My mom calls my name from the stands. I wave to her then return my focus to the field and hammer two more goals into the net as we hand Keeland Prep a 12 to 6 defeat. She’s the first one to greet me when the game ends. She’s already on the field, pumping her fist in the air. “You. Were. Amazing,” she declares.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“And if memory serves, only three more wins for the division.”
I’m impressed she remembers. It always surprises me that she remembers these details, but she always does. “Don’t jinx us.”
She waves a hand in the air. “Jinxes? Who believes in that? Now, shall we celebrate tonight? I can get us a fabulous table at Sushi Ko like that,” she says, snapping her fingers, her sapphire ring glinting in the sun. “And they have absolutely delicious vegetarian rolls.”
Every victory, small or large, requires a celebration—a swank dinner out, a new pair of shoes, a decadent dessert.
“I have to go to Dad’s exhibit tonight. Opening night,” I say, wishing for the old days when my mom and I would have gone to the gallery together. When my mom would have waltzed into the gallery, kissed my dad on the cheek, and then delighted in his work. When the three of us would have all gone to Sushi Ko together. We did dinners out exceedingly well. Nobody could rock a restaurant visit like the Stanzlingers. We were New Yorkers; dining out was a mandatory skill in this city. “I’m going to say good-bye to my teammates.”
I run back to the other girls in green-and-gold lacrosse uniforms.
“Slasher Girl!”
My teammates call out my nickname. It’s a joke because I don’t slash. I don’t hit uncontrollably. When I hit it’s with impeccable control. “Slashing? Who slashed in this game?” I say as I high-five each and every one, because I get along with all of them. Even though prep school can be a wild beast in Manhattan, I’ve both survived it and thrived in it by following a few key guidelines—I keep my own secrets, I focus on schoolwork, and I kick ass on the field. That triple combo has been my road map, and I’ve followed it to the letter. It’s also allowed me to have the life I have after school, where I flit in and out of the adult world, and no one here at school has a clue about my family or my own love affairs.
I clasp hands with Amanda last, and she grabs my arm to pull me aside. “I have to tell you something.” A drop of sweat drips down her face. She brushes it off. “My dad came to the game.”
I give her a quizzical look, like she can’t be serious. This is front-page news. “Your dad never comes to games. What’s the deal?”
“My mom lit into him the other night. She was all over him about not showing up for my brother or me at any of our stuff.”
“And he listened? I thought he didn’t care.”
“She told him all the other parents were there. She told him she was going to cancel their vacation to Tokyo if he didn’t show up and he loves Tokyo.”
“Wow, that’s big time,” I say because Amanda’s mom wears the pants in the family. Her dad lost his banking job a couple years ago and hasn’t found a new gig since then. Her mom is CEO of an advertising tech company, so she’s doing just fine and she sets the rules and books the vacations and generally dictates what they do, where they go, and where they spend her money.
Amanda points to the stands and her dad is still sitting in the bleachers, his head bent down over his smart phone. “I bet one of his stupid college friends just e-mailed him and was like ‘Hey, I know somebody who knows somebody who might know somebody who’s looking to hire,’ so of course he had to answer it right away. Do you know he spent the entire game on his dumb phone?”
Then Amanda snorts. It’s a derisive snort and I know this not just because I’ve heard it many times before, but because Amanda and I once made a list of all the varieties of her snorts. She is a champion snorter and has mastered imbuing them with a range of emotions: her laugh-my-ass-off snort, her this-lunch-food-smells-nasty snort, her this-is-the-lamest-assignment-I’ve-ever-gotten snort, her derisive snort, her comical snort, her embarrassed snort, and her isn’t-that-guy-across-the-street-hot snort.
Her dad stops typing, takes out a tissue and blows his nose, then glances down at the field and nods to Amanda. I bet it’s the first time he’s noticed his daughter. Then he walks down to the field. But the world’s most fascinating e-mail must come through, because he’s now answering another message on the way, so he manages to bump into my mom and they begin chatting.
My pulse races. My shoulders tense as the dangerous possibilities bob and weave before me. The last thing I need is to have my mom start flirting with my best friend’s father. I grab my sports bag with the speed of an express train and say good-bye to Amanda at the same pace, then extract my mom from the conversation. I breathe easily again once we’re away from the field.
I listen to my mom do her usual recap of the game as we slide into the cab that shoots us away from the lacrosse field on Randall’s Island and back into Manhattan. She acts out every great play, mimes every moment of glory, and I laugh and I don’t even pretend she’s ridiculous, because I don’t think she’s ridiculous. I think she’s actually kind of awesome for never turning her phone on during a lacrosse game.
Ever.
I want these moments to be the defining ones in our relationship. I want to erase all the other moments, like the ones involving friends’ fathers, and wallpaper them over with these instead.