Kate Christie (23 page)

She stared at me, her eyes even darker. “I have to go.”

Beautiful Game 167

I caught her arm as she started to turn away again. “Wait.

Please.”

But she jerked her arm out of my grasp. “Don’t touch me,”

she said, her voice low. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

Her bitter tone caught me off-guard. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” She lifted her chin. “I just don’t think we should hang out anymore, that’s all.”

She didn’t think
… I took a step back. “Oh.” I blinked rapidly.

My heart felt like it was being pulverized. My stomach too.

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t eaten that huge burrito at lunch.

“Cam.” Her voice softened and she reached out for a moment as if she might touch me. But then more voices, more of her teammates.

Her hand dropped. “Look, we’ll talk when I get back, okay?”

“Whatever.” I turned away. I could feel my throat closing, tears beginning to prick my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry in front of her, damn it.

“Cam,” she said again.

But I didn’t answer. I hurried out of the lounge, leaving her standing there. I wasn’t going to be her punching bag, I told myself, trying to swallow my tears. One of these days she was going to have to deal with her shit. She couldn’t pull this on-again, off-again bullshit and expect people to stick around.

I headed outside for an impromptu run, passing the team bus idling in the gym parking lot. I didn’t care, I told myself, feet pounding against pavement as I tried to outrun the memory of what Jess had said. Anger and hurt carried me up Prospect Street in the middle of the day, along the beach, back through town in a wide loop. When I got back to the gym the bus was gone. I wouldn’t see Jess for at least a week.

I headed home on my bike, trying not to think about her.

Holly and I were going to have a good time on break, and Jess could jump in a lake for all I cared.

In my dorm I showered and threw some clothes, toiletries and CDs into an overnight bag. The phone rang just as I finished packing my book bag.

“You ready to go sit on the freeway for the next few hours?”

Holly asked.

16 Kate Christie

“Totally. I’ll meet you outside.”

“This is going to be so much fun!”

“I know.” I smiled, starting to feel a little better. I didn’t need Jess. “Bring your camera, okay?”

“Already packed. See you in a few.”

I zipped a pair of running shoes into a side pocket on my duffel, Doc Martens into the other. As I turned away from the dresser, I caught a glimpse of the picture I’d placed next to the Wallace family photo, and I paused. It was from the soccer-tennis party at Mel’s, a shot of me, Holly, Jess, and Mel raising our beers to the camera. Jeni had given me a copy of the photo right before winter break.

“One of these girls is not like the others,” I murmured.

I slung my bags over my shoulder and headed out, turning off the light and locking the door behind me.

Spring break, Huntington Beach. In Holly’s Spanish villa home, I tried to forget about Jess and the more confusing aspects of my college life. On the drive up, I’d told Holly what had happened at the gym, insisting that I was never going to speak to Jess again. It was over, I said. Totally over. Holly had just nodded sympathetically and let me rant as I vowed to use spring break to get over Jess Maxwell. Holly’s family home would provide a respite from real life and engender an extended decompression session, aided by sunshine and, of course, the backyard pool and hot tub.

Each night that week we stayed up late watching Letterman.

Every morning we got up around ten and hit the beach, where we roller-bladed for miles along the paved beachfront, almost biting it in the sand a dozen times a day. We got sunburned but 170 Kate Christie

not unpleasantly so, hanging out in her backyard going from the hot tub to the swimming pool and back again. Despite my upbringing in rainy Oregon, fifteen years of soccer and two summers working outdoors had trained my Scotch-Irish skin not to burn badly, while Holly was one of those L.A. blondes who had been tan since toddlerhood. We ignored her mother’s warnings of skin cancer and only applied sunscreen when absolutely necessary. At twenty, we figured we had a few years left of deep-frying our skin in the ocean sun without worrying about melanoma.

Midweek, we ventured to Vegas. Holly lost all of her money and then some on blackjack the first hour we were there.

Meanwhile I won forty bucks on a slot machine and refused to spend another penny. Holly called me cheap but I didn’t care.

My portion of the road trip was covered. I even came out ahead.

We wandered the glitzy city, hanging out in fancy hotels in our shorts and tank tops and, once the sun had set, our SDU Soccer sweatshirts. After a scrumptious seafood dinner and a final fruitless assault on the slots, we drove off across the desert back to L.A. as night fell. The Vegas lights lit up the sky behind us for the first hundred miles. Holly said she’d read that astronauts could see two human-made objects from space: the Great Wall of China and the Vegas Strip.

We’d planned another road trip to San Fran, but we never made it up to the city by the bay. Too much effort would be required to drive that far, we agreed Friday afternoon as we drank virgin daiquiris by the pool.

By the time Sunday rolled around, I was feeling nicely decompressed. In fact, I hadn’t missed Jess at all, I announced as Holly and I drove back to school in my Tercel.

“Really?”

I could tell from her tone she didn’t believe me. “Really.”

“Huh. What’s your plan, then?”

I had actually spent some time the previous day by the pool considering this very question:
What next?

“I’m fine talking to her,” I said, “but only if she makes the first move.”

“Wow,” Holly said, shades masking her blue eyes. “You were Beautiful Game 171

so pissed last week I didn’t know if you would ever talk to her again.”

“Neither did I,” I admitted, checking over my shoulder before switching lanes to pass a slow-moving Beamer. At mid-afternoon on a Sunday, all four lanes of the 405 were full. Typical. “I guess I just needed a little distance. Now I think maybe I got too close, from her perspective. She has such a hard time letting anyone in.

I should at least give her a chance to explain.”

“You don’t seem pissed anymore,” Holly said, looking over at me.

“I don’t think I am.”

Toward the end of the week, whenever I’d thought of Jess I’d pictured her in the locker room as Grace had described, shaking and crying as the storm raged outside. The image still made my heart hurt. Jess wasn’t like other people. She hadn’t meant to lash out at me, I was certain. In a way, I wished I hadn’t sprinted out of the lounge like that. She’d seemed almost like she wanted to take back what she’d said, but I hadn’t given her the chance.

Instead I’d turned away, deserted her. Although admittedly, she’d deserved it.

“You never seem to stay mad for long,” Holly said.

“Unlike some people.” I smirked a little. “Remember freshman year when Coach made that comment about placing your shots? You didn’t forgive him until like halfway through sophomore year.”

She nodded. “I would hope I’ve matured somewhat since then. After all, in a matter of weeks we’ll officially be seniors.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Only a month and a half of school remained. Then finals and graduation and back to Portland for the summer. Back to Oregon for the last time, I promised myself.

We drove onto campus just before dinner.

“Can you feel it?” Holly asked as I parked the car in the half-full student lot near our dorms. “That back-to-school tension already seeping in?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” We grabbed our bags from the backseat and headed toward the dorm. “When does Becca get back?”

“After dinner. What about tennis?”

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“They were supposed to get back last night. You know what?

I think I’ll get cleaned up and go over there right now. To Jess’s, I mean. That way she can’t avoid me.”

“I thought you were going to let her make the first move,”

she reminded me as we neared my dorm.

“Guess I’ve been around you too much this week,” I said.

“I’m feeling distinctly impatient all of a sudden.”

“About freaking time.” She enveloped me in a quick hug, her bags threatening to knock me over. “I’ll be around later. Or at Becca’s. Give me a call if you want to talk.”

“Will do. Thanks for the awesome week, dude.”

“Quality time well spent.” She started to walk away, then added over her shoulder with a final grin, “I think my mom got quite an education too.”

One afternoon in L.A. while watching a spring break show on MTV, we hadn’t realized until way too late that Mrs. Bishop was standing in the doorway of the den. She’d overheard a conversation full of choice phrases like, “total hottie” and “nice ass” and “I’d do her.” Holly and I had both looked up in time to see her mother disappearing down the hallway. When we joined her later for dinner, Mrs. Bishop acted like nothing had happened, though her initial smile looked a tad forced. Holly was sure her mother had heard those sorts of things before from her children. But in the past, it had probably been Holly’s hyper-straight brother and his fraternity brothers doing the verbal babe ogling.

When I opened my dorm room door, the first thing I noticed was the message light blinking on my phone. I dropped my bag, shut the door, and launched myself across the bed. It was great to be back in my own room after a week in one of the Bishops’

guest rooms with a Laura Ashley bedspread, matching wallpaper and lacy curtains. Flowers just weren’t me. The room smelled a little stuffy, so I opened the window next to my bed as I dialed voice mail. Three new messages. The first one was from an on-campus extension I didn’t recognize, dated the Friday before break at 2:58 p.m. I frowned. I should have gotten it before I left.

Campus voice mail must have been overloaded.

Jess. I closed my eyes and listened, trying to feel nothing at all at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Cam. You just took off from Beautiful Game 173

the lounge. I don’t know. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I think we need to talk. I know I blew you off all week when I should have just asked you. . Anyway, call me when you get back, okay?

I didn’t mean what I said about not wanting to hang out. Just—

give me a call.”

The message ended. “Shit,” I said out loud. I knew I shouldn’t have run off the way I had. Could have cleared the whole thing up before break. At least she wanted to see me. At least she hadn’t meant what she’d said. Relief flooded me even as I realized that sometime soon, probably in the next few hours even, I was going to tell Jess Maxwell I loved her, for better or worse. God, I hoped it wouldn’t be worse.

The second message was from Mel, dated yesterday afternoon.

“Came back a day early. Just called to say hi. Give me a call when you and Holly get back.”

The third message was from Jess again, dated earlier today.

She sounded infinitely more upbeat. “Hey, Cam. Tennis was great. Arizona was beautiful. I even sent you a postcard, but you probably won’t get it because we all mailed our postcards on Friday. Anyway, give me a call when you get in and we’ll talk, okay? I should be around. I—um, see you.”

Now that I had heard her voice and knew she wanted to talk too, I felt a little calmer. Our friendship apparently wasn’t over, after all. Of course, she hadn’t heard what I had to say yet.

I took a quick shower and changed into shorts and a clean Tshirt, all fresh smelling from the Bishops’ fabric softener. Holly and I had done our laundry this morning before we left, taking advantage of the free washer and dryer. I pulled on my Sambas and headed out. I wasn’t even going to call ahead.

On Jess’s quiet tree-lined street, I parked my car behind her Cabriolet. As I locked the door and walked up the long driveway, I tried not to feel nervous. I was going to tell her how I felt, that was all. I was going to hear what she had to say and then I was going to tell her. Period.

I rang her doorbell but got no answer. After a few minutes of indecision, I went around to the front of the house and rang that bell.

Sidney appeared at the door, smiling when she saw me.

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“Hello, Cam. Haven’t seen you in a while. Come on in.”

She held the door open and I stepped past her. Their living room, to the left of the entryway, was decorated in dark reds and blues with hardwood floors and warm cream walls. It reminded me of an upscale version of Jess’s apartment.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was just wondering if you knew where Jess was. Her car’s here but she’s not answering.”

“She borrowed Duncan for a walk. Said she was stiff from the bus ride home. She should be back anytime.”

This explained why Duncan wasn’t snuffling eagerly around my legs and crotch. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Who is it, Sid?” Claire called from the kitchen.

“It’s Cam,” Sidney bellowed back. “Why don’t you come in?” she added to me. “I’m sure Claire has some fresh lemonade in the fridge. It’s her favorite spring treat.”

“Bring her on back,” Claire called out just then. “We can have a glass of lemonade.”

“Okay, darling,” Sidney hollered back. She waved me through the living room. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

In the kitchen at the back of the house, Claire was chopping piles of vegetables for dinner. She took a break and we sat at the finished oak table that occupied the back portion of the kitchen, sharing a pitcher of lemonade. Sidney and Claire seemed like opposites, Sidney so gruff on the outside and Claire so talented but slightly clueless when it came to people instead of pianos. We talked about spring break and SDU and their alma mater, Smith, a women’s college in Massachusetts where they had met thirty years earlier. When I said I couldn’t believe they’d been out of college that long, Claire called me a wonderful liar.