Kate Christie (15 page)

Somebody clearly needed to do something. I dropped my water bottle and headed for the threesome.

“Hey,” I said as I approached. Ten yards away, the rest of the team was looking now, all except for our clueless coaches. Or maybe they just didn’t want to see. “Leave her alone,” I said. “It’s not her fault we’re sucking it up.” And I smiled reassuringly at Jeni, my little sophomore defender. She nodded at me gratefully through her tears.

“Stay out of this, Cam,” Jamie said, glaring at me. “It’s your fucking defense that got us in this mess to begin with.”

My eyes narrowed slightly. I was aware of the team only ten yards away, of the sun pounding on the back of my neck, of the ground solid and green beneath my feet. I swallowed my anger.

“Grow up, Jamie,” I said, taking Jeni by the arm and pulling her toward the rest of the team. “I don’t see you working any miracles out there.” I turned away.

But Jamie grabbed me and spun me around as she had done once before the day she threatened to kick my ass. “Fuck you, Cam.” Tension and possibly fear pounding in her blood, Jamie forgot the crowd, shook Sara off and actually threw a punch at my face.

Fortunately I too was in soccer mode, adrenaline flooding my system. I dodged her swing easily and trapped her arm against my side. In a low voice I said, “We’re on the same team, jackass.

Get your fucking head together.”

Beautiful Game 10

Sara grabbed Jamie and dragged her aside, whispering angrily. I took Jeni’s arm again and made her sit near me in the goalmouth, while Jamie and Sara took up positions as far away from us as possible during Coach’s halftime talk. But I knew the rest of the team had seen the exchange. Dread pooled in my stomach as the minutes ticked by. We were crumbling, no bones about it. We were on the verge of self-destruction.

In the second half, TSC came out strong, pounding up and down the field tirelessly. With an extra player, they dominated, while we continued to fade. Our passes were still off, our runs entirely without purpose. My legs felt heavy, as if I were running through mud, and I could tell I wasn’t the only one afflicted by this malaise. TSC had chance after chance while we were lucky to get it across the half line.

Then, with twenty minutes left in the game, Jamie crossed a beautiful pass in front of the goal just out of reach of the keeper.

But no one was there. No one made the run. Jamie screamed, words carrying on the wind: “What the fuck? Am I alone out here?”

And suddenly, I understood what the phrase
seeing red
meant.

“Shut up!” I shouted at Jamie as TSC got ready for a goal kick. Everyone looked around at me in shock, including Jamie.

“Just shut up, Betz, and play the fucking game!”

Apparently that was one too many curses—the whistle blew and the referee gave Jamie and me each a warning. Swearing isn’t generally permitted on the field, though male soccer players curse themselves and each other up one side and down the other with little objection from the officials. But we weren’t male.

“One more outburst like that,” the gray-haired referee lectured us, “and you’ll both be looking at yellow cards.”

As he glared at us, I wondered if he knew that we were both lesbians, if he was looking at us thinking,
Fucking militant dykes
. I nodded sullenly and paced away, wishing I had maintained better control. Jamie and I had embarrassed ourselves and our team.

What was more, we had behaved in a distinctly un-All-American fashion. No one would quite look at me as I shifted back into position for the goal kick. Not even Laura, who disliked Jamie as much as I did.

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The seconds continued to tick down while we flailed about on our home field, unable to believe that this was how our best-ever season could end. When the final whistle blew, the TSC

players screamed and jumped around the field, our field, as we watched in silence. Our seniors started to cry as they headed for the bench. We shook hands mechanically, quietly, grabbed our gear and headed for the gym in twos and threes, heads down, stunned, ashamed. Our loyal fans stayed where they were on the hill, watching us trail away across the field.

Holly, Laura and I walked toward the gym together. We were shell-shocked. This was not supposed to happen. We weren’t supposed to lose at home to a team we had easily dispatched the year before. We were supposed to go to Seattle. We were supposed to have a shot at winning the whole thing.

Inside, Coach Eliot met us in the classroom near the women’s locker room. In a clipped voice entirely different from Sunday night, he told us we would have a team meeting the following day, Friday, at four.
Instead of practice
, he didn’t have to say. We already knew all about the end-of-season meeting to turn in our gear and figure out a date and location for our team banquet.

None of us had expected to have such a meeting so soon.

In the same voice, Coach directed us not to be too hard on ourselves. This was just the way of sport, of soccer, as we all knew—any given team could beat any other team on any given day. Unfortunately, someone always had to lose. A 19-3

record was nothing to be ashamed of, and he hoped we could be as proud of ourselves as he was. True, we didn’t fulfill our potential, but that was his fault more than it was ours. We should just be proud that we’d made it this far. He was. And with that final pronouncement, he nodded at us and left the room, silent assistants in tow.

This was usually the moment when the captains held the floor and declared that just because the season was over didn’t mean we weren’t still a team, what with intramurals to look forward to and important off-the-field bonding the rest of the year. Instead, Jamie stalked out, slamming the classroom door behind her. Sara, her co-captain, touched her hair nervously.

Everyone was looking to her now.

Beautiful Game 111

“Um, we’ll talk tomorrow after the meeting, okay?” she said.

“Don’t worry about it, you guys. We’ll talk tomorrow.” And she slipped out the door too.

In the locker room, no one showered. We stripped off our uniforms one last time as the rookies hefted the laundry bags, not bothering to grumble as they usually did. Everyone was deathly quiet until Mel, whose eyes were red from crying for the second time this season, sighed dramatically and said, “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to get completely wasted this weekend. Like, puking my guts out wasted. Anyone else up for that?”

Tension broken, everyone laughed, the younger kids looking at the juniors and seniors cautiously.

“Count me in,” Laura said, and slapped Mel’s upraised hand.

We rode to the student center packed five and six to a car, and pushed our usual tables together in a corner of the cafeteria—everyone but Jamie and Sara. Silence forgotten, we talked about the game, then the season, then, finally, our non-soccer lives. Our daily bond had broken, and suddenly we were just a group of friends whose reason for getting together every day had unexpectedly ended. We lingered over dinner, reluctant to let go. After tomorrow, we would have to make an effort to see each other.

Eventually the team dwindled, soccer players leaving to ice sore joints, study at the library, write papers and lab reports, sleep, until only Holly, Mel, Laura, Jeni and I remained. We sat close about a cafeteria table laughing and slapping hands, growing quiet again whenever anyone mentioned the game. It was after eight when we finally rose from our seats, embraced one another, and left the cafeteria as teammates one last time.

Back at Laura’s dorm, Holly and Laura and I sat out on her balcony drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and talking until one in the morning. As far as soccer was concerned, we were seniors now. Only one season left to strive for that elusive championship title. None of us could quite believe it, and no one said what we were probably all thinking: This year was it.

Without Jamie and Sara, we probably wouldn’t ever come this close to a national championship again.

112 Kate Christie

Later, back at my dorm, I found a message on my voice mail from Jess. She had been at the game and wanted to tell me how sorry she was about everything and to make sure I was okay.

Wanted me to call her when I got in. I listened to the message twice, but I didn’t call her. I couldn’t talk to her, knowing she had seen the game. Had seen me and Jamie take the team down in our personal war.

Room spinning slightly around me, I lay down on my bed and waited. Sleep, I knew, would be long in coming.

I almost didn’t recognize Jess when she stopped next to my table the next day at lunch—beneath her baseball cap, her hair was down.

“Hey,” she said, tray in hand. “Anyone sitting here?”

I waved at the chair in question. “All yours.”

As she sat down across from me, I noticed that she looked cute as usual in her low-slung jeans and a white shirt, gray Nike hat pulled low on her forehead, dark hair curling around her shoulders. Meanwhile I was feeling slightly hungover. Not to mention depressed.

“Sorry I didn’t call you last night,” I said. “I didn’t get in until late.”

“That’s okay. I figured you might not be in the mood to talk.

Tough game, huh?”

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“You could say that.” I hadn’t been able to think about anything else. I’d skipped both of my morning classes, which was not good. The dread and shame were still twisting in my stomach. I almost wished Jess hadn’t been there. “Did you see the whole thing?”

“I did. That poor girl, Jeni. Everyone in the stands felt bad for her, especially when Jamie lit into her.” She took a bite of her sandwich, looking at me consideringly.

“You saw that?”

She nodded and touched my hand. “Did Jamie really try to hit you? Because that’s what it looked like from where I was sitting.”

I looked down at my plate, embarrassed. “Yeah,” I said, my voice low. “I was hoping no one on the hill saw that.”

“I don’t think most people did,” she assured me. “But what happened?”

“Jamie totally lost it. She was reaming Jeni so I stepped between them and she got all pissed off and told me it was my fault we were losing. I told her to grow up and started to walk away, and the next thing I know she’s taking a swing at me.”

“That’s crazy.” She paused. “What was up with the referee in the second half? When he stopped the game, I mean. We couldn’t tell what was going on from the hill.”

Picking at the remnants of my potato salad, I explained my exchange with Jamie and the warning the ref had given us.

“Basically we both freaked out and took the team down with us.

Jamie and I fucked up. That’s all there is to it.”

“You don’t blame yourself for losing, do you?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I guess I do. If I’d been more alert, they never would have gotten that first shot off, or the corner kick, and then Jeni wouldn’t have had to save the goal herself.”

“No one else thinks it’s your fault.” She shook her head, smiling a little. “You weren’t the only one on that field yesterday, Cam. There were eleven other players out there with you.”

“Actually, only ten.”

“You know what I mean.” She threw a grape at me.

I caught the grape. “Thanks for the pep talk, but I still feel like shit. This is the second year in a row we’ve lost at regionals.”

Beautiful Game 115

“I’m sorry. That really sucks.” She paused. “Want to come over and have dinner with me and Sidney and Claire this weekend? You know, take your mind off soccer?”

“That would be good. Saturday night or something?” I stopped. We would probably have a soccer party this weekend—

get together and get good and drunk and try not to feel too sorry for ourselves.

“Can we make it Sunday?” she asked. “We’re having a tennis party on Saturday.”

Jess was one of the captains of the tennis team. She never let them party at her apartment, though, she’d told me, mainly because she knew they’d trash the place. Rich girls weren’t good with other people’s property.

“We’ll probably have a soccer party that night, too. You know what?” I added. “We should all hang out together. Soccer could drink your team under the table.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? Even with a game of Chandeliers?”

Chandeliers was a particularly nasty drinking game involving quarters and shot glasses. I nodded boldly. “Totally. We’d kick your butt.”

“No pun intended?”

“Good one. How about it? You guys want to take us on?”

“I’ll talk to the team and get back to you, but I can’t see them saying no.” She stuck her hand across the table. “Looks like I might be seeing you Saturday night after all.”

I took her hand and smiled across the narrow cafeteria table as college students passed us on all sides. I could already feel my soccer-induced depression receding. Had nothing to do with the fact that I liked the feel of Jess’s palm against mine.

That weekend, Mel let the soccer team invade the on-campus apartment she shared with two other seniors. Laura, Holly and I were the first to arrive. We opened a case of Rolling Rock and stocked the refrigerator, then sprawled on the couch, chatting as we watched Mel finish her last-minute cleaning. The 116 Kate Christie

apartment complex belonged to the university. Each apartment was its own two-floor building with a kitchen and living/dining room downstairs, bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Mel said it would probably be the nicest apartment she would live in this millennium.

Soon after we got there, the doorbell rang again. Sara, Kate and Jamie came in and stood in the entryway, hands deep in their jeans pockets, all three in the navy blue team jackets we’d bought the year before.