Remy

Well, that was rude.

Remy Dawson studied the email again to make sure it was meant for her.

“Your son will pitch when I say he pitches.

“We have a full roster this season, so we will be working extra hard to make sure everyone gets a chance to play all positions. Your son, Elliot, may have only pitched in past seasons, but I don’t believe in laser focus at such a young age. That is not my method, so you should get used to it if you want Elliot to play ball at all.”

Yep, there was Elliot’s name. Twice. This email was indeed meant for Remy’s eyes and was not an accidental slip of the finger on somebody’s smartphone.

How dare this new guy talk to her like that? No way the old coach would have ever blown off her requests.

Remy slapped her laptop closed. They would have to sort this out at the team’s first practice tonight.

“Elliot, honey? Let me see your homework!” she called from the dining room.

Elliot’s feet bounded down the stairs. It was a sound that she was eternally grateful to have around, but the single mom was painfully aware that those feet were no longer in the pitter patter phase of life. Her one and only child, now 13, was growing up way too fast.

Elliot galloped goofily over to Remy at the dining room table. She laughed at him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just banging two ends of a coconut together.”

“Honey Elliot, you’re not holding any coconuts.”

“Come on, Mom. Holy Grail?”

“Uhh, Monty Python?”

The teenage boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you only watched it like a million times.”

“No, you watched it while I worked and brought you microwave nachos.”

Elliot sidled up to Remy and scratched his back against her arm as if he was a bear and she was a tree. “Maybe it’ll rub off eventually,” he joked.

She laughed and slapped him away. “Not likely. That’s a you-and-Dad thing. Let me see your math.”

Elliot handed over his work. Remy examined it. “This isn’t right, you need to show your work.”

“But I know it in my head. That old battle-ax knows I know it.”

“Elliot! Ms. Cole is not old, and that is rude.”

“She is old—you had her in school and so did Dad.”

Something like sadness or high school regret suddenly bubbled up in her and made her raise her voice at her son. “She’s not that much older than your dad and me, and words do hurt people. Remember that when you and your dad start bonding over his so-called glory days, OK? There’s a reason why Ryan Dawson never got a college recommendation. Being a clown isn’t getting you a degree. Don’t follow in his footsteps, whatever you do!”

“Wow,” he replied.

“What?”

Elliot smirked at her. “That escalated quickly.”

She stared at him, bewildered. “Sometimes I don’t understand your sense of humor.”

“Try, like, ever.”

“Fix it.” She handed his work back to him.

Elliot grunted and plopped down at the table and scribbled while she opened her laptop back up and looked at her bookkeeping spreadsheet. There would be just enough coming in this month from her online work training medical transcriptionists. Enough to get a couple of name brand junk foods for Elliot.

She then opened a new tab on the screen and typed out a grocery list to send to her phone later.

Strawberry-frosted Pop Tarts

Wrapped cheese slices (orange)

Chocolate milk

Pirate Booty puffs

The rest of the list went on like that. Mostly junk. She worked hard to get a vegetable into his body about once a week, but it was so exhausting, she gave up feeling the mom-guilt over his eating habits. Besides, he worked and played so hard she didn’t feel she could deny him his “kid food.”

It was truly unfair that eating garbage had no effect on Elliot’s slim, gangly body. Remy’s body type, on the other hand—yikes. She looked down at her “mom pooch” and sighed. She also worked hard, but no amount of sit ups or squats at the gym ever made her pants feel looser. She added a few things for herself on the list.

Broccoli

Kale

Blueberries

Plain yogurt

So not fair.

Elliot handed her his work and she rechecked it.

“Good! Was that so hard?”

“Yes, especially when I’m trying to get out of here to go see Brandt’s new skateboard. He’s gonna let me try it out.”

Remy shut that down. “Nope. You have practice tonight.”

“Not until seven!” Elliot protested.

“I’m sorry, I meant pitching lessons at five o’clock first.”

“Aww, man, come on, I’ve been doing pitching lessons since last season! Do I really have to keep doing it during regular season?! Rod sucks so hard.”

She smiled at her boy. “Try to think of a more creative way to say you don’t like someone besides ‘sucks.’ And also, Rod is the best private coach around here, and you’ll thank me when you go pro.”

“But he’s such a douche, Mom.”

“My own mom would have had a fit over me using that language. You should feel lucky you get to express yourself.”

“Hardly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, young man?”

“Nothing. All right, I’ll suck it up if it will help you.”

She cocked her head. “Help me what?”

“Help you get the cob out of your ass.” Elliot playfully pulled her ponytail and ran off to get ready.

“You better run, you little shit!” she called after him, smiling.

Remy sighed as she watched her baby bounce off to the bench in the small kitchen to put his shoes on. She tried so hard not to live vicariously through that amazing boy. But he was only 13 and already a better person than she felt she was.

As a single mom, she wished she had planned better and given him a sibling. They would have had so much fun together. Heaven knows she wasn’t the most fun mom on the block. He deserved to have more fun than she could give him.

Just then her phone made a plinky-plonk sound. It was Ryan texting her. Elliot must have secretly been changing her ring tones and text tones again.

“Hey, I know it’s not my weekend, but I got tickets to Weird Al in Des Moines this Saturday and I’d like to take Elliot.”

The fun parent strikes again.

She typed: “Sure, come to the scrimmage that morning and you can take him after that.”

Ryan replied, “I can get a ticket for you if you want to come, too.”

She laughed out loud picturing herself at a Weird Al concert. Or any concert. When was the last time? She couldn’t remember. Wait, yes she could. It was Usher, at the arena in Des Moines, that one arena that’s named after some blood-sucking bank now. That was the night she and Ryan skipped prom, because, well, Usher seemed more fun at the time. That was also the night Elliot was conceived, if she was not mistaken.

Remy wrote back, “Hard pass, but thanks.”

Again, Ryan was typing. Doesn’t he have work to do? Remy thought as she watched the three little dots.

“OK,” said his final text. “Just try to find something fun to do while I have Elliot. You need to chill.”

Ryan was a little too much like a sibling. He was a good guy, but in too many ways he was still a kid. Great as a teenage boyfriend but not such a great husband. Especially not when pushed into it while barely out of high school.

But Elliot was crazy about his dad, and Remy was grateful they could co-parent relatively free of drama.

Ryan seemed happier single. Remy wasn’t so much happy as she was content taking care of Elliot and making ends meet.

Biologically speaking, it wasn’t too late to give Elliot a sibling. She was only 32. But there just wasn’t a relationship in her future.

Remy laughed out loud. You don’t need a baby, you probably just need to get laid.

She stared again at her laptop screen and tried focusing on how to reply once again to the rude new baseball coach. Troy, was it? God, he even had an arrogant jock name.

Putting Troy in his place was going to be all the fun she needed for today.