Chapter 55

August 31, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

“Dad, why does the Sprinter smell like sex?”

“Droll, biological daughter o’ mine. Droll.”

I smiled at Dad’s response to the question I had asked upon entering the Sprinter with Dad well ahead of the other girls, who had all decided that they needed a last toilet visit before we headed to practice.

“But I take your point, Beth,” he continued as he started the engine and cranked the AC. “We’ll have to get into the habit of running the ventilation fan.”

I got out and opened the back doors to get more airflow. With the breezy morning, the captive smell of sex dissipated quite a bit by the time that Rhee, Heather, and Civia finally joined us.

Practice was more drills/skills assessment. However, Coach threw a new drill at us, one that even we premier-team members hadn’t seen. It was a lot of fun. She split us into three eight-girl teams with four leftovers, two of the three teams playing at any one time. She had set up a square 25 yards on a side, with cones at each corner and at each side’s midpoint, which split the perimeter into eight equal lengths. Four each of the two playing teams were assigned to the eight perimeter lengths, such that each of the square’s sides had one each of the two teams in alternating sections. Four members of each team were inside the square. The girls inside the square could move anywhere in the square, but could not leave it, while the girls on the outside could move up and down their individual and non-overlapping eighths of the perimeter, but could not enter the square. One team would start with the ball and tried to retain possession while the other team tried to get possession. Team members could pass to each other, whether inside the square or out, but the girls outside the square were not allowed to defend. Coach started us with a three-consecutive-touch limit per girl but warned us that she might reduce the limit. Liya stood by a gob of extra balls ready to throw one in should a ball get sent beyond the perimeter players so that play could continue immediately ... with the team that did not touch the ball last. Teams scored points by completing ten consecutive passes without losing the ball.

Heather and Abby were on the first team, Civia and Gracey on the second team, and Rhee was among the four extras, the others being Marla Spitzer, Nicole Parker, and Suzanne Rosenberg. Coach had randomly selected team members, so it was a bit surprising that Rachel Beck, Shameka, and Kim Shadoan – the three seniors in last year’s back line – were split among teams 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Interestingly, the second team had both of the Brits, Jess and Jules, who, although Jess’s family was from India and Jules was Caucasian, shared an amazing number of similarities. Both were incoming 11^th-graders and new to Elkton. Both were daughters of new professors at the university (Jess’s father, Jules’s mother). Both of them were midfielders. Neither of them had even heard of the other until they met on Monday.

I was on the third team, so did not play in the first game. It took a while for everyone on the first two teams (team 1 wearing the orange vests) to get a feeling of how to do this drill well and, particularly, how to use their perimeter teammates to best advantage. After, perhaps, 8 minutes and neither team managing a point, Coach whistled play dead.

“I expected this with a drill that was new to everyone. Marla and Nicole, trade places with Abby and Callie on team 1 and take their vests. Team 3, replace team 2.”

Katie and I, along with a couple others on our team, went to school on the first game, so we thought that we might be able to do a little better. I had a bit of a letdown when Katie and I were both assigned perimeter slots. Positions were alternated alphabetically by first name, with the 1^st, 3^rd, 5^th, and 7^th players on the perimeter, the others inside the square. What I had not taken into consideration as important when I had my little letdown was that being on the perimeter provided better vision to most of my team than did the inside of the square. Once I realized that about 30 seconds into our game, I smiled and took advantage of it. We managed the first point, with our tenth pass being my chip over the square to Katie who was across the “field” from me. Coach whistled play dead.

After her long bragging session about us premier-team veterans on the second day of practice, Coach had seemed almost to go out of her way to not praise us any more than the others.

“I know that you all know that long passes on the pitch, particularly ones that switch the attack from left to right or vice-versa can be a good strategy to break someone open for a long run. You know this, but Beth’s last pass was the first attempt by anyone to use that tactic in this drill. Yes, hitting it too long here would be an automatic change of possession. Although not automatic on the pitch in a game, a long pass that is too long usually produces the same result. This is one of many aspects of this game that this drill can help you take to heart: That just because a short pass is safe, does not necessarily make it your best pass option. Carry on with Team 1 starting.”

When we got to the house, the construction crew was, as it has been since Tuesday, working on the first floor. We made a quick lunch of sandwiches. Gracey struck up a short conversation with a woman on the crew.

“Are you the crew leader or supervisor? I ask because you seem to be the boss, yet we haven’t seen you before today.”

“I’ve been on vacation and you’re right; this is my first day on this job. However, the project manager thought that it would be best if I supervise the inside crew, as we were told that you six girls would be here every afternoon and we do not want even a hint of problems.” Very quietly, she added, “We trust our crews, but we’ve already heard whispers at what a bunch of ... attractive girls you are, and I have to agree.” In a more-normal voice, she said, “By the way, I’m Emma.” When all six of us either laughed or smiled at that, she asked, “Is there something ... interesting about my name?”

“No. Well, yes. We’re trying out for our high-school soccer team and there are 28 girls there. There’s only one shared name, by two girls, and it’s ‘Emma’.”

She smiled and responded with, “I’m old enough to have not been part of the big increase in popularity of that name caused by Emma Watson. Although I was named for an actress, it was Emma Thompson. I imagine that there are tons of school-age girls named Emma because of the Potter flicks.”

“You’ve got that right. We had three in our class in middle school.”

We quickly introduced ourselves to Emma and then she excused herself to get back to work. We finished lunch and went to the practice pitch. Since the nets were still up, we decided to start with rocket practice. Rhee began working on line-drive left-foot rockets, as she felt that it would be better to have a left-foot rocket of some type than to work on a third right-foot rocket type, outside-right. Unfortunately, and a little surprisingly, she did not nail one. Gracey worked hard on placement accuracy for her one rocket type, line-drive right-foot. I got more consistent with my line-drive right-foot rocket, but the big news was that both Heather and Civia managed a few each. Heather was both ecstatic and grumpy about it.

“I mean, I explained to all of you how to do it, yet all of you managed it before I did. It’s just so ... weird.”

Civia and Rhee gave Gracey more FFP, as she has come to call it (fancy-footwork practice), while Heather and I oversaw more basic dribbling practice for Liya. Gracey really had the drag-and-chop down cold, being able to do it with either foot and was getting more comfortable and smoother with a few drag-and-fakes.

Heather said, “You know, Gracey, once school starts, finding time for more dribbling practice might be a bit tricky.”

“I’ve thought about that, without a solution coming to me. Obviously, there are weekends, and that may be my best bet. Liya and I talked with our moms about us spending every-other weekend here until we are here for two weeks beginning in the last week of September. We offered to give up all or most all weeknight sleepovers; we’re not willing to give up our planned sleepover the night before we start school. Our moms might accept that trade.

“Before this summer, Heather, we spent nights over here outside of summer only very rarely and had only one or two sleepovers a summer here. Of course, we used to move the sleepovers around among our various houses. Regardless, the old Gang of Four has spent more time together this month than in the previous three years combined. Every once in a while in the past month or two, I’ve thought that we really missed out on not being together more, but I’m not sure that we were really ready for ... this much togetherness. I know I wasn’t.”

“Nor was I,” piped in Liya. “I don’t think it would have worked before this year, and may have damaged, rather than cemented, our relationships. I think we could have gotten this started earlier this year, but it wasn’t really possible until the ‘summer sleepover season,’ so I’ve convinced myself not to mourn for lost time. Knowing what I know now, I’m more than happy to have missed out on an extra sleepover or three earlier in the year not to risk the wonderfulness that is our lives and togetherness, now. I am just so fucking happy, now! Oops! Sorry, Civia.”

“That’s okay, Liya. I’ve heard it once or twice before.”

“Although this use was somewhat justified, we have been trying not to use profanity around you, because that word is not okay for typical conversation. Beth convinced us, oh, last year to try to minimize our use of that word, and Gracey can tell you how much less I use it now than last year. As Beth said, if one starts with the F-bomb modifier, how do you go up from there when intensity increases? In my defense, I was feeling very strong feelings when I said that sentence. Beth’s argument was actually that the problem with the F-bomb is using it casually. She says to save it for when your feelings are very high about something, when it will actually mean something, and I did mean something just now. However, if you’d known me even two years ago and had then missed the intervening two years, you might well think that someone had replaced me with a doppelganger.”

‘Dop ... pull ... what?”

“Wow! You’re impressive, Civia,” I inserted, “that’s the first time that I remember you not knowing a fancy word that we casually threw out in conversation.”

She colored a bit, and responded, “Thanks, Beth. Mom and Dad both insist on what they call a good working vocabulary. They’ve said that size of working vocabulary has a ... positive relationship ... Did I get that right? Positive relationship?”

“Absolutely,” Heather replied. “In math, a positive relationship between two things being compared simply means that if the value of one thing – whether of cost or size or intensity or whatever – increases, the other thing also increases, or if one decreases, the other decreases. As example, the farther you walk, the more energy you expend or the less you’re awake, the less time you have to do things. The opposite is a negative relationship, such that the amount of sleep in a day has a negative relationship with the amount of time you’re awake in a day. Both positive and negative relationships can be direct or indirect. In direct relationships, the value of one item increases or decreases in value in a consistent fashion with the increase or decrease in the other. The number of hours of sleep you get in a day has a direct negative relationship with the number of hours that you are awake in a day. However, direct relationships do not have to be one-to-one like the sleep-awake relationship, as long as the amount of change between the two things is consistent.”

“Oh. That’s ... easy. Thanks, Heather. Oops. I’m not supposed to thank you for little things like that. Is that right, Liya?”

“It’s not that you should not,” responded Liya. “My point from earlier in the month is that you need not thank friends for every little thing. We very much like helping our friends. The pleasure we get from that, particularly when our friend gets something of value from our efforts, in this case, knowledge, is more-than-sufficient thanks for our minimal effort. Heather explaining positive relationship to you took her very close to zero energy and almost no time, as she knows this stuff very well. If it had been a more-involved math concept or problem, and had she spent considerable time explaining it, perhaps with illustrations, that would be something for which a verbal or physical thank you would be appreciated.”

“Okay, I get it. So, my mom and dad have both told me that size of working vocabulary has a positive relationship with salary. From what Heather explained, that means that those with larger working vocabulary make more money than do those with smaller working vocabularies. Is that right?”

“There are two sort-of problems with your explanation. Comparisons like that typically involve a lot of people. Undoubtedly, there are many people with large working vocabularies that do not make much money, while the reverse is also true. However, averaged over the very large sample size ... uh, the very large number of people that are considered, the overall trend is positive, even though individuals can and do buck that trend, in both directions. Does that make sense?”

Civia nodded.

“The other problem is that statistics like that can be misinterpreted and there are two slightly different aspects of misinterpretation here. The first is that there is certainly no one-to-one correlation, no direct relationship between the number of words one can readily and accurately use – a reasonable definition of working vocabulary – and salary. That is, one doesn’t make a dollar more per year for each additional word that one can use correctly, or anything like that. The other is that no one gets a salary based on their working vocabulary, but on their knowledge, and therein lies the problem with comparisons like that. The real determinant of salary in most fields is education, and, almost by definition, the more education one has – real education, that is learned, remembered, and accessible for use immediately, the more one is likely to make as a salary. Of course, knowledge also has a positive relationship with working-vocabulary size, so in your parents’ comparison, it is the knowledge set that is important to salary amount. The vocabulary size is just an indicator of knowledge; it is not tied directly to salary. The positive relationship between education and salary is a causal relationship, while the one between working-vocabulary size and salary is an associated relationship.

“Your dad is going back to school so he can learn more and, thus, make more money. In most fields of work, the generalization is true that the more you know, the more valuable you are as an employee. If that additional knowledge that you have over other workers in the same field is of particular value to employers, you have leverage with the employer to demand a higher pay rate. That is why your dad will be more-highly valued as an engineer than as a tech; he will have more knowledge, be able to accomplish larger, more-important tasks.”

“That makes sense. What you’re saying, then, is that if I keep learning new stuff, and have that new knowledge as well as the old knowledge immediately available in my brain, that I will, in general, be more valuable.”

“Yes, with the caveats ... uh, the conditions being that different careers pay differently and that a very broad knowledge base that is not very deep is, unfortunately, not as valuable in most professions as is a more-restrictive knowledge base that is very deep in the subject matter of the profession.”

“Oh. You mean that, if I knew a little bit about a very large number of things, it would be less valuable to an employer than if I knew a lot about one thing, even if I knew very little about anything else.”