Chapter 1
It was a beautiful fall day and Marcia was as usual urging her two boys, Aidan (10) and Mark (8), to hurry up so they wouldn't be late for soccer practice. Her husband of nearly 12 years, Connor, had gone out early, since his best friend Art had phoned him the evening before to tell him the fish were biting at Lake Canarsie. Marcia knew that this was more about the camaraderie than the art of angling for her husband, but she didn't begrudge him his time relaxing on the occasional Saturday with his best friend and his icebox.
They got to soccer practice late. Usually Marcia would just drop the boys off and get on with the errands she needed to run, but on this particular day she decided pretty much on a whim to park the van and stick around for a while. Maybe she would be able to meet with some of the other parents; perhaps she could even have a word with one of the coaches. Not about soccer, which she knew almost nothing about, but about her boys and how they were doing.
She had barely entered the field where they practiced until the weather got worse and they moved to an indoor venue when she came across Carina, whose son Collin went to school with her boys. Carina was a vivacious blonde who she knew Connor had a bit of a thing for, but this had never affected Marcia's relationship with her, as she knew how devoted she was to her husband Larry.
They talked animatedly about their latest news as the boys and girls were going through their stretching and warm-up routines prior to practice proper. Indeed, they got so involved in their conversation that they didn't notice that the practice had begun. Not, that is, until a ball came whizzing past them, just missing Marcia. A girl she hadn't seen before, who looked at first glance a bit too old for this group, ran past them to fetch the ball. Stopping briefly on her way back with the ball tucked under arm, she checked whether the women were okay, addressing her comments to Marcia, whose leg the ball had just missed. She spoke with a pronounced foreign accent, but she wasn't a Latino.
Marcia said she was fine, but as she did so she felt her heart skip a beat. Why this should happen, she didn't understand. She'd never so much as kissed a girl before, let alone fantasised about being with a woman. She could now see that far from being a participant, this girl (or rather woman) was one of the coaches. She couldn't be any older than 25, which made her at least five years younger than Marcia herself, who had just turned 31. She wore her brown hair in a ponytail and wore shorts and the official T-shirt of the company that organised the practice sessions. Her face was angular and spare as if she didn't get enough to eat; she looked to Marcia as if she had just arrived as an immigrant from a developing Eastern European country. Despite herself, Marcia noted that her chest was flat. In her mind's eye, she saw the girl suddenly strip off her shirt to reveal her sports bra but immediately dismissed it as inappropriate and unbecoming for her as a married woman of two children.
"She's an odd one is that Vesna," said Carina, looking after the athletic woman as she trotted away from them.
"Why's that?" replied Marcia, having recovered her poise.
"She only came over from Croatia a year or so ago and they say she leads quite a Bohemian lifestyle."
"Oh, Carina, you're showing your age," laughed Marcia. "Live and let live!"
"People say she has a lover - no, several lovers. And they aren't men."
"For heaven's sakes," said Marcia, trembling a little inwardly but fortunately keeping control of her voice, "this is the twenty second century. Being a lesbian, or at least bi, is the norm for young women these days."
"Well, it
isn't
for me," huffed Carina. "If I was a mother who had a daughter here, I'd pull her out of the class. Thank God mine doesn't like soccer!"
"Oh, Carina, whatever shall we do with you. I don't think this Venus, or whatever her name is -"
"Vesna."
"I don't think this Vesna is going to prey on 10-year-old girls."
"How do you know?" asked Carina, getting very emotional about things.
After a pause, she added, "I wouldn't trust her around my child whatever you or anyone else says."
Then, leaning in towards Marcia as if she was going to impart a secret, she added, "Even though people do say that she has a thing for older women,
married
women."
"Oh, Carina," Marcia said, taking every effort to keep her voice level as goosebumps spread up her arms, "you have the most over-active imagination of anyone I've ever met. The next thing you'll be telling me is that she's already hit on you!"
"She wouldn't dare," Carina responded. "Anyway, it wasn't me she talked to just now, it was you!"
"Perhaps she'll ask me for my phone number at the end of practice," countered Marcia with carefully crafted sarcasm. "Well, fortunately - or unfortunately - I won't be around then. I have errands I need to run. Call me during the week and we can grab a coffee together."