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Derek half-smiled, half-sighed as he drew his head back from the peephole. He had been telling himself earlier in the day that he was managing the Pamela situation pretty well. While there was no question that she was pushy and wanted to be on his good side in the worst way, he had resisted some of what he thought were her more problematic overtures, such as inviting him to work out or swim at her home when her husband was away, or her offer to be his personal chauffeur during team road trips so he could pocket club travel money.

 

He had also been able to have some, what he thought anyway, normal conversations with her during the team’s tournament on Labor Day weekend.  He felt by keeping his communication with her to when other parents were around, he could bring more normalcy to it and it would also help keep him thinking in the right way.

 

“Because let’s face it,” Derek thought to himself. “She is a total babe and I am one lonely SOB.”

 

He had broken up with his fiancée a year before moving to United, and he hadn’t had so much as a date since then. He knew he was vulnerable, and Pamela seemed to know how to push his buttons.

 

But showing up at 10:30 p.m. on a Monday night, after the team had  returned from a Labor Day Tournament earlier in the day, well that was…..highly questionable.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by another knock on the door, telling him that pretending to be asleep probably wasn’t going to work. He took a deep breath, checked his appearance, gym shorts and a sweatshirt, released the deadbolt and opened the door.

 

He was startled to see Pamela was in tears.

 

“Are you alright?” he exclaimed.

 

“I’m so sorry for showing up like this. I was out driving. Irv and I had a fight and I…I just need to talk with you. You’re the only person I think will understand.” Pamela tilted her head slightly and had a pleading look in her tear-clouded eyes. Derek felt like the crying wasn’t a put-on, and while the idea of him being the one she needed to talk to in this situation didn’t compute at all, he was at least curious enough to wonder what was going on. He felt the cool air from outside begin to wrap around him in the doorway.

 

“Come in,” he said, standing aside and pulling the door open and then shut behind her. 

 

“The cold weather is coming already,” Pamela said as she stepped into his apartment, surveying the scene. Derek was glad he had tidied up a bit before going on the trip as he didn’t get much company and didn’t worry too much about the occasional discarded pizza box or multiple empty beer bottles. He offered to take her coat.

 

Under her black Marc Jacobs trench coat, Pamela wore black Nike running tights and a red tank top. Her blonde hair fell down around her shoulders and a warning flag shot up in Derek’s mind, “shouldn’t be in this situation.”

 

But Derek saw the tear streaks glistening in the room light and again felt concern. He laid her coat on the bannister and walked to his kitchen to retrieve two bottles Michelob Ultra. As he walked back into the front room he stood by the end of his couch and realized Pamela was still standing.

 

“Oh, sit down. Here,” he said, extending one of the bottles to her. As Derek sat down he realized she had managed to move from his lone chair to the couch where he was sitting. “Was that an accident? I didn’t mean sit down here. I meant sit down, and then ‘Here, take this bottle. Boy, am I smooth,’” he thought.

 

“Are you going to be OK?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

 

Pamela took a drink from the bottle and turned toward him. He thought she looked just a bit older, that maybe she hadn’t had the chance to make herself up the way she normally did.

 

“Irv accused me of something terrible,” Pamela said, making very direct eye contact with Derek.

 

Derek sat up a bit straighter at this comment, picturing in his mind Irv charging through the door with a shotgun, finding him on the couch with his wife, only in the image Derek conjured, the smallish Irv was depicted as about 7-feet tall. Derek brought himself back to reality quickly and listened.

 

“He said I am not so involved with the club for our son’s sake, but my own sake,” Pamela continued. “He said I seek attention for myself through Trevor, and that I did the same thing through our older son, Hunter, and that this is why Hunter is so disenchanted with soccer now. I told him he was wrong, but he wouldn’t listen. I guess we don’t talk very much anymore. Of course he’s always gone.”

 

Pamela started crying again and Derek felt sorry for her. He had thought the exact same thing that she had described her husband saying, but he didn’t think she was faking her hurt, or her disagreement with the assessment. As she sat crying, he couldn’t help but move closer to her and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in until he felt her sobs against his chest.

 

“Hey now, it’s going to be alright,” Derek said. “He’s probably just a little jealous, maybe feeling bad about being away.”

 

“Do you really think so?” Pamela responded, still leaning on him and looking forward. “I hardly think he even notices.  Hunter’s coach Stephen used to practically throw himself at me in front of Irv and he never really said anything, so I don’t think it’s really jealousy. I think he just is too wrapped up in his big business world and he can’t understand the love I have for the boys. I want to help them, and I love what you and the other coaches do for the kids. I’m not this mean witch some people think I am.”

 

Derek felt genuinely sorry for her, and when Pamela asked him if he thought her activity was all just for her, he couldn’t help but say no. He looked down and saw that now she was looking at him, and then he realized she had put her arm around him as well. He leaned back onto the sofa, his arm still around her.

 

He looked at her and couldn’t help thinking how beautiful she was. He said something about how things were going to be alright and began wiping away her tear lines with his thumb. In turn she turned toward him and put her other hand on his shoulder. He could smell her perfume and his mouth was going dry. He started to think it was getting very, very warm in his apartment. 

 

Pamela leaned so that her face was just a few inches away from his. She stared into his eyes. He could smell the faintest scent of beer on her breath as she spoke.

 

“I knew you’d understand. And I know I can count on you to always take care of Trevor, right?”

 

Derek heard tires screech, or was it the sound of a record player’s needle scraping off a record. His face went cold in a split second.  He stood up, not violently but fast enough that he noticed

 

Pamela ever-so-briefly clutching at him as he did.

 

He walked to the other side of the coffee table and began to feel angry, but catching himself simply said “I’m on the side of all the players, as I’ve told you before.”

 

Pamela looked a bit startled. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

 

Derek just walked over and picked up her coat.

 

“I’m sorry you had a disagreement with your husband,” he said. “You probably can find better people than me to help you with that. I’m not even married. But it’s probably not appropriate for us to be seeing each other in private, with no soccer involved. You know how people talk. I think you’re feeling better already.”

 

He handed her the coat as she stood up and quietly thanked him. She turned to hug him and got a half-hearted embrace in return. After she left he locked the door, shut the lights and went upstairs to his bed. He lied there thinking about the events of the weekend, and then how he would handle the next training session. He laughed quietly as he remembered something a coach at his old club had once suggested regarding a predatory mom, something involving a cage and a dog collar during practice. He turned on his side. He felt a bit angry at what had happened, a bit disappointed at what hadn’t happened, but mostly he found himself feeling a sense of relief. 

 

He closed his eyes.