by Nancy Star
Sondra flipped opened a thick folder. Her BlackBerry vibrated. She scanned it for emails.
“Finally,” she said after reading the first one. “Hah!” she said after reading the next. “Shit,” she said after reading the third.
She looked up at Annie and smiled. “Where were we?”
Annie pointed to the folder.
“Right. Let’s talk about the Context for Change outline.”
Then another email came, and one after that, and a third and a fourth. The fourth one really troubled her. Sondra excused herself after reading it so she could put out a fire that—she promised, really—would only take a minute.
But the fire was followed by several more flare-ups, a few blazes, and a downright conflagration. Sondra was up and down and in and out so often she began to sweat, even in the refrigerated conference room where Annie struggled not to show that she was shivering.
“Just another day in the wars,” she told Annie, when she finally returned. Her BlackBerry vibrated again. She sat down and closed the folder. “Why don’t I have my assistant make copies of everything in here,” she said. “You can read it at home and we can do this over the phone.”
“Perfect,” Annie said.
Sondra yelled for Mimi, her assistant, who came racing in. Mimi was tiny, with a deer-in-the-headlights look that at first made her appear to be somewhere around Charlotte’s age. But as Mimi hovered, listening to Sondra’s instructions, Annie saw the lines on her forehead deepen, the fallen jowls hang lower, and the gray roots of her blonde highlighted hair emerge more fully under the stark office light.
“Copy every single thing in here for Annie to take home,” Sondra said. “And do it TASAP. All right?”
“Done,” Mimi said. She took the folder and ran with it.
Sondra leaned forward. “If I don’t tell her to do everything twice as soon as possible she gets nothing done at all.”
Annie nodded sympathetically, because that’s what seemed called for.
“Here’s what I want,” Sondra said as she worked the keyboard of her BlackBerry, answering emails. “Start with the Context for Change outline. If we’re all on the same screen with that, we’ll immediately move ahead to Brochure. If that goes well we’ll do Transcripts, Video Link, Leadership Alignment Script, Executive Tool Deck, Presentation Deck, Elevator Speech, and Buzz Management Kit.”
“The usual,” Annie said as she jotted down notes. “Time frame?”
“I need it yesterday but I can give you until next week if yesterday is a problem.”
“Having it done yesterday isn’t a problem at all,” Annie replied.
Sondra let a loud chuckle escape in a puff of air. “I think I’m going to love you.”
“Mimi?” she called out. “Mimi? Do you have the folder yet?” She turned back to Annie. “If you have any questions, Mimi has my numbers. Cell, home, country house, and email. I’m always on email,” she added in case Annie hadn’t noticed.
Someone zipped past the doorway.
“Oh my God,” Sondra said. “Mimi, is that Ralph? I think that was Ralph.”
“Who’s Ralph?” Annie asked.
“Just my boss, the CEO’s son, and a jerk, all rolled into one,” Sondra said.
“Ralph,” she called. “Wait up, Ralph.” She smiled and took off down the hall.
Annie felt elated. She had a crazy client, but she didn’t have a Ralph.
She made the train with minutes to spare. Once home, she jumped in the car and arrived at the end of the day camp carpool line just as it began to inch forward.
Charlotte slid into the backseat wearing a damp bathing suit with a towel wrapped around her waist. Her face was flushed with fun.
“Hi, sweetie,” Annie said. “How was your day?”
Charlotte stared in the rearview mirror.
“Is everything okay?” Annie asked.
Charlotte pressed her lips together.
“Did something bad happen at camp?” Annie asked.
Charlotte shook her head. She unzipped her backpack and foraged for a piece of paper and a pen. She scribbled a note and passed it up to Annie.
Annie read it. “I don’t understand. Why aren’t you going to talk to me anymore?”
Charlotte wrote another note and passed it up.
“I didn’t fire Hildy,” Annie said. “She quit. Remember?”
“You should get a cat,” Charlotte said after a moment. “My friend Peter said after his mother fired his babysitter he didn’t talk to her for a year, so she got a cat. For company.”
“I didn’t fire Hildy,” Annie said again. “You do understand the difference between quitting and being fired, right? I know from personal experience the difference isn’t always that clear.”
“I can’t answer because I’m not talking,” Charlotte said.
They rode home in silence, and since Tim was working late, they ate in silence too. The silence continued all the way through to dessert, cookies and milk, which Charlotte allowed Annie to serve her.
Finally, after draining her glass Charlotte said, “Are we getting a new babysitter or not?” She sounded as if they’d been arguing about it for hours.
“How about if we try without one?” Annie asked, thinking this would be a welcome suggestion. “I’m going to be working from home and I think it will be fine just as it is. What do you think?”
Charlotte made a zipping gesture along her mouth.
“Do you want me to get a new babysitter?” Annie asked.
“Not talking,” Charlotte reminded her. She heaved a world-weary sigh and went outside to kick around a ball.
“Do you want me to catch for you?” Annie called.
“Not speaking,” Charlotte called back.
“Okay,” Annie said.
She could do this. She could make this work. She could fully focus on Charlotte. She could find a way to figure it out. She had to. Because somehow, without meaning to, she’d made quite a mess of it.
It was just a matter of coming up with a plan. Maybe a cat was the way. Maybe Charlotte had brought up the idea of a cat because she really wanted one. A cat might be just the thing to help soften whatever it was that had come between them. Annie made a mental note to add, Discuss Strategy for Identifying a Perfect Cat at the bottom of today’s Plan for the Day.
It was going to be okay. She was absolutely sure of it. She could make this work.
Eleven
Annie opened the front screen door. It groaned and snapped shut behind her. It was impossible that Charlotte hadn’t heard the door, but she was good at pretending. Annie sat beside her on the front steps.
Back in the day, before Proxo wore her down and Blaine Glass pushed her out, Annie had been pretty good at changing the mood of a meeting. She would use whatever was available—a piece of gossip, a pointed personal question, a joke she’d heard over lunch—whatever she had. Now she had nothing.
She glanced at the sky. The sun was setting. Clouds were streaked with wide stripes of reds and yellows.
“Have you ever seen such a beautiful sunset?” she asked.
Charlotte slid three inches away. “Ow,” she said as the step scratched the underside of her thigh.
“Are you okay?” Annie asked.
Charlotte shrugged, the edict against speaking still in effect.
Annie tried to content herself with just being there, just sitting. Her neighbors—on one side, the Gelbs, and on the other, the people she now thought of as the ones who didn’t sleep with her babysitter—were all closed up against the night. All was quiet, except for the loud hum of air-conditioning. The sidewalks were empty too, everyone tucked away from the summer’s humid air.
Across the street Annie saw the blue light of a TV, and what looked like people sitting together on a couch. She knew nothing about them, but it seemed from afar that they were happy.
A firefly darted in front of her, then another, both of them flickering as they made slow loops in the air, drunken pilots of their own
bodies.
“I haven’t seen fireflies in years,” Annie said. “I thought they were extinct.”
Even in the dark she could see the whites of Charlotte’s eyes as they rolled in disgust. At least she’s listening, Annie thought.
“When I was your age we used to catch them,” Annie persisted. “We’d collect them in jars, and stare at them, just waiting for them to light up.”
“Putting them in a jar is mean,” Charlotte said, forgetting herself.
“What was really mean was my next-door neighbor Neal, who crushed fireflies on the sidewalk to get his sneakers to light up.”
“There’s no difference between putting fireflies in a jar and stepping on them,” Charlotte said. “Either way, the fireflies don’t like it, and they end up dead.”
“I guess you’re right,” Annie said. She checked her watch.
“Dad’s not as late as you used to be,” Charlotte said as if reading her mind. “When you came home at all.”
Annie sighed. She had actually thought it was all under control.
“I was thinking about your idea to get a cat,” Annie said. “I think it’s a great idea. Why don’t we do some research? We can go online and look at different kinds of cats. You can pick the one you like best.”
“The cat idea was for you,” Charlotte said.
A car coasted down the hill and stopped in front of their house.
Charlotte and Annie both stood up, happy to be rescued from their conversation.
A woman got out of the car. “Howdy,” she said as she walked over to greet them. “Are you the Charlotte Fleming family?”
“I’m Annie Fleming, Charlotte’s mother,” Annie said.
“I’m Gerri Picker and I’m here with a socca-pology.” She extended her large hand to Annie and gave her a crushing shake.
“Normally, I’m a prompt-aholic,” Gerri said. “But they’re killing me with paperwork this year. And there is nothing I can do about it.”
“Pardon me?” Annie said.
“I know. You were expecting me to call in June,” Gerri said. “And here I am at the end of July. We should be practicing by now, I know. But it’s been a socca-nightmare. I didn’t get the team roster until today. Rosterless! Can you believe it? Can you forgive me?”
She seemed to be directing this to Charlotte.
Charlotte said, “Sure.”
“I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s the soccer lady, Mom,” Charlotte said.
Gerri laughed. “That’s me. The soccer lady. Manager extraordinaire of the Asteroids of Mountain Ridge. And we might as well get this over with up front. No, it’s not.”
“Not what?” Annie asked.
“Not Winslow West’s team,” Charlotte whispered to her mother.
“What’s Winslow West’s team?” Annie asked.
“Ha!” Gerri laughed. “That’s a good one.”
“She’s not kidding,” Charlotte said. “She really doesn’t know.”
“Oh,” Gerri said. “Okay. Easy to explain. Winslow West’s team is the Power. That’s a seven-day-a-week, twenty-four-hour-a-day, Olympic-hopeful, cultlike, famous socca-legend team. I coach the Asteroids, my daughter, Meredith’s team. It’s the B team, and we’re famous too, but only for not being the Power. We practice twice a week. We have been known to lose. And sometimes we actually have fun.”
“Charlotte,” Annie said. “You made it! You got picked for a really great travel soccer team!”
“I don’t think sarcasm is called for,” Gerri said.
“She’s not being sarcastic,” Charlotte explained. “She doesn’t know how it works.”
“It’s simple,” Gerri said. “The super talented players get picked for Winslow’s team. His team used to be considered the A team. But now they’ve moved up.”
“What does that mean?” Annie asked.
“The soccer league has a rating system,” Gerri explained. “Usually the best team is the A team, and the second best is the B team.”
“What do you mean, usually?” Annie asked.
“Well, in this case we have the Power, which is considered a Super A team, which is borderline elite, which means they only play other Super A and borderline elite teams. Unlike the Asteroids, which is a B team, which only plays other B teams, which is why I’m thinking of moving us down to C.”
“There’s a C?” Annie asked.
“I know,” Gerri said. “Most of my parents don’t like that idea. They seem to think C is worse than Rec, which we all know Winslow loves to spell out loud, with a W.”
“Pardon me?” Annie said.
“That’s the town league,” Charlotte explained. “It’s the Rec League that I was in. Only, Winslow West calls it the W-R-E-C-K ‘Wreck’ team.”
“I tell my parents all the time, B does not stand for bad,” Gerri said. “Now I have to convince them C does not stand for crappy.”
“I’m fine with B or C,” Charlotte said.
“I knew you were going to be my favorite new player,” Gerri said. “I’m fine with B or C too.”
Annie didn’t understand a lot of what Gerri had said. But she knew she was not fine with B or C. How could Charlotte be fine with that? C wasn’t an okay letter for anything. If she was fine with a C team, would she be fine with a C grade? What about a C job? Or a C life? And what if times got tough and she slid down to an F? Would she be okay with an F life? Annie did not want Charlotte to fail life.
Gerri gave Charlotte an affectionate pat on the head. “I love your attitude. I love your whole family’s attitude. You cannot imagine how many people are unhappy when I come to see them. And I don’t bother trying to change their minds. Because the last thing I need is more unhappy girls on my team.”
“Do you have a lot of unhappy girls on your team now?” Annie asked.
“Mom,” Charlotte said.
“That’s okay,” Gerri said with a smile. “I have two less than I used to because, thank God, the Hinmans decided to switch Abigail to cross country, even though she’s slower than mud. And the Jacksons just put Hillary in year-round hockey. Like hockey’s going to be any better. I mean, seriously. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a hockey mom?”
“No,” Annie admitted.
“Listen,” Gerri said. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve heard Charlotte is a socca-rific player, and you probably want to know how come she got stuck with me. But I’m telling you, with a little coaching Charlotte will be able to fast-track it to the Power. Unless—who knows—maybe she’ll actually enjoy playing on my team.”
“I will,” Charlotte said. She turned to her mother. “Can I join the team? Please?”
It was the first time Charlotte had displayed any excitement in a long while. How could Annie say no?
“Of course,” she said.
Maybe this was it. Maybe this was what she’d been looking for. The way to fix things. She turned to Gerri. “What do I do?”
Gerri handed over several sheets of paper. “First, get these three forms notarized.” It was getting dark. She took a flashlight out of her purse and shined it on her clipboard. “Actually it’s four forms, counting the Good Sportsmanship ditto.”
“Now, this one is important.” She handed Annie another paper. “For this one you’ll need a two-by-two photograph of Charlotte taken within the past twenty-four hours. And here’s your snack schedule. You have to sign off on that. There’s a little booklet about nutrition there too. But don’t be intimidated by it. Just think fruit and you’ll be fine.”
“Here are the medical release forms.” Gerri handed her those. “You have to get your pediatrician to sign them immediately. Plus I need a notarized copy of Charlotte’s birth certificate, so they know she’s not a ringer. You can get all this back to me by three tomorrow, right?”
“I’ll try,” Annie said. “But I do work.”
Gerri laughed. It was a loud contagious laugh that made Annie laugh too.
&n
bsp; “Oh,” Gerri said, fanning herself with her hand as she calmed down. “That’s a good one. I work. Like who doesn’t? “Okay,” she said, abruptly turning serious. “This is really important.” She handed more sheets of paper to Annie. “Both you and Charlotte have to sign these. These are new. They’re all about field marshal duty. Because safety is our new number one priority. Still with me?”
Annie nodded.
“Our first game is Sunday. Which is soon, I know, but that’s how Winslow scheduled us. However, if I don’t get all these forms with the photo and the medical releases to South Oakdale by the end of the day tomorrow, Charlotte can’t play.”
Annie looked at her watch. It was nine o’clock. She was pretty sure the passport photo place was closed. And she had a good idea the pediatrician wouldn’t think this qualified as an after-hours emergency.
“I know it’s last minute,” Gerri said. “But what can I say. The soccer board makes the Motor Vehicle Department seem flexible.” She turned to Charlotte. “I am so happy you’re going to be one of my girls.”
“Me too,” Charlotte said.
“Off to the next socca-victim. Five more stops and I’m done.” She got into her Navigator, beeped twice, started to pull away, then remembered something and backed up. Her window rolled slowly down. “I forgot the most important thing. We’re having a parents’ meeting tomorrow night. Eight o’clock at my house, 27 Sunset Drive. It’s a potluck. Bring a pasta for eight and you’ll be fine. Bye.”
Gerri drove off and Annie went through the list in her head. Pasta. Photo. Pediatrician. Fruit snacks. B team. C team.
She struggled with that last part, the letters, but then it clicked. Charlotte was just beginning her travel soccer career and the B team was the entry level position. Of course she’d have to start at the bottom. There was no shame in that. But if she worked hard she’d move up. Gerri said so.
“Congratulations,” Annie said.
“For what?” Charlotte asked.
“For making the team.”
“It’s not hard to get on that team,” Charlotte said.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Annie said. “It’s an accomplishment. You should be proud of yourself. Now all you have to do is to give it your best so you can move up to the next letter.”