Alice joined a water polo team and was enjoying it, but after some time on the team, the coach e-mailed all the parents, including Cummings, and said she was leaving and asked for someone to step up and be the new team parent. Cummings and two other parents volunteered, and Cummings said that in her new role, collecting fees from the parents of the teammates, she was no longer a passive watcher on practice nights. "My public demeanor changed from blissful indifference, sitting idly in the stands flipping through a magazine, to behaving like the poolside button-man for the water polo Mafia," she wrote. "I'd lurk up behind a late-paying parent and murmur in a flat, ominous tone, 'Jackson seems to love water polo. Be a pity if we had to pull him out of the pool because his fees aren't paid.'"
