Kate Christie (17 page)

Seattle. I checked my watch. National finals would be underway right now. At this moment, I should have been heading a cross out of the air, or tracking down a breakaway. I should have been saving a certain goal in front of a crowd that included my family and friends. Instead I was standing on a concrete walkway Beautiful Game 123

staring out at the dark, gray Pacific, pondering my plethora of recent failures.

My life really was amazingly good, I knew. I was healthy and playing my way through school, my future wide open and waiting for me to discover it. I loved my family and they loved me. They had even accepted my sexual orientation as natural and somewhat unavoidable, probably because I’d always been a tomboy and good at sports—the stereotypical lesbian. I was lucky, I knew. I just didn’t feel like it right now.

I made my way down to the beach and lay in the sand near the rocky cliff wall, watching the low-flying clouds pass overhead.

I emptied my mind of everything but the worry eating me up inside and let it have its way. After a little while, the anxiety began to turn on itself and the world didn’t seem so gray anymore. I started to notice colors again—dark green seaweed, red and blue plastic remains of a child’s toy strewn across the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, brown vines that snaked up the cliff, blue sky just visible through the racing clouds.

Gradually my tension eased. The puzzle pieces in my mind felt like they were falling back into place. Holly was still my best friend; it was only natural that we would get sick of each other every once in a while. And I hadn’t lost the game for my team.

If anyone felt guilty for our loss on Thursday, it had to be Jeni.

As head of defense, I would have to remember to call and check in on her. As for Jamie, not everyone I met would like me. That was just a fact I would have to deal with, preferably in a mature fashion rather than a junior high brawl.

The only thought that still made my head hurt had to do with Jess. For one thing, I wasn’t sure why I had asked her to stay over after the party. Holly and I had spent the night in the same bed before, and it had always been completely innocent. Nothing but friendship had ever occurred to either of us. But with Jess, I wasn’t so sure of my motivation. I kept seeing her look down and shake her head as we stood beside her car outside Mel’s. That was reality, I told myself—Jess turning away, rejecting me. But what about earlier when she touched my cheek and told me I was cute in a voice that sounded more than friendly? What did those two separate incidents, linked together, mean?

124 Kate Christie

When I was tired of thinking, I walked my bike back to the road and headed out to Mission Bay. Not many people were out.

Wimps
, I thought, turning my bike into the wind and pedaling hard into the salty breeze along the bay.

I must have ridden twenty miles that day, pushing my body until the adrenaline flooded my system and drove out the anxiety and self-pity and doubt. When I finally returned to my dorm late in the afternoon, my mind and body had been cleansed by exertion. Whatever reality was waiting for me, I would deal.

Back in my room, I checked my phone and found my voice mail full—a couple of old messages I hadn’t deleted plus five new ones. I flopped on my bed, flushed and sweaty, my face wind-burned from the ride, and listened to the messages. One was from Mel, who wanted to know what I was doing, to take her mind off the finals, to ask me about something. Jeni, I thought, smiling a little, and deleted the message. The next was from my parents, who were just calling to say hi and that they hoped I wasn’t feeling too badly today, what with the tournament and all. Sweet, I thought, and hit delete. The next message was Holly, who was going to study in the library but just wanted to say she was sorry if she’d upset me and that today sucked and that I should call her later. Another delete.

The last two messages were from Jess. In the first, she was calling to see if I had a hangover and if I was still coming over for dinner. In the second, she wondered where I was, anyway, and why I hadn’t called yet. She sounded completely normal, as if nothing untoward had happened. Apparently the angst wasn’t mutual. Maybe she had forgotten that she’d touched my face and called me cute. Or maybe it just hadn’t meant to her what it had to me.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.” My heart rate picked up at the sound of her voice. Traitor.

“What’s up? Where’ve you been all day?”

“I went for a bike ride.” So far she didn’t sound any different.

“I was feeling restless so I headed over to Mission Bay.”

“You must not have a hangover, then,” she said.

“I drank a lot of water before bed and slept in.”

Beautiful Game 125

“Good thinking. So are you still up for dinner tonight?” she asked. “I told Sidney and Claire we would make them pasta.”

I hesitated. “Do you still want me to come over?”

“Of course.” She sounded puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I’m just not in a very good mood,” I hedged.

Now was my chance to put distance between Jess and me, to protect myself from an inevitable future rejection that would hurt significantly more than last night’s had. But I could picture Jess in her upstairs apartment in Claire and Sidney’s house, her eyes warm and open. She trusted me. Jess didn’t trust many people.

“We’ll cheer you up,” she promised. “It’ll be good for you to get away from campus. I mean, if you still want to come over.”

“Of course I do.” And it was true. I couldn’t wait to see her, which was what worried me.

We hung up a moment later. I shed my clothes, pulled on my bathrobe and stepped into my soccer sandals. Jess was acting as if she had never looked at me in that particular way and I had never invited her to come home with me. Everything was apparently fine—as long as I didn’t examine my feelings for her too closely. Totally fine, I told myself as I padded down the hall to the showers. Now if I could just catch up in my classes and forget about the way soccer season had ended, life would be perfect again. Or almost perfect, anyway.

I turned the shower on and stepped in, closing my eyes as the warm water washed away the afternoon chill.

The week before Thanksgiving break, the soccer team had our formal end-of-season banquet. There, Jamie offered an olive branch of sorts, pulling me aside and saying she hoped I had never taken her too seriously, that sometimes she just liked to blow off steam, that she knew I cared about SDU soccer as much as she did. I paused, then smiled at her and said, no, I’d never taken her seriously; I knew soccer was her world the same as it was mine. We shook hands, the rest of the team looking on. She even half-hugged me.

After the meal, Holly and I were voted co-captains for the following year. Laura said she didn’t mind not being picked, but her eyes seemed over-bright after Coach announced the results.

Jackie, the only other junior, was second-string, but Laura was a starter. After the banquet, she took off by herself, claiming she Beautiful Game 127

had to study. Meanwhile, Holly and Mel and I went for a drink at a gay-friendly bar in the city, Holly and I flashing our fake IDs as usual. Mine was my older cousin from Colorado’s “lost” license.

She’d sent it to me right after she turned legal, suggesting I might have greater need of it than she did. I’d assured her I would put it to good use.

We sat at a booth in the back, pint glasses on the table before us. We even shared a few cigarettes. Mel, it seemed, was falling for Jeni and wanted to ask us what we thought she should do.

Holly and I told her to go for it. Jeni, we informed her, was totally crushing on her.

“Really?” Mel asked hopefully, cigarette in one hand, beer bottle in the other.

“Really.” Holly and I both nodded.

You would never have known we were scholarship athletes, I thought, with our cigarettes and beer bottles, the practiced way we inhaled the smoke and drank the alcohol. At least we could be sure Coach Eliot would never stumble across us at a gay bar.

Anyway, our season was officially over now, which meant the usual in-season team rules—limited alcohol intake, no smoking, and self-enforced curfews the night before each game—no longer applied.

“Enough about me. What’s up with you and Jess Maxwell?”

Mel asked suddenly, pinning me down with her hawkish gaze.

I shrugged, frowning down at the heavily battered table that had probably seen thousands of patrons in its many years of service.

“She claims they’re just friends,” Holly announced.

“Huh. Looked to me like something was brewing at the party last weekend,” Mel said. “Jess and I had a pretty interesting conversation in my kitchen before you left.”

I looked up quickly. “You did? What about?”

“She asked me if you were dating anyone. I said not that I knew of. Then she asked if all those rumors about you were really true, and I told her of course they were.”

I gasped out loud. “You did not!”

Holly snickered, taking a pull on her beer and looking from me to Mel and back again.

12 Kate Christie

Mel’s tough look crumpled when she smiled. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Wallace. I told her people just like to gossip, that’s all. I said they even had you and me together at one point, but you usually go for girlier women than me and vice versa.”

Jess had been asking about my love life? That cast our interaction at the party in a different light, didn’t it? But frankly, I hadn’t gotten laid in so long that my judgment when it came to attractive women was most definitely suspect.

I glanced sideways at Mel. “You’re saying I’m not girly enough for you but Jeni is?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Did I tell you guys that Becca thinks I’m kind of butch?”

Holly put in.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No, seriously.”

Mel took a swallow of beer. “You tell that girl there’s a big difference between athletic and butch. You aren’t a true butch until you get called ‘sir’ to your face more than a handful of times.”

Holly and I had been with Mel on several such occasions. It always amazed us that people could overlook her rather ample chest. She got a kick out of correcting them, though, she said.

Otherwise she would have grown out her hair.

Late that night Holly and I walked back to our dorms together. When our paths diverged, we slapped hands and then hugged.

“I’m glad we’re captains,” she said, “for our last season.”

“That sounds so crazy.”

“Tell me about it. I can’t believe we’ll be seniors next time we take the field.”

“It seems way too soon for that.”

We stood staring at each other beneath the warm sky, clothes and hair smelling like the bar. Then Holly moved away.

“See you at lunch tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder.

“Goodnight, Holly.”

“Goodnight, Cam.”

Goodnight, John Boy.

Beautiful Game 12

After Thanksgiving, there were only two and a half weeks to get ready for exams. I’d gone home with Holly as usual, while Jess had stayed and celebrated with Claire and Sidney. Now we were back and racing to finish papers and projects and cram for the dreaded blue book exams. Surprisingly, I usually did better grade-wise during first semester, probably because playing soccer forced me to budget my time. I had to keep a 2.75 average for scholarship and eligibility purposes, so I didn’t have much choice—I needed to do well in my classes if I wanted to stay on the team.

This semester didn’t seem any different. As I handed in my last blue book for a 400-level literacy class, I was pretty sure I’d done okay on my tests. At least one part of my SDU life was under control. I wasn’t sorry to see the end of this semester. Despite being named All-American, I was leaving campus feeling more unsettled than I usually did, and not only because of the way soccer season had ended.

Jess gave me a ride to the airport to catch my flight to Portland.

I’d left my car parked outside her house where she could keep an eye on it. My parents didn’t want me driving home alone in the winter. The mountain passes on the California-Oregon border could get testy.

At the terminal, we hugged each other beside the car, briefly, awkwardly. This was the most intimate we’d been since the night of the party. I was careful not to hold on too long.

“Give me a call if you want,” she said as I pulled my suitcase from the backseat. “I’ll be around.”

Her high school art teacher from Bakersfield, an old friend of Sidney and Claire’s, was coming up to La Jolla for a few days.

Jess hadn’t mentioned plans to see her mother during either holiday.

“You, too,” I said, backpack slung over one shoulder, suitcase at my feet. “I gave you my number, right?”

“You did.” She was watching me. “You know, I’m going to miss you. Kind of got used to having you around.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

130 Kate Christie

I reached out and hugged her again, whether she wanted me to or not. We’d exchanged gifts at her apartment earlier. I was wearing the silver chain she’d given me with a small sunshine pendant, and she was wearing the moon earrings I’d given her.

Kind of funny, I’d thought but hadn’t pointed out—we’d given each other the sun and the moon. Doh…

She pulled away just enough to kiss my cheek, her lips soft against my skin. “Have a happy new year, okay?”

I backed away. Just a friendly kiss, I told myself, like people exchanged all the time in France and other foreign locales. “You too. I’ll probably be hanging out with a bunch of guys from high school, getting drunk and playing video games. You know, the usual.” I was rambling, which was ridiculous. It hadn’t even been a real kiss.

She lifted an eyebrow. “You hang out with guys in Portland?”

“Sure,” I said. “They’re more fun.”

“Depends on what kind of fun you’re talking about.” She turned away to close the car door. “Anyway.”