Family Affair

by Caprice Crane

  “How’s the coach lately?”

  “He’s good,” I say, as I shove a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

  “Has he even once looked up to see you in the stands?”

  “He’s trying to win a game, Brooke,” I defend. “He knows I’m here.”

  “He used to always look up. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Well, thank you for pointing that out to me,” I answer, as if I hadn’t noticed. I sure as hell had noticed. I don’t know if he appreciates my even coming to the games anymore. Hence my aforementioned recent lack of attendance.

  I’ve done my damnedest to be a good wife—to always be supportive and make sure he knows, every day, how much I love him. I’ve spent many a day and night standing on the sidelines, wearing a hat with a large plastic beak jutting out the front, screeching and waving as I watch the team for which he’s defensive coordinator. As I watched them lose. And lose. And lose. Never mind that I don’t even really like football—I love Brett. And he loves football. He always has. I learned the basics so I could at least follow along, even though he’d still say I need Football 101. I was there cheering him on through every down of what was originally a miserable college coaching career. To me it was a failure only in name, because I was as proud of him as I would be if he’d never lost a game, even though the University of California at Culver City (UCCC) Condors were on their way to setting a new collegiate Division III record in losses that year. To his credit, even though the team had one of the lowest winning percentages ever, they had the highest graduation rate in the conference. At Brett’s insistence, he and the head coach, Frank Wells, had been stressing both unity and academics—the whole package. The school paper suggested changing the name from the Condors to the Scoreless Scholars. No one on the team thought it was funny in the least. In fact, the entire offensive line was going to trash the paper’s offices, but they all had computer lab that day.

  How bad were they at that point? They’d lost their previous twenty-five games going back two and a half years, starting before Brett and Coach Wells took over. Brooke even had a running bet with me that if they ever won, she’d give me five hundred dollars. Brooke, who was working on an assistant’s salary and could barely swing her rent each month, was that sure of their suckiness. I didn’t make her pay when they finally did win—but I probably should have.

  In one particularly painful game, the team gave up forty-two points—in the first quarter. Another time, they lost to a team whose bus had broken down, leaving a good half of their players stranded two hours away while the other half put together a forty-nine—zip shutout victory. I cheered for Brett’s guys throughout, and meant it. I loved being there for him, even when things looked their roughest. Maybe even especially then.

  During that season, due to an early injury sidelining their field-goal kicker, Brett played a hunch and recruited the drum major from the marching band to take his place. When that guy twisted a knee, Brett and Coach Wells simply started going for it on every fourth down, whether they were on the five or the fifty, and whether they had one yard or thirty to go. The crowd loved it. Unfortunately, so did the other teams’ opposing defense. And the school paper. But that was Brett’s style, which he encouraged in Coach Wells: He was willing to take a risk and live with the consequences, no matter the opposition. That was something that only made me love him more.

  Which reminds me of one particular game—the one that changed our lives, actually. With thirty seconds left, they were down by just five points and the Condors had the ball on the other guys’ seven-yard line. In two and a half years the team had never been so close late in the game. You wouldn’t know it to see the stadium seats filled with a thousand Condor faithful, enticed by the recent zany play. So what if the other ten thousand seats were empty? I alone screamed loud enough for at least a couple thousand people.

  Oh, how I remember. It was a critical moment, and he clearly had something he was talking himself into, but what did Brett do? He first glanced up to search the crowd for me. My heart raced, and I met his gaze and waved like a lunatic, so proud, so in love. I could see it in his expression—he was planning something crazy. And that’s what I loved about him: his craziness. You need that touch of insanity to have the kind of chemistry we had. And win or lose, I knew we’d roll with the punches, as we’d done since the day we met in high school. The sex was better when we won, to be honest, but either way it was pretty damn good. A girl only needs to be taken on the kitchen floor, then the living-room sofa, then the dining-room table so many times. Sometimes a bed does the trick just as well.

  But back to Brett’s play calling. On the key play of the key game of his early coaching career, Brett managed to talk Coach Wells into calling a triple reverse to the fullback, or something like that, something he’d been drawing up for about a month, involving three lateral passes that would leave this particular opponent’s defensive line stymied, running from side to side and gasping for air. The play was executed brilliantly—well, except for the fullback fumbling the ball out of bounds right before the goal line. The Condors lost, but the loss didn’t mean much. A lot of fans went away disappointed but not surprised, and it gave the team a chance to rally behind the hapless fullback, something that doesn’t happen enough in team sports. Somehow the close loss also gave them a vitality they hadn’t known beforehand. It was as if they gelled suddenly, and achieved the chemistry Brett and Coach Wells had been trying to foster all along.

  Yep, it worked. Some of the players changed, the fullback went on to be drafted (a real shock, considering the UCCC program!), and Brett and Coach Wells haven’t lost a game in the two years since. And things are … different. Without suggesting that losing is better than winning, I did see Rock ’n’ Roll High School, after all, so I know damn well that winning is better than losing. I can tell you that in an odd way, going to the games isn’t as fun as it used to be. Maybe it’s because it seemed like Brett needed me when they were losing. Like he and I were more of a team.

  Of course, I’d known the losing wouldn’t continue indefinitely. I’d known Brett would find his mojo, and he and Coach Wells would lead the Condors to wins, because that’s who he’s always been: a winner. Helping take UCCC to the top was—insert Darth Vader voice here—Brett’s destiny.

  “They’re clearly winning again,” Brooke says, pointing to the scoreboard, which has the Condors at thirty-seven to eight. “Do we have to stay?”

  I stare at the field and try to will Brett to look up at me. He hasn’t even glanced my way the whole game, and I don’t think he’d notice if we took off. I missed a couple games already this year—first time ever—and he didn’t complain. And I saw most of this one. I know they’re winning, too. I stare so hard that if I have any magical powers the strength of my gaze will surely bore a hole into the back of his head. Which remains facing the same direction, proving definitively that I am not a witch. Nope, he’s not turning to look back at me.

  “Fine,” I acquiesce. “Let’s bail.”

  “Where should we go?” Brooke asks. “That hot dog didn’t quite do it for me.”

  “Swingers?” I offer, thinking that I wouldn’t mind one of their brownie sundaes.

  “Oh my God!” Brooke screams. “I totally had a dream about that dessert last night. I swear!”

  “Then it’s clearly our destiny,” I say, as we head to my car.

  Darth voice aside, I’m big on destiny—of course, by that I mean the destiny we make ourselves, give or take. I think we all end up where we’re pointed. My mom used to say, “If you don’t want to end up in a bad place, don’t head out in that direction. If you don’t like where you are, leave.” Of course, she probably never should have said that last bit in front of my dad. He took it a little too seriously.

  My father’s love of music, and his unrelenting drive to become the next Clapton—or Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix—drove him to change his last name from Brennan to Foxx when I was two years old. (Two x’s and one syllable woul
d decidedly bring him fame and fortune: Changing your name to Foxx or Gunn or Starr was all the rage at the time.) It also drove him to walk out on my mom and me, never once looking back, to pursue his dream on the road with his heavy-metal band, Afterbirth. An ironically named venture: It seemed Dad wasn’t particularly compelled to stick around and see how things turned out after my birth.

  Actually, I’m being too hard on him. My dad was a great provider—of names, neuroses, and abandonment issues. And luckily it all turned out just fine. I was raised by my mom, who worked double shifts to support me. This left her with little time for dating, remarrying, or giving me any siblings, but that was fine, too. I mean, sure, it would have been nice to have a sister or brother, but my mom and I developed a closeness I don’t think we’d have were circumstances different. As it was, Mom and I formed a team, and I loved it being us against the world, even if the world didn’t know we were fighting. I’d once kind of hoped Brett and I would make a similar team, and he’d lead us to the Super Bowl of life, to steal one of his—or his pal Coach Wells’s—football analogies. Seems unlikely these days.

  When I was about seven, I once thought I recognized my dad at the arcade on the Santa Monica Pier. I knew him from his skinny ankles. I didn’t remember much of the man, but his tapered jeans made his ankles stand out from the rest of his well-built form. He was playing Skee-Ball, that endlessly frustrating game where you roll a wooden ball down a lane, up a little ramp, and into a bull’s-eye with holes in it, the smallest and innermost circle yielding the most points. I remember the episode vividly because of what he bore on his shoulders: a little girl who should have been me. The girl looked nothing like him and probably belonged to his date, a lanky blonde with smoky eyes and a throaty laugh she emitted every time her spawn nearly fell from her perch.

  I tugged at my mom’s sleeve and pointed at the happy threesome. “Is that my dad over there?” I asked.

  “No, sweetie,” she said. “Of course that’s not your father.” But she spat at him on our way out. So add hallucinations to the list of gifts from Dear Old Dad.

  Brooke and I get to Swingers and order one brownie sundae to share and two cups of coffee. I find that I’m eating the majority of our dessert, even though she was the one supposedly dreaming about it.

  “I have to watch my girlish figure,” she says. “How else will I trick some poor schmuck into marrying me?”

  “Love?” I offer.

  “Yeah, how’s that workin’ out for ya?” she counters, with no small amount of snark.

  “Very well,” I lie. Well, not lie, but I do admit that things have felt a little bit off lately. I can only attribute it to the fact that we’re nearing the middle of the season and Brett gets stressed out every year around this time, and it worsens as it goes along. Which I understand.

  The waitress comes by and warms up our coffees. I think Brooke and I both notice that she wears a name tag that says America, but Brooke lacks the filter not to comment.

  “America?” Brooke says. “Is that your name? I had a maid named America when I was little!”

  “Brooke!” I say as I sink in my seat and smile apologetically at the waitress, who is glaring at us. She stalks off.

  “What? I like the name. I was complimenting her.”

  “I don’t think that falls under the compliment department,” I say.

  Brooke feels bad, I can tell. “I loved America, if it’s any consolation,” she says. “Or maybe I just loved having a maid. That was awesome. That was when my mom was married to Lance and we lived on Roxbury Drive. Those were the days. He was so freakin’ rich. Too bad he turned out to be gay. Man, I loved having a maid. Oh, America, were you only around today.”

  “Let’s just move on,” I say, looking around to make sure our waitress isn’t within earshot, uncomfortable at the mention of her name again.

  People who are mean to waitstaff in restaurants are a major pet peeve of mine. I know Brooke really didn’t mean anything bad by it, but she can be a little clueless at times. On the other hand, at least she didn’t mention the waitress’s horse with no name. It’s just a hot button for me, since I spent so much time in restaurants growing up.

  My mom worked at Carlo’s Pizza and Trattoria, which was more pizzeria than trattoria, what with the paper plates translucent from grease, orders hollered over constant chatter, and shabbily dressed clientele, but Carlo, the owner, thought using the word classed up the joint. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even Italian.

  My mom worked there since I was about twelve years old. I did most of my homework assignments, ate most of my meals, and gained most of my freshman fifteen (which I’ve heard wasn’t supposed to happen until I was a college freshman) at Carlo’s. I also took AP Human Nature there, which came in the form of being delivery girl for two years, once I got my license. And a hostess prior to that blessed day. I learned that people will try to get away with just about anything—and will succeed as much and for as long as you let them. People push until you push back, and nobody illustrated this better than the customers.

  I won’t bore you with the details, because they’re mostly unimportant, but let’s just say that “Keep the change” can be very misleading. You don’t know embarrassment until you’ve started to walk away with two dollars and eighty-seven cents only to have some guy yell after you, “Hey, where do you think you’re going? I said keep the change.” Or the other variation is the bill coming to nineteen dollars and thirty-nine cents and the customer handing you a twenty-dollar bill, saying, “Don’t worry about the change.” Okay: a) What makes you think I’m going to worry about sixty-one cents? And b) I am worried if that’s my tip. I want to go see a movie, not buy a stamp.

  For all the obnoxious customers, and after all the days I complained to my mom until I was blue in the face, I’d do it all over again, times a thousand, if I could just laugh with my mom again. We often ended up laughing about all my complaints regarding the job. Her eyes crinkled when she cracked up, and she’d shake her head back and forth as if to force away the humor because she was embarrassed by her laugh. It was a magnificent laugh.

  My mom—my beautiful, overworked mother—died of breast cancer when I was in the tenth grade. I’d thought my life was over, too. If it wasn’t for Brett and his family, it might have been. Brett and I had been dating for about eight months when my mom was diagnosed—he was one of the few guys who didn’t open with a Clapton joke; his own music knowledge wouldn’t allow for such a “gimme”—and for a year and three months when she was dying. The Fosters took me in like I was part of their family. I moved in for a week when she first passed away because I didn’t want to be alone, and I never quite got around to moving back out. We never made anything official, seeing as they kept expecting my absentee dad to report back in, but after a while it was like I’d been born one of them. We were a new team. All of us. I loved it.

  So, yes, I’ve lived with my then boyfriend/now husband since high school. Which makes me either very cool or very Appalachian, but in any event, Brett and I dated through high school, then went to the same college, and we got married right after graduation. His mom, Ginny, is awesome. I couldn’t ask for a better surrogate. His sister, Trish, was my maid of honor, and his dad, Bill, walked me down the aisle. Trish and I started our own pet photography business—by which I mean we take pictures of animals, not that I have numerous photography businesses and this is my favorite—in which I’m the photographer/product developer/customer-service person, and she’s the marketing/ accounting/ everything-else person. It’s another team that means a lot to me.

  I’d always known I wanted to work with animals, but I had no idea I’d end up a pet photographer. My first attempt to break in to the animal business was at Miller Animal Hospital. I’d decided I wanted to become a veterinarian but wanted to test the waters before I went to school for it. I got a job as an assistant veterinary technician, but the only opening they could offer was the graveyard shift—which I enthusiastically a
ccepted, hoping to distinguish myself as an eager-and-willing future vet.

  My first night’s excitement was a phone call that came in at one a.m. from a panicked woman having a crisis because her dog refused to look at her. She kept calling the dog, “Edgar! Edgar!” but it came out more like “Ed-gah!” because she had the not-so-subtle remnants of a New York accent. “See? He won’t look at me!” Obviously I couldn’t see, since I was on the phone with her.

  “Have you done something to betray his trust?” I asked. “My old dog wanted nothing to do with me when I switched his regular dog food to that stuff in the blue bag.”

  “I didn’t change his food!” she said. And then she yelled again, “Edgar!”

  “Do you happen to have a hat made out of ham? I’ll bet that would get his attention.”

  She had no ham hat, and wasn’t enjoying my hypothesizing. I didn’t know what else to do, so I said she could just bring him in. I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with the dog. I knew that like I knew that Matthew McConaughey would appear shirtless in the next week’s Us Weekly—and like I now know that husbands, like dogs, sometimes won’t look at you—but I was bored, and this was going to be my first client. Plus, as far as I was concerned, any and all canines were welcome to visit me anytime.

  The woman arrived about twenty-five minutes later with a shower cap on her head and the remnants of cold cream along her hairline. She thrust Edgar, a shar-pei—terrier mix, onto the front desk. Of course no dog likes to balance precariously on a ledge five feet off the ground, so he looked like a quivering Don Knotts. True to the shar-pei half of his heritage, his face had a landslide of doggie skin that weighed so heavily on his eyes it’s a wonder he could look at anything at all. Of course, this also made him look like he could have been hatched from the woman, who had a similar landslide of skin overtaking her face. I won’t mention her lipstick, which looked like it had been drawn on with oversized clown makeup.