Game Changers

by Jane Cuthbertson

  I don’t waste any time trying to dissuade her of this notion. “What, you have the makeup artists ready? The airbrush expert?”

  Jaye glares at me, lowers the iPhone. “I thought we’d agreed. No more putting yourself down.”

  “Maybe I’m talking about you.”

  She laughs.

  I turn away, hiding a grin. “I’m not photogenic.”

  “Neither am I, for crying out loud, and there’re a million pictures of me on the Internet!”

  “Yeah. Pictures of your gorgeous legs, dead-perfect abs, and killer smile.”

  “My abs? Show me.”

  Ah-ha. Successful distraction. I grab my own iPhone and tap the screen. With a few quick swipes I find what I want.

  Jaye stares at the candid shot, taken during a game, one of those moments where she’s lifted her shirt to wipe sweat off her face. I’ve seen similar pictures of many women players, and male players, too, out there in cyberspace. Even on a four-inch screen one can see the exquisite definition of Jaye’s stomach muscles.

  “Huh,” she says. “I guess you can find everything on the Internet.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Dead perfect, you think?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Smile when you say that.”

  I do, and she’s got me. iPhone comes up and photo is snapped before I can react.

  “Jaye!”

  She’s checking out the result. “It’s a good picture. Honest.”

  Reluctantly, I peer over. She’s right, I suppose. I’ve never considered myself at all photogenic. “You’re going to put it on Facebook, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  I take in her self-satisfied expression, then make a quick grab for the phone. Silly me. Jaye pulls it away, leaps up and takes off, twenty years younger and twenty times more fit. She’s halfway across the park before I get to quarter-speed. I stop and throw up my hands in surrender, realizing that deep down, I’m pleased she wants to do this, to show people who her lover is.

  Maybe I should at last consider joining Facebook so I can do the same thing.

  

  Tuesday night everyone is home. I’ve discovered the Musketeers are, like me, on the introverted side and actually enjoy doing stuff around the house. On this evening, rather than watch yet another soccer match, Bree insists on a game of Scrabble.

  “Nickory and Jaye against me and Rachel,” she announces.

  I laugh. “You seriously think the jocks have a chance?”

  “I hear you!” Jaye says from the kitchen, where she and Nickory are cleaning up after dinner. “I have an English degree, remember? And you don’t!”

  “But she’s a writer,” Bree calls out, winking at me. “And I know all the medical words.”

  “Like I said,” this time aiming my words at the kitchen, “do you think the jocks have a chance?”

  I’ve turned to look that way as well, in time to catch Nickory’s expression as she hands Jaye a plate. Her face shines with unguarded desire, longing, and love—lots of love—all aimed at Jaye. A chain reaction, like puzzle pieces falling into place, glides down my spine. It feels right. It feels true. It hits me like a two-by-four in the hands of Bigfoot. Suspicion confirmed.

  I glance over at Bree. She’s seen it, too. There’s no missing the bleakness in her expression. But she’s not about to go there. “Rachel, help me set the game up.”

  I move to comply, a knot of tension twisting my stomach, a whirlwind of emotions spinning in my head. Confusion, fear, and helplessness all congeal into one overriding sensation. Despite my bravado when we were arguing, I’m certain I can’t compete with Nickory. If the warrior queen decides to make a play for my girlfriend, I am lost. Lost.

  Nobody seems to notice my silence as we take our places. Partners sit opposite each other, which means Jaye ends up sitting to my right. As the game starts she puts her hand on my thigh and keeps it there. Could it be she has no awareness whatsoever of Nickory’s feelings? Or is she the best actress in the world?

  Her fingers slide idly along my skin, her touch slowly easing some of my tension. No, I decide. Jaye doesn’t know. Her open nature couldn’t hide such knowledge. All may be lost, but it’s not lost yet.

  Focusing on the game, I examine the board, then my tiles. A few moves in I spot the perfect place for a killer word. I’m struck, then, by the urge to clobber Nickory at the one thing I know I’m better at. My mood shifts from confusion and fear to cold competitiveness.

  “You’re trying to distract me,” I accuse Jaye, the first words I’ve spoken since play began.

  She smiles, fingers brushing along my thigh from knee to hip. “And it’s working.”

  “Not entirely,” I say smugly and lay out ZYGOTE on a triple word score bonus. The Y lands on a double letter, so my team tallies sixty-nine points in one go.

  Bree makes a touchdown sign with her arms. “Yes!”

  Jaye grimaces, but keeps her hand on me. “Still a lot of game left.”

  “True,” Nickory says in that ebullient way of hers. She’s a little too calm as she studies her tiles, examines the board, then glances over at Bree.

  Uh-oh.

  Still watching Bree, Nickory shakes her head, and plays out “earning” on the Y I just laid down.

  YEARNING crosses a double word square, plus Nickory gets fifty points for using all her tiles.

  I am trumped, 74-69. Shit.

  I bite back the urge to say “How apropos,” instead managing a very grudging, “Nicely done.” Spoken through clenched teeth.

  Jaye squeezes my thigh in delight. Bree is mute with shock.

  “I went to college, too,” Nickory reminds us. No smugness at all, but there’s a hint of yesterday’s venom in her dark eyes as they pass across mine.

  The game never quite gets cutthroat, but it’s obvious Nickory and I are serious about beating each other. I can understand why Bree thinks we are both alpha personalities. And I think Jaye sees the Three Musketeers will never, ever be Four. Bree throws me. I have no idea what she’s picking up on—or already knows.

  In the end, the letters fall our way, and Bree clinches the match with an obscure medical term, putting us in the lead. I should feel like I’m on top of the mountain, but the victory is hollow. Winning a skirmish is not winning the war, as I well know, and this war is one I neither want nor want to lose.

  When Jaye and I finally settle into bed, I want to make love to her with a fierceness that feels like freshly exploded ordnance. I want the walls to rattle like they did at the Hampton Inn, leaving Nickory with no doubts about who can satisfy Jaye best.

  But it scares me, this fierceness. This is not loving Jaye, but using her to prove something, and I resist the competitive urge. When I wrap her in my arms, my kisses are as soft and tender as one would bestow on a newborn baby. Full of love, full of wonder, but with passion well banked.

  “Are you all right?” Jaye asks.

  “I’m always all right when I’m with you.”

  This leads to some more kisses, but Jaye doesn’t let the subject go. “Something’s bothering you.”

  Tears spring up in my eyes. I’m seized with the fear that this closeness is going to end any day now. I start a slow, light, fingertip exploration of Jaye’s body, like I’m trying to memorize the feel of her skin against mine, the gentle touch of her hands, her lips, even her hair.

  “Yeah,” I say, eventually.

  “Tell me?”

  I truly don’t want to. “Can I think about it for a while?”

  Jaye doesn’t answer right away. Then she says, “Do you just not want to lie to me?”

  Ouch. “I won’t ever lie to you, Jaye.”

  “But you sure want to keep a lot to yourself.”

  The coward in me has been pulled out of the closet and into the harsh light of day. “Yeah, sorry. I’ve always kept my thoughts to myself. It’s a hard habit to break.”

&n
bsp; “Are you kidding? Your blogs are full of thoughts and opinions.”

  “The blogs are The Fyrequeene’s. She’s much braver than I am.”

  “She’s the same person. Don’t you get that?”

  “On some level.” I lower my head to Jaye’s shoulder and wrap my arm around her waist. “But she’s also the shield protecting me from the big cruel world.”

  “And you’re using her to protect yourself from me?”

  “No. I’m trying my best to be the real me with you.”

  “Good,” Jaye’s arm tightens around my back. “I was raised to be honest, Rachel. And I believe in honesty. It can make things hard sometimes, but we’ve got to have it. You understand, right?”

  “Yes. If we’re honest, we’re true to each other. We make everything real, and I don’t want us to be anything else.” I slide away from Jaye, enough to get my arm under me, to lift myself up enough to meet her eyes. “I promise never to lie to you.”

  “But you’ll make me ask what’s wrong a lot, won’t you?”

  I look at her sheepishly. “Yes. I’ll try to be better. I promise that, too.”

  Jaye sort of half-laughs and tries again. “What’s wrong, Rachel?”

  I have, and want, a smart lover, but it comes with a price. I take a breath and plunge in. “Nickory’s in love with you.”

  There is a seriously pregnant pause before Jaye bursts out laughing, which I admit was not on my list of potential reactions.

  “Ohhh-kay,” she says. “Now I know you’re not perfect.”

  My spirits lift a little, caught up in her mirth. But I’m a little pissed, too. “I never claimed to be.”

  “What makes you think she’s in love with me?”

  “The way she observes you. Her expressions when you aren’t looking.” Particularly in the kitchen, before the Scrabble game. “The way she doesn’t like me, like I’m taking you away from her.”

  Jaye shakes her head. “Nickory and Bree are totally happy, and they have been for ten years. Nickory loves me as a friend, I know. And I love her. But she’s not in love with me. She would have said something by now.”

  Jaye sounds so sure. I don’t hear any undercurrent of doubt. My spirits lift a little more.

  “Besides, I love you. Doesn’t matter what Nickory feels.”

  Her comment comes out so casually neither of us notice at first. But our synchronicity is consistent, and we register the words at exactly the same time.

  I go still. Jaye blinks. We stare at each other, a little shocked.

  Then she smiles. Weakly. “See? That’s how to say things: Blurt them out all of a sudden.”

  Right. This is the moment for me to blurt “I love you” out, too, but my heart is in my throat and I can’t say anything. I fall back on the good old standard of kissing her instead.

  She returns my kiss, and God, it feels so wonderful, like it has every time we’ve been together. The feel of her skin against me, the touch of her hands, the precious miracle of her presence. It feels like—Christ, it feels like home.

  Now I’m kissing her both to hide my speechlessness, and to keep from crying

  And she knows. “You don’t have to say it back,” Jaye says when our lips part again. “But give yourself the chance to come around to my point of view. Okay?”

  Oh, I’m there. But I’m still too cowardly to say so.

  

  Jaye actually beats me to wakefulness in the morning, gives me a few tender kisses, then gets up at dawn to do some running. When sleep turns itself off, I rise and wander into the kitchen to find Bree sitting at the table by herself, white terry cloth robe contrasting nicely with her dark skin. The iPad is on, her coffee mug securely in her left hand.

  “Morning,” she says cheerfully. “Chocolate muffins by the toaster.”

  I smile, a little, grab a muffin, and set water boiling for tea. “No work today?”

  “Off today, two weeks of swings starting tomorrow.”

  I grimace in sympathy. “I always hated those rotating schedules. Nickory sleeping in?”

  “She went out with Jaye. I think they were going to practice right after.”

  Good. I find a teabag and a mug, a saucer for my muffin, pour the water when it boils, and cart my breakfast to the table.

  Then I set about ruining Bree’s good mood. As my tea steeps, I say, “Bree, how long have you known?”

  Bree avoids my eyes; it’s obvious she knows exactly what I’m referring to. The question is, will she talk about it?

  I have time to doctor up my tea with cream and honey and take a healthy bite of scrumptious chocolate muffin before she comes to a decision.

  Tentatively, Bree says, “I’m not sure it’s what you think.”

  I finish chewing and swallow. “I’m open to persuasive evidence against.”

  Bree gets up for more coffee, a nice delaying tactic, but I’m not going anywhere. She comes back to the table and only now engages me face to face.

  “The one constant in Nickory’s life, other than soccer and me, has been Jaye. Except for college and the National Team, they’ve always played on the same teams, took part in the same camps, and Jaye has always roomed with us.”

  “Always?”

  “Except when we were out of town for the Olympics and the World Cups. I wondered about it in the beginning, but Nickory told me about Jaye and the older woman—you know about that?”

  “The soccer coach bitch? Yes.”

  Bree grins for a second at my turn of phrase. “It was a little odd, but I figured Nickory was being a good friend, and I grew to love Jaye like a sister. I hoped she’d find somebody, but I got to where I could live with the idea of us going along as, like you say, the Three Musketeers, sharing apartments and houses, Nickory and Jaye probably coaching the same college team somewhere, until we all ended up in the same nursing home.”

  “Could still happen.”

  Bree throws me the patent-worthy laser glare. “You know better than that.”

  “I can only hope.”

  Bree rolls her eyes, gets back on point. “Anyway, one day I realized Nickory always made sure, somehow, to turn Jaye off anyone she might have dated.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. She was subtle about it, but it always worked. At first I thought she was being over-protective, but then I tried to talk to her one day about how she felt about Jaye, and it turned into the worst fight we ever had. She blew up on me, denied it to the heavens, then ignored me for two days. So I let it go.”

  “Okay. Seems like it still adds up to Nickory being in love with Jaye.”

  Bree takes a long sip of coffee. “And Jaye is in love with Nickory?”

  I take a long sip of my tea. “She was once, wasn’t she?”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Uh-huh. What words did she use?”

  “She said she never slept with Nickory—”

  “Truth.”

  “—and I asked, ‘but did you ever want to?’ And she said yes.” Not in so many words, but I don’t want to get all caught up in explanations.

  Bree takes this in, eyes narrowing. “And where do I fit in this equation?”

  Her voice is quiet, but her tone tells me I’m on thin and cracking ice. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think Jaye is honest?”

  “Yes,” I say unequivocally.

  “Good. Because the argument over Jaye turned into a real rough patch for Kat and me. Jaye was the one who finally knocked some sense into our heads. She told me that in all the years she roomed with Nickory on the road, she never once saw her tempted by another woman. She told me more than a few women tried. Fans, coaches, the press, a teammate or two. I still remember Jaye poking me in the chest, saying ‘She stayed faithful to you. Who stays faithful, Bree? Someone who loves her partner.’ ”

  I listen, half-hoping a sinkhole will open up and
swallow me.

  “She clearly said something equally powerful to Kat the same day because Kat apologized to me, even though I was the one who'd screwed up. We had a long talk in bed and worked things out. Now—if Jaye was in love with Nickory—would she have helped us out? And if Nickory was in love with Jaye, wouldn’t that have been her moment?”

  It’s all I can do to meet Bree’s eyes. I haven’t had a beatdown like this in a long time. And I totally deserve it. “I’m sorry. I can be a real idiot sometimes.”

  I must sound sincerely forlorn because Bree backs off a little. “A lot of people assume shit about Kat and Jaye that isn’t true. I thought you’d know better.”

  “I should have. But even now it’s hard for me to believe someone like Jaye could want someone like me. Doesn’t like crowds, doesn’t like parties, a lot older—”

  “Shut up,” Bree says, but she’s not quite as grim and hard as she was a second ago. “You can’t know this, but I do, and I’m going to tell you. Jaye’s not big on parties, either. She doesn’t need a lot of people around. Give her a good book or a gym or a soccer ball and she’s happy. And she’s always had a thing for older women.”

  “She has?”

  “Yes.” Bree pauses a moment. “Jaye was sixteen when she got screwed over. She gets a pass there. But in the time I’ve known her, she’s been a good judge of people. If she likes you, you’re okay. And she more than likes you.” Bree looks now like she wants to poke me in the chest. “Fact: Jaye’s in love with you, Rachel. Can you believe that?”

  “Yes. She told me last night.”

  Bree rolls her eyes as if overwhelmed by the idiot in front of her. “Then she means it. Right here, and right now. Her feelings will change only if you fuck it up.”

  Which I feel infinitely capable of doing.

  Chapter Eight

  Fyrequeene’s Blog June 11

  “This Thing, This Thing, This Amazing Thing.”

  All my life I have walked through this world alone. Sure, I played intramural sports in college. I have an affectionate if distant family, and I am now part of a sisterhood of writers I value dearly. But none of those ever gave me a sense of truly belonging, none ever closed the distance between me and the rest of the world. As solitude settled in and put down roots I, too, settled down and into the belief that being alone was, for whatever reason, my fate in this lifetime.