Like Barb’s work, the girls called him “Coach.” Carl was his assistant and the girls called him “Carl.” Barb knew soccer, knew how to make their butt work and love him. Barb could drop a corner at 5 feet from the net. Carl was not particularly athletic, but was happy to trotter, the promoter. “Nice pass, Heather. Look at the offspring, though.”
On the ground, Barb was also “Coach” in Carl. “You bet, Coach,” he would confirm that he drilled his band on the crossovers. “Not until you see the ball in the air!” said with certainty. He hoped the girls knew him himself. Barb, the ponytail pushed his cork back, gave him an inch.
Basically, Carl liked to be out with the kids, encourage them, talk about tournaments as if they were so important. Win or lose, girls learned to work hard, to think ahead, to see themselves as winners. In three or four more years, they would be stuck at the university, no doubt to compete intercollegically, but with what they had learned at 14 as tools for arts, engineering, medicine, wherever they wanted.
It’s the schedule, Carl did it. Two practices at the end of the afternoon per week plus Saturdays Sundays when they made tournaments meant just balance his projects.
His daughter Kathy and Andrea de Barb were the best friends, but he also turned out to be the team’s notation machine. Kathy was able to pass and Andrea had the work of a coach’s offspring. Long pass, fake, goal! But as much as the coach and assistant wanted the points, they also assured the game time of everyone. Sometimes a girl who never scored got her skills together and dribble a right in.
Barb and Carl plus an eight-and-nine clutch made for good soccer.
Carl could have said it in the light of the help of the girls, or perhaps even remain in shape himself, but the fact was that he really liked working with (“for”, he would conceive with a grin) Barb. They knew each other well. If they didn’t know each other so well, he realized that they could come to know each other too well, the distinction “so” against “too” being significant.
The elements were obviously there for crossings. Divorced woman. Divorced male. Excitement of the game. A hug. We need to talk. Forget the boundaries of a playground and the game ends behind the bleachers.
The elements were there for border crossings, except for two who did not want to ruin their friendship. Barb knew everything on the passage lines. Her divorce, she said, was because, occasionally treated, these lines fainted. “Don’t let that shit happen,” as she said, “without thinking about the future.”
Probably people thought both had something to do. Why stop two adults? They’re not going to church or anything. So? But the people who presume it tend to be the same who don’t care about their lives. Coach and assistant coach knew the limits have reasons.
But Barb also knew the frivolity of a border. A little raunchi, never intense, never perpetuated, works well if both sides know the rules. The familiarity, of course, but the familiarity between the two.
Carl, in turn, knew their company was working because he was careful. For tournaments requiring a one-night stay, for example, he would have his own room and Barb would end up with as many of the team could get into his own. The hotels never care about their extra sleeping bags, because any number of girls cause less wear and tear than just two of a team of boys. But parents don’t want their daughters to sit with a man, even trustworthy.
Once after dinner (Sizzler, the girls had voted), Barb had brought his paperback to Carl’s room to escape the hyper-teenage cluster. When she sat on the other bed, he broke a part of the team to wake her up, not wanting to be alone with her sleep. Stupid? Straight? Not a bit! That’s why it worked.
Carl could have crowded Barb in the cuddle, but he’d fall on the other side. They could crash a little while they sink into her truck, and she wouldn’t act raped. It wasn’t that he didn’t like pushing a chest through his arm. But deliberate brushing, he realized, could become a habit. For a male coach in a girls’ league, this kind of thing is noticed.
Barb even said: “There’s no reason why I need this shit, but a guy’s eyes never stop wandering,” back to his van to slip on his sports bra under his Hawkeye sweatshirt. It was his eyes, he knew, although he had tried to turn them away. She even seemed a little amused, as if, “What do I say without it, good friend, because they’re not much and then we’re gonna work the girls on the defense of the area?” She had that kind of ease about her. We’re sexual, of course, but we’re not gonna let comrades down. We’re a team playing football.
Carl said he was smart enough to avoid the obvious traps. The sex he had with his old right hand, he said. Not so often, but enough. Wendy, her ex, implied that he was a madman not to jump to fuck every time she felt a little bored. She knew better to make love elsewhere and to hell with him!
But Barb might know better than Wendy. “You’re not gay. Shit, you and Wendy made a baby. We could compare notes, maybe, making it blush. “You’re very curious about my underwear, aren’t you? Ohmigod, did I forget mine?” Feigning horror, laughing and adding: “You burn, you break. That makes sense. Hang on, buddy.”
The girls gave Coach the Iowa Hawkeye shirt, despite her protest that she was an Iowa Stater, a Cyclone. It’s because she never missed anything. Carl agreed.
Carl and Barb shared the tribulations to raise girls of goodwill, PTA, Bluebirds, scientific fairs, orchestra concerts without two violins as much. Soccer was the passion of girls now, but as parents, they would probably compare notes on meeting rules in a year or two.
“You know why things work between us?” Barb asked one day.
“Respect, an exaggerated sense of what’s ridiculous, an understanding of goals, a lot of things, isn’t it?” Carl actually thought he understood what a guard should do – charge against a single breakthrough, etc.
“Of course, but why do things remain solid?”
“Why?”
“Boundaries. We know ours.”
Carl thought. “Yes, I suppose so.” He knew what she said. He felt his chest when they loaded the van.
“We do,” she laughed at him. “Oh, shit, you know what? You are so the book that you think mine is here,” drawing a line on his forehead. “But maybe it’s there and you never understood it,” she flew, not some kind of Barb to do, and moved the line to her neck.
“For a lucky guy, maybe.”
“But for you to know, I know you know I’m a girl.” She jumped the front. “Too many ‘knows,” maybe?”
Barb picked up the bag, “This is a question for a math-boy.”
“Fire away.”
Say this field is 50 per 100 meters. So if the area remains the same and we move the contact lines to 60, what happens at the distance between the goal lines? In Carl, it was the “guidelines” it expanded, but Barb knew the correct terminology.
“They’re getting closer, but I need a calculator. "
“Smart boy! And why was there more spots?”
Carl considered X’s and O on a paperboard. “Because the defense is spreading, I think.”
Two on two! Thus, in addition to athletics, in which social activity is also the objective “to mark”. Barb’s smile stopped. Carl he was set up.
He laughed when he caught the officer. “You’re terrible, especially for a woman.”
“It makes it possible to broaden the limits,” said Barb. “To mark more, I mean. Now why is that terrible, we’re talking about soccer, Mr. Assistant?”
Carl could never do that with another woman.
THE PILL
It was later in the season. “Carl”?
He knew Barb’s voice that something weighed on his mind. Did he look too much at one of the girls? He thought he did it a few times, but Barb didn’t put it to notice, did he? She knew he wouldn’t leave anywhere.
Shooting, when Barb and told him about a “growing” player, it was usually in the context of physical attributes. “Better will reach this one a bigger swim”, to fill his face. Or maybe, “Size bigger than one down”, for one but flat with the top loose enough to see soccer shoes from his neck. Barb knew he noticed. She would even share Andrea’s slipped tidbits, information that coaches should be sensitive to. Lana, a half back, they knew they were “too far” and they were in the mood for weeks. “It’s not time to harass a girl on teamwork. She thinks a little closer to her home, for God’s sake. She’s afraid she’s missing her time.” Carl better know what makes a tick, or in this case, which could make Lana a little more complex.
Barb continued his concern. “Kathy is your daughter, not mine, and you are a good father to her.”
Carl looked at his friend. Did Barb read his thoughts on his own child? No thoughts, even, just to note. “It’s nothing,” he denied, admitting that.
“It may be anything,” she contradicted, “but it’s nothing,” taking care of picking up the practice jerseys, obviously not wanting to list.
Barb waited for both to walk to the parking lot. “We both see them. You’re not some kind of weird.”
“I hope not,” he agreed.
“She’s not either.”
Carl found this weird. Kathy? But before we figure it out, Barb continued, “Sometimes you’re discovering something second.”
“Most everything I ever find out, actually,” he agreed.
“Well, here’s something I think you’d better know… Kathy wants to take the pill. "
The pill?
“You know what I mean. She doesn’t want to get hit.”
“But she’s just… How do you know?” realized that the “just 14” was not an argument.
“Andrea told me.”
“Andrea?”
“My child is sexually active, Carl.” Barb’s voice was flat, almost masked. “We can’t ignore it, suppose it makes them all grow.”
Carl put his hand on Barb.
She looked down, “All you can warn is not to fuck someone who doesn’t respect you. Don’t catch anything. Don’t get pregnant. Guys can get rubber, but I always told Andrea to take the pill. Sooner or later, he forgets or it turns out. If she’s old enough, she should be old enough to take care of things. "
“Jesus” was all Carl could do.
“Half of the team gets stuff from this health office. But if we walked and raised hell, we refused to receive medical advice. "
“With whom? Kathy, I mean… I guess I don’t have to know, but it’s my child!”
“No one, but she decided.”
Carl saw light. “I’ll talk to him about it. You can help, I mean.”
“Carl, listen. Each of them will start a moment or another. You don’t talk these girls about something they know will happen. It never works. It’s about not rushing. You listen and try to hear.”
“Hear what? That she wants to fuck?” Carl was frustrated.
“But here’s where it’s more difficult to explain,” without worrying about asserting his request. “I guess you’ll understand why I say that sooner or later, but that’s not the point. She wants to make love because that’s what girls do. Is that logical?”
“Of course.”
“And she wants to have it with someone who loves her. Is that weird?”
“No.”
“OK, so.” Barb swallowed and looked completely Carl. “She said she was going to sleep with her father if he does.”
Carl sat down. With him? Of course they loved each other. Of course he found her attractive; How could he not? Of course she would probably have idolized her at some point. But sexually? Him? His daughter? He was pale. Where did he fail?
“It’s not that weird, Carl, for a girl to want him. Shit, it’s common. Maybe in general nothing is coming; a puke face boyfriend fucks her and she forgets halfway. But sometimes, especially for a girl who goes for what she wants, it happens. She’s sleeping with Dad a few times. It’s simple. Just a few times. They continue to love each other.”
“But Barb, it’s just a kid. You know I…
“I don’t know shit sometimes. And sometimes you don’t know how to squatter on yourself.”
“But even again…”
“This is what I say. Take it for what it’s worth.”
Carl listened to the escape plan. Barb would know.
“The pill takes three or four weeks to make things stable. She has time to think.” Barb weighed his advice and brother. “As if it’s a thoughtful thing! Shit! You have a little time. Be careful with her. Getting ready is a difficult time for a girl, not like you zipping brains.” She smiled. “Being a real father, okay?”
But it didn’t tell him where to go, he realized.
Barb continued, “It’s her thing to understand what she wants, it’s gotta be. Maybe she says yes and you say no and you handle it.” She smiled. “You know how to say no. You’re not a zipped brain. No siren.
Carl interrupted. “I can’t wait to say that?”
“We don’t always know what we’re gonna say. "
“It won’t happen.”
“Don’t spook her, then,” Barb was emphatic. When she left that sink, she seemed to fall back. “She wants you to be the boss, the father. No. You’ll hurt her because you don’t know.
“Not at all. That’s what I just said. "
“No, you idiot! Don’t be the boss. Let her move the border at her own pace. She’s not used to it. "
“You tell me?”
“You know how much I trust you? Enough to talk to you about having sex with your daughter, fake cakes!”
Barb said it would happen! Maybe in three or four weeks!
No.