Free Field of Schemes by Jennifer Coburn Page B

come?”
    Oh right. I hadn’t filled her in on my abstinence pledge. “I, um, well, it’s just that there are so many other things to talk about. Like nature. Look at the beautiful bird that just flew into that tree. Did you see how the bottoms of his wings are blue, but the tops are black?”
    “You want to talk about birds?’ Rachel asked.
    “It doesn’t have to be birds. Look around at all of these gorgeous plants and leaves coming back to life.”
    “Okay,” Rachel shrugged. “That one’s pretty. What’s it called?”
    “The plant?” I asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s a, um, I don’t know.”
    “Okay, what about that bird? How come its wings are like that?”
    “Its wings?” I repeated. “They … they … they’re black on top so they can absorb sunlight to keep them warm. And, um, the blue bottoms are to, um, let their babies in the nest know that they’re coming in for a landing.”
    “Really?!”
    “I don’t know, Rachel,” I said, half laughing. “I’m just trying to get us to remember all the other wonderful things in the world other than soccer. I really don’t know anything about nature. I’m from L.A., sorry.”
    Rachel laughed, forgiving me. I was so sorry that the parent she was left with was tearing at the seams. She prattled on, “So, Lisa says that Brandy’s older brother had a Harry Potter bar mitzvah and that—”
    “A Harry Potter bar mitzvah?!” I shrieked. “What the heck is that?”
    “They turn the place into Hogwarts and do a Triwizard Tournament and—”
    “They transform a temple into Hogwarts?” I asked, appalled.
    “Of course not, Mom. Just the reception hall.”
    I told Rachel I remembered going to bar and bat mitzvahs when I was a kid. Sounding like, well, a mother, I asked, “You know what the themes were? Bar and bat mitzvahs. Not Harry Potter!” Darcy told me that her family had been invited to a seventies-style disco bat mitzvah where invitations were printed on vinyl and slipped into a cover that read “Saturday Morning Fever.” What remained of the Bee Gees actually showed up and gave one of their hits a Semitic spin—“Now You’re a Woman”—for little Katie Cohen.
    “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about,” Rachel said.
    “Sorry, honey.” What was I doing? She wanted to talk about unkosher bar mitzvahs and I was going off on some ridiculous tangent. “Go on.”
    “So, Lisa says that Brandy’s older brother got thirteen blow jobs in the bathroom from girls in his class,” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t want to ask her, but what’s a blow job ?”
    As I coughed my tongue out from the back of my throat, I tried to regain my composure. I wondered if there was a city we could move to where I could shelter Rachel from all of this. Another country? Planet? A plastic bubble?
    I took a deep breath and looked Rachel square in the eye. “I think you have a very good chance of making the soccer team.”
    “Really?!” she cried. “I hope so. I mean, I feel good about the tryout, but there were so many awesome girls there. I feel like why would Preston ask me to come if he didn’t want me on the team? But he did say he couldn’t make any promises, so it’s not like he said anything’s for sure, but still. I did do well on the shooting drills. I can’t juggle, though. Did you see how many Kelly did? She was at, like, 250 before she missed. I can’t believe they make girls from last year’s team try out again. Doesn’t that seem totally unfair?”
    “I heard some of the girls from last year’s team won’t make it this year,” I said, trying to segué into a discussion of playing on the B-team.
    “I heard that too,” Rachel said. “Not to be mean or anything, but it does make room for new girls.”
    Okay, not the direction I was going.
    “And the second team is just as good, I’m sure,” I said.
    “No, it’s not,” she said. “That’s why it’s the second team. I want to play on the top