herself.
I was about to head to my room, Cheez Balls in hand, when my mom pointed a finger in the air, as if spearing a thought before it got away. “Oh, and your dad called. He said he’d love to have you over on Sunday.”
“Will Polly be there?” I asked. Polly was my dad’s girlfriend, the only person he’d dated whose name I had learned and whose age was at least midway between mine and my mother’s instead of closer to mine.
“Yes, she’s cooking. Probably something fabulous, knowing her.” Mom never said much about Polly, not really, except that Polly was “everything I am not.” She took off her reading glasses and gave me a rueful look. “I know you don’t love the situation, but you can’t avoid your father.”
Jacqueline and I huffed out identical sighs. “Really, Dierdre, I don’t know how you can be so calm about all of this. You’re letting him win the divorce.”
Mom shook her head. “Jackie, there’s nothing to win. I asked for this, and honestly, I’m glad Albert has someone.”
“You could easily be dating a gorgeous stud if you’d just let me take you to A Single Thing,” Jacqueline said, naming the singles bar that had opened a few towns away. Jacqueline, who’d been divorced once, had met her new husband at the bar, if you could call him “new.” He was so old that I figured he would die having sex with Jacqueline before I graduated high school.
All I wanted was to not be there anymore. I could see how soccer would be good for that.
“I’m going to go study,” I said to Mom, who was back to reading her textbook, and Jacqueline, who was topping off her glass of wine.
I went upstairs, locked my door, and lay on my bed. I closed my eyes and thought of Bobby saying my name like he had, then took the thought a step further.
September fifth, a field somewhere. Bobby McMann sits on a bench, rolling a soccer ball between his strong fingers, looking across the empty expanse of grass. No one’s showing up for soccer tryouts, he knows, and it feels like no one cares. Frustration sets his beautiful face into a frown. He shoves the ball into his duffel bag and stands up to leave. Then there’s a tap on his shoulder. He turns, and it’s her. The girl he told about cleats. He’d hoped she’d show up.
“Are you here for . . .” He trails off, staring into her determined eyes.
“You,” she says.
He touches my hair and pulls my face to his, a little roughly, like he might explode if he can’t get closer to me.
(My fantasy thoughts always started in the third person and switched to the first person once I got going. It wasn’t like I was being graded.)
On my bed, my body tensed up and I inhaled a sharp, urgent breath as my right hand trailed down my body, the side of my palm pressing softly over the top of my shorts. I used my left hand to trace my mouth, imagining my fingertips were Bobby’s lips, and tugging my lower lip as if Bobby’s mouth was doing it. The nerve endings beneath my lips must have aligned with my pelvis, because bolts of what I called the Almost There shot straight to my crotch, where my hand was working faster, brushing up and down, still over my clothes. When I got to this point, like always, my breath grew ragged as my whole body quaked, my hips now pushing up against my hand.