AR - One week until the first game

“What the heck is all this?”

You jump in surprise at the voice behind you.

“Oh, jeez,” you say, embarrassed, spinning around. Your mom is standing in the garage doorway, staring at the stuff that you have scattered around. You’re surrounded by your new Winter Soccer stuff.

“Don’t you think you’re going overboard?” Mom asks as she enters the garage, shutting the door behind her.

“Mom, you know the other guys are going to have like, overly nice shit. You know those private school parents are going to try to flex,” you tell her.

She sighs, grimacing. Mom won’t deny some of the truths about this town, but she also doesn’t love being reminded of them.

You are trying to make sure that the girls on your team don’t feel… what’s the word? You just want them to feel fair and equal. So you got a cute little Cowgirls logo made with a gator wearing lipstick in a cowboy hat for Florida pride, as well as jerseys and hoodies for the girls. You have tees for the parents. You always liked the uniforms at FUTA, so you made the jerseys pink and got matching black shorts and socks. You got a big, pink cooler for Powerade and a sticker with the logo to put on it.

It's hard to predict how competitive your girls will be in playing, but at least you can make sure that they don’t lose the mental game. The reality might be that they’re a bunch of random kids most of whose parents just want them to exercise more, but they should feel like a real team. It’s bad enough that you and Adella are spending extra time on Valeria and Alice.

“Riley, this is a lot. How’d you get this made so fast? It’s nice?” Mom asks, holding up a jersey.

You snatch it away from her. “It was expensive.”

“Riley, you should invest that money.”

“I’m, uh, investing it in future generations,” you mumble, annoyed, as you fold the jersey and put it away.

“OK, I’ll teach you about IRAs another time.” Mom sighs deeply. “This is really sweet.”

There’s such an incongruity between what she just said and how she looks.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, just…” She folds her arms and leans against the car occupying half the garage. “Kayla’s dating Ellen’s kid.”

“You don’t like that?” you ask, surprised. It’s not like your mom to judge something like that. Even if she disliked Ellen, which she doesn’t, she wouldn’t hold that against her son.

“More like it’s just complicated,” she says with another sigh. “You know that I go way back with Ellen, kind of. There’s just a lot there, and this brings it all up. And I’m a little worried when we get to this thing and she sees how hard my daughter’s coming after her.”

“This isn’t about her,” you assure her. “It’s about the kids. I’m not doing this as a political statement. I just want the girls to have fun.”

Mom grimaces again. “Ellen won’t see it that way.”