Arlene James - The Man With The Money

“That’s okay, Calvin. No harm done. I was just about to call a break, anyway.” She sat up, and Darren Rudd offered her a hand, which she clasped without actually looking at him. He hauled her to her feet with athletic ease. Keeping her face averted so he couldn’t see her blush, she swiped at the surely grass-stained seat of her gray shorts, pushed up the sleeves of her white sweatshirt and addressed her team. “Guys, this is Mr. Rudd. He represents our sponsor, RuCom Electronics.”

“Do you have one a’ them remote cars?” asked the tallest player, Kental, his black face shining.

“Uh, I have one in my office,” Darren answered after a moment.

“Man, them remote cars is cool,” Kental said to the dark-haired little girl next to him.

“Juan gots one,” she crowed, referring to her older brother.

“Uh-uh. The kind I mean costs a whole bunch.”

“Mama bought it at the RuCom store!” Maria insisted.

“Did not!”

“Did, too!”

“Kental, Maria,” Charly interrupted firmly, one hand idly massaging her sore abdomen, “we’re not here to discuss our toys. We have important matters to decide. We have to have a name for our team, and Mr. Rudd has come to help us decide on one. Now I’m open to suggestions. Anyone have any ideas?”

The kids all looked at one another. Some shrugged. Others shook their heads. Then someone suggested, “Electrics! How ’bout the Electrics?”

“It’s electronics, goofy,” Ponce explained. “RuCom Electronics, like computers and stuff.”

“The Co’puters!” someone else cried.

“How about the Comets?” Darren suggested mildly. “The RuCom Comets.”

The kids looked at one another in question and confusion. “What’s a comet?” asked Sarah, pushing stringy blond hair from her eyes. Sarah was missing a tooth, and Charly was convinced that no four-year-old lost a tooth to natural causes, but Sarah clammed up whenever Charly asked what had happened.

Charly bent down to bring her face closer to Sarah’s, smoothed a hand over her none-too-clean hair and explained, “It’s like a shooting star, honey, a big fireball that streaks across the sky. It’s real fast and real hot.”

Kental nodded approval at Ponce, who nodded back. Calvin swaggered, thumped his chest and said, “Shootin’ star.” Maria giggled, and Sarah smiled her gap-toothed smile. Murmurs of “cool” and “sweet” went from one little mouth to another.

“So what do you think?” Darren asked. “Is it the Comets, or does someone have another suggestion?”

“Show of hands,” Charly directed. “Everyone gets to vote. In favor of calling our team the Comets, raise your hand. Against it, keep your hands down.” About twenty little hands went up, some voting twice. “The Comets it is,” Charly announced with a clap of her hands. The kids cheered as she turned to Darren Rudd. He was even more handsome than she remembered. The dark hair waving back from his forehead and temples called attention to those deeply set brown eyes. His angular jaw and chin bore the shadow of a beard that glinted rusty brown in the waning sunlight.

“I’ll let the commissioner know tonight,” she told him. “Thanks for coming by, but you don’t have to hang around. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

He shrugged. “Nope, not really.” He smiled, and his gaze scanned speculatively down her body. Heat blossomed instantly in embarrassing places.

Quickly turning away, she clapped her hands at the children. “Okay, back on the field! Back on the field!” The kids ran to obey, bouncing off one another in the process. “Ponce, will you get the ball, please?”

Ponce ran down the field and gathered up the single soccer ball while Charly attempted to set up a shooting drill. She wasn’t entirely sure what the objective was beyond connecting foot with ball, but she figured if they could accomplish that much, it would be an improvement. They seemed to have better luck kicking one another than the ball. She tried not to think of Darren Rudd watching with folded arms from the sideline as she placed the ball and directed Maria, who always seemed to manage to be first in line, to take a short run and boot the ball. She spent several minutes after that comforting the child, who had managed only to kick herself off her feet and land flat on her back, bouncing her little skull off the hard ground.

When the first parents began to show up to retrieve their children, some walking from a nearby public housing sector and past several other soccer fields, Charly had accomplished little with the team and was somehow exhausted in the bargain. It was like herding geese. Their attention spans were shorter than she had realized, Ponce being the obvious exception, and while she worked with one, the others naturally scattered in pairs and trios to chase and tussle, draw in the dirt and even throw it. Charly was too busy to even think about Darren Rudd—until she turned, an arm draped about Ponce’s small, narrow shoulders, and headed toward the sideline.

There he stood, talking to Kental and his mother, one large hand on Kental’s shoulder. The boy smiled up at him, rapture on his thin face. Kental’s mother shook Rudd’s hand, then turned away, tugging her son after her. Kental skipped happily, literally clicking his heels together at one point. One of his shoes flew off, and the pair stopped so he could pull it back on. Charly had noticed that his canvas shoes, though worn, were too large for him, but whether they were purchased that way in hopes that he wouldn’t outgrow them too soon or were inadequate hand-me-downs, she couldn’t say. Deliberately pushing Darren Rudd from her mind, she began mentally reviewing the practice.

One thing was certain: she needed some help. Corralling sixteen little ones in an open field was an impossibility for a lone adult. Actually teaching them anything was another issue entirely. She wondered which of the parents she should ask first. None of them was likely to be of assistance. They all either had other children to be supervised or were working late shifts or second jobs. At least one of them didn’t even speak English. Still, she felt that she should ask them first. After that, she would ask the soccer commissioner for help, and if that failed she’d start haranguing her friends. Someone had to be willing to pitch in.

Darren slid his hands into the pockets of his chinos and waited patiently for Charly and her son to join him, well satisfied with what he’d seen that day. Charly was so far out of her league that she’d have little choice but to accept his help. He was actually looking forward to it. “Helping” her coach the team would be like killing two birds with one stone. Not only would it afford him the perfect opportunity to get next to Charly, literally, but it ought to be fun. The kids were certainly eager, and she definitely had not overstated the needs of the children. Quite the opposite, in fact. Five hundred bucks obviously wasn’t going to address all the needs. He was already making a lengthy mental list of what they were going to need, including a whistle for the coach. He wondered if she realized how many times—and how ineffectually—she had snapped her fingers or clapped her hands for attention today. More than that, however, he wondered about Ponce, or rather, Ponce’s father.

As soon as Ponce had called her Mommy, Darren had remembered that she’d mentioned having a five-year-old. It simply hadn’t registered at the time, perhaps because he’d been too intent on learning her marital status. He’d never dated a “mommy” before, not that he was dating one now, not yet. The fact that she had a child didn’t bother him particularly. He liked kids. He doted on his nephew. Still, he couldn’t help wondering about Ponce’s dad, though. He must be an exceptionally handsome man, because Ponce was one of the most beautiful children Darren had ever seen.