Despite all the improvements that happened through training and all the things that we had done, it wasn’t enough. Jalil and his team had gotten inside of our heads. After about 18 minutes in the second match, I could see where it was going. It doesn’t take a genius to see that a snowball was building into an avalanche.
The team fights began, and I thought I had some hope. If only the patch would give me some sort of consumables that I could use like a salve to smooth over my wounded ego.
Alaska would not give me that. It was like an aggressively helpful video game tutorial. Sure, it told me all the things and how to play the game, but it would not give me the advanced level setup.
I watched as it was close, but my guys lost their first full match series. We were going to be two up one down for this season. Which again this is still an excellent position to be in, especially if our goal was to make the finals. Of the eight weeks that we were going to be in regular season, seven of those involved actual matches. We reserved one of them for a special matchup.
This week our team would go up against the Bergen County academies in an exhibition League type event.
Now, for those of you that don’t know the Bergen County academies is the public school. Dod students in the county can go to when they’re advanced, but their parents don’t want to pay for apartment school. It is something you test into and they have. Let’s just say a high expectation of their students.
Few people from the Bergen County academies come to Bergen Community College because most of them go on to good 4-year schools. In fact, many people in the county disproportionately go to college.
Most people don’t graduate from college and many people stay in for about 6 years to finish a 4-year degree. But disproportionately people attend college in this county. Whether they left for one or they returned to it. With all the options in New York City and Newark and even Rutgers in Central Jersey, there were plenty of places for Jersey students to go to the school.
Find myself lucky to have my team. And what I did with them would just be magic
I addressed the team after everything was over. We talked about what we wanted to work on for our next training session, and then we thank the Union County team for coming out to fight against us.
Esther and Jalil traded information.
One of the good things that came out of this was that this was a friendly competition. And I kind of shuttered thinking of Esther and Jalil together on the same team. Honestly, I would recruit him if I could. A professional team. If only somebody like Ryan Reynolds would just give me the money to do that. Unfortunately, the suave, sexy man had decided to not do that. And I paid for that dearly every day.
I talked to Esther.
Joe, you did great. No notes. It’s just that
No, I got it, professor; she said. He told me what his strategy was. He told me I should use it against Essex.
“He told you that?” I said, leaning in.
She smiled. “Yeah, he’s actually kind of a nice guy. When you are down to the actual person and not him showboating, he’s really nice. It’s just that he wanted to project his aura. He told me about it.”
I felt like my face might show some of the incredibility that I felt and that was that exact moment.
“Are you saying that this man, like an ogre in a swamp, has layers like an onion?” I said.
“I’m just saying that he got into my head and now I need to tap into some of that dark psychology.” She crossed her arms. “Unless you don’t want me to shit talk?”
Let me tell you one thing about Esther. Esther is Korean American. Both of her parents are Korean. I could not tell you how old she was. She could be anywhere between 16 and 35. Whatever beauty treatments she was going through, she could be anywhere in that range. At one moment, she could look like a very cute high school girl at the other moment. She could look like someone who could be old enough to be a mother.
“Esther, I thought you would never be a hater. You read such delightful stories.”
“English is not my first language,” she said. “Drama is. Really, I should say Korean, but you get the point?
We both laughed. “All right, you know what to work on. I want you to consider whatever you’re doing for training this week when you’re not starting for your classes like you should be and then maybe on Tuesday you can help Rachel out. Oh, and thank you.”
She gave me a peace sign, and then I went over to speak to Raquel and Murph.
They were pointedly not sucking face. In fact, I could swear that they were actually just helping Rachel put stuff away.
“Hey guys, how are you doing?” I said. “You guys played extremely well. “
Murph stood up and put a fist to his chest. “It’s possible to do everything right and still lose.”
Raquel sighed. “He is a Trekkie.”
I nodded in an understanding. “So you’ve been doing great and your support role. And you’re farming really well. Honestly, you had an excellent game. It was just as the enemy was coming down. You guys really make me glad to be here.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to think of what I could do better,” he said. “But I think we can work on this next week in training. I enjoyed being mid laner. That was fun, but again, I’ve done so many matches of sport with Raquel that it’s almost second nature to me.”
Fact that he was his top of his game working together with her and still they kept getting killed because that little Gap by one of them dying and then the other one dying had just grown.
“Look, you guys are great,” I said. “It’s just that they got ahead of us. We didn’t get back and..”
“I know, Professor, it’s difficult to get back when from when you’re down a little, he said. But our illustrious club president, she was at the top of a game.”
Racquel was beaming.
He patted her on the back. He then put his arm around her shoulders and I could see there was some affection there if they were just not letting us know. But it felt more like they were just great friends.
“Oh thank you,” Raquel said. “I’m super stoked that we’re able to do this. Look, even if we lost this? This was super fun and this whole esports business it’s just growing. Maybe by the time I graduate from college I can start my little esports franchise somewhere.”
“That is the dream, Murph said. Then we can have a little farm upstate where we raise Dalmatians and create esports MVPs.”
“Okay you too,” I said, laughing. “If you decide to make an esports farm upstate where you have Dalmatians, you let me know. I’ll be the first one to come by and visit.”
I was going to need to cross-check if you could actually make money on a Dalmatian farm. Chances were you couldn’t. But I was going to bet that there was somebody who’s hyper focus was on farming and Disney movies who had actually written an essay on this.
I talked to Bob, and I talked to the referee. And then finally, the professor from the other school gave me a fist bump on my way out.
“You did good,” he said. “It’s just that you’re fighting against Jalil.”
“Oh I know,” I said. “If I can only just have him for a few games?”
“Yeah, you can’t. He’s on scholarship.”
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Tell me more.”
---
That Friday, mom and I hashed out our plans for our winter cruise.
“Mom,” I said, over the beeps of the dialysis machine. “I think that this is going to be good. It’s about 14 days and that’ll be the coldest part of the season. It doesn’t interfere with my school and we leave right after Christmas. So we could spend a few days in Trinidad.”
Stolen story; please report.
She gave me a big mm-hmm and then got back to her iPad.
“I’m serious, mom. We really need to purchase these tickets now before my schedule gets filled up with extracurriculars. School wants me to come by and give a class in winter session.”
“Why don’t you just say no?” she said.
“You know they pay my bills. I don’t have a sugar daddy.”
“Well, why not?”
“The story for the ages. Unfortunately, it’s about the supply and demand curve. There’s only so much supply out there of sugar daddies. The demand is way higher than the amount of supply.”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just marry a nice doctor or engineer so that I can live my days happily and carefree. Plus, then it would have a grandbaby from a doctor and my daughter.”
“Mom, we talked about this. I’m not going back to school to get my PhD right now. Plus, Professor is a more prestigious thing.”
I lied. I was taking one course at a time for my PhD. It was just that the one course of the semester was a lot. I took off this one because the semester had gone a lot. Honestly, I just had my thesis left to do, but they gave me a long time.
Do you know when someone gives you a long time to work on something and you’re like, I need a bit more of a short-term deadline? That’s me. I love a good, short-term deadline. It gives me a good expectation of when I had to deliver my product and it tells me I need to be done by a certain time. I had been done with most of the coursework for a long time. And I was just waiting to deliver my final conceptual piece. It was a capstone on my PhD. And I had so far gone dark on that subject. Because who gets a PhD in business? People that want to teach business
I was already teaching business. I Got my MBA and I have a master’s degree.
It was something that was more of a foregone conclusion that I didn’t need. Bergen wanted me to do it. The problem is that Bergen didn’t have a department that could issue me a PhD. I had to go back to Ramapo for that. Or one of the other four-year colleges that had grad schools attached to them.
“Mom you just want me to finish my last thing so you can call me Dr. Thomas?”
She smiled. She betrayed exactly zero emotion. Even though I knew her feelings.
“I’m so proud of you! My daughter. Professor Thomas is such a grand title. But it means nothing to my friends. They just want you to be Doctor Thomas.”
I exhaled. The amount of sass that this woman gave off was nearly a catastrophic level. It was like she was just 90% sass and back talk. Explained why she was so ready for me to have children. Then at least she would have another topic of conversation.
“Do you want me to tell you about my students? I’ve got a talented group, the esports club. Heck, I’ve talked to this Union County Professor, and he got his guy in scholarship.”
“He got his guy in scholarship? What does that even mean?”
I briefly explained it to her.
“It’s like you making up a word salad for me to eat. I didn’t eat salad before. And are you trying to make me eat a word salad? Esports Hearthstone DOTA? These are all meaningless to me.”
“Mom, you know this is important to me,” I said.
“Yes.”
I could feel her eyes rolling ever so slowly. It was hard for her to be supportive. It was like she came from a generation where she inherited the trauma of her ancestors and I could tell that she was trying not to pass it on to me, but the woman deeply wanted children. And in this economy? She had to have children's money.
She wanted to be a grandmother, but she didn’t give me Grandma money.
“I Want to say, Mom, if you wanted me to be a parent then you had to give me a trust fund or something like this.”
I wasn’t anywhere near losing my stuff. When I was younger, I lived paycheck to paycheck, but over time; I got to a point where I didn’t even know how much money was in my account. I just knew that my bills were paid, and everything else was handled automatically. The only time I checked was when I had to do my taxes or if I had to write a big check. It was a good feeling, and I just knew that it took a lot to get there. But in my late thirties? I was happy to be there
It still didn’t mean I had kid money. It takes almost a quarter of a million dollars to raise a kid from birth to eighteen.
“I didn’t have that type of money. Even if I fostered a kid, the state would only give you so much. And then if I adopted one? Then, well then, I would have to still pay for everything.” Mom would not help.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
“I’m just saying you don’t have a cat. You don’t have a dog; you don’t have any kids. “
“Because I like to go on vacations,” I said. “I work a hard job and then, when it’s done; I want to go home and I want to go to Trinidad or I want to go to Europe. We like to see unknown places. That’s why I’m trying to take you on this cruise ship.”
She took a heavy breath. She knew I loved her. It was just funny the way she showed it.
She actively tried to remind me of all the things that I told her I did not need her to remind me about. Especially the kids thing. You would think that she might get the hint in time, but moms always have that hope.
At least she did as much as she could to persuade me to have kids. The amount of people that she had lily introduced before she’d gone on dialysis had been statistically impossible.
These so-called get together is where it was just me, her and one other person who just happened to be a man that she knew through a friend, had always thrown me.
Honestly, her being on dialysis made her much more energetic, but had kept her more grounded. He couldn’t go anywhere for over 2 days. So this whole thing where we got onto a cruise ship and the hemodialysis machine was there was going to be a brand new thing for her and me. It excited me she was going to return to Trinidad. I was just hoping that we might fly back.
There was one particular goal I had in mind. That was for me to get her to understand exactly what daughter was and what I did. Then maybe I could introduce some of the more silly things.
And maybe I could get her to go see Wicked with me when it released.
---
“So you know how I asked you to come here a bit early to talk?” Amir said.
“Yeah, what’s going on? Does she have a secret child or something like that?”
“I mean no. It’s just that I’m so serious about her, he said. Kelly, do you know how do you know when you’re in? Love.? Because I think..”
“This is way too heavy for before breakfast, I said. At least get a girl coffee.
Amir was in midtown, and I was in midtown South. We would both walk the other to midtown East AKA Stacy’s den of iniquity.
“Is it weird to call Stacy’s place the den of iniquity? I mean, it’s a professional law office, right? What even is iniquity?”
“Let me ponder that for about five steps.”
Amir pondered that.
“I don’t know what’s going on there. I think that our Mister Mean case is going to settle, though.”
“A change?” I said. “Was there something that they noticed?”
“Going to Discovery and the process of Discovery is just so illuminating for her. Apparently, he was just hiding how much he was making and not telling her. And This is a problem for New Jersey. Mostly because he hasn’t paid taxes on that.”
“Isn’t this a weird Gray Zone because they’re married?” I said. I slapped the light, urging it to move. Ridgewood was a beautiful town, and I loved it. But there were a few streets where you just had to wait across. The one that went underneath the railroad? That was when you wanted to slap.
It was always interesting to me. How many people drove to take the train? Like you could just walk there. But people decided they wanted to do it, which is why there was a small parking lot dedicated to those commuters.
We crossed the street, getting further away from the center of town.
“Yeah, so just because they’re getting divorced, it’s a wage claim for her. But in Discovery, she could open his books and she didn’t like what you saw. So it looks like he’s going to have to work off what he owes her.”
“Amir, that is just so interesting,” I said, rolling my eyes.
"Now Kelly, I know that you’re making fun of me, but come on.”
“No, you guys are doing a serious duty here. You’re bringing this man to justice.”
“He is our client. And we are just seeing him through a civil trial. Or through a civil divorce proceeding. I don’t think this man is ever going to see justice.”
“Was it the Rich parents?”
“Yeah, that kind of gave it away,” Amir said.
We had arrived at Stacy’s humble abode and law practice.
We knocked on the door and went up the back steps.
It was a bit of a breeze. October had been threatening to arrive in full force for so long. Dod I was just wondering why it was still nearly summer weather.
“Hey guys,” Stacy said, opening the door.
“Stacy, so good to see you,” I said. “Amir is getting serious with Lee.”
“Oh, he said that, did he?” Stacy said. “Congratulations. It’s only been what a month?”
“It’s been 2 months,” he said in a monotone. We took our yoga mats, and we brought them to the yoga studio/ esports lounge she called her living room.
It had to be good to be a lawyer based on how well furnace’s place was. Again, I’m not here to compare myself with Stacy, but I enjoyed going to her spot.
“Amir got a bunch of furniture,” Stacy said. “Are you going to ask us to come help you build it?”
Amir shrugged. “I need the help.”
“I tell you what,” I said. “Is it all Ikea furniture? There’s no need to be embarrassed. Tell us the truth. It can’t be worse than a bunch of milk crates.”
There was a knocking on the door, and Jill arrived.
“Hey guys,” she said in a singsong voice.
We matched her in tone and intensity.
She spent the next 45 minutes making us wish that we hadn’t arrived for Yoga in a good way.
That said it, I had a lot of stuff to do that morning, but no impetus to do it.
I stayed around and helped Stacy make some. Breakfast.
It felt good to be a part of the dream team. It also felt good to eat some of her muffins.
“Kelly, you doing anything about cuffing season? Or is Mom going to be disappointed again?” she said.
“Oh, you know, I looked just one that woman every day. I don’t think that there’s enough that I could do to make her happy. I got her the cruise that she wanted, which is a hassle and a half because it has to be a dialysis machine there and the nurse in order to work it.”
“You heard about those people that just live on cruise ships and that’s like their life? At least pay $4,000 a month to live on the ship and they don’t really live anywhere except for the ship?”
“Yeah, I always thought that was weird,” I said
As I turned over the muffin in my hand, I remembered that it was a chocolate chip.
“Anyway, Comic-Con is coming up and just wanted to reiterate that I want you there, I said. I didn’t grab enough tickets for the three of us and Leigh. If you can’t make it, I understand. But I really would like you to make it.”
She bit her lip.
“Tell me you’ve met someone too, I said. That’s what Comic-Com is for. It’s for meeting cool people and then gaining them into the friend group. And then being disappointed that they leave in Brooklyn and they never come to Jersey.”
“Yeah, that’s really weird how that keeps happening. It’s like all the hot boys are in Brooklyn and all the cool girls are in Jersey. I bet that all the Brooklyn girls feel the same way about Jersey boys.”
“It’s just such a hassle,” I said.
It might be right next to us on a map, but it felt so far away. And with the parking situation? Every girl dreamed of having easy access to the train. Heck, I could just hop on the train to the city and go there for the day. Then I had to walk the train and walk back and it’s such a hassle. And parking is so expensive. And those popular boys at lift and Bushwick? They didn’t want to go that far. They rarely left more than a neighborhood away, making it so that you had to go to them.
And then you have to see like, oh am I going to commit to this guy or not? And look, I’ve got ten years. I don’t need to convince somebody who can’t come live in Jersey. I had to live by some rules because it’s a public college affiliated with the county itself.
It was bad enough that I sometimes needed to drive. If I could get away with it? I wouldn’t even have a car. As is, I only really needed it to get to work. Sometimes. When it got warm, I could walk to school. Not that I would. It was about two miles to my house, but still.