Kate Christie (22 page)

couple of cigarettes at a time, and only occasionally, our health wouldn’t be harmed.

She listened to me trying to figure out my love life as the stars flickered and grew brighter in the evening sky. When I grew tired of rehashing significant moments with Jess, Holly blew a cloud of smoke into the air and said, “I think you should just tell her. That way, if it works out, then great. But if not, you can just get the hell on with your life.”

I frowned a little, looking up at the wide night sky. She had a point. If Jess wasn’t interested, shouldn’t I know now and get over her? I just wasn’t sure I could. This was something I didn’t want to let go of. Then again, a one-sided relationship could never be healthy, no matter how much one person loved the other.

“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted.

Holly lifted her head. “Seriously?”

“Well, yeah. Makes sense.”

“I haven’t said that before because I didn’t want to seem like a flake.”

“Yeah, but I already know you’re a flake.”

“Hey!” She crushed her cigarette out and shoved me onto the lush grass beneath the steps. “You’ll pay for that, Wallace!”

“You wish!”

We rolled around on the lawn, tickling and tackling each other, ignoring the bemused looks of passersby. Eventually she pushed away from me and we lay on our backs, gazing up at the night sky.

“You know,” she said, “Becca thinks we wrestle all the time because secretly we want to sleep together.”

I was silent for a moment. Then I looked at Holly and she looked at me and we both busted out laughing.

“No offense,” I said when I caught my breath. “But—yuck!”

“I agree,” she said, still snickering. “You’re totally not my type, dude.”

“Yeah, well, you’re too butch for me.” I ducked the inevitable punch my crassness elicited.

We watched the moon rise, lying together on the lawn in companionable silence. Then we headed back to our dorms.

Beautiful Game 161

“Are you really going to tell her?” Holly asked just before we parted ways.

I nodded. “I think so. I can’t hold out like this anymore. I’m too young not to have a girlfriend.”

“And too cute,” Holly added. “I’m telling you, you’ve got to take advantage of this little boy look while you can. Eventually you’re going to get old and fat like everyone else.” She ruffled my hair.

I swatted her hand. “Zip it.”

“You doing the deed tonight?”

My smile faded. “Nah. Tennis isn’t supposed to get home until late, and I want to tell her in person. Why don’t you cancel Thursday so it’s just her and me?”

Holly, Jess and I had gotten into the habit of eating dinner and watching the NBA on Thursday nights at Jess’s. Sometimes Becca even came along, and on those nights it felt like such a comfortable, fun double date that I almost couldn’t stand it.

“Will do.” Holly held out her hand.

I slapped it. “Thanks, man.”

“What have you got to lose, right?”

Everything
, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Holly would only accuse me—rightly—of melodrama.

At my dorm, I succumbed to a fit of laziness and rode the elevator to my floor. I was almost to my room when I saw Taylor Lewis from the tennis team leaning in the doorway of one of my neighbors, Grace Chang. Taylor noticed me and turned with a smile.

“Hey, Cam. What’s up?”

“Not much.” I stopped in the hallway, glancing into the room to wave at Grace lying on her bed in sweats, a thick book open before her. “Hi Grace.”

“Cam.” She returned the wave.

I liked Grace. She played volleyball and, like me, sometimes trained with the track team. She was a senior, though, so she was taking it easy her last semester. No sports commitments.

“How’d you guys do this weekend?” I asked Taylor, hoping I didn’t sound too eager.

“Great.” Her eyes lit up. She was dressed still in her SDU

162 Kate Christie

Tennis sweats, sneakers and a baseball cap. They must have just gotten back from San Francisco. “I was telling Grace we won the tournament. We’re number one in Big Eights and number five nationally.”

“That’s awesome. Did Jess win?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Grace watching the exchange.

“Actually, she had a rough day yesterday and dropped a couple of sets. But today she kicked major butt. She’s still number one in Division II. Can you believe it?”

I shook my head. “Amazing.”

A few minutes later Taylor left and I lingered, chatting with Grace. She was studying for her organic chemistry midterm later in the week. I told her I’d heard track had come in third at SDC

the day before. She said she thought they would have been better this year. Then she sat up a little, pushing her shoulder-length black hair behind an ear.

“I don’t mean to pry,” she said, “but I was wondering. What’s this I’ve been hearing about you and Jess Maxwell?”

I glanced down the hall. Empty. “It’s nothing,” I said. “You know how gossip is.”

Grace was straight and had been with the same guy for two years. She and I usually stayed away from the subject of romantic relationships. Or at least the subject of who I was dating.

She nodded. “It’s not really any of my business. I was just going to tell you to be careful with her. She’s not as tough as everyone thinks.”

Frowning, I moved a step further into the room. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” She hesitated. “Shut the door, will you?” When I’d complied, she added, “I don’t want this getting around.

You’re obviously close with her so I trust you won’t repeat this.

Agreed?”

“Sure, agreed.” Now I was curious. I sat down on the chair at her desk and waited.

“Do you remember that storm we had last year in January?”

I nodded. Thunderstorms were rare in the San Diego area, Beautiful Game 163

and often led to flooding and mudslides. “I was at home but I saw it on the news.”

“I was here and it was pretty bad. The power went out in the gym. I was in the locker room at the time, and so was Jess. She looked pretty nervous even though she said she wasn’t. But when the lights went out, she went totally quiet. Then I could hear her breathing and it sounded almost like she was hyperventilating.

In the flashes of lightning I could see her face. She was crying.

She was just sitting there on a bench, shaking. So I went over and sat with her. She kept repeating something about the rain and the lightning and the ocean. It didn’t make any sense to me.

“After the wind died down, the lights came back on. Jess seemed dazed at first, like she didn’t know where she was. Then she apologized for scaring me. She asked me not to tell anyone.

I said I wouldn’t and asked if she wanted to talk about anything, but she just pulled away and shut off again. Ever since then she’s always acted like it never happened. Sometimes I think she doesn’t remember.”

None of what Grace said really surprised me. I’d known there was more to Jess than what she showed. But it still shook me, knowing that there was this pain so deep inside her that no one could touch it. Not even me.

“Something must have happened to her,” I said. “I always thought there had to be something.”

Grace nodded. “The storm seemed to trigger her reaction.

Maybe I should have told her coach but she seemed fine after that, like it was an anomaly. I told myself she was probably just afraid of the storm. But there’s something more, isn’t there?”

I nodded. “I think so. I’m just not sure what.”

Back in my room a little while later, I checked voice mail.

A couple of new messages, one from Alicia and one from Mel.

Nothing from Jess. I glanced at the clock. Almost eleven. Maybe she was still getting settled in at home.

I called Mel and shot the shit with her, ever alert for the call waiting beep. Then I tried to study. I had a ten-page teaching methods paper due on Thursday in lieu of a midterm, among other things. Personally I preferred exams, with quantifiable data you could understand and memorize. Papers were too subjective.

164 Kate Christie

Jess never did call. By eleven thirty I’d picked up the phone several times to dial her number, but each time I realized she might be wiped out from the trip and in bed already. It would have to wait until tomorrow, I finally decided. I wasn’t tired though, so instead of calling Jess, I dialed a different number.

Alicia picked up on the first ring.

“Told you I’d call,” I said, reclining on my bed. I could hear music playing in the background at her end. “It’s Cam, by the way.”“I know. What are you doing?”

“Trying to work on that collaboration paper. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”

“Me too,” she said. “It’s putting me to sleep.”

We talked for a while about our classes and midterms.

Friday was the last day of classes before spring break. Then, a glorious week of freedom. Alicia was off to Mexico to visit her maternal grandmother; the tennis team was leaving for Tucson Friday afternoon for eight days; Becca was going to Aruba with her father and his third wife; and I was going home with Holly to L.A., from whence we planned to launch day and overnight trips to Las Vegas and San Francisco and anywhere else I could almost afford to go.

Finally Alicia ended our innocuous chatter with a not-so-subtle hint. “You know, Cam, the better I get to know you the less you seem like a chicken. Why don’t you just tell the girl already?”

I opened my eyes and looked up at the familiar brush strokes in the ceiling paint. I had spent so many hours on the phone staring up at this ceiling and talking to Holly and Jess and Mel.

And now Alicia.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Totally different situation. Anna doesn’t even know I exist, but you and Jess, you’re already friends.”

She was right and we both knew it.

“Holly thinks I should tell her too,” I admitted. “You know, either get together with her or get on with my life.”

“Sounds like good advice, my friend.”

We hung up a little while later. The universe was starting Beautiful Game 165

to align, I thought. Clearly it was time for me to overcome my fears and leap.

Unfortunately, Jess seemed unaware of the motion of the universe. I got a message from her on Monday when she knew I’d be in class, telling me that they’d won and that she was really busy with midterms and Thursday night wasn’t going to work for her. Holly told me later that she’d received basically the same message. So much for my Thursday night confession plan.

I called Jess back and left a message, but Tuesday came and went without a peep from her. I was starting to think something was wrong. Before the tournament in San Francisco, we’d talked on the phone every night even on days we found time to see each other. Now, suddenly, it had been five days since I’d seen or talked to her. Maybe she really was just busy with tennis and midterms, I told myself. I was somewhat occupied as well.

Midterms meant cramming and staying late in the computer lab and trying not to fall asleep in the library. Drinking coffee and smoking more than I should. Working with Holly on our paper. Studying. I didn’t have enough time to do well in my classes and worry about Jess, so I pushed her odd silence out of my mind and concentrated on transition sentences and the laws of supply and demand and the presence of U.S. troops in Italy a full year before D-Day. I tried to call Jess a couple more times, but her machine always picked up. She never called me back, either.

On Friday morning I had my Macro exam, which I thought went okay, considering. Afterward, I looked for Jess at the cafeteria to no avail. It was increasingly clear that she intended to leave for spring break without talking to me. The question was, why? Had Alicia let my secret slip to someone else? Had Jess discovered my true feelings for her and was now avoiding me?Tennis was leaving for Tucson at three, Taylor had informed me when I ran into her that morning. At two forty I stationed myself in the main lounge of the gym, stretching in my running 166 Kate Christie

gear. The team would have to pass through here before they boarded the bus.

At a quarter to three, Jess entered the lounge. She stopped when she saw me. “Cam,” she said, scanning the area. But we were the only ones there.

I tried not to notice how good she looked in her navy SDU

sweats. Her hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, a few wisps curling about her face. I hadn’t seen her in a week, and I’d sort of been hoping my crush would have waned with the lack of contact.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, pretending I hadn’t in fact set a trap for her.

“We’re leaving for Arizona in a few minutes.” She was still standing where she’d stopped, about ten feet away. “What are you doing?”

“Just working out before Holly and I take off.” A blatant lie, but she didn’t have to know that.

“That’s right, you guys are going to L.A.” She paused.

“Anyone else going with you?”

Frowning, I looked up at her. “No, it’s just the two of us. You knew that.”

She shrugged, glancing over her shoulder as a couple of tennis players walked through the lounge. They said hi, she said hi, and then she looked back at me, her eyes unreadable. “I gotta go. Have a good break, Cam.” And she turned away.

I jumped up. “Jess, wait.”

She stopped and watched me cross the distance separating us, the darkness of her eyes revealing her mood.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Last week everything seemed fine and then you go to San Francisco and now it’s like we’re not even speaking.”

More tennis players passed by, watching us curiously.

“Nothing’s going on,” Jess said, fiddling with the shoulder strap on her duffel. “I just had midterms.”

“Usually we study together,” I pointed out. “Come on, you’re clearly avoiding me. This is weird even for you,” I added, trying to tease her a little, get her to loosen up.