The Abstinence Teacher

  It didn’t help that she was such an erratic player. On her good days, his daughter was a valuable member of the team, maybe not a star—she lacked Nadima’s nimble footwork, Sara’s intimidating power, Maggie’s competitive fire—but a solid and reliable performer, speedy enough to be an offensive factor, and surprisingly tenacious on defense, considering her waiflike proportions. On her off days, though, she seemed like an entirely different kid—sluggish, uncertain, emotionally disconnected from the action—as if soccer were just one more boring obligation in her overscheduled life. Weirdly, Tim could never judge her mood from talking to her in the car. He had to wait until the game started to see which Abby he was dealing with.

  Today looked to be a good day, though he couldn’t quite decide if this was because she’d come to play or because the Bandits were so outclassed that it didn’t really matter. The Stars asserted their dominance from the outset, moving upfield at will against their smaller, slower opponents—oddly, many of the Gifford girls were short and stocky, not the best build for soccer—and getting off several quick shots on goal before the Bandits had even managed to move the ball across midfield.

  A fairly predictable rhythm developed in the opening minutes of the game. The Stars would attack, and the Bandits would somehow manage to beat them back. But Tim’s girls were relentless; before the defense could catch its breath, they’d return for another try. Pretty soon the Bandits began to panic. They gave up any pretense of strategy or deliberation and just booted the ball randomly downfield to clear it away from their goal. Tim waved his sweeper up toward midfield to increase the pressure.

  “They’re gonna crack,” he told John. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  After making a nice diving save on Hannah Friedman, the Bandits’ goalie tried to punt the ball—she had a weak throwing arm—but it squibbed off the side of her foot, bouncing erratically toward the far sideline. Abby got to it first, but instead of passing right away—her usual impulse on offense—she took a moment to settle the ball and scan the field. Then, to Tim’s surprise and delight, she began moving toward the goal, something he’d been urging her to do all season. Without any hesitation or windup, she blasted a high, hard shot that sizzled past two defenders before bouncing off the goalie’s arm. As luck would have it, the ball landed right in front of Maggie Ramsey, who was perfectly positioned to bang in the rebound.

  “Bingo!” John raised his hands overhead like a football ref. “Yeah, baby!”

  Tim called for subs—no one ever complained about being taken out right after a goal—stepping onto the field to slap hands with his starters as they came charging off, sweaty and exultant. He could hear Frank Ramsey bellowing his approval from the far sideline—“Yo, Maggs, way to be there!”—and double-checked to see if he could spot Ruth standing among the spectators. It seemed odd for her not to be here, after raising such a big stink about last week’s prayer, but some people were like that—big on the bluster, weak on the follow-up.

  Or, he thought, with a bitterness that caught him by surprise, maybe she has something better to do.

  TIM HAD actually stopped by Ruth’s house the night before, ostensibly to drop off a sweatshirt Maggie had left at practice. Even at the time, he understood that this was just a pretext. Girls forgot water bottles and articles of clothing on a regular basis, and he’d never before felt the need to hand-deliver these items to their rightful owners. He was their coach, not the UPS man.

  Although he was pretty sure he had an ulterior motive, he wasn’t completely clear about what it was. It would have been nice to believe he was acting as a responsible adult—a gentleman, even—going out of his way to level with Ruth, to let her know that his situation had grown more complicated since they’d last spoken, giving her one last chance to remind him of the bargain they’d made, and what a disappointment he’d be if he reneged on it. But if that was the case—if everything was completely aboveboard—then there was no reason to hide behind Maggie’s sweatshirt. He only needed the sweatshirt if something murkier and less respectable were afoot—if, for example, he were a married man in no particular hurry to get home to his wife, looking for an excuse to pay a visit to a divorcee whose kids, he happened to know for a fact, spent Friday nights at their father’s condo.

  It must have been this lingering uncertainty about the propriety of his errand that kept Tim trapped in his car for such a long time after he’d pulled up in front of her house. She seemed to be home: the downstairs was lit up, the windows glowing warmly in the bluish twilight. The porch light was shining as well, almost as if she’d been expecting him. He could easily picture himself walking up the steps and ringing the bell, but at that point his imagination faltered. Did he greet her solemnly and inform her that they needed to talk? Or did he just hand over the sweatshirt with a sheepish grin and wait for her to invite him inside?

  He’d been thinking about her a lot over the past couple of days, so much that it had begun to make him nervous. Not with lust—he knew what lust was, and this wasn’t that—but with a kind of hopeful curiosity, a sense that they had more to say to each other. He would’ve liked to know a little more about Ruth’s marriage, how she’d hooked up with a blowhard like Frank Ramsey, and at what point she realized it was a mistake. And why had she kept his last name even after the divorce? She didn’t seem the type. That was all he really wanted—a chance to sit down with her at the kitchen table and resume the conversation they’d started on Tuesday night.

  Was that so bad?

  AT ONE of the first Bible Study sessions Tim had attended after joining the Tabernacle, Pastor Dennis had proposed a simple test the men could use in case they found themselves in what they believed to be a morally ambiguous situation, and weren’t sure how to handle it.

  “All you have to do,” he told them, “is to imagine Jesus standing right beside you, and then ask yourself, Would my Companion be proud of me right now? Or would He be ashamed? And you know what? Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, if you have to ask the question, you already know the answer. You need to turn around and get yourself out of there!”

  Over the past couple of years, Tim had applied this test on a number of occasions, and for a while, at least, it had worked pretty much the way the Pastor had predicted. Tim’s Companion had been highly observant and easily alarmed. Lately, though, He seemed to be slacking off a bit, or at least becoming more tolerant of human weakness. Tim knew this wasn’t quite right—in the Gospels, the Son of God was often angry and harshly judgmental, despite His injunction against mortals passing judgment on one another—but there were times when the Jesus by his side seemed no more helpful than one of his old stoner buddies from high school, the kind of guy who’d watch you screwing up, then just chuckle and say, Wow, dude, I can’t believe you did that.

  In thorny cases such as this one, the verdict usually seemed a lot clearer if he imagined Pastor Dennis looking on instead of Jesus. As far as the Pastor was concerned, it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference if Tim had come here to return a sweatshirt, or to have a serious conversation with Ruth about prayer, or to sweet-talk her into bed. No matter how you sliced it, the bottom line didn’t change: Tim was a married man and a Christian, and he belonged at home with his Christian wife. He needed to turn around and get out of there!

  And that’s what he was about to do—at least he was thinking about moving in that general direction—when Ruth stepped out of her house and began heading straight down the cement path toward his car, peering quizzically into his passenger window as she approached. There was nothing for him to do but unbuckle his seat belt and get out, as if he’d just pulled up a couple of seconds ago, and hadn’t sat through five repeats of “Uncle John’s Band,” trying to talk himself into leaving.

  “Tim?” she said, sounding a bit flustered. “Is that you?”

  “Maggie forgot this,” he explained, holding up the sweatshirt as he circled his car to join her on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, thanks,” Ruth said, ac
cepting the garment with a certain amount of reluctance. “You didn’t need to come all the way out here. You could’ve just given it back to her tomorrow.”

  “It’s no trouble,” he insisted. “I just thought she might need it tonight.”

  “She’s not even here. The girls spend Friday night with my ex-husband.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Tim said. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother.” She glanced back at her house. “I’d invite you in, but …”

  Her voice trailed off, as if she didn’t know how to complete the sentence.

  “That’s okay,” he assured her. “I better get going.”

  Ruth laughed nervously. Tim was surprised to feel her hand resting lightly on his forearm.

  “I’m going on a date,” she confided, her face close enough to his that he could smell wine on her breath. “First one in a long, long time.”

  “Wow.” Tim tried to ignore a pang of jealousy that made no sense. “That’s exciting.”

  “Can I ask you something?” She sounded a bit embarrassed. “I kinda need a second opinion.”

  She tossed him the sweatshirt and took a couple of steps back toward her house, where the light was a little better.

  “Do I look okay?” she asked, turning in a slow circle. “I tried on six different outfits, and they all felt wrong.”

  “You look fine,” he said.

  “Really?” Maybe it was the light, but her face looked younger than he remembered it, touchingly girlish. “Just give me your honest opinion.”

  Tim didn’t need to study her, but he did it anyway, just to make her feel better. She was wearing a belted leather jacket over a tweedy skirt, black tights, and high shiny boots. Her hair was loose, and she tucked a strand of it behind her ear, watching him closely.

  “My honest opinion?” he said. “You got nothing to worry about.”

  * * *

  THE RAIN held off until midway through the second half. Just seconds after Tim felt the first fat droplet strike his face, the sky seemed to burst open like a water balloon. The players ignored it at first, running doggedly through the downpour as umbrellas blossomed up and down the far sideline and subs scrambled for their soggy fleeces, but before long they were glancing plaintively at their coaches, hoping for a reprieve.

  Tim didn’t blame them. The game was a blowout, either nine or ten to one; he’d stopped keeping score early in the second half, after the Stars had scored for the seventh time, and the Bandits’ goalkeeper left the field in tears. In an effort to show a little mercy, he’d instructed his team to pass the ball at least three times before shooting, and to be sure to use their nondominant foot when doing so, but even that didn’t stop the bleeding. He’d gone so far as to consider an out-and-out moratorium on scoring, but had decided against it on the grounds that it was more insulting to stop trying than it was to beat your opponent by twenty goals.

  With less than fifteen minutes to play, Tim had no objection to calling the game on account of bad weather—it would still count as a victory for the Stars in the Division standings—but the Bandits’ coach wouldn’t go for it. He insisted that his girls soldier on to the bitter end, apparently to teach them some sort of lesson about perseverance in the face of adversity.

  Tim was annoyed at first—it was a cold November rain, and he had no hat or umbrella—but the longer the girls slogged on, the more he began to think Soccer Dude had a point. An oddly festive mood took hold in the last few minutes of the game, once the players realized they were thoroughly drenched and might as well make the best of it.

  A broad shallow puddle had formed in a badly trampled patch of earth around midfield, and the ball kept getting stuck there. One of the Bandits lost her balance trying to kick it out, and ended up sitting on her butt in the dirty water with a comically forlorn expression on her face, a mishap some of the other girls seemed to find inspirational. Before long, players were finding all kinds of excuses to slip and fall in the muck. And then they dispensed with the excuses and just went for it. The moment the ref blew the final whistle, both teams converged in the center of the field and began stomping around, laughing and splashing one another, completing the transformation from game to party.

  Standing next to John on the sideline, Tim hoisted the collar of his jacket up over his head and laughed as one girl after another ran squealing and flailing through the puddle, many of them so mud-splattered it was hard to tell which team they were on.

  “I’ve got half a mind to join them,” he said, but John didn’t seem to hear. Tim turned to say it again, but then fell silent at the sight of his assistant coach.

  John had his arms out and his wet stricken face turned to the sky, his expression frozen somewhere between joy and terror as he stepped onto the field. His lips were moving as he made his way slowly toward the girls, but Tim couldn’t hear a word he was saying.

  Refresher

  ROGER, A SIXTYISH GYM TEACHER WITH AN IRON GRAY CREW CUT, smiled at his fellow miscreants as he smeared cream cheese on a rubbery bagel.

  “Hey,” he said, sounding suspiciously cheerful for someone attending an abstinence refresher course at eight o’clock on Saturday morning. “It’s just like The Breakfast Club, except they actually provide breakfast.”

  Ruth didn’t know for a fact that Roger was a gym teacher, but it seemed like a safe bet, given that he was wearing those high-waisted polyester shorts favored by coaches of a certain age and a T-shirt that read PROPERTY OF WEST HIGHLAND EAGLES.

  C. J., the mannish lesbian standing next to Ruth, gave an appreciative snort. (Ruth didn’t know for a fact that C. J. was a lesbian, but she had yet to meet a straight woman who thought it was a good idea to dress like the lead singer in Sha Na Na.)

  “Yeah,” C. J. said, eyeing the meager spread of coffee, juice, and supermarket baked goods that had been laid out for them. “You get treated real nice here. Just stay away from the Kool-Aid.”

  There were four of them in all—Roger, C. J., Ruth, and Trisha, an earnest young woman who’d brought along her own supply of herbal tea bags—standing around a folding table in the regional headquarters of Wise Choices for Teens in downtown Lakeview, an hour’s drive from Stonewood Heights. The other tenants in the brick office building included a dentist, a test-prep service, and a company called Home Surveillance Solutions.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roger told C. J. “I drank the Kool-Aid and it had no effect on me whatsoever. I just happen to firmly believe that sex is bad and my penis is an instrument of the Devil.” He paused, looking momentarily puzzled. “No, wait, it’s my wife who thinks that.”

  “Well, she’s at least half-right,” C. J. quipped, tearing open a packet of Sweet ’N Low.

  Trisha sipped her Wellness Tea and studied the poster pinned to the wall above the copy machine. It showed a horrified college boy backing out of a dorm room, trying to escape the clutches of a seductively dressed, otherwise lovely coed who had “HIV+” stamped on her forehead in bold black letters. If Only It Were This Easy, declared the headline at the top of the poster. A smaller caption at the bottom read, Abstinence: Because You Never Really Know.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” she muttered.

  “What did you do?” C. J. asked her.

  Trisha turned away from the poster. She was a short, plump woman with straight dark hair and a pretty mouth. If not for her serious-intellectual eyeglasses, she could have easily been mistaken for a college student herself.

  “I admitted to my students that I masturbate,” she said, sounding mortified and defiant at the same time. “It wasn’t like it was part of the lesson plan or anything. We were just talking in a general way, and I said that most people probably did at one time or another in their lives, and that it was nothing to be ashamed about. And then this boy asked me point-blank if I had ever done it myself.”

  “Oops,” said Roger.

  “I know.” Trisha’s face flushed pink with astonishing rapidity. “I
should’ve just told him it was none of his business, but it seemed cowardly to evade the question. I mean, I tell them all the time that I want my classroom to be a safe place where people can talk openly about every aspect of sexuality and ask any question they want.”

  “And look where it got you,” C. J. said. “What about you, Ruth?”

  “My story’s not so interesting,” Ruth told her. “I just lost my head and suggested that there might be some problems with our handouts from the Jerry Falwell Institute of Disinformation.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Roger.

  “I’m a repeat offender,” C. J. volunteered. “They made me come last spring for the same reason I’m here now. Because I don’t care what the goddam curriculum says, abstinence until marriage can’t possibly apply to gay and lesbian people until we’re allowed to get married. Sentencing someone to life without sex is a cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “Tell that to my wife,” said Roger.

  “Ba-dum-bum,” said C. J. “And I thought Rodney Dangerfield was dead.”

  “What about you?” Trish asked Roger. She seemed to have relaxed a bit now that her secret was out. “What’s your sin?”

  Roger shook his head.

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “That’s not fair,” C. J. told him. “We all fessed up.”

  “Whatever,” Roger said. “If you really want to know, I showed my kids a Playboy centerfold. Miss April, 1973.”

  “Why’d you do that?” Ruth asked, genuinely curious.

  “It was stupid,” he said. “I was just trying to make a point about fake tits.”

  C. J. looked bewildered. “What’s that got to do with the curriculum?”

  Roger cupped his hands beneath his pectorals and gently lifted up.

  “I just like ’em natural,” he said.

  Ruth and Trisha exchanged queasy glances.

  “It’s something I feel strongly about,” Roger explained. “Don’t even get me started.”