The questions won’t go away, playing in my head like an old, scratched phonograph record. When I’m on the road to Kansas City I finally call Toni for a second opinion. I ramble out all my doubts, and when I finally shut up, I’m rewarded with silence. Did the call drop?
“Rachel.” Ah, there’s the blunt tone I know so well. “Are you happy?”
Easy, instantaneous answer. “Yes. Like, I-never-knew-I-could-feel-this-way happy.”
“Good. Because Jaye loves you.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“No, I know I’m right. There’s a picture of you two on Tumblr. I’d check it out if I were you.”
“What?”
“There’s a Tumblr account devoted to Stokes,” Toni says. “I’d check it out if I were you.”
The car flies down half a mile of freeway before I say anything. “You were on the Internet hunting down pictures of my girlfriend?”
“Not me. Paula,” Toni says without the slightest hint of defensiveness. “There’s a photo of the two of you together. Jaye’s in uniform, and you’re not. But you’re standing on a field, like a game’s ended.”
It takes me a second, but I get there. “Boston. The night she scored the hat trick.” I’m distracted now, thinking about how to find the website. Tumblr, she said? “Tell me, Toni, do I look like I love her?”
“You’re gazing at each other like there’s no one else in the world. So, yes. All right?”
All right.
GPS gets me to the complex in the late afternoon. After a few minutes of wandering around the multi-structure layout, I finally locate the right building and park. We’re up on the third floor—yes, there’s a balcony—and I’m glad I didn’t have to move furniture. Jaye had gotten Rick and Shawn, Kirstie Longstreet’s boyfriend, to help her with the few things she took from the townhome and rented the rest. After all, if this works out, Jaye’s coming back with me to Denver. No need to purchase anything new right now.
I grab two bags of luggage and the backpack holding my computer and head up the stairs. Jaye must have been watching because she opens the door, meets me halfway, and takes one of the bags. When we get inside she drops the stuff by the door, relieves me of my own load, then wraps her arms around me. “Welcome home.” Her breathy voice and ardent kiss make for a most lovely greeting, though we break off way too soon because we have to get the rest of my things.
After hauling everything up to the apartment, I’m ready for a grand tour, but Jaye demurs. “Leave everything here,” she says, gesturing to a spot by the front closet. “We’ll get it later.”
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Oh, right. But come right back out.”
Okay. As I follow her commands I notice the master bedroom door is closed. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” she says in a tone indicating the exact opposite.
I’m curious but play along. “Can I get my computer out and check something, or do you want to have mad passionate sex before dinner?”
Jaye appears honestly torn by the choices. “Umm, dinner first. For energy. Sex later.”
The flat is arranged so the living room and kitchen are divided by a tall bar/counter. The dining table is already set, so I pull out my MacBook and settle on the couch. Jaye goes into the kitchen area. I hear her open the refrigerator door, and suddenly it hits me. I’m in Kansas City with my lover, in our own apartment. She’s doing one thing, I’m doing another, but we’re still sort of doing it together. We’re like any other happy couple getting ready for a quiet evening in—unless she’s hiding a mariachi band in the bedroom.
We’d sort of done this at the townhome, but now it’s our space, mine and Jaye’s. I go still for a moment.
“Do you prefer goat cheese or feta?” Jaye calls from about eight feet behind me.
“Whatever you think works best.”
“Goat cheese it is.”
Such a simple thing, but I blink back tears. I open up the Mac, glad Jaye can’t see me getting emotional over a silly thing like happiness, and go hunting for the Tumblr site Toni mentioned. I find it easily, because whoever set it up used Jaye’s full name in the title.
My turn to call out. “Did you know there’s a Tumblr site devoted completely to you?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” Jaye comes up behind me. She hands me a glass of iced tea, which I put on the coffee table before leaning back. Jaye rests her hands on my shoulders, and a wave of pleasure washes over me.
“There’d be more probably,” I say as I click on the link, “if you took your own photos and posted them on Twitter or Instagram or whatever.”
“You won’t let me take pictures of you,” Jaye says.
“And don’t expect that to change.”
The site comes up, and the lead posting is the picture taken in Boston. The photo shuts us both up.
I remember the moment, and I remember the click of the camera. I also remember seeing nothing but Jaye, feeling nothing but her love emanating out in waves. I never thought a photograph could capture that. But this one does, radiating the whole wonderful aura of us. Spielberg couldn’t have done it better.
My stomach does a solid professional diver routine. How right this is, I think. We fit together. We belong together.
“Oh, my God,” Jaye says from behind me. “That’s, that’s it, isn’t it?”
I glance over my shoulder. “I think we’re stuck with each other.”
Jaye wraps her arms around my neck. “Good.”
I turn my head so she can kiss my lips, and we get fairly hot and bothered before I reluctantly opt to break it off. “Dinner first, remember?”
Jaye pulls back. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later we are seated at the table, partaking of Jaye’s genius creation of a salad.
“This is fantastic,” I rave as I devour the most intriguing mix of lettuce, chicken, cheese and fruit I’ve ever eaten. “How can you say you don’t cook?”
“I don’t. Bree can do anything involving a grill or a stove, so I learned how to do this stuff. It’s not hard.”
No mention of Nickory. “What about the chicken?”
“Kirstie and Shawn grilled last night and let me have some leftovers.”
“We’ll have to return the favor.”
“By taking them out to dinner, right?”
“Maybe. But I can grill a little, too.” I wave my fork at the now-empty plate. “This was delicious, Jaye. Thank you.”
She takes my hand, and we do some soppy gazing into one another’s eyes. Then Jaye stands up. “Let’s do the dishes and go to bed.”
There is no mariachi band in the bedroom. But a dozen long-stemmed roses sit in a vase on the dresser, and candles glow from the tops of both bedside tables and the chest of drawers. Jaye has put some gauzy material over the window that enhances the candlelight. This is romance central.
“I see you’re not settling for the couch this time,” I joke, very weakly.
“We’re going to want a little more space.” She runs her hands down my back. I shiver.
Jaye’s iPad is hiding behind the flowers, connected to a tiny set of speakers. She reaches over, hits a button, and one of the most romantic songs I know, the perfect slow dance song, begins to play: Fleetwood Mac’s “Crystal.”
Jaye pulls me to her, and we stand at the foot of the bed swaying back and forth, like high school kids at the prom.
“I love you, Rachel,” she murmurs in my ear.
“I love you, Jaye,” I whisper back.
The song ends, another equally romantic and slow piece starts, and Jaye moves her lips from my ear to my mouth. As we kiss I feel like I’ve been released from confinement, like dungeon walls have fallen away and Jaye, the sunshine and the light, is there to take me home.
Our kisses are long, deep, slow, and intense, a restrained passion buildi
ng from embers. Truly, madly, deeply . . . as the second, or maybe third, song ends we help each other get our clothes off, and then, naked, we start kissing once more, feeling the contact not just of lips upon lips, but flesh upon flesh. And the embers burn hotter, and glow.
I sit on the edge of the bed, put my hands on Jaye’s hips, and bring her to me.
I kiss her stomach, her navel, work my way down to the center of her. I partake of the depths there, slowly, thoroughly, reverently, conveying with every touch the love I have and need to share.
I feel her legs grow rigid with tension, hear her breath get deeper and faster. She continues to say my name, quietly, gently almost, as she takes my love, lets it run over her in waves of pleasure.
When Jaye comes, she lets out a short sharp cry of release, and her hands grip my shoulders for support. My own hands cup her from behind as her legs give way under the strength of the orgasm. All the while my mouth stays on her, draws the climax out of her, takes her from storm to calm.
“Lie back,” she gasps, and when I do she collapses on top of me, wraps her arms around me as my own encircle her. We hold each other tight as she recovers. I’m in heaven. I have my angel.
And my angel has me. When Jaye raises her head again I see fire in her eyes, and I know it’s my turn for pleasure. She steals a kiss, then slides down my body and off the bed, kneeling between my legs.
She worships me then, as I have just done to her. My cries are not so brief, nor so quiet. I let my release be the release not only of orgasm, but of the tension and fear that I nearly lost this. When I call Jaye’s name, cry out Jaye’s name, scream out Jaye’s name, there is no question what is happening and who is creating the happiness.
When at last I am still, Jaye comes up and kisses me, lets me taste myself on her, and then we take to the whole of the bed and, having worshipped, we sleep, holding each other as we lie side by side.
I like this living together thing.
Chapter Ten
Three weeks into The Great Experiment, I’m immersed in a blur of happiness. My worries that Jaye and I would constantly trip over each other turn out to be groundless, because she’s almost never home.
Pro soccer players, it turns out, work very hard at what they do. A typical day for Jaye includes some light stretching after she wakes up, breakfast, a five-mile run or the gym—or a five-mile run and the gym—practice with the team, practice with various teammates before and after the team session, individual drills, lunch somewhere in the midst of it, then maybe another run before dinner. I would be exhausted. She thrives, and it shows during the games.
Her stellar play peaked with the hat trick, but this means she’s on top of the mountain now. Jaye continues to score goals or assist on goals. She and Kirstie Longstreet are the league leaders in scoring. Jaye works magic on the field and leads the Blues to win after win. Kansas City has not lost since that long ago game against the Flash, and people who know soccer are giving Jaye Stokes much of the credit. She is far and away the front runner for league MVP, and a couple of websites are floating rumors she is at last being considered for the National Team.
“I’m trying not to get my hopes up,” Jaye tells me after I point this out. “But I can’t help it.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing, because your best is top of the table right now.”
“I know.” Jaye isn’t bragging, isn’t copping attitude. The phrase isn’t humble, but the tone is, like she’s surprising even herself.
All this positive energy infuses my own work. The editing stage of Triangle is going smoothly, and I’m casting about for another disaster to hang a book around, homing in on the 1928 collapse of Saint Francis Dam in California. When I run it by Jaye, she congratulates me for moving into “modern times.”
On the home front we are meshing together quite well. We talk out everything, from who does what chores to how we budget funds to whether we eat in—which means salad—or out, since Jaye knows tons of good restaurants in KC. We finally watch Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not. We make full use of the tiny balcony and sit outside in the evenings, talking. And we make full use of our bed, too.
But I find, to my surprise, my life in Kansas City encompasses more than Jaye. We have the Kaisershots and Kirstie and Shawn over for dinner one evening as a thank you for helping Jaye move. The dinner party goes so well Rick and I talk everyone into a Royals’ game the following week, and we all enjoy the night out. Rick Kaisershot and I have become fast friends, bonding over a love of baseball and mutual free schedules—apparently day traders work when they feel like it.
I introduce him to the history of baseball, thrilled to have an eager student. He helps me understand why some of those insanely esoteric stats are actually interesting. We agree to disagree on the importance of the Yankee dynasty. We take Jaye and Becky to the Negro Leagues Museum.
Rick and I don’t even realize how much we’re hanging out together until one day at my apartment when we’re watching World Series highlights courtesy of a DVD set I’ve brought from Denver. We replay the scene from the 1956 Series, where Jackie Robinson steals home.
“Safe,” I insist. “He’s safe!”
“Too close to tell,” Rick counters. “Where’s HD when you need it?”
Rewind. Play again. “Safe!”
“Maybe,” says Rick, ever the Yankee fan. “Yogi still says he got him, though, and you can’t discount that.”
Rewind. Play again. Freeze frame. I vaguely hear the apartment door open behind us.
“Safe!” I say for the third time.
Jaye’s voice rings out loud and clear. “I told you he’d be here!”
Rick and I look up to see Jaye and Becky. Is afternoon practice over already? Jaye winks at me, pleased with herself, while Becky glares at her husband.
Rick pats down his pockets. “I forgot my phone again, didn’t I?”
Becky shakes her head in mock disgust, and we all get a good laugh out of it.
“Admit it—you are so not a recluse,” Jaye says to me the next morning. She’s back from her run and not quite out the door to practice. “You’re having too much fun with the people you’ve met here.”
True. But Jaye has also been more than accommodating about my very acute need for alone time, time to recharge, time to still be a writer. I know this is the honeymoon stage, but we definitely have promise for the future.
Our only break from togetherness, other than Blues’ road games, comes when I go to the Golden Crown Literary Society’s yearly convention. I still go as The Fyrequeene, but a few of my readers are on to me.
“You’re dating a soccer player, aren’t you?” one woman asks as I’m signing books on the penultimate day.
“What makes you think that?”
“I’m a soccer fan, too,” the woman says. “You’ve always blogged about soccer. Then I saw an interview with Jaye Stokes, MVP-to-be, saying she was playing well because she’s in love. Then you blog about being in love and about soccer. One plus one equals couple!”
Intrigued, I hunt down Jaye’s interview and find it on YouTube. Sure enough, when the local TV station asks her why she’s playing so well, Jaye flat out says, “I’m in love. I never knew life could feel this good, and my soccer is better for it.”
The reporter, used to canned responses, can only manage a strangled “Congratulations.” His befuddled response amuses me, and prompts a visit to another website, Facebook, which I’ve finally joined so I can check Jaye’s postings. I want to know if it’s possible to connect Rachel Johnston and The Fyrequeene.
The answer, I discover, is yes, and I spend a restless night coming to terms with the knowledge that I can’t hide any more, can no longer be Rachel the Recluse.
When morning comes I’m surprised to discover my anxiety is gone, and I feel truly at peace with being “outed.” Wow.
When I get back to KC, I tell Jaye, wrapped around her body after a thorough welcome home greeting. “Y
ou think it’s working out, yeah?” she asks.
“So far, so great.”
“Are you ready for the next step?”
“Next step?”
“I want to invite my parents down next weekend.”
Yikes. On some level this is totally expected, but I still freeze up enough for Jaye to notice.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “They’ll like you.”
“Yeah, we’re from the same generation,” I observe wryly. “We’ll have lots in common.”
“Actually,” Jaye says, “you have a guaranteed ‘in’ with my dad, which I’ll tell you about later.”
“Tell me now!”
“Nope. Don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Abruptly she gets out of bed and throws some clothes on. Turns out she’s late for soccer practice, and her rush to get out the door neatly forestalls me finding out what the hell me and her father have in common. I’ll just have to wait, darn it.
Meanwhile: Meet the parents. Yippee.
Over the next three days I learn a lot about Jaye’s family. Tom and Marcia Stokes own a small farm near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Jaye describes to me a childhood of playing in creeks, doing morning chores, and learning to drive a tractor before she drove a car. From what she says, her parents strike me as fairly typical Midwest people, what they used to call salt of the Earth types.
With one little quirk. “My older brother Jonh, J-O-N-H, lives in Cedar Rapids. Jeena, my kid sister, and her husband Troy live on the farm with Mom and Dad, and Jeena will take over when they finally retire. Thank goodness.”
“Jonh, J-O-N-H?”
“Yes. His baptismal name and all. He hated it growing up, swore he was going to change it legally when he turned eighteen, but he never did.”
“Why did they spell it that way?”
“No clue. But they named me Jaye, and my younger sister Jeena, J-E-E-N-A, so they definitely have a ‘J’ thing going.”
Game Changers Page 18