The Road to Canada

by Kate Christie

  Angie, of course, had to ruin the moment by opening the door a crack and saying, “Are you finished? ’Cause it sounds like you’re finished.”

  “Fuck off, Angie!” Jamie whisper-shouted.

  “That’s what she said,” Angie replied for the second time that day. “Seriously, though, it’s curfew, birthday girl. You have one minute to cover up your birthday suit.”

  The door shut again, and Jamie sighed. “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay. Without Angie, I wouldn’t have gotten to do this.” She leaned in to kiss Jamie one last time before slipping from the bed.

  Jamie followed, and they smiled sheepishly at each other as they pulled on their hastily shed clothing. Emma was patting down her hair as she headed to the door, Jamie on her heels, when she glanced back and said, “Gabe is meeting her family for breakfast tomorrow morning. What do you think about having coffee in my room?”

  Tomorrow was their rest day, which meant they could spend it any way they wanted. Jamie paused, her hand on the doorknob as she pictured coffee and tea and the Premier League Match of the Day in Emma’s room. Naked. Yep, this birthday weekend was definitely looking up.

  “I think that sounds perfect,” she said, smiling.

  “Good. I’ll text you tomorrow when it’s all clear.” Emma pecked her on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Jamie. I’m glad we got to spend it together.”

  “Me, too,” Jamie said. And then she opened the door a crack and watched as Emma disappeared into the hallway. If they were lucky, Jessica North wouldn’t happen to be walking by and observe Emma’s flushed cheeks and obvious sex head. The coaches, either, for that matter.

  The bathroom door opened. “You’re welcome,” Angie said, grinning. “Now take a shower, will you?”

  “Whatever,” she said, and brushed past her friend, ignoring her laughter. She wasn’t really mad at Angie, though. After all, the other woman had made sure she didn’t end her birthday orgasm-free.

  Ten minutes later, she slipped between her sheets and reached for her Kindle. In the opposite bed, Angie was sitting up against her own pillows, iPad in hand.

  “What are you watching?” Jamie asked.

  “Chicago Fire,” Angie said, and pulled off her headphones. “Maddie loves it, so I thought I would give it a try. What about you? Fan fiction or Netflix?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “You okay? You seemed a little quiet at the bar.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just, team time sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Angie shrugged. “I thought it did, but now I sort of think it’s more for protection than persecution. I mean, as long as we abide by the policy, no one can come after us for being involved with a teammate. At least, no one connected to the federation, anyway.”

  Her wording seemed significant. “What do you mean, no one connected to the federation?”

  “Oh.” Angie’s eyes flickered, and she fumbled with her headphones. “Nothing, really. It doesn’t mean anything. I have to finish this episode, okay? Happy birthday, Max.”

  “Thanks,” she said automatically, and turned back to her own tablet as Angie refocused on her iPad.

  Her finger hovered over the Netflix icon, but then she moved it away. She didn’t feel like starting anything new. It usually took her forever to decide what to watch, and it was getting late. Twitter would be a double-edged sword: birthday messages from fans and less pleasant tweets from trolls. There had been a lot of those lately, some of them downright disturbing, but it wasn’t like she was the only female athlete receiving them. That left one good option: fan fiction and its perfect, homophobia-free alternate worlds.

  She was still searching through tags on the Archive of Our Own website when her phone buzzed. She picked it up from the bedside table, squinting as she saw Emma’s name. “Happy birthday again, Jamie,” she had texted, followed by a link to a website Jamie didn’t recognize. Studio Byzantine? What even was that? But it was from Emma, so it probably wasn’t virus-laden… She clicked the link and ended up on a website for a tattoo parlor in Seattle.

  Her phone buzzed again with an incoming Skype call from Emma.

  “Dude,” Jamie answered, laughing as she tucked her ear buds into place, “what did you just send me?”

  “I’m sorry—I was going to wait until tomorrow but I couldn’t!” Emma said, smiling. She was dressed in her sleep shirt, and with her hair down and face scrubbed free of makeup, she barely looked 20. “You said you wanted a tattoo of that tree on your calf, so I thought maybe I could give it to you.”

  “You’re such a dork. A dork who gives awesome presents,” Jamie amended as Emma huffed at her from five rooms away.

  “I considered surprising you when we got home, but this is the first time we’ve ever been together on your actual birthday, and I wanted it to be special. Well, as special as it could be at Death Camp.”

  “It was,” Jamie said, her voice softening. “It really was. I’m glad I got to spend it with you, Emma.”

  “Me, too, Jamie,” Emma said, smiling at her through the airwaves.

  And yes, it was a little bit ridiculous that they had to spend the night apart. After all, they were consenting adults in a committed relationship. But this was the life they had both chosen. And honestly, Jamie wouldn’t trade it for anything.

  Emma, she was pretty sure, wouldn’t either.

  “Thank you,” Jamie said. “I love it, and I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Emma flashed a jaunty wink. “Thanks for earlier.”

  “Um, pretty sure I’m the one who owes you the thanks.”

  “You can finish what we started in the morning,” she promised.

  As much as Jamie had enjoyed her seven minutes of pillow queendom earlier, more time together in the morning was a much better option to look forward to. “Can’t wait.”

  “Same,” Emma said. “Love you, birthday girl. Especially in your birthday suit.”

  “Ditto. Now, get some sleep, huh? I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes, you will.” Emma blew her a kiss that Jamie pretended to catch and tuck under her pillow, and then they were hanging up, still laughing at each other’s cheesiness even as the screen winked out.

  Jamie turned off her phone and the lamp over her bed, snuggling down into her bed with the tablet beside her. But she didn’t turn it on. Instead she closed her eyes and pictured the tree design she’d finally perfected, the one she wanted to add to her body to remind her to stay grounded in this, the year that had the potential to be the second hardest of her life. That, or the best ever. Either way, it wouldn’t be easy. As she’d told Emma’s family over the holidays, one way or the other she would be at the World Cup.

  Could she really cheer on Emma and the others if she didn’t make the cut? She wasn’t sure. She hoped she wouldn’t have to find out.

  “You calling it a night?” Angie asked.

  Jamie opened one eye and squinted at her friend. “Yep.”

  “’Kay. Goodnight, Jamie.”

  “Goodnight, Angie.”

  Down the hall, she pictured Emma arranging the covers on her bed in the room she shared with Gabe, pictured her setting her ear plugs in place and reaching for her eyeshade. Soon enough, morning would come and they would be alone together for a few blessed hours. And that, really, was the best birthday present Jamie could ask for.

  Chapter Two

  Emma touched the ball once and sent it straight up the field to Jamie. Then she moved into a supporting position and called for the return pass. Immediately, Jamie dropped the ball back to her on an angle. Before the pass arrived, Emma lifted her head to assess her options—Ellie was calling for the ball inside the penalty box, but she had a defender on her back. Angie was open outside, though, so Emma one-touched it to her. The midfielder took the pass in stride and drove to the end line before rocketing a cross back into the center. As she had done too many times in a national team uniform to count, Ellie skied above her
defender and buried the ball in the back of the net.

  “Sweet!” Ellie called, turning away from the goal to give Emma a thumbs-up. “That was good. But let’s try it again, and this time, pass the ball to my feet when I ask for it, okay?”

  Emma nodded and jogged back into place. She had considered passing to Ellie in traffic, but her mind almost always chose the safer route, the sure pass. As a defender, she was more concerned with maintaining possession than attacking. Frankly, she’d rather hit the open player on the outside than risk missing the more dangerous player inside the box.

  Jo claimed that players with a more defensive outlook suffered from a fear of failure. Playing it safe, she liked to say, stifled creativity. Of course, she was a former striker herself, so she would say that, wouldn’t she? As an offensive-minded former player, Jo valued that same trait in the athletes she coached. She wanted everyone on the field to have an attacking mentality, to get forward and take risks. That was the mindset she had tasked Emma with developing. And while Emma may not agree with Jo’s approach, she wanted to play. That was why she’d asked the best offensive players she knew for help.

  Throughout the final week of January camp, Ellie, Jamie, Maddie, Angie, and Jenny had stayed after training with her to run extra passing patterns, to work on movement off the ball, and to practice variety in the attacking third: one player checking, one penetrating, and one shifting back on the weak side to provide balance in the back field. They had practiced getting to the end line and slotting a variety of services into the box: near post on the ground, far post in the air, top of the box both on the ground and in the air, and Jamie’s favorite, a drive into the eighteen followed by a “cheeky” chip to the far post. Even though she normally didn’t think much about attacking, Emma challenged herself during these drills, looking for Ellie’s head when she was the crosser and focusing on placing the ball in the net with whatever part of her body was handiest when she was on the receiving end.

  The most important building block of offensive play, Jo had said more than once, was technical skill—precision in passing, dribbling, and shooting combined with overall confidence on the ball. For defenders moving forward into the attack, that translated into serving good passes and always remaining calm on the ball, no matter where you might find yourself on the field.

  “If you don’t believe you can do something,” Jo could be heard calling out across the National Training Center’s practice fields at least once a day, “then you won’t be able to do it.”

  That was probably how US Soccer’s marketing arm had come up with the motto for the 2014 World Cup: “I believe that we will win.” A Naval Academy student may have made the chant popular at sporting events in the late ’90s, but Emma suspected that Jo’s repeated use of the motivating cheer had influenced US Soccer’s adoption of the phrase as an official rallying call for both the men’s and women’s teams.

  As Emma dribbled back into place, she took a deep breath. She could do this. She totally could. With a nod to her friends, she started forward again. This time she touched the ball outside to Maddie before checking back for it. Maddie returned the ball and Emma dribbled forward again. No more than three touches—that was the rule for today’s drill. Touch, touch, and pass. They repeated the earlier pattern: Emma to Jamie, and Jamie back to Emma. Only this time, as Ellie checked toward her, Emma was ready. She touched the ball to Ellie’s feet and watched as Ellie used her defender’s momentum to roll off and around her at the 12. Then she rocketed the ball into the net, which snapped resoundingly with the force of her shot.

  “There,” Ellie called, grinning at her. “See? You gave me a perfectly weighted pass right where I needed it to juke my defender.”

  “Yeah,” Emma said, tilting her head, “but isn’t it a stretch to call J-La a defender?”

  Jenny placed her hands on her hips in mock outrage. “Excuse you, but I have improved literally a hundred percent in my defensive takeaways!”

  “So what, you’re up to two per game now?” Emma asked, biting her lip as Jenny pretended to vibrate in anger. “Just kidding. Seriously, thanks, you guys, but I think we should probably call it a night. Don’t want to miss dinner.”

  Everyone agreed whole-heartedly, and they set about collecting the extra balls and storing them back in the equipment area. Then they headed out to the parking lot where Ellie had left “her” van that afternoon. Lunchtime seemed so far away. Emma wanted only to eat two helpings of whatever meal the nutritionist had concocted, take a hot shower, and watch crappy television with Jamie and their friends until curfew. With only a few days of camp left to go, she was deeply, truly tired. She was looking forward to the week off between camp and the upcoming trip to Europe where they would play France and England, the number three and number six teams in the world, respectively. If all went well, she and Jamie would both go.

  Fingers crossed.

  An hour later, she was still toweling her hair dry when a soft knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” she called.

  Jamie poked her head around the edge of the door. “Are you decent?”

  “Unfortunately.” Gabe was gone for now but there was no telling when she would return, which meant they would have to be on their best behavior. Or at least good behavior, anyway. It wasn’t like either of them were rooming with Jessica North this time around, but Emma didn’t want to make Gabe uncomfortable. She didn’t like the idea of asking their teammates to cover for them. Jamie’s birthday had been one thing—one very enjoyable thing—but regular residency camp life? Not so much.

  “Bummer,” Jamie commented, and strolled in, cheeks pink and hair damp from her own recent shower.

  Soon they were stretched out on the bed beside each other, backs against the pillows, hands clasped loosely as Emma flicked through the channels. Her room meant her remote, a rule they adhered to even more closely than they did to US Soccer’s team time policy.

  “Hockey?” she asked.

  Jamie made a face.

  “Basketball?”

  “Who’s playing?”

  “Does it matter?” As Jamie gazed at her, one eyebrow lifted meaningfully, she sighed and squinted at the screen. “Michigan State and Penn State.” The game had just started, which meant it had to be a replay, given the time difference on the East Coast.

  Jamie shrugged. “That’s fine. I’m more interested in hearing about your meeting with Caroline, anyway. What did she have to say?”

  Emma kept her eyes on the television. If she looked at Jamie, she might be tempted to blurt out everything that she and the team’s PR rep had discussed that morning. The fallout, however, was not something she particularly wanted to deal with on team time. The longer she kept her online stalker situation from Jamie, the worse the outcome would be, but right now Jamie was playing well and seemed happy, and Emma didn’t want to jeopardize that. The coaches would name the official World Cup roster in April. Jamie deserved to have the next couple of months go as smoothly and un-angstily as possible.

  After Jo named the roster, Emma promised herself. She would tell Jamie everything then.

  “She said a lot, actually,” Emma admitted, watching as MSU’s point guard stroked home a three. “I told her the social media contract requirement has been stressing me out, so she suggested I reduce my online footprint and focus on one platform. She also thinks I should hire one of the vendors on the federation’s approved list to manage my social media presence.”

  She would probably end up keeping Twitter. Caroline had recommended withdrawing slowly from Facebook and Instagram so that she didn’t provoke a corresponding “nuclear” response from any unstable fans. Emma had shuddered at the thought, and Caroline had reached across the conference table in the business suite at the National Training Center to pat her hand and assure her it wouldn’t get to that.

  But she couldn’t really promise that. No one knew what a stalker was capable of until it was too late.

  Jamie sat up beside her. “Wait. You’re going to pay
someone to run your official social media accounts for you?”

  Emma could feel Jamie’s gaze boring into the side of her face. “Well, yeah. I really want to focus on my game, and trying to remember what to post when is distracting. We didn’t all grow up in Silicon Valley, you know.”

  “Berkeley is like an hour from Silicon Valley.”

  “You know what I mean,” Emma said, and elbowed her lightly.

  “You don’t seem to have any problems with your private accounts.”

  “That’s different.” And it was. On her private Instagram and Facebook accounts, she could control who could see what, which was why she had never once experienced any sort of harassment on either platform. But Twitter was a social media free-for-all, in more ways than one. “Mary Kate said it might be helpful to withdraw from my public accounts, too. Reducing online presence is helpful for people who are experiencing anxiety, which I definitely am at the moment.”

  At the mention of the team’s sports psychologist, Jamie leaned back against the pillows. “Oh. Well, if Mary Kate thinks it’s a good idea, you should definitely listen to her.” She paused. “Would you maybe want me to run your public accounts? That is what I used to do for the guys at Arsenal. For free, though, obviously,” she added. “I wouldn’t mind helping out.”

  “No,” Emma said, probably too quickly. She glanced at Jamie and squeezed her hand. “That’s really sweet of you, but I think I’ll have one of the vendors do it. I don’t really want to waste any of our time together talking about sponsorships and tweet impressions. Okay?”

  Jamie nodded, brow slightly furrowed. “Okay. So was that it? She didn’t mention anything else?”

  Emma hesitated. Caroline had, in fact, had quite a bit else to say. Namely, that Emma needed to collect a dossier on her would-be stalker. Screen shots, dates and times, proof that she’d reported violent or threatening messages to the social media powers that be—basically anything connected to her interaction with the guy needed to be documented. That way if law enforcement ever got involved, there would be a trail of evidence.