My sister left a message on my voice mail. "Hi, darling," she said. "Sister Clara calling." Oh, dear. When Claire refers to herself as Sister Clara it usually means one thing: She is about to do something obnoxious.
"So, how did your team do today?" she said, and then went on to inform me that her team had just beaten the pants off its opponent, 47-17. She was enunciating wildly, like an opera singer. "We're talkin' five touchdowns in the first half. We-are-talk-ing, baby, four-hun-dred-and-six-tee-four yards passing."
Then she let out a noise I can only describe as one I used to hear come out of boys at frat parties after one keg was killed and the next successfully tapped. "Yeee-owwww!"
It's all right there on my voice mail. I saved the message in case I ever need leverage. My sister, a fortysomething pediatrician, a minivan mom, an upstanding leader in her community, calling up her baby sister and talking trash.
"So, I wonder how your little team did today," she said. "Goodbye."
I stood there fuming, as much over her stupidity as over the fact that her message was having its intended effect: to make me fume.
Stupidity! My team hadn't even played yet. Her team had played at 1, mine was scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Neither one of us knows a pump fake from a pooch kick, but she couldn't even read the TV listings? And -- nerve! My team was going into its game with the same record that her team had when it went into its game: 10 and 1. We were tied. Well, now she was 11 and 1. It had been going this way all season.
God, what if we lost? What if, dear lord in heaven, Claire pulled ahead? I could not take that. Could not. Would not. Could not. I suddenly got an urge to bash my head into someone else's and paint my stomach in team colors. It was becoming my every Sunday mood, thanks to Claire.
The thing is, I don't care about football. I don't have time for football. I never even pay attention to it unless my team, the Steelers, the team I got attached to during grad school in Pittsburgh, is winning. Claire has always stuck by the Eagles, out of loyalty to Philadelphia, where we grew up, which makes its own kind of sense. Our teams aren't usually good at the same time. Actually, I've never followed her team -- until now, seeing as it is in my team's face. Or she is in mine.
This is sports. A metaphor so easily turned personal. City against city. Sister against sister. Two years older, the captain of everything, Claire beat me at every single thing we ever played as kids. Every card game, every round of badminton, every single thing, until I learned how to cheat, which she knew I was doing, and she let me do, because she felt sorry for me. And so she moved on to real opponents.
Beat Claire. Must beat Claire. Need to beat Claire. This is the rhythm that pulses through my veins, barely perceptible now that I am a mature and loving grown-up, but reawakened now and again in yet another pathetic attempt at fulfillment. Beat Claire. Must beat Claire. God bless football. This is my year.
I didn't even call Claire back to tell her about her stupidity. Instead, I tuned to ESPN for the kickoff. I was punching my husband's back as the opposing team completed a 56-yard pass in the opening minutes of the second half. By the end of the third quarter we were up, 14-13, and I was going to have to either throw up or turn off the TV. I did neither. I dug my toes into my husband's kidneys as the other team pulled ahead, 16-14. Losing! We were losing with just 1:55 left to play.
I sat there wondering what I would do if my team failed to score one more stinkin' time. Obviously, I would never again be able to talk to Claire. I would have to avoid her calls for the rest of my life, and at holidays wear a bag over my head.
But then I got a grip and focused on the beauty. The beauty! Oh, I'd made sure to smear Claire's face with the beauty all season. Her team's 11 and 1 record? Who was the 1? Who-was-the-1?
