“D-I–V-O-R-C-E, Hey, lady, don’t you see? Your man ain’t no Or-lan-do B., You best dump his fat ass A-S-A- P.”
The girls laughed. The referee, a way cute guy about fifteen, smiled at her. The parents in both stands applauded. Shoot, maybe she had the next hit single for the Dixie Chicks! Gracie’s spirits soared; the creep was now a distant memory, just another painful life experience for her to sing about. Like all the country girls say, you’ve got to experience pain in order to sing about pain, especially in front of fifty thousand screaming fans chanting Gra- cie, Gra-cie, Gra-cie…
“Gracie! Gracie!”
That was no screaming fan. That was a screaming coach. Gracie snapped; the whistle had blown to restart the game, and Coach Wally was spazzing out on the sideline, frantically pointing at his watch like he had just discovered time.
“Time’s running out! We need another goal to win! Gracie, it’s up to you!”
Focus, girlfriend!
Gracie’s official position was striker, but Coach had told her to play the entire field. That required extra running, but she could run the whole game. She could run all day. She was running now, to the sideline, to the ball — to the ground, face first, breaking her fall with her hands and elbows, hitting hard, sliding across the field, and eating dirt and grass.
“Panty check!”
A snarling voice from above. Gracie rolled over to see the snot glaring down at her. The snot had tripped her from behind, a flagrant foul and a real cheap shot, especially for a girl.
What a total hussy!
The snot ran off. Gracie spat out the gritty dirt and grass and vaulted to her feet; her teeth and fists were clenched and her entire four-foot-six-inch, eighty-pound being was filled with an overwhelming urge to chase after the snot and thrash her right there in the middle of soccer field no. 2.
“Gracie, get a goal!”
But the victory was more important than introducing the snot’s face to Ms. Fist. So Gracie chased after the ball instead, barely noticing the blood and burning on her elbows.
Sally blocked a shot at goal and cleared the ball. Gracie anticipated Sally’s kick and thigh-trapped the ball. One quick fake and she was sprinting up the sideline toward the Raiders’ goal; the referee was keeping pace down the middle of the field, and the snot, her face screwed up with anger, was closing down on Gracie. The snot had the angle, which meant Gracie couldn’t simply outrun her. So Gracie slowed slightly, allowing the snot to catch up, then she took a big step forward, hoping the snot would think she was going hard up the sideline like she had on the previous goal. The snot went for the fake big time, taking one step that way to protect the sideline route, one step too many-and Gracie punched the ball between the snot’s open legs, spun around the snot, and recaptured the ball. The snot tried to stay with her, but she lost her balance and hit the ground hard, right on her big butt, and rolled out of bounds. Gracie glanced down at her and said, “I’m so sorry… Not! ”
Then she raced to the goal- a breakaway! — only the keeper standing between her and a last-second victory for the Tornadoes and glory for Gracie Ann Brice, the next Mia Hamm. The referee put his whistle in his mouth and checked the time; only seconds remained in the game. Gracie moved into position for her patented power kick-the keeper ran out to meet her this time, leaving the goal unprotected-aimed just inside the near post, planted her left foot, timed her kick perfectly, and — slotted a through ball to Brenda in the goal box behind the keeper instead. Brenda kicked the ball into the open goal just before the cute referee blew his whistle to end the game.
The Tornadoes’ stands erupted in cheers!
The Raiders’ keeper was now looking at Gracie with a stunned expression on her face, as if to say, You passed off the game-winning goal? Gracie shrugged. She figured Brenda needed the glory more than she did. Heck, Mia Hamm was a team player.
The other girls mobbed Brenda. Gracie was about to join in when she heard a manly voice: “Number nine- you’re a player!”
The studly referee was walking past and pointing to her-and winking at her. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Orlando, but I’m like, totally in love! She stopped dead in her tracks and stared open-mouthed at the referee as he walked off the field; he was dreamy and she was dreaming of him coming to the house after the game on a Friday night like tonight and picking her up to go to a movie-of course, it would have to be rated PG because she was only ten, which might prove a bit of a problem but… she was rudely bumped back to reality by Coach Wally barreling past. His big belly was bouncing, his arms were spread wide, and he was blubbering like a baby. He scooped up Brenda and bear-hugged her like he hadn’t seen her in years. Coach Wally was Brenda’s dad.
The other dads were running onto the field and bear-hugging their daughters. But not her dad. Sometimes, like this time, Gracie wanted him to be more like a dad and less like a big brother who played Nintendo with her and took her and Sam to Krispy Kreme every Saturday morning and giggled until it hurt when Mom caught them throwing water balloons from the balcony off her bedroom at Ronnie and the other boys rollerblading down the sidewalk, and whose worst threat of punishment was to eBay her. Just once, she wanted him to be a real father, to scoop her up and bear-hug her like he hadn’t seen her in years-to be her grownup manly DAD, for Pete’s sake! She looked for him.
“Stupid, stupid rat creatures! Lou, you tell those brain-damaged bagbiters I’ll take my IPO and go home!”
A shrill whistle interrupted John R. Brice’s rant. He glanced over to see the girls formatting themselves in a linear sequence in the middle of the field while the parents were forming parallel lines and joining hands overhead to configure an arch. Cripes, the victory arch, a post-game protocol that required social engineering, interpersonal contact with the other parents. John was thinking, Maybe I’ll give it a miss this week, when he spotted Gracie giving him the eye and gesturing for him to get out there! Beam me up, Scotty. He much preferred interfacing with AI systems over liveware, not that he was antisocial in the extreme; he was just uncomfortable (Elizabeth would say inept) when exchanging content in an offline mode, like most hackers who had spent the vast majority of their lives interacting with a cathode ray tube rather than with human beings. Part of the firmware.
He sighed and said to the phone, “Time out, Lou… the arch thing.”
John jogged over and joined camcorders and cell phones overhead with a GQ dude who was everything John was not: tall, handsome, Hollywood hair, athletic build, wearing a starched white shirt, a stylish tie knotted like he knew how, and a beeper clipped to his belt-a college jock upgraded to real estate, no doubt. Another football dad.
“Great game, huh?” the dude said through outstretched arms.
“Yeah, great.”
“Who’s your girl?”
John sighed again. He never missed Gracie’s games, and he couldn’t help but enjoy himself, his daughter the star player, particularly since he had never been much of an athlete himself. Fact is, he was so lame at sports that back in grade school the girls were picked for the recess teams before he was. Little Johnny Brice. He was ten years old before he realized Little wasn’t his first name. Fast forward twenty-seven years and now Little Johnny Brice was standing in the middle of a soccer field across a victory arch from one of those guys who was picked first for every recess team and the dude’s asking him who his daughter is and his daughter is the best athlete on the field but he doesn’t want to tell this room-temperature-IQ lamer that because he knew all too well what was coming next. John braced himself.
“Number nine,” he said.
“ Gracie? ”
The dude’s thick eyebrows shot up, and he looked John up and down with that familiar bemused smile.
“Gracie’s your daughter?”
It wasn’t the first time John had suffered that bemused smile at one of Gracie’s games. Point of fact, it had become an every game thing ever since the football dads started attending the girls’ soccer games. Five years ago when Gracie had first started playing soccer, John had been the only dad at the games, the football dads no doubt thinking, What’s the point if the girls can’t even hit each other? But now, Elizabeth had informed him, federal law required gender equality in college sports, so girls were getting scholarships to play soccer, softball, volleyball, and just about every sport but football. And that had brought the football dads to their girls’ soccer games like sleazeware to cyberspace: Suzie might not be able to play middle linebacker at the University of Texas, but if her
