Chapter 88

November 12, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written November 14-15]

The nine of us were dressed in t-shirts and gym shorts and were eating breakfast when Ann arrived about 9. We premier-team members hugged Ann and said “hi” to her mom, and the 11 of us chatted for a bit in the foyer. After a few minutes, Ann’s mom departed.

We made the formal introduction of Ann to Katie, after which Ann asked, “When’s the pick-up game?”

Meka responded, “About 1, but we should get there earlier. We’re planning on having a very light lunch about 11:30, as we’re going to have a fancy ordered-in dinner with a lot of food.”

Ann looked at Meka, asking, “You’ve become a part of the ... gang?”

“Sort of, but not really. I’m living in Rhee’s house, now, so we see each other much more. However, I answered as I’m the contact between us and the boys.

Ann raised her eyebrows at Meka’s living situation, but said nothing about it, responding, “Have we decided among Indian and Thai?”

“Yes,” I responded. “Although no one had a strong preference, Indian won out on the strength of naan.”

Ann returned my grin saying, “That’s cool.”

We spread out in the living room. After Ann answered the basic questions with which we’d started last night’s discussion, the conversation jumped around a lot and followed us into the kitchen as we made and ate our light lunch: a large, diverse salad.

We dressed in long-sleeved Ts and sweatpants [the day was brisk] and headed for the practice pitch where we immediately did stretches and warmups; the boys began straggling in during the latter.

“Wow,” Victor exclaimed. “If it weren’t for the fact that you’d smoke us, we could play boys versus girls.”

Amid chuckling, Meka replied, “Except that we don’t have a goalie. We’re also over-endowed with front-line talent and quite short on midfielders.”

“I thought Gracey was playing midfield on the high-school team.”

“She is. However, we’d probably play her as a fullback here, along with Ann. Oh, everyone. I’ll introduce the girls you don’t know and then you boys can introduce yourselves. That’s Ann De Jong. She was the center back on these girls’ premier team the past few years and the center back for West this fall. Over here is Katie Weeks, the leader of the Central midfield. Finally, the pretty blonde you don’t know is Charlize Sanderson from Grass Valley.”

“Whoa!”

Rhee asked, “Surprised, Victor?”

“You could say that.” He looked around at the boys, saying, “Grass Valley’s the arch-rival of the Elkton premier team, and Charlize is the main reason.” He turned back and said, “I knew you looked familiar, Charlize, but I couldn’t place you given the circumstances. I was one of the side refs in your second game of the season against Elkton.”

“Oh. You’re why we lost.”

There was much chuckling.

Rhee explained how it was that Charlize was here, after which the 15 boys introduced themselves. I was happy to see that Sammy was not one of them and that both Victor and Seamus were here, probably the two best of the boys. Victor suggested that two of the Go6 be captains, with the reasoning that we knew the skill sets of everyone. We decided that, rather than play 12-on-12, we’d have one sub for each team. I suggested that Liya be a ref, for which I’d had her bring my whistle.

We settled on Civia and Heather being captains, with Civia winning the toss to choose first. She got Victor, Charlize, Seamus, Ann, and me, while Heather got Meka, Rhee, Katie, and Gracey; the rest of both teams were boys. Our O was a bit better while their D was better, which made for a good game. We wound up winning on the strength of a crazy goal scored by Charlize.

About midway through the second half with the score 2-2, Seamus stripped the ball from Jamaal just inside our half and headed upfield. He and I ran a give-and-go to beat Katie and pounded upfield with Katie chasing us. Right before Katie caught him, he flicked it to me with his left foot. I carried it just slightly too far upfield and left as their right half got a toe on my low, hard pass intended for Civia on the left wing, who was being marked by Gracey. That toe deflected the ball a bit higher into the air than the knee-height I had intended. With Gracey almost on her back, Civia chested the ball up and a bit right, then wheeled on the ball with her right foot and sent a hard pass that got to Charlize, who was being marked tightly by Meka, below head height. She chested the ball up and a bit to her right, then brought her left foot around and stroked it right behind Meka to carom off the inside of the right post and into the net.

“DAMN!”

I grinned at Meka as I ran by her to hug Charlize, with Civia joining the hug shortly thereafter.

As we broke up the scrum, Meka said, “That wound up being a helluva cross, Civia, but I thought it wouldn’t be very useful. Damn, that was sweet, Charlize! When you chested it up, I thought you might try for an overhead bicycle, and I wasn’t willing to get my face in front of that in a pickup game, so I was happy you didn’t try it, although I’m probably gonna have a bruise on my side where your knee hit me on the follow-through.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it; it’s part of the game. Besides, the bruise will be worth it to have seen that shot. I don’t know how you did it, but you threaded that thing behind me and just outside Chad’s reach [Chad was their goalie].”

“That’s why I had to hit it right behind you, as I wasn’t going to be able to get a lot of power on it and between you and Chad, you had most of the rest of the goal covered.”

When we walked in the front door, I asked, “How do we want to deal with showers? We have three showers, one of which will hold six comfortably or eight for good friends. The other two are good for two, but one of those would be quite stuffed with three.”

Meka asked, “Are you going to do the buddy-wash system upstairs?”

“I’d like to.”

“Then, I’d like to be upstairs.”

“Well, assuming that the Gang of Six all want to be upstairs...” I paused to allow for response, and all Go6 members indicated that they did, “who wants to be the eighth upstairs so that we have an even number?”

“I do,” Charlize exclaimed.

I looked at Ann and Katie; both looked a bit askance, so I said, “If you two want to share in either of the downstairs showers or each take one, it’s your pick.”

Heather led the eight of us upstairs, where we divested ourselves of clothing while Civia ran the randomization.

“Liya with Rhee..., Heather with Beth..., Gracey with Civia. Oh, the two ‘visitors’ [air quotes] are together.”

“Um, what’s involved in this ‘buddy-wash system’?”

I looked to Meka, who nodded, then replied, “It’s simple. The pairs wash themselves and each other. Each washes the other’s hair. When that’s done, one of the pair begins washing her front while the other member washes her partner’s back, shoulders to feet. When both are finished with the first member, both do a 180˚ and trade tasks. Oh, Beth, do you have eight loofas?” When I nodded, she turned to Charlize and asked, “Are you okay with that?”

“So, I get to wash your ... I wash the back of you, and you wash the back of me?” When Meka nodded, Charlize answered, “Okay. I’m in.”

Civia said, “You can watch any of the rest of us if you don’t get it.”

Once we’d started and all of us were on second hair-washing, Charlize moaned, “Ohhh. Wow. That feels great. I’ve not had anyone wash my hair for me since I was a little girl. The buddy-wash system is worth it just for this!”

“That’s what turned me onto it,” Meka responded. “Having someone else wash your hair is ... nicely sensual.”

Once we were dressed in t-shirts and gym shorts, we joined Ann and Katie in the kitchen.

Gracey asked, “What do we want to do now? Although, we ought to start putting our dinner order together, and Beth should call it in, since the owner knows her.”

Rhee replied, “He knows me, too, but he probably knows Beth better, so I agree ... both with her calling it in and us getting the order together now.”

We put together an order of a variety of dishes that we’d all share and a lot of naan; I called it in for delivery around 5:30. We spent the time before dinner’s arrival chatting in the living room, although Ann and Meka had a separate conversation; from what I heard, it was mostly about soccer. Somewhere in their discussion, Meka interrupted all of us.

“I’ve been thinking about this offense-dominated group. Can you imagine what we could do with this group on the high-school team in a formation of... 3-2-1-4? Just think about it for a sec.”

“Oh,” Heather commented. “OH! Are you thinking Civia and me on wings with Rhee and Charlize as strikers, all of us supported by Beth?”

“Bingo. Obviously, that would not include the Brits, but you five would make for a high-powered offense. I wonder if that could overcome the relative negative on D.”

“Hmm,” responded Rhee. “I ... wonder if ... Nah. That would require Charlize to be there, which I don’t see happening. But I wonder if Coach would let us try it out on Tuesday if through some miracle Charlize could be there. Oh, wait. Charlize...?”

“I can hear you thinking, Rhee,” Charlize replied. “Yes, my parents did call to say that they couldn’t come get me until tomorrow night. Even if they let me stay through most of Tuesday, I’d still miss a day of school.”

Liya jumped in with, “I wonder if Dad or the Moms would be willing to take her home on Tuesday evening. That might help with Charlize’s parents, although it does nothing for the problem of school.”

“I wonder,” Charlize replied. “Maybe I should call them just to see, because Shameka’s idea is intriguing and sounds like a lot of fun.”

Civia began speaking but broke it off after the introductory syllable and her face went pink.

“Go ahead, Civia,” said Charlize.

Civia swallowed hard, then said to Charlize, “I had a question for you and a comment for everyone.” When Charlize nodded, she asked, “How are you doing in the classes you have on Tuesday, and could you get your homework assignments?”

“Well and probably.”

“If we were to do this at Tuesday’s practice, we should play that offense against the starting D, both midfield and back line.”

“I agree,” Katie responded. “In fact, I would suggest a different formation for the ... defense’s team, specifically a 4-3-3. Whether Coach would have Rose as the fourth fullback or someone else, I think that formation would provide a better test than a midfield-oriented formation. I also think that Hope should be with the starting D.”

Rhee answered, “Ah, stacking the deck against us, hey? But I agree, Katie. The best test would be against the best D that we can provide. Too bad that couldn’t include Ann instead of Rose, as I think Ann’s a bit better.”

“Thanks, Rhee. It does sound like a lot of fun, but I couldn’t miss Tuesday at school. I agree with Shameka that those five would be somewhat scary to play D against. It was bad enough playing against Rhee and company in scrimmages. Throw in Charlize...”

There was much chuckling.

“I’ll head upstairs and call my mom.”

Charlize returned about ten minutes later with a smile on her face.

“I’m good to go if you guys can put up with me another night.”

“Yay! Would you be interested in going to school with us?”

“Sure, Beth. That would be the easiest way to deal with getting there.”

Heather exclaimed, “Cool! I guess that one of us ... that is, Beth ... should call Coach. Otherwise, doing the rest of this would be for naught.”

I nodded, then went upstairs. Coach was more than a little surprised at our suggestion, but she became excited about it – “excited” for her, anyway. I returned to the living room with a smile on my face.

“Bitchin’,” Heather exclaimed.

“Yup,” I responded, “we’re doing it.”

Dinner was, as expected, very yummy and enjoyable, and we had some leftovers, although, with Civia here, none of that was naan. After our leisurely dinner and then cleanup, we began discussing the evening plan, which narrowed to the hot tub.

“I’m all for it,” Meka said, “but it will be really cozy with ten of us. I don’t want to put you off, Ann, but I’m going to wear the typical outfit for hot-tub soaking: my birthday suit.”

Ann looked at Meka, then glanced around at all of us and asked, “Did you all do that last night? Being naked, I mean.” When we affirmed that, she inhaled deeply, then said, “Ok. If Civia can do it, I can,” which she followed with a grin at Civia.

“Cozy” was an appropriate adjective for the packing of ten girls into a hot tub designed around seating eight. As per usual, the conversation was lively and with varied topics. During a lull, Liya asked what seemed, at first, a surprising question, but after a few moments of thought, I wondered why I hadn’t come up with the idea.