Hey, Coach! ch. 7

"At first I felt bad that I didn't get a goldfish too. Then Jimmy handed me a glass bowl. Inside there was some water and three rocks. A tiny green turtle was sleeping on the biggest rock. All the other guys looked at their gold fish." Blume, from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing








When mom got home from her first day in the salon, smelling like lavender, she could at first only peak in the door that leads to the kitchen.  She had never seen spaghetti graffiti before but that was precisely what she expected and had already sworn to herself that there was no way she was going to get mad unless something was damaged or if somebody was hurt.  It had dawned on her for her own first day as masseuse in training that virtually anything could happen and generally did.  It had been a huge favor that her best friend Gretchen even allowed her in the same room as her for to observe the massaging ritual, but to let her try her 'hand' at it was above and beyond.  But, as Gretchen had told her, "it's way way better to find out now before you start going to school for the stuff." Mom had been on track before kids to become a nurse, even made it through her first year of classes at a private college. As she always said though, kindly, if you want to nurse and not have to work in a hospital, you can have kids.  She was right.  Scotty and Toby were two handfuls each. Mom adored taking care of those babies, but it was also the 24/7 hours of it that allowed her to put the idea of nursing to rest.  Being a masseuse, now that was the business to be in! Gretchen had told her about the 'new masseuse,' which was more a freelancer.  She wouldn't have to hold down regular hours anywhere, you just have to make enough connections and get your name out there.  "One day you might be helping with massages for the college tennis team, the next day at Grandma Irvine's house, then back home again to your own kids." Gretchen would say this Mom with a certain tender nostalgia, like the good old days, "where you own your magic hands again," as she would put it.  Gretchen owned her own salon now and was watching over a boatload of masseuses.  "They come, they go, but mostly they go once they realize they can do the exact same thing but in some resort down in Palm Beach for twice the money and muscles that are much less bumpy."  As she peaked through the kitchen door her fingers were a little fatigued she noticed, but the scene she saw inside could only be described as bewildering. There was nobody inside the kitchen, but the spiffiest three plates of unfamous spaghetti sat there that she had ever seen.  The noodles had been towered up to a peak than a red sauce was carefully lowered down and just barely covered all the noodles.  A single meatball sat on top of the tower where steam now rose up in steady waves.  She could hear a shovel cross over the 'court.' She leaped outside to congratulate Scotty. What a wondorous fabtabulous boy! Scotty had set up on the short baseline and was doing some such spin move, swoosh, woosh, weesh.  It had begun to snow again just faintly in big flakes. Just then she heard behind her someone pull a chair out from the kitchen table.  "Dinner is served. Would you like pepper?" Toby asked, as he poured a glass of water into each the cups near the plates.  Mom's eyes back out to Scotty, then back to Toby. "No, no, no, I mean yes, I would take a water, yes!"