The boys and the mothers whooped and cheered.
“Look, Mom!” Noah said, tugging on my arm excitedly. “It’s Coach Andrew! Did you know he was coming?”
“I had no idea.”
“I’m going to go see what he’s doing. Want to come?”
“You go ahead. I’ll be right here.”
“Okay.” He trotted over to the knot of boys around the coach but hesitated at the edge of the group, eyeing with a certain amount of apprehension and uncertainty the taller boys who stood between him and the coach.
Andrew spotted him. “Noah!” he called out. “My assistant! Come over here, man. I need your help getting organized. I was hoping you’d be here!”
The boys shifted aside to let Noah through, watching with envy as the coach high-fived him enthusiastically.
Andrew set the kids to work making the goals and marking the field. He kept leaning down to “consult” with Noah, who stayed close by his side.
Maria tapped me on the shoulder. “Come join us,” she said, pulling me toward the mothers who were grouped around the snack table. “Noah’s fine.”
“I didn’t know Coach Andrew was coming.”
“Isn’t he the best?” She appealed to all the other moms. “Who here thinks Coach Andrew is just the best?”
“Is he as good-looking as I think he is, or is it just that he’s the only male in the lower school?” asked one of the moms, who looked vaguely familiar but whose name I didn’t know. Actually, they all looked vaguely familiar and I didn’t know any of their names.
“He’s not the only male,” another one said. “There’s the assistant teacher in third grade and the science teacher.”
“They’re both gay,” Maria said.
“Are they?”
“Oh, who knows? Odds are good, right? They’re certainly not like him.” We all watched Andrew a little while longer. “Anyone want a glass of wine?” Maria said. “Now that the kids are distracted?”
A couple of the women said yes, and Maria took them inside. That left me at the table with a bunch of women I didn’t know. I felt tense and wary.
“You’re Rickie, right?” one woman said. She was on the younger side for a Fenwick mom—still at least a decade older than me, of course, but not much more than that. She was wearing jeans and a cardigan sweater and had her brown hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. I liked that she wasn’t all Stepfordy. “You’re Noah’s mother?” I nodded, and she said, “And Melanie’s sister? I have a daughter in Nicole’s class, too. They’re such a nice family.”
That I could agree with. And did.
“My son’s Joshua.” She pointed to a smallish boy standing by second base, gazing dreamily down at the grass. “That guy. The one who would rather be picking clover than actually catching a ball. And there he goes.” Sure enough, the kid squatted down and plucked at the grass, oblivious to the shouting and racing going on around him. We all laughed.
“Did you ever resolve that bullying thing with those other boys?” another woman said to her. She had copper red hair—obviously dyed, but it looked good on her. Made me want to try dyeing mine that color.
“I wouldn’t say we resolved it. Things are moderately better.” She turned to me. “Joshua was getting picked on by some of the boys in the class, and I didn’t feel like Ms. Hayashi was staying on top of it.”
“Noah’s been dealing with the same problem,” I said. “I mean, I assume it’s the same problem. Caleb and his crew?” Joshua’s mom nodded ruefully. “They gave him something to eat that made him sick—he has this disease so he can’t eat wheat—and laughed when he threw up.”
“Oh, my god,” Joshua’s mother said. “That’s horrible. What did you do?”
“Nothing. I thought about talking to Dr. Wilson about it, but…” I shrugged and a third mother in the group snorted. She was wearing a huge sunhat and sunglasses, and her skin was white with a layer of sunscreen that hadn’t been rubbed in all the way.
“Not worth the bother, right?” she said. “He’d tell you he’d take care of it and nothing would change.”
Joshua’s mother said, “We’ve all been down that road.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I went to see him about something else and that’s pretty much what I got.”
“Sometimes I think he was hired just to sit in that office nodding and smiling and making us feel listened to,” said Joshua’s mother. “But he’s not actually hearing a word.”
“And for this we pay twenty-four thousand dollars a year,” said the sunhat mom.
The sum shocked me. Since my parents took care of the tuition, I just passed the bills on to them without even opening the envelope. I didn’t want to know how much it cost.
“It’s a good education,” Joshua’s mother said with more hope than conviction. “And the high school is supposed to be amazing. If Joshua survives until then.”
“Hey, whatever happened with that playdate?” the redhead asked her. “When Hayashi told you to invite Caleb over, see if the boys could connect?”
“Oh, that. It never even happened. Joshua hated the idea, of course, but I was willing to give it a try—at our house, though, so I could supervise and make sure Caleb didn’t actually murder him or saw off his arm or anything. Anyway, I called up Caleb’s mother and asked if he could come over to our house, and there’s like this pause and then she says, ‘Oh, his schedule’s so busy, we don’t really do playdates.’ ”
The redhead raised brown eyebrows. “But he’s always going home with other kids.”
“Believe me, I’ve noticed.”
“You’re not rich enough for them,” the sunhat mother said. “All his friends are rich or famous or both.”
There was some general agreement about that, and then the baseball game started and we all turned to watch, laughing at the boys’ attempts to look like professional baseball players by sticking out their tiny butts and raising their bats high when hitting. Andrew was pitching, and you could see him adjust his pitch for each kid: slow and easy for the smaller, less athletic ones, harder and faster for the stronger guys. I wondered if there was a pitch in the world slow and soft enough for Noah.
Maria and the other two moms returned with their glasses of wine, and for a while I felt almost relaxed.
And then Noah came up to bat. Up until then, he’d been either on the bench or in the outfield, and none of the boys hit the ball far enough for an outfielder to have to do anything but stand there with a mitt looking interested. But when he came up to home plate, I felt a familiar sick feeling. He was so small… and so weak… he could barely lift the bat… and he looked swamped by the helmet… and nervous and uncertain. Could he even hit a ball with a bat?
As I watched, Coach Andrew approached him and moved his arms and legs a little to put him into more of a hitter’s stance. He got behind Noah and put his arms around him to show him how to lift the bat, then did a couple of slow, practice swings with him. Then he clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder and walked back to the plate that subbed for the pitcher’s mound.
“Ready?” he called to Noah.
Noah nodded. But the bat was already sagging in his weak grip.
“Lift the bat a little,” Andrew said. “Good job.” He leaned forward and very gently and carefully threw the ball right at Noah’s bat. It touched it and fell straight down, because Noah hadn’t swung at all.
There was a general call of “Foul,” and the boy who was the catcher picked up the ball and tossed it to Andrew before resuming his crouch.
“Remember to swing this time,” Andrew called to Noah. He threw again. Noah swung the bat too soon. This time the ball didn’t touch the bat at all. A strike was called.
The third time wasn’t that different from the second. “I think that was off the plate,” Andrew lied as he neatly caught the ball the catcher threw to him. “We’ll call that a ball. One more try, Noah.”
He could have given him a hundred more tries: the kid wasn’t going to get any lift o
ut of the ball, not the way he was barely moving the bat. Andrew geared up to pitch—
“Oh, just let him get a hit,” I heard someone murmur. It was so completely what I was thinking that it startled me. I looked over my shoulder: Joshua’s mom was watching Noah as intently as I was.
Andrew pitched, Noah barely moved the bat, the kids all shouted, “Strike three, you’re out,” and Andrew said, “Good try, Noah. Next batter up!”
Noah handed the bat off and slumped back to the bench. I saw him sitting there, all hunched up and disappointed, and wondered why just this once a miracle couldn’t have happened so he could have hit the ball right across the yard. Who would it have hurt?
The next kid hit the ball hard and sent it soaring. I wondered what it would be like to be the mother of a kid who could do that.
Still, Noah stayed in the game and I was proud of him for that. The kids played several innings, and then there were cries for some game called Fenwick Ball, which I’d never heard of and which seemed to be a sort of cross between dodgeball and soccer. They played in two even teams at first, and then it was the coach against all the kids, which delighted them no end as he called out good-natured taunts and sprinted around, trying to avoid their balls and kick his own. Even Noah was laughing and running around happily during that one, not necessarily helping his team but not noticeably hurting it either.
Then Maria sang out that it was time for cake and ushered everyone inside.
“Hey, Noey!” I said as he came running up with all the boys.
“I struck out,” he informed me.
“I know, but you stayed in the game and that’s what matters.”
“Only to you,” he said. “Did you bring cake for me?”
I groaned. “I forgot.”
“Mo-om!”
“I’m so sorry, Noah. Maybe there’ll be ice cream.”
“Why don’t you ever remember?”
“Why don’t you ever remind me?”
He shot me a look and pushed past me into the house.
On the dining room table there was an enormous cake that was decorated like a baseball diamond with a bunch of plastic baseball players arranged on top. On the outfield it said, Happy Birthday, Austin! You’re the best! in blue frosting. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and Austin blew out the candles. Maria sliced the cake and her housekeeper handed out the slices to the kids crammed around the table.
Noah came over to me. “There’s no ice cream, Mom. There’s nothing I can eat.”
“Sorry. We’ll get some on the way home.”
The housekeeper overheard us. “He doesn’t like cake?” she said to me.
“He can’t eat it.”
“We have Popsicles in the kitchen.” She pronounced it “pope-see-cules.” “He likes pope-see-cules?” I nodded and thanked her. “Come,” she said to Noah. “We’ll get you a pope-see-cule.” He willingly trotted off with her.
I took over her job of handing out the plates. The kids all had theirs, so I offered slices to the mothers, all of whom declined, and then I spotted Coach Andrew standing in the doorway. He had been packing up his equipment when we all came inside, but he must have finished. I went over to him. “Cake?” I asked, offering him a plate.
“Am I allowed? None of the other adults are having any.”
“They’re Fenwick moms,” I said. “They don’t eat. But there’s more than enough for twice this many people.”
“Good, I’m starved.” He took the plate from my hand. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said. “I was really happy to see Noah here.”
“I think it was a pity invite on Maria’s part. But it’s been nice.” I decided to eat the slice I was still holding. I cut and speared a heavily frosted chunk. “I wanted him to hit that ball so badly.”
“I know,” Andrew said. “If sheer force of will could move objects, I promise you I would have willed him a home run.”
“Really? If sheer force of will could move objects, I’d go for flying,” I said. He laughed. “I didn’t know you did birthday parties,” I added.
“For parents I like. Frankly, I can use the money.”
“The kids love you.”
“They’re used to me,” he said with a shrug. “Hey, you know what else I do on the side?”
“Chippendales?”
“Thought I recognized you from somewhere,” he said with a quick grin. “Seriously, sometimes I coach kids privately—you know, to help them get ready for soccer season or T-ball or whatever.”
“Cool,” I said politely.
“You know, I’ve been thinking…” He had already wolfed down his cake and now he dropped the fork on the plate and put it on a side table next to us.
“What about?”
“About Noah. He really liked playing baseball just now—he was totally into it, just frustrated that he couldn’t hit better. I think if he felt more confident about his game skills, he’d be more enthusiastic about PE and birthday parties and stuff like that.”
“Uh-huh,” I said cautiously.
“I’d be happy to do some private coaching with him.”
“That’s nice of you. But—”
“You don’t have to pay me,” he said quickly. “Just bake me some more of those amazing cupcakes, and we’ll call it a deal.”
“I thought you needed the money.”
“I’d just use it to buy cupcakes,” he said with a smile.
“Anyway, the money’s not really the issue.” The truth was, my mother would happily pay for Noah to get some extra coaching help. She wanted him to play more sports. “It’s just… what’s the point? The kid’s never going to be an athlete.”
“Don’t write him off so quickly.”
“Come on,” I said. “Look at him.”
Obediently, he turned and looked at him. Noah was sitting at the table licking his grape pope-see-cule, a quiet, isolated island, while all around him kids laughed and talked to each other and shoveled bites of chocolate cake into their mouths. “You never know,” Andrew said, turning back to me. “Things change. Anyway, no matter what, he has a lot of years of PE ahead of him. Why not make them more fun for him by increasing his confidence?”
“Why do you want to help him so much?”
He didn’t answer right away, just studied me thoughtfully for a moment. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, I ducked my head and poked at my piece of cake with the fork. “Because,” he said finally and I looked up again, “I think it would be time well spent.”
I didn’t even know what he meant by that, but before I could ask him, Joshua’s mom had come up to us. “I know you’re off the clock here, Coach,” she said, “but can I ask you a school-related question?”
“Shoot,” he said genially.
“Thanks. Some of the boys have been a little rough on Joshua lately and I’m just wondering how that’s playing out in PE.”
I slipped away while Andrew was still thinking it over, in that never-rush-into-anything way of his. I figured Joshua’s mom had a right to some one-on-one time with the coach.
11.
A couple of days later, when I got back from dropping Noah off at school, I found a brand-new pair of dressy wool pants lying on my bed. I brought them downstairs to show Melanie. “Do you know where these came from?”
“I think maybe your mom got them,” she said, her voice a little too casual.
“You think maybe?” I repeated.
“I helped her pick them out,” she admitted.
“Why? I don’t need pants.”
She eyed the torn jeans I was wearing, which were older than Noah. “Yeah, you kind of do.”
I scowled. “And I really don’t need my mother buying clothes for me like I’m two years old.”
“Right,” Melanie said. “She’s such a jerk—buying you nice clothing because she thinks you might like it. How dare she?”
“Shut up,” I said. “You don’t get it because she’s not your mother.” I shook the pants at her. “You don’t eve
n see that this is all about control.”
“Really, Rickie?” Melanie said, eyebrows raised. “Control?”
“You don’t get it,” I said again and, grimly clutching the pants, went in search of my mother.
She was drinking coffee in the kitchen. Eleanor Roosevelt was curled up against her leg, and, as I walked in, I saw Mom tear off a piece of her bagel and toss it to the dog, who gulped it down happily and then stared at her hungrily, waiting for more.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I said sharply. “You’re just teaching her to beg.”
Mom started at the sound of my voice and then laughed sheepishly. “You caught me.”
“That’s why she bugs us during dinner, you know.”
“I know. I’ll try to stop.”
There was silence while I poured myself a cup of coffee and Mom went back to reading the newspaper. My parents were probably the only people left in the greater LA area who still got the newspaper delivered instead of reading it online. “So I got the pants,” I said abruptly. “The brown ones you left on my bed.”
“Do you like them?”
“No,” I said.
She frowned. “No, thank you?”
“Even if I liked them, I wouldn’t like them.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t need you to buy clothes for me. I’m sick of you treating me like a little kid.”
She leaned back in her chair. “I’ll stop treating you like a little kid when you stop acting like one.”
“Meaning?”
“Grow up, get a job, dress like an adult, stop piercing and dyeing and tattooing yourself—”
“I haven’t gotten a piercing or a tattoo in over a year and a half. And I haven’t dyed my hair in ages.”
“You haven’t tried to clean it up, either.” She took a sip of coffee, then put the mug down with a definite clack. “Anyway, I’d like a little more from you than just not getting yourself mutilated on a regular basis.”
“Are you talking about money?” I said, my voice high and strained and, even to my own ears, whiny and childish. I hated the way I sounded and I blamed her for making me sound like that. “Is that what this is about?”