Fool Me Once

She shouldn’t. She knew that. She should just leave it alone. She should not make the situation worse for Alexa.

Flex, release, flex…

But even as such lofty ambitions swam through Maya’s mind, her hands had other ideas. Moving with lightning speed, Maya bent down, grabbed hold of his shorts, and-praying that he hadn’t gone commando-pulled them all the way to his ankles.

Several things happened in pretty short order.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd. The coach, sporting tighty-whities, also moved at lightning speed, bending down to pull his shorts up but tripping in the process. He tumbled to the ground.

Then came the laughter.

Maya waited.

Coach Phil quickly regained his balance. He jumped to a standing position, pulling up his shorts, and charged toward her. The red of both rage and embarrassment came off his face like a call girl’s beacon.

“You bitch.”

Maya quietly prepared herself, but she didn’t move.

Coach Phil cocked his fist.

“Go ahead,” Maya said. “Give me the excuse to put you down.”

The coach stopped, looked into Maya’s eyes, saw something there, and lowered his hand. “Ah, you ain’t worth it.”

Enough, Maya thought.

Maya was already semiregretting her actions, what with teaching her niece the wrong lesson about violence being an answer. She, of all people, should know better. But when she glanced over at Alexa, expecting her quiet niece to look scared or mortified, Maya instead saw a small smile on the little girl’s face. It wasn’t a smile of satisfaction or even pleasure at the coach’s humiliation. The smile said something else.

She knows now, Maya thought.

Maya had learned it in the military, but of course, it applied to real life. Your fellow soldiers had to know that you had their back. That was rule one, lesson one, and above all else. If the enemy goes after you, he goes after me too.

Maybe Maya had overreacted, maybe not, but either way, now Alexa knew that no matter what, her aunt would be there and fight for her.

Daniel had started toward her when the commotion began, looking in his own way to somehow help out. He too nodded at Maya. He too got it.

Their mother was dead. Their father was a drunk.

But Maya had their back.

* * *

Maya spotted the tail.

She was driving Daniel and Alexa home, again doing that surveillance thing that just came to her naturally, scanning her surroundings, looking for anything out of place, when she saw the red Buick Verano in the rearview mirror.

There was nothing suspicious about the Buick yet. She had been driving only a mile, but she’d noticed the same car when she’d pulled out of the soccer field lot. Could be nothing. Probably was nothing. Shane talked about the sixth sense of being a soldier, that sometimes, somehow, you just knew. That was bullshit. Maya had bought into that mumbo jumbo until they’d all been proven wrong in a horrific way.

“Aunt Maya?”

It was Alexa.

“What’s up, honey?”

“Thanks for coming to the game.”

“It was fun. I thought you played great.”

“Nah, Patty’s right. I suck.”

Daniel laughed. So did Alexa.

“Stop that. You like soccer, right?”

“Yeah, but this will be my last year.”

“Why?”

“I won’t be good enough to play next year.”

Maya shook her head. “It’s not about that.”

“Huh?”

“Sports are supposed to be about having fun and getting exercise.”

“You believe that?” Alexa asked.

“I do.”

“Aunt Maya?”

“Yes, Daniel.”

“Do you believe in the Easter Bunny too?”

Daniel and Alexa laughed again. Maya shook her head and smiled. She glanced in the rearview mirror.

The red Buick Verano was still there.

She wondered whether it was Coach Phil looking for round two. The car color was right-red-but no, the big guy would drive a penis-envy sports car or a Hummer or something like that.

When she pulled up to Claire’s house-even this long after the murder, Maya still thought of the house as her sister’s-the red Buick passed them without hesitating. So maybe it wasn’t a tail. Maybe it was just another family at the soccer game that lived in the neighborhood. That would make sense.

Maya flashed back to the first time Claire had shown this house to her and Eileen. It had looked something like it did now-grass overgrown, paint chipping, cracks in the pavement, drooping flowers.

“What do you think of it?” Claire had asked her then.

“It’s a dump.”

Claire had smiled. “Exactly, thank you. Just watch.”

Maya had no creativity for such things. She could not see the potential. Claire could. She had that kind of touch. Soon the two words that came to mind when you pulled up to the home were “cheerful” and “homey.” The whole place ended up looking like a happy kid’s crayon drawing somehow, with the sun always shining and the flowers taller than the front door.

That was all gone now.

Eddie met them at the door. He too was a reflection of the house-one thing before Claire’s death, something faded and gray since. “How did it go?” he asked his daughter.

“We lost,” Alexa said.

“Oh, sorry.”