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Sandra thought she might be having a heart attack. She couldn’t catch her breath and was embarrassed by how her chest was heaving up and down. Her calves were on fire, and she stretched them every time the action stopped, but it made no difference. Perhaps the most difficult portion of the ordeal, however, was the inadequacy of her sports bra. It just wasn’t doing its job, and she was enduring the pain that proved it. She had never been so excited to go bra shopping in her life. In fact, she wasn’t going home until she had the best sports bra money could buy. Maybe they made one out of metal. Maybe they could weld one onto her, a custom fit. Anything but this. She considered running with one arm across her chest, but the potential embarrassment trumped the pain, and she suffered through it.
Through all this, she tried to pay attention to the game. She really did. She tried to watch for fouls, tried to understand why Birch blew his whistle, and tried to pay attention to his hand signals—but all she could think about was surviving the next step. She ran and ran. Up and down. She’d sprint with all her might in order to reach the eighteen just as some giant eighth grader pounded it back to his striker. And she would turn and sprint again, her inner chest burning and her outer chest aching. And when the buzzer signaled the end of the first half, she almost fell to her knees and wept with relief.
Unfortunately, neither Moose nor Birch collapsed into the grass, so she felt a little too conspicuous to do so. So, hands on her hips, and breathing so deeply her chest made a rasping sound, she strode across the field, to where Birch was already conferring with Moose. To her dismay, she saw there were only five minutes on the clock. Five minutes? A five-minute half-time? That was no half-time at all! She fondly recalled those days when she’d only been a soccer mom, those days when half-time had seemed to stretch on forever, those days that were only yesterday. How she missed those days.
She decided then that this had been a fool’s errand. They would have to find a different way to infiltrate the officials’ inner circle. She wasn’t even ashamed. She’d tried. She’d given it her best shot. She reached the referees and opened her mouth to resign, but Moose cut her off.
“Go get your trainee a bottle of water.” It came out like an order, giving Birch no opportunity to decline, and he ran off toward the snack shack.
Moose put a hand on her shoulder, and she was embarrassed, realizing how sweaty that shoulder must be. He didn’t seem to notice, though. “Sandra, right?”
She nodded. She couldn’t speak.
“Sandra, you are running too much.”
Surprised, she tried to laugh, but she sounded like a bloodhound with laryngitis.
“If you spend that much time running, you can’t see any of the game. You rarely have to go all the way to the goal line, and you definitely don’t have to go to the goal line on my end of the field. You can stop at the eighteen down there.”
She stared up into his eyes, trying to convey her confusion. She didn’t understand. She wasn’t even running as much as Birch was running.
“I know, I know. Birch is an idiot and runs too much.” He’d read her mind. “He’s running even more today than usual. I think he’s just trying to impress you. Or maybe he’s got so much nervous energy that he can’t help it. But anyone who runs that much is going to miss stuff. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for a hundred years.”
A hundred years. There. There was her opening. She had to say something. But could she speak? She glanced toward the snack shack, and Birch was already on his way back. She opened her mouth to try. “A hundred years?” she managed. Now she sounded like an old lady who’d just inhaled helium, but at least the bloodhound was gone. For now. “So you must have known Frank?” With each word, she started to sound more like a normal person.
Moose’s face fell. “Of course. We’ve reffed together for years. He was the best.” Moose chuckled. “I kept telling him to retire, and he’d always tell me he’d die on the field. Guess he knew what he was doing.”
“But someone killed him,” Sandra said quickly, knowing she was out of time.
Moose studied her face as Birch appeared beside her, handing her a water bottle.
“Thanks.” She told her arm to move to grab the bottle, and it sluggishly obeyed. Then, she was almost too weak to unscrew the cap.
“Who killed someone?” Birch asked.
Moose shook his head slowly, and Sandra regretted upsetting him. She was terrible at this. Why had she spoken so crassly? Usually, she had more class than that.
“We were just talking about ole Frank.” Moose reached out and grabbed the only remaining water bottle from Birch’s hand, unscrewed the cap, and chugged half the bottle.
Though Sandra was certain that Birch had meant that water for himself, as he hadn’t made any indication of handing it off to his partner, he didn’t even seem to notice the bottle was missing from his hand. He just stared at Sandra awkwardly. “What about him?”
Whoa. Birch looked guilty. She searched her brain for words. The buzzer sounded. She was out of time, and she hadn’t even resigned yet. “I was just saying how weird it is that he was murdered in the middle of a soccer game.”
With the goofy smile wiped off his face, several deep wrinkles made Birch look much older than she’d originally thought he was. “I have a hard time believing he was even murdered.” He glanced at Moose and gave a cheesy fake laugh. “I mean, who would kill Frank?”
Moose polished off the water and tossed the bottle toward a duffel bag on the sideline, where another empty bottle already lay. “I don’t know, but I hope they catch the guy and string him up.” Then Moose headed across the field, to the side Sandra and Birch had trod during the first half. Sandra assumed then that officials switched sides after halftime. Or maybe Moose just wanted a change of scenery.
Birch gave her one more long, cryptic look and then blew the whistle. A tiny child with orange hair kicked the ball, and the clock started again. Birch took off like his pants were on fire. Sandra quickly drank half the water in her bottle and then threw it toward the duffel bag that was apparently collecting them. Then she turned toward Birch and gave chase. But she did a lot less running in the second half, and after only a few minutes, decided that Moose was her new favorite person in the world.