Love, Suburban Style

  “Nice seeing you, too.”

  “Have fun watching the practice,” Laurelle adds, without bothering to ask why she’s here, or whether she has a child on the team, much less making room on the bench beside her.

  “You have fun watching the practice, too.” Meg wishes she could flee, but her path is temporarily blocked by a pair of women in designer sunglasses and heels trying to strategize where they’re going to sit. It seems that between the two of them, they’re holding grudges against half the female population in the bleachers.

  There’s nothing for Meg to do but linger. She says to Laurelle, because it’s less awkward than saying nothing, “Have a nice day.”

  Maybe it isn’t better than saying nothing.

  “Oh, I will. And I’m sure I’ll see you… around. So…”

  For the love of God, stop! Meg wants to shout. I’m going, I’m going.

  The two women blocking her path seem to have finally picked a destination, freeing Meg to move past Laurelle at last.

  I should have brought something to read or do, she thinks, watching the horde of other women—most of them Fancy Moms—settle into chatty rows on the tiered wooden benches like pigeons on a telephone line.

  No, not pigeons. They’re much too bourgeois.

  More like peacocks, or something equally beautiful and exotic.

  And mean.

  Wait, are peacocks supposed to be mean? Or is that blue jays?

  Anyway, you don’t know that these women are mean. You’re just imagining that they are because of your own insecurity. For all you know, they’re going to take you under their wings—as it were—and become your new best friends.

  “Hi, Meg.”

  It takes her a moment to realize someone is calling to her—in part, because she’s accustomed to answering to Astor.

  Even when she recognizes her new—old—name, she doubts the male voice is addressing her, because she doesn’t know anyone here, other than Sam.

  “Meg?”

  Oh, yes you do.

  Turning, she recognizes Brad Flickinger, wearing a linen shirt and madras shorts, holding a camera bag in one hand and a cell phone in the other. With him is a woman—an obvious Fancy Mom—clad in an effortlessly chic Caribbean aqua silk sleeveless shift and matching sandals. She can only be his wife Olympia.

  Sure enough, Brad says, “Olympia, this is Meg, Sophie’s new voice teacher.”

  “Voice coach,” amends Olympia, a slender brunette with classic, elegant Grecian features. “And remember, we’re actually still in the interview stage, Brad. We need to find the best coach to help Sophie land the lead in the all-school musical.”

  Meg is well aware that the Flickingers and Sophie have placed themselves in the interviewer role, rather than interviewees. Their attitude is that anyone would be fortunate to have a fledgling star in her tutelage.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” Olympia says belatedly, stretching out a bare, tanned, toned arm with a dazzling tennis bracelet at the wrist and an even more dazzling array of diamonds on the ring finger. “Is your daughter playing soccer?”

  “Yes, she is.” Meg resists pointing out Cosette on the field—not that Olympia has asked which one she is, or so much as glanced in that direction.

  “That’s nice.”

  “Is your daughter… oh, wait. She’s only thirteen, right?” Meg remembers that Sam said this was the fourteen- and fifteen-year-old league, and wonders what the Flickingers are doing here.

  “Yes, she’s thirteen, but she’s on the team,” Brad says, keeping one eye trained on the players.

  His wife comments, keeping one eye trained on the social activity in the bleachers, “Sophie has been playing soccer for years, and she’s beyond the twelve- and thirteen-year-old team. We wanted her to be challenged, so we had her moved up to the next level.”

  “It’s nice that they’re willing to do that,” Meg murmurs.

  “I wouldn’t say willing,” Olympia amends, and her pink-frost-glossed lips curve into a smile.

  “When my wife wants something accomplished, no matter how unrealistic it might be, she keeps at it until even her adversaries become accomplices in the end.”

  Meg notes that Brad says it proudly, as though getting others to bend to your unreasonable demands is the utmost quality in human character.

  She’s beginning to think she doesn’t particularly like the Flickingers. Maybe she shouldn’t consider teaching their daughter. All she needs is for Olympia to decide that Sophie should be in an accelerated voice program of some sort… or, God forbid, onstage in the next Andrew Lloyd Webber musical to hit Broadway.

  Convinced she’s dealing with a potential Stage Mother from Hell, Meg says, “Well, it was very nice seeing you”—to Brad—“and meeting you”—to Olympia. “Let me know if your interviews with other instructors don’t work out, but I’m sure that you’ll find—”

  “Oh, we’re still planning on keeping our appointment this week,” Olympia cuts in. “We’ll make our final decision after we’ve met all the candidates.”

  “That’s great.” Meg smiles brightly and tells herself she has no choice… she needs the money.

  And the Flickingers certainly have it.

  If they hire her to teach their daughter, she’ll at least have a slight income coming in fairly soon.

  “I’m going to have to shift a few things around in the schedule to make this work,” Olympia says, “because we’ve got so much going on, and it’s getting more and more impossible to squeeze everything in.”

  “Do you work, then?”

  “Me?” Olympia looks at her as though Meg just asked if she has her period. “Oh, not anymore. I haven’t worked since Sophie came along.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was a senior vice president at IBM.”

  “Oh. That’s… great.”

  That’s great? Is that the best Meg can do?

  “All those executive skills come in handy even when you’re out of the workforce,” Brad puts in. “My wife manages our household the same way she managed her job.”

  Meg opens her mouth but can’t come up with anything more original to say in response than, “That’s great.” Again.

  “Listen, why don’t you come sit with us in the bleachers?” Brad offers. “Olympia can introduce you around to everyone.”

  Everyone consists of the very women Meg was just watching… the beautiful, exotic, mean peacocks on the bench.

  She can hardly say no.

  Nor can Olympia, though she looks as though she’d like to. But she graciously pipes up, as though it were her own idea and not her husband’s, “Yes, come sit with us. You can meet the other moms.”

  “And dads,” Brad points out.

  Meg looks over at the scattering of men and wonders why they aren’t working on this nonholiday Monday morning.

  Maybe they’re teachers, like Sam.

  Nah. They don’t look like teachers. They all have that businessman air, like Brad does. Olympia too, for that matter, now that Meg knows about her corporate background.

  These people obviously have the luxury of taking time off for things like soccer practice. How different it is from the old days, when Meg was growing up. The men worked, and some of the women did, too, and you would never find parents at midday soccer practice together—with cameras, no less.

  So this is a good thing, Meg tells herself. Parents who have enough money and time to indulge their interest in their children. Definitely a good thing.

  Isn’t it?

  “You can introduce Meg to the dads,” Olympia tells her husband. “Or maybe you shouldn’t.” She turns to Meg. “You’re single, right?”

  “Right.” And not ashamed of it. Really.

  “You don’t want to meet these men, then. They’re all married with children. In fact, there aren’t very many single men in town, so you might be disappointed here.”

  “Oh, I’m not here to meet men.” Meg glances up at the contingent of Fancy M
oms again and wonders why she’s feeling as though she’s about to confront the Harper Valley PTA.

  “Are you involved with someone, then?”

  “No!” She’s careful not to turn her head toward the soccer field… and Sam.

  Anyway, she isn’t involved with him.

  She kissed him, yes.

  You even made the first move, she reminds herself, glad Olympia Flickinger can’t possibly read her mind.

  She kissed Sam, but they aren’t involved.

  For her, that was just… closure.

  Even though it felt like the opposite.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so insensitive,” Olympia is saying apologetically. “I completely forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” she asks, as Brad takes out a camera with a paparazzi-worthy telephoto lens and aims it at the field.

  “Of course you aren’t involved with anyone, or interested in dating. You’re in the middle of a divorce.”

  “I am?” Meg shakes her head. “I mean, no, I’m not.”

  “Oh! I assumed that might be why you were moving here. You know… to put some distance between you and your ex. People do that.”

  Meg would love to tell her that there’s more than enough distance between herself and Calvin. Not just an entire continent, but also a jet-setting lifestyle, a vast personal fortune, and an ego the size of the famed Hollywood sign.

  But she’s already made up her mind not to let anyone in her new life know that Cosette’s father is a movie star.

  Not, however, because she doesn’t want to brag.

  More like, because she can already sense that it would be some kind of social stigma here in the new Glenhaven Park.

  Meg is fairly certain that people of the Flickingers’ ilk won’t be impressed by celebrity. They’re impressed by wealth, she suspects, and only when it’s earned the old-fashioned way: through inheritance or savvy investment.

  Not that Meg wants to impress them. And she doesn’t really care whether she fits in here or not.

  But she’s got to try, for Cosette’s sake. She can’t bear the thought of her daughter being ostracized here the way she was in the city.

  “Actually, my divorce is ancient history,” she informs Olympia, wishing she could exit this conversation already. “I moved here because it’s my hometown.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Brad mentioned that you lived in our house.” She shakes her head. “Can you believe what the last owners did to it? When I saw that tacky ceramic tile back splash in the kitchen, and that overgrown wildflower garden by the back door, without any kind of plan, just all kinds of flowers thrown in wherever—well, I nearly lost it. What were they thinking?”

  They were thinking that wildflowers are beautiful. That they shouldn’t be in ordinary rows; rather, a riot of glorious, meandering color.

  They were thinking that ceramic tile is cheaper than marble, making more room in the family budget for a little girl’s sequined ballet costumes and toe shoes.

  Meg knows, because she shopped with her father for that tile, and she planted that cottage garden with her mother.

  She has the same sick feeling that she did back in fourth grade, when Bobby Baxter asked her why her mother’s hair was gray.

  “She looks more like a grandma,” he declared.

  Meg, who was already painfully aware that her mother was about fifteen years older than her friends’ mothers, tripped him the next time she saw him coming down the hall. That helped a little.

  “Get closer,” Olympia says abruptly to Brad, who, with his camera focused on the field, is clicking away like a fashion photographer.

  “I’m using the telephoto.”

  “Well, make sure you do some digital ones, too, so I can e-mail them to everyone later. You did bring the digital cameras, didn’t you?”

  He nods.

  “Get some video, too.”

  He nods again.

  Meg is bemused. Make sure you do some digital ones, too, so I can e-mail them to everyone?

  Who are these unfortunates, and why in the world would they want to see pictures of somebody’s suburban soccer practice?

  Well, maybe the Flickingers are documentary filmmakers, Meg decides.

  Either that, or just insufferable.

  “He sure is taking a lot of pictures,” Meg comments. “It’s nice that he can be here.”

  “Brad doesn’t miss a practice or a game. Or anything else Sophie is involved in, for that matter.”

  “Does he work from home, then?”

  “No, he commutes to the city.”

  “He’s off today?”

  “He took a personal day.”

  For soccer practice?

  Apparently so, because there is no elaboration.

  Meg watches Olympia watch her husband, the intrepid photographer, for another couple of seconds.

  Then, with an air of my work here is done, she turns to Meg, and announces, “I’m going to go sit down. My feet are killing me.”

  Of course they are, in those strappy sandals with heels.

  “How about you?” she tacks on.

  “My feet are fine.”

  Olympia looks down at Meg’s feet.

  Meg hopes her toes aren’t dirty.

  When Olympia looks up at her again, she’s wearing an expression that hints that they might be. “I meant, do you want to come sit with me?”

  Unable to think of a plausible excuse, Meg follows her to the bleachers.

  As they walk, though, she fights the urge to stick an unpedicured and possibly soiled foot, in a drugstore flip-flop, in front of Olympia’s polished toes in their designer sandals, and send her sprawling like Bobby Baxter.

  “Oh, and you can all pick up your uniforms at Crawswell’s Sporting Goods on Main Street starting tomorrow morning,” Sam remembers to add before dismissing the players from practice. “I want everyone in uniform for Saturday’s practice. Got it?”

  Everyone nods.

  Rather, the kids nod.

  Their parents are busy chatting to each other or on their cell phones. Loudly.

  All except Meg.

  She stands a little apart from the others, looking wholesome by contrast in her simple clothing, her glorious mane gleaming in the late-summer sun, unfettered by spray or pins.

  She doesn’t belong in this self-absorbed crowd any more than I do, Sam finds himself thinking.

  But, he reminds himself sternly, she doesn’t belong with you, either.

  That reprimand is necessary because he’s spent the last hour and a half trying to keep his focus on the field and not the bleachers, where Meg was sitting with Olympia Flickinger and her cronies.

  That surprised him.

  Especially since Meg seems down to earth, while Olympia is a tremendous pain in the—

  “Excuse me, Sam?”

  Speak of the devil.

  Rather, the devil’s spawn.

  Sophie Flickinger, a perfect clone of her mother—not just physically—briskly informs him, “I’m going to come to the next practice a half hour early.”

  He nods, and transmits that to the other kids, whose collective attention is beginning to dissolve at this point. “It’s good to be early… a half hour isn’t necessary, but—”

  “No,” Sophie interrupts, “I want to be early so that we can go through some drills together.”

  “That’s what the practice is about, Sophie. I don’t think we can ask the entire team to come early so—”

  “No, not the entire team. Just me.”

  “Just you?” Good Lord. It’s day one of the season, and it’s starting already. He’s been down this road before, as a soccer coach and as a teacher.

  “Why do you want to come early, Sophie?”

  “I need some one-on-one coaching.”

  “Actually, you’re doing just fine.”

  “Just fine?” Brad Flickinger has materialized at his daughter’s side. “Don’t you want to encourage the kids not to settle for status quo, Sam?”
>
  “Of course I do, but we’ve only had one practice, and—”

  “Olympia and I want to get her here early Saturday so that you can spend some time going over the drills with her, if she feels she needs it,” Brad informs him.

  “Fine,” Sam says helplessly, because how can he argue with a child’s incentive? It’s better than apathy, isn’t it?

  He glances at Cosette Hudson, standing a few feet apart from the other kids, just as her mother is from the other moms. Cosette’s head is bowed, and she’s kicking the grass with a black sneaker.

  The moment she showed up, pale-skinned, clad in that funereal gear, Sam found himself thinking that she’ll look as at home in a soccer uniform as Ben would in a dress.

  He tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, for her sake—and for Meg’s.

  But his hopes sank as she merely went through the motions on the field.

  Finally, though, when the ball unexpectedly came her way, she impulsively leapt toward it with a mighty kick and sent it sailing toward the goal.

  Sam could distinctly hear Meg’s thrilled screams from the sidelines, and smiled. As a fellow parent, he knows that witnessing a child’s triumph is far more exhilarating than achieving your own. He and a few of the other kids, including Ben, cheered wildly, too. Cosette looked momentarily pleased…

  Then reverted right back to indifference.

  But that glimmer of athletic brilliance was enough to give Sam confidence that Meg’s daughter might actually have what it takes to play on the team—and win over the other kids’ respect, if not their friendship.

  Now, as the players and their parents disperse at last—including the dauntless Flickinger clan and their heap of photographic gear—Sam watches Meg drape an arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

  Cosette immediately shakes it off.

  Not surprising.

  No kid wants a parent touching her affectionately in front of other kids, in public.

  But, catching a glimpse of Meg’s troubled expression, he senses there might be something more going on in their mother-daughter relationship.

  And whatever it is, it’s none of your business, he tells himself firmly.

  Still, as he gathers the equipment from the field with Ben’s help, he can’t help but keep one eye on Meg and Cosette as they walk away, toward the parking lot. Cosette is several feet in front of her mother.