Outside the Lines

by Kate Christie

  “Toddlers, too. It takes years before a kid can dress herself or wipe her own ass.”

  “Nice,” Jamie had said, wrinkling her nose.

  And then, for whatever reason, Emma had found herself blurting, “You’ve said you want kids, but are you sure?” As Jamie looked at her quickly, she’d added, “I know, this isn’t normal first date fodder. But the baby thing is a deal breaker for me.”

  Jamie had nodded, gaze unwavering. “I’m sure. That’s doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t terrify me. But so did trying out for the national team, and I wouldn’t change that, even if it didn’t work out.”

  “You never know. The door might be closed now, but stranger things have happened.”

  Jamie had hesitated. “You don’t always have to fix everything, you know.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I know.” And she did. But knowing she didn’t have to and preventing herself from trying were two very different things.

  They’d eaten in silence after that, and Emma had been relieved by Jamie’s answer even as she’d wondered if some overly defensive part of her brain was attempting to put the kibosh on their relationship. She hadn’t really needed to ask about kids, had she? If she’d had any question, Jamie’s sentiment toward children had been on display since Emma had arrived at Ellie’s earlier to discover Tina, Grant, and their three offspring visiting. While Jamie had been wary of the newborn baby, she had rough-housed and rumbled happily with Jack and Ian, the two older boys.

  Emma hadn’t been the only one to notice Jamie’s way with the brothers, either. Shortly before Grant and Ellie took the boys to the store, Tina had commented, “They’ve only met her twice and they already love her.”

  “They do,” Emma had agreed.

  She wasn’t surprised by Jamie’s capacities when it came to engaging children, not after watching her work her magic on Steph’s young son at residency camp. It was more that Jamie didn’t strike her as the maternal type. But was that completely true? Even as a teenager, Jamie had been amazing with Emma’s little brother the week after their father died, hanging out with him and generally helping distract him from his grief.

  Anyway, being kind to children wasn’t only within the scope of “maternal” types. She chided herself on her own bias. For women like Jamie who fell towards the middle of the gender spectrum, it was a disservice to assume they wouldn’t want to be around kids just as it was a disservice to assume that men wouldn’t, either.

  Now Jamie burrowed closer, her face on Emma’s shoulder. “I love you,” she said, her voice drowsy.

  “I love you, too,” Emma whispered back, kissing her forehead again.

  “Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams to you, too.”

  Jamie sighed, the sound happier and more relaxed than Emma had ever heard from her. She was responsible for that, and no one else. The corresponding rush of emotion that surged through her body was equal parts love and oxytocin mixed in with a tiny amount of terror. Because if she loved Jamie this much now, what would being with her for months or even years be like?

  The thought would have been more frightening if she hadn’t felt at peace in the dimly lit hotel room, Jamie’s warm body flush with hers under the soft cotton sheets, the sounds of the city of Portland lapping against the building’s exterior as they fell asleep together, legs and arms entwined.

  Chapter Two

  Jamie stood under the hot spray, practically moaning as the warm water eased the chill from her extremities. It was her own fault she’d gotten this cold. Playing soccer in rainy, fifty-degree weather wasn’t the problem. Driving home in wet clothes without showering first at the Thorns practice facility, on the other hand, hadn’t been her best decision ever. But she’d wanted to get home ASAP. Emma and Ellie and the rest of the national team were playing China in Colorado, and she couldn’t wait to watch.

  Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately?—Jodie had texted to say that her work function was going longer than anticipated. Which, hello, it was Sunday. But Jamie wasn’t one to talk since she’d technically had to work that afternoon as well. At least she would get time off tomorrow after today’s pre-season scrimmage; Jodie was not as fortunate. In any case, the delay had made this shower possible and might even give her time to watch the pregame without her housemate. She had to make sure the DVR was working properly, didn’t she?

  She could practically hear Angie’s voice echoing over the sound of the water: So whipped, boi! And, yeah. Valid.

  And yet, was tuning into the pre-game a good idea? Watching the national team these days was equal parts pleasure and torture. The good part was watching Emma and Ellie and the rest of the team kick ass on the field. The bad part was watching Emma and Ellie and the rest of the team kick ass on television rather than from the sidelines. Or, alternately, being out on the field herself.

  Sometimes she thought it might have been better never to have been part of the national team player pool. This morning, for example, she’d awakened early and lay in the dark imagining Emma and their mutual friends waking up in their hotel near Denver. She could picture every step of their Game Day routine, from Ellie’s habitual raw egg smoothie and Phoebe’s post-breakfast hot tub soak to Gabe’s mid-day meditation circle and Angie and Lisa’s pre-game dance party. Could picture, too, her Arsenal teammates on the other side of the Atlantic, lacing up their boots to take the pitch for practice under the lights.

  If the national team had never called, if she hadn’t been invited to December or January camp, would she have been out on that London pitch? Probably. She certainly wouldn’t have been lying alone on the futon in Ellie and Jodie’s guest room waiting for a morning text from Emma. She wouldn’t have been psyching herself up for a scrimmage with another new team, steeling herself to interact with teammates already bonded from the weeks of pre-season she had missed during Champions League.

  Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the shower spray, trying to drum out the doubt rising inside her anew. Had she made the right call? Had leaving her safe, comfortable footballer’s life in London been worth it? She and Emma were finally together, but they’d barely seen each other since January, and the next few months wouldn’t be much better. Would their relationship last the NWSL season? And if it did, could it survive what might be years of Emma playing on the national team without her? Her growing friendship with Ellie was something to appreciate, but even now Jamie sometimes struggled with the sense that she’d let down the national team captain—her idol, for eff’s sake—at the end of January camp.

  She tried to imagine herself attending friendlies as a fan, tried to picture herself at the World Cup next summer in a Blakeley jersey, cheering Emma and Ellie and their other friends on from the stands. She would do it, of course she would. But she couldn’t pretend doing so wouldn’t kill her inside a little more each match. She’d come so freaking close to making the national team, and maybe that really was worse than never having had a real shot at all.

  Sighing, she reached for the coconut body wash and began scouring the Oregon mud from her skin. No going back now, she reminded herself. No Mulligans in real life, as one of her college coaches had liked to say. No choice but to kick off the covers each morning and get on with it. She would give the Thorns her everything, leave it all on the field as usual. After all, she was a professional, and expending effort was a huge part of the vocation that, despite the attendant ups and downs, she loved more than almost anything else. Her pro soccer career, she’d always known, was temporary. Some day she would view these years as some of the best of her life.

  Maybe. Depending on how this and future seasons turned out. Right now her team’s future—and that of the NWSL itself—was still a blank dry eraser board.

  She stayed under the spray longer than was polite, given her goal of not running up Ellie and Jodie’s water bill while living in their basement. But it was hard to pull herself away even on days when she wasn’t chilled to the bone. One of the things she loved about being back in the US was the
water pressure. In London, the city’s ancient pipes had been infamously treacherous, and coin-operated hot water heaters in rental properties could be inconvenient, to say the least. More than once she’d run out of hot water and had to scramble about the bedroom, dripping soap everywhere while searching for a spare 50p coin. Not so here. Like Jamie’s parents, Ellie and Jodie kept their water heater turned up high. There was almost always hot water to spare.

  Finally, with visions of Emma slide-tackling Chinese strikers dancing in her head, she shut off the water. As she was toweling off, she heard floorboards creak overhead—Jodie was back! She raced through her post-shower routine and tugged on the first dry clothes she saw, practically sprinting upstairs until she remembered how slippery the wood floors were especially when all you had on your feet was a pair of fluffy fleece socks. She’d rather not imagine the humiliation of having to admit she’d injured herself while sprinting to watch Emma play on TV. Slowing midway up the stairs, she checked to make sure the person currently moving about the home’s main level truly was her housemate before picking up her pace again and sliding sideways into the kitchen.

  “Holy shit!” Jodie shrieked, hand on her chest. “Jamie! Don’t do that!”

  “Sorry,” she said, biting back a smile.

  “I can tell.” She turned away and then spun back. “Wait. The game’s taping, right?”

  “Duh. I texted you like half an hour ago.” She bounced on the balls of her feet a couple of times. “Want to watch?”

  “Obviously. But can I change and get some food first?”

  She sighed dramatically. “I guess…”

  “Goof,” Jodie said, but Jamie thought she could relate.

  While Jodie changed, Jamie set about warming up leftover Thai food for them both. In a surprisingly short time the other woman was back, hair released from its tight bun, contacts replaced by glasses, the blazer and trousers she’d worn earlier swapped out for a pair of Ellie’s old national team sweats. What hadn’t changed was the T-shirt she’d paired with the blazer, a black crewneck that proclaimed, “Wild Feminist.”

  “I need to get me one of those,” Jamie said, nodding at the tee.

  “I think that could be arranged—if you agree to post photo receipts on Instagram and Twitter, that is.”

  Jodie was a PR rep for a homegrown Portland clothing label and often brought home freebies from the office and semi-monthly “fashion networking events”—nights when she met her friends from different design houses for drinks and the pleasure of trading swag.

  “Done,” Jamie said, and slurped up a pad thai noodle that had wriggled free from its container.

  “Sweet!” Jodie reached for her phone and began typing away one-handed, a skill Jamie had never mastered herself.

  Wait. Had she just unwittingly agreed to become—what did Ellie and Angie call it—“a brand ambassador” to Jodie’s company? Not like she could have picked a better clothing company to align herself with. One of the founders of the label was a lesbian, and the clothes were mostly gender-neutral but designed to fit the female body. Maybe someday if she ever made more than minimum wage, Jamie would drop some cash at the flagship store downtown. In the meantime, freebies in exchange for “photo receipts” would work.

  Plates piled high with noodles and fried rice, the two women moved to the couch in the living room, glasses of wine within reach on the coffee table. As soon as they were settled, Jamie hit play. Jodie liked the commentary, too, but they still managed to chat about their days as the pre-game unfolded with an analysis of what the team’s disastrous showing in the Algarve Cup might mean for World Cup qualifying in October.

  At one point, the commentator paused before saying, “Actually, we were a little concerned earlier on before the match. There was, uh—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie noticed Jodie sit upright, staring at the TV. Then as the British commentator continued on about the threatening weather system that had since subsided, Jodie relaxed, a not-so-subtle sigh audible over the crowd noise blaring from the surround sound speakers.

  “What was that?” Jamie asked, eyes no longer fixed on the screen.

  “What was what?” Jodie kept her own gaze resolutely elsewhere.

  “That,” Jamie said, waving her fork at her housemate. “You looked crazy nervous for a second there.”

  “No I didn’t. You’re imagining things, Rook.”

  Jamie wanted to tell her that only soccer players could call her that, but since she was presently sitting on Jodie and Ellie’s couch eating off of their plates, drinking their wine, and watching their television, she figured Jodie should be allowed to call her whatever she wanted.

  This was the first time Jamie had watched a national team match with Ellie’s future wife, and she wasn’t sure what to expect from the other woman. It soon became clear that even though she worked in fashion, Jodie loved soccer. She was nearly as rowdy as Ellie was during Premier League matches, jumping up groaning, hands on her head, whenever the US missed a shot on goal or gave up a fifty-fifty ball. No one’s vitriol for poor refereeing decisions could truly rival Ellie’s, but Jodie came close.

  Unfortunately, there were plenty of opportunities for hands on heads in this game. Throughout the first half, the US missed chance after chance, even shooting wide of an empty net. Twice. Finally, five minutes before half-time, Maddie buried a shot from the top of the eighteen. Instead of jumping around in celebration, Jamie and Jodie simply high-fived and shook their heads. China was ranked sixteenth in the world to the US’s number one. The score should be higher after forty minutes.

  As Jamie fast-forwarded through half-time, Jodie made a disgusted sound. “Now I understand why they bombed out of the Algarve. That was the most uninspired half I’ve seen in a while.”

  “What I don’t get is O’Brien starting over Lisa, and Gabe and Jenny mysteriously absent. Speaking of, are you sure Ellie’s not hurt?”

  When the line-up had posted before kick-off with only one of the team captains starting, Jodie had seemed as surprised as Jamie. Ellie hadn’t said anything about being hurt, nor had she texted Jodie about being benched.

  “Maybe Craig wants to go in a different direction,” Jodie said now, shrugging.

  Jamie winced. It was too soon for her to hear the phrase Craig had used when he cut her from the program. Possibly it would always be too soon.

  They agreed to skip halftime coverage since it was bound to be more of the British guy and his broadcast partner, a former national team player, talking about the plethora of missed scoring opportunities and the team’s current downward spiral. Nobody needed to hear yet again how long it had been since The Greatest Generation (as Steph Miller sarcastically referred to them) had won a World Cup for the US.

  The second half was just beginning when Jodie’s cell phone rang.

  “Pause it, will you? It’s her.”

  For a brief moment Jamie couldn’t work out why Emma had called Jodie, and then her brain caught up. Her as in Ellie.

  “Don’t tell me the score,” Jodie said into her phone. “We’re still watching. But how are you? You started the second half!”

  She listened, eyes going wide, and Jamie zeroed in on the conversation. “Craig,” she clearly heard Ellie say over the tinny speakers. Also “the federation” and “meeting” more than once.

  “Right in the middle of the road trip?” Jodie asked, her face still registering shock.

  Jamie shifted closer, but Jodie must have twigged what she was up to because she stood and headed for the kitchen. “She is?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Well, that’s something, isn’t it?”

  Jamie stared unseeingly at the TV screen, frozen on a close-up of Maddie preparing to take a throw-in. What the hell was going on with the national team? And why hadn’t she heard from Emma?

  “I won’t,” Jodie said, her back to Jamie. “Okay. I love you, Rachel. Everything will work out… Me too. Call me later.”

  She hung up and stood motionless i
n the kitchen for a minute, one hand on her hip.

  “Is everything okay?” Jamie asked, breaking the tense silence. “Is it Emma? She didn’t get hurt, did she?”

  “No.” Jodie was frowning as she turned back to the living room. “Not as far as I know. There’s team drama going on, that’s all. Let’s watch the second half, okay?”

  Jamie hit play and chewed on a fingernail, only half paying attention to the game. It was no secret there was occasional drama on the national team; they were athletes living in the public eye. But this sounded like unusual levels of turmoil. Did it have anything to do with the fight over turf fields at the World Cup? Had someone said something to the media they shouldn’t have? Or—and here her heart fell—had a member of the team or staff been arrested? The women’s team had always been significantly less prone to scandal than the men’s, but that didn’t mean everyone in the organization was squeaky clean.

  Briefly she considered checking social media for any mention of a scandal, but then she realized she would see the score. Besides, in the months since #Blakewell had exploded, she’d been slowly weaning herself off Twitter and Instagram and had found that the less time she spent online, the happier she was. Her mentions this year had taken a turn for the ugly, as she’d known they might if she attracted a wider following. She’d turned off direct messaging and muted her notifications, but Tumblr was the only place online she felt safe anymore, mostly because there was nothing in her ultra-generic profile that could be tied to her. To avoid the homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic creeps trolling the Internet in droves, she’d followed Ellie’s advice and created private Facebook and Instagram accounts. She’d even asked her family and friends to unfollow her athlete profiles so that they wouldn’t artificially inflate her follower numbers. In reality she was trying to protect them from the seedier side of the Internet—assuming such a thing was even possible.

  As Jodie typed on her phone beside her, screen tilted away, Jamie drafted a quick text to Emma. “Still watching the game. Not the best team performance I’ve ever seen, but you’re awesome as ever.”