When the door clicks shut behind him, Coach Taylor – well, the former Coach Taylor – finishes his morning paper and his coffee. He turns to the Help Wanted section of the classifieds, though he doesn't know why. The world has moved on since the first time he searched for a job, and the only jobs advertised in the paper anymore are multi-level marketing and get-rich-quick schemes. He may be the only person on his block to even get a physical paper these days.

So instead he opens up his laptop and does a little Internet searching while the T.V. drones on in the living room. He types in "Coaching Jobs" and finds his way to HigherEd Jobs, where the only open positions he finds anywhere near him are jobs like "strength and conditioning assistant," "head bowling coach," "assistant women's soccer coach," and oddly - "assistant baseball coach / groundskeeper." They must be squeezing coaches for everything they're worth these days. He shakes his head. But then he sees "Athletic Director" at a small college he thinks is fifty miles west of them. Feeling a hint of optimism, he clicks through. The pay is $20,000 less than he made last year, and it mostly seems to involve fundraising, which is the part of football he has always hated most. He exits out, lowers his screen, and sighs.

The chair scrapes back as he stands. He comes into the living room and rests a hand on the back of their new leather couch (they thought it better to buy new furniture than to move the old, which had seen better days). Gracie lies stomach down on the floor, her feet in the air, her head propped up on her hand.

"What the hell is this crap?" The crudely drawn cartoon characters emit shrill voices and they appear to be farting loudly for no apparent reason, with bursts of clouds coming out of their butts.

Gracie cranes her neck back to look at him. "Ooooh! Daddy said a bad word! Two bad words!"

"What is this awful show?" he asks again.

Gracie shrugs and turns her head back to the screen. "I don't know."

"Whatever happened to Looney Tunes?"

"Whooey what?"

"Turn it off." He gives the command, but he does the action. He walks around the couch, picks up the remote from the coffee table, and clicks the T.V. off.

"Awww!" Gracie whines.

She's still in her pajamas. He hadn't noticed what she was wearing before. "Mommy didn't dress you?"

"Mommy said that's your job now."

Eric rubs his forehead. "You know what, I think it's your job. You're starting Kindergarten in September." The kid is smart – precocious, Tami likes to call her – but also immature in some ways - like in expecting help with getting dressed. He blames Tami for that. She's too indulgent. She feels guilty because of her long work hours, so when she does have time with Gracie, she gladly does everything for the girl. "Go!" he commands in his coach's voice. "Get dressed!"

Gracie's eyes widen. She scurries to a standing position and runs off to her room.

When she returns, it looks as if she pulled her shorts on without unbuttoning or unzipping them, because the zipper and button are in the back. The shorts are a bright pink, but her shirt is a puke green that does not coordinate at all. She has a button-down short-sleeve shirt on, which she has managed to button up such that one side is two button-holes higher than the other. She's wearing one purple sock and one orange sock.

Eric rubs his eyes. "Come here," he says. He kneels down before her, helps her get her shorts turned around, and fixes her shirt. The socks he lets slide. "Okay," he says. "Get your shoes on and let's go."

"Where are we going?" she asks as she skip walks to the door and picks up her tennis shoes from the shoe shelf.

"To buy a frozen lasagna for dinner."

[*]

Somehow, Gracie talks Eric into buying Cookie Crisp cereal. He's pretty sure Tami only allows her cereals with less than 6 grams of sugar per serving – he vaguely remembers her telling him that once when he did the shopping – incorrectly, apparently – one Saturday. But Tami's not here. Besides, that Cookie Crisp looks pretty good. He wouldn't mind some of that himself.

He puts it into the cart, singing, "Dad is great, he gives us chocolate cake!"

"What?" Gracie asks from her perch at the back of the cart, where she stands holding onto the basket.

"Nothing," Eric mutters. "It's an old Cosby routine." He pushes the cart on to the frozen food section, where he takes out a Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

"That doesn't look as good as Mommy's," Gracie tells him.

"Well, I don't know how to make mommy's. So unless you want chili, brisket, or pancakes for – "

"- Pancakes!"

"We're having lasagna." He pushes the cart onward. He can't remember if they have milk, so he snags some. He can't remember if they have bread, so he gets that too. He doesn't know if they have charcoal, but they can always use more charcoal. He'll be doing a lot of grilling this summer, especially if Tami expects him to take over all the cooking. Maybe he should have made a list.

When it's time to check out, he swings into a lane and Gracie hops off the cart. From in front of them, a dirty-blonde, thirty-something woman turns around and flashes a bright smile. "Well hello, Coach Taylor. Fancy seeing you here."

Oh shit.

He has no idea who this woman is.

One of the mothers of one of his former players, maybe?

"Hello, Mrs. Howard," Gracie says.

Relief courses through Eric's veins. She must be a neighbor if Gracie knows her name, and now that Gracie says it, he vaguely recognizes her, from the block party last 4th of July. She's married to that tax lawyer who wouldn't stop talking about the latest reforms to the tax code, the man with three first names, George Jacob Howard or something like that. They have no children, nor do they intend to, and George Jacob Howard is "crying all the way to the bank about that. Ha ha ha." He got the old "snip snip snip" he told Eric one moment of oversharing, and his retirement fund currently stands at a cool 1.3 million, he told Eric in another.

Mrs. George Jacob Howard is currently buying three lonely items – a bottle of wine, a box of condoms, and a People magazine.

Eric blinks at the condoms.

"So, Tami says you're between jobs?" Mrs. Howard asks.

The scanner beep – beep – beeps.

"Uh, yeah. Temporarily. Only temporarily."

"Of course," she says. "A fine, handsome coach like you, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding work." She gives him a little wink, pays, plucks up her bag and moves on.

Eric's ego gets a little lift from her compliment, even if it's all wrong, coming from a woman who is married, to a married man shopping with his daughter. If Tami were here, she'd probably have an urge to pick up one of the pointy barbecue skewers the cashier is now ringing up and stab it right in Mrs. George Jacob Howard's winking eye. Eric smiles at the thought of two women fighting over him.

"We have a job opening for a night stocker, if you want to apply," the cashier says.

And just like that, his ego deflates again.

[*]

As Eric drives home in the new pick-up truck they'll be making payments on for the next six years, he wonders if he should just get a job, any job, to be working and making a little extra cash, even if it's substitute teaching or stocking shelves. There's nothing wrong in honest work. If his father beat one good truth into him, it was that. He got his first job at fourteen, cleaning toilets. But after a twenty-eight-year career, some of that at the college level and three years of that winning high school state championships - it's not easy to climb down the ladder.

He slams on his breaks because the idiot in front of him has come to an abrupt stop at a yellow light. His bumper gently taps the black Dodge Charger, and he backs up. "Moron," he mutters, and checks the rearview mirror to make sure Gracie is okay. She must have jerked hard against the seatbelt of her booster seat, because she looks pained, and she's touching the straps. "You all right, peanut?"

"I'm all right."

The driver of the Dodge Charger has jerked his car into park and is throwing open the door. Eric sighs and unbuckles. "Stay put," he says, as if Gracie's going anywhere. "Oh shit." He recognizes the tall, sinewy, black-and-gray-haired man who has just stepped out of the car: Coach James Erwin. The basketball coach and Athletic Director Eric caught embezzling.

"Daddy said a bad word."

Eric hops down from his truck and meets the man beside the back of his Dodge Charger. It looks new.

"Eric," Coach Erwin says thinly. "Driving a little fast, weren't you?"

Eric stands with his hands on his hips, grateful for the dark sunglasses that hide the anger in his eyes. "No. You stopped abruptly for no good reason."

"The light was red."

Eric speaks through gritted teeth. "The light was yellow."

"Well, unlike you, Eric, I don't just barrel ahead when I don't have all the facts and context."

"It's a fact that the light was yellow and that you had plenty of time to get through it." Just like it was a fact Coach Erwin was skimming off the top, whatever the administration may have said about it.

Coach Erwin looks at the back of his car, which has a few scratches now. The light turns green. From behind Eric's truck, a car honks loudly.

"You lost me my job, and I scratched your car a tiny bit," Eric says. "Let's call it even." He turns and walks back toward his truck.

"I'm going to need your insurance information," Coach Erwin calls after him.

Eric balls his hands into fists and reminds himself he's got a little girl watching him from the backseat of the truck. The car behind him honks again, and Eric waves the driver around. Then he hefts himself up into his truck, jerks down the glove compartment, and pulls out a small spiral notebook where he sometimes draws plays as they come to him. He hops down, pages past the plays that brought the Pioneers from the most losing team in Philadelphia to the fifth from last place team his first year coaching them, and slams the notebook on top of his hood. He jerks out his wallet, pulls out his insurance card, and jots the information down on it before tearing off the sheet and handing it to Coach Erwin. "I guess I should have yours, too."

"Why? You're at fault." Coach Erwin folds the paper, shoves it in the front pocket of his Pemberton Pioneer polo, and struts back to the front seat of his Dodge Charger.

Eric returns to his truck with a glower and jerks it into drive, while, from behind him, Gracie says, "Grumpy, grumpy Daddy. Smile!"