The Soccer Star's Forgotten Wife novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: Halloween

"Me," I said.

I was still on Cody's kitchen floor with my back against the dishwasher.

"You," the integrity man said. "Center referee."

"I'm his ex-wife."

"That's why." I heard him turn a page. "He called you a ref with a grudge. A red card from his ex-wife looks like spite. Nobody checks the betting on spite."

"He'll like it."

"He'll love it," he said. "That's what we need."

"And until the eighth?"

"Until the eighth, you're still under review. I can't tell your colleagues. I can't tell the press."

"How long is that?"

"About a month, Ms. Raynor. Can you be a cheat for a month?"

I'd been a housekeeper for five years.

"Yes," I said.

The league posted the semifinal crews on the last Monday in October.

My name was at the top.

By lunch it was on every sports page in Colorado.

"Accused Ref Handed Ex-Husband's Playoff Game."

Somebody made a video of me, slowed down from the steakhouse, with a cash register sound every time I blinked.

The chief didn't call.

He couldn't.

On Thursday I went to the grocery store for pumpkins.

A man by the gourds looked at my face, then at his phone, then at my face.

"Cheat," he said, quietly, to the pumpkin in my hands.

I paid for the pumpkin.

I didn't say a word.

That was the hardest thing I'd done since the test.

Junie had planned Halloween since August.

She'd made the costumes herself, from cardboard, tape and the leftover red paint from the volcano.

She was the referee.

A black jersey down to her knees, a real whistle, and a deck of cards she'd cut from red and yellow card stock.

Cody was the VAR.

He wore a big box over his shoulders, painted like a TV, with a hole for his face and "VAR" across the top.

"I have no arms," he said in the hallway.

"VAR doesn't need arms," Junie said. "It just looks at things very slowly."

I was the fourth official.

I had a shoebox on a stick with "+4" glued on it in Christmas lights.

"Why plus four?" I said.

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