Training Ground

by Kate Christie

  Her mother was in the living room when she got home, curled up on the couch with a book, Lucy asleep beside her. She glanced up and smiled when Emma wandered in.

  “Hi, sweetheart. How was dinner?”

  “Fine.” Emma walked over to the couch and squeezed between the dog and her mother, leaning her head on her mom’s shoulder. She smelled familiar, of vanilla soap and lemon ginger tea.

  “You sure about that?” her mom asked as she set the book aside and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Not really.” For a moment, she thought about telling her mom. But then she pushed the idea away. Why traumatize her parents when she hadn’t figured things out yet for herself?

  “And here I thought you would be on cloud nine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “US Soccer came up on caller ID. I assume you have news to share?”

  She filled her mom in on the call, as well as Dani and Sian’s—and her own, of course—disappointment at the timing.

  “Ah, I see,” her mother said, pulling her reading glasses off and setting them on top of her book. “You have to choose between your past and your future, and that’s rarely a stress-free task.”

  Except that Emma hadn’t stressed over the decision at all. She didn’t bother correcting her mother, though. The fact that she had thrown her high school team’s post-season under the bus without hesitation was not one of her prouder moments. But she was only being pragmatic, which as an American of Scandinavian descent—her mother had grown up in Minnesota, land of ten thousand lakes and a million or so Swedes—was her birthright.

  “Is that why you’re not celebrating the call-up, or is something else bothering you?”

  “Something else,” she admitted, and leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder again.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Her hand ran soothingly over Emma’s hair.

  “If you don’t mind.” But she wasn’t sure how to broach the topic of her conversation with Jamie. The farther she got from the call, the more she wondered if she wasn’t reading into things. What if she was wrong? Then again, what if she wasn’t? “It’s about Jamie, actually.”

  The hand on her hair froze. “I see,” her mom said slowly. “I have to admit, your father and I did wonder.”

  Emma glanced at her. What…? But then she realized and pulled away, frowning. “Not that. God, Mom, we’re just friends.”

  She held up a hand. “I’m sorry. You seem very close with this girl, and when you mentioned she was gay, the thought did enter our minds.”

  You and everyone else. Emma shook her head. “Jamie being gay is not the issue.”

  Her mom took her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “What is, then?”

  Haltingly, she told her what she knew and what she only thought she knew. Her mom listened closely, her face growing more and more serious as Emma described their assorted interactions.

  “I already know she’s never had a boyfriend, and she’s been out since she was thirteen, so unless she hooked up with a guy at a ridiculously young age, which I totally doubt, then that would mean…it would mean she must have been…” She trailed off, looking at her mother.

  “Are you saying you think she could have been assaulted?”

  Emma nodded, swallowing against the knot in her throat. The idea of some strange man doing terrible things to sweet, funny Jamie made her want to go out and slam a soccer ball against the garage door as hard as she could. Or what if it wasn’t a stranger? What if it was someone she still had to see regularly, like a coach or a teacher or even a relative?

  “From what you’ve said, it does sound possible.” Her mother tightened her grip on her hand as Emma exhaled noisily. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I had hoped you wouldn’t ever have to deal with something like this, especially not in such a close friend.”

  “What do I do, though? Should I ask her about it or do I wait until she brings it up?”

  “It’s up to you, sweetie. You could bring it up or you could wait for her to raise the topic herself. Either way, the main thing is to let her know that you care about her and that you’re there for her.”

  Emma rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I really don’t want to do or say the wrong thing.”

  Her mother slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I have some material at the office you can read to prepare for if and when she tells you. Would you like to look through it together?”

  “That would be great,” Emma said.

  Her mother kissed her forehead. “You’re a good person and a great friend, you know that?”

  “I really care about her.”

  “I know you do.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, their eyes on the ferry and barge lights blinking between the mainland and the island. Then Emma said, “Life is going to keep getting more complicated from here on out, isn’t it?”

  Her mother nodded. “It is. And with your big heart, I’m afraid you’re going to feel like it’s your job to protect the people you care about. But the fact is, you can’t save anyone else, honey. The only person who can do that for Jamie is Jamie. If and when she’s ready, she’ll let you in.”

  “What if she isn’t ever ready?”

  “I doubt that will be the case. From what you’ve said, it sounds like she has a very close, loving family. They’ll help her through it. Assuming they know?”

  “Um, yeah.” Emma remembered the panicked look in Jamie’s mother’s eyes when they’d returned five minutes late to the hotel in Del Mar. “I’m almost positive.”

  “Hopefully they’ve got her in counseling. Research shows that the sooner a rape victim begins to heal, the better their long-term chances are at overcoming depression, self-hatred, and everything else that comes with sexual assault.”

  Emma’s throat tightened again. Rape victim, depression, sexual assault—her mom sounded so detached. This was Jamie they were talking about, the first person Emma talked to most mornings, the last person she talked to at night. Jamie, who listened quietly and somehow always knew the right thing to say.

  “Ah, geez.” Her mother squeezed her tighter. “I didn’t mean to go all clinical on you, sweetie. I know you’re worried about your friend, and I’m here for you, okay? It’s important that you have support through all of this, too.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Emma kissed her mother’s cheek. “You know you’re pretty great too, right?”

  Her mother shook her head. “When did you get so grown up?”

  “I am a senior, Mom, remember?”

  “How could I forget?”

  Her mother’s smile was lopsided, and Emma was pretty sure she knew why. Even though her parents understood her dream to go to UNC and supported her decision a hundred percent, it would be difficult to watch her go so far away when most of their friends’ children were headed to U-Dub or Western, Whitman or Reed. Pacific Northwest kids typically stayed closer to home. They didn’t pick schools that were thousands of miles away.

  “I’ll be home for holidays,” she reminded her mother, “and summers, too. It’s not like I’ll be gone forever.”

  “I know, sweetheart. Don’t worry about us old folks. You worry about you.”

  They talked a little longer, and then Emma jogged up the stairs in the center of the house, one hand on the wooden railing that lined the wall. They had moved to this house when she was ten, and by now she knew every creaky stair and floorboard like the back of her hand. It was hard to imagine that there were other houses, dorm rooms, apartments that she would grow to know equally as well. Hard to imagine that anyplace else would ever feel like home.

  But for now, home still meant her cream-walled room and her window overlooking the Sound, her parents and brother down the hall, the wind off the water carrying with it the scent of salt and seaweed. Her heart was still here, although that wasn’t entirely true anymore. Part of it was eight hundred miles away in another city on a bay with a girl who was broken but trying her best not to be. Emma hoped Jamie w
ould give her a chance to help in any way she could. Because even though she understood rationally that she couldn’t save anyone who didn’t want to be saved, that didn’t keep her from wanting to try.

  Chapter Three

  “HAPPY THANKSGIVING! It’s eighty and sunny here,” Jamie texted. “How about Seattle?”

  Emma’s reply came right away. “Funny. As in looking, not hardy-har-har.”

  “Someone’s bitter.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Um….” Jamie typed.

  “You’re hilarious but I have to go peel like a thousand potatoes.”

  “Huh. Didn’t realize there were any Amish this far west.”

  “Again with the humor. Check your email. I sent you something. Ciao for now.”

  “Ciao.”

  Jamie set her phone on the coffee table in her aunt and uncle’s den. Beside her, her younger cousin played Super Mario on his Gameboy while on the other couch her father and his brother, a slightly older, markedly yuppier version of himself, were drinking microbrews and discussing the Trojan horse that hackers had tried to slip into the latest version of Linux. On television, the Dolphins were trouncing the Cowboys, which probably made most non-Texan Americans happy. And really, were Texans even American? Hadn’t they been threatening to secede from the Union pretty much since day one?

  She managed to deflect her curiosity for all of three minutes before jogging upstairs to knock on her older cousin’s bedroom door.

  “Come in!”

  “Hey.” Jamie ducked into the very large, very pink bedroom.

  Nikki turned away from her dressing table and held her cell phone away from her ear. “Is it time to come down already?”

  “No, I was hoping I could check my email.”

  Her cousin, who was a year ahead in school and a thousand times girlier than her or Meg, waved her manicured hand at the Mac on her desk. Then she went right back to her phone conversation, which appeared to revolve around a boy with a tattoo in a certain hard-to-see area.

  Like Jamie’s dad, Nikki’s father was a tech geek, though he worked in the public relations field rather than in software. The Mac purred to life and quickly connected to the Internet, and soon Jamie was opening the promised email attachment. The photo showed Emma posing with her back to the camera and her arms raised to show off her muscles as she smiled over her shoulder at the viewfinder. She was wearing the shirt Jamie had ordered on eBay and sent her for her birthday—a Man U jersey with her last name and soccer number embroidered on it.

  “Awesome,” Jamie said out loud, laughing. The jersey looked good on her. Then again, everything looked good on Emma. Not that she would have told her as much. Didn’t want the straight girl to think she was hitting on her.

  Being friends with a straight girl could be a challenge, in Jamie’s experience. The girls at school either treated her like she was a freak or, alternately, batted their eyelashes and felt her biceps, giggling as if she was just another guy to worship them. Emma hadn’t behaved like that at all, which was another thing Jamie appreciated about her. She didn’t worry that at some point Emma would pout and ask her why she hadn’t tried to put the moves on her.

  Honestly, Jamie couldn’t imagine putting the moves on anyone. The thought of touching someone or being touched herself, even by a girl she found attractive, made her stomach flip, and not in a good way. Shoshanna, her therapist, said this reaction would pass eventually, but Jamie would believe it when she saw it. Fortunately, her parents had a rule that she wasn’t allowed to date until she was sixteen, which took the pressure off. For now, she would continue on as she always had, hanging out with teammates who accepted her for who she was or with guy friends who treated her like one of them. Her skating buddies talked a good game, and she joined in. But when it came to actually hooking up with a girl, she still got the jitters every time she thought about it.

  She hit reply on the email and sent Emma a rambling message about her aunt and uncle’s house in Pasadena. The back yard was large enough to easily fit a pool, gazebo, hot tub, outdoor kitchen, and flower garden that her Aunt Mary maintained herself. Nikki and Todd, who was thirteen, bemoaned the fact that they had to work in the garden for at least an hour every weekend. But what did they expect with a mom who worked as a curator at The Huntington?

  At the end of the email, she paused and then wrote, “BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Any interest in visiting Berkeley over Christmas break? Assuming you don’t have to jet off again for the national team, that is. My parents said it would be okay. I would offer to come up there but they won’t let me. While that may seem lame, they have their reasons, which I actually thought we might talk about if you come to California.”

  She paused to reread what she’d written, and then deleted the last two sentences. While she wanted to tell Emma about France, she didn’t want to commit to doing so. What if their friendship was better from a distance? What if they finally saw each other again and didn’t have anything to say? Honestly, she couldn’t imagine such a scenario, but if Christmas was the right time to have the big talk, she would know it. Shoshanna had encouraged her to tell Emma if she felt ready. Apparently opening up about her experiences to someone she trusted was a signal that she was on the path to healing.

  Nikki turned off her phone and stood up. “Are you almost done? I need to get on there.”

  “Oh, yeah, give me a sec.”

  She typed the rest of the note quickly: “Anyway, let me know what you think. I’m off school December twentieth through January seventh, and we have family visiting until the twenty-eighth. Anytime between the twenty-ninth and the seventh works at our end. Thanks again for the awesome photo. Happy Turkey Day!! Love, Jamie.”

  With Nikki standing behind her, she hit send and logged out of her email account. As she closed the browser window, it suddenly occurred to her how she’d signed off—love? That was a first. She chewed her lip. She had meant it as a friend, of course. Emma wouldn’t read into it, would she?

  “Jamie?”

  She glanced up into her cousin’s expectant face. “Sorry,” she said, and rose.

  “Your girlfriend is really pretty. Does she play soccer, too?”

  “Yeah, but she’s not my girlfriend. My parents won’t let me date yet.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes. “Mine tried that whole not-dating-until-we-decide-you’re-old-enough thing, too. There are ways around it if you want to be with someone enough.”

  “Well, Emma and I are only friends.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said, but Jamie could hear the doubt in her voice.

  Was it so hard to believe that a lesbian could be friends with a straight girl? Geez. It wasn’t like she was actually a guy, even if people mistook her for one occasionally. She could keep it in her pants as well as the next teenaged girl. Probably better, given what Shoshanna referred to as her “intimacy issues.”

  As she jogged back downstairs to resume the sacred Thanksgiving tradition of heckling the Cowboys, she released a breath. Why was it that when you didn’t want to have sex, it was all anyone wanted to talk about? Or maybe she was reaching the age where it was all anyone talked about regardless.

  Damn. She missed being a kid already, and she wasn’t quite sixteen.

  On her way to the den, she detoured to the large kitchen where her mother and Aunt Mary were seated at the slate-tiled bar enjoying wine and brie. The scent of roast turkey filled the air while the sound of the dishwasher echoed rhythmically off rustic walls and exposed wooden beams. Tall windows afforded a view of the pool where she could see Meg reclining in a lounger, soaking up the early winter sunshine. Much as she ripped on Southern California—the rivalry was a regional requirement—Jamie had to admit that this kind of warmth in late November was not the worst thing ever.

  “Hola, chiquitas,” she said to the sisters-in-law seated with heads close together.

  They paused mid-sentence, and Jamie stopped in the middle of the room, taking in her mother’s red eyes and
her aunt’s forced smile.

  “Hi, honey,” her mother said quickly, sitting up straighter.

  Maybe it wasn’t what it seemed and they hadn’t in fact been talking about her. Even if they had, she didn’t have to deal with it. She could simply grab a soda and duck out.

  “Dinner is still an hour or so away,” Aunt Mary said, her cheerful tone a little bit off.

  “I just came in to get a Sprite.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Even in middle age, her aunt maintained a slender figure. Her skin was smooth—the luck of the Asians, she liked to say—and her hair was as black as it had ever been, her eyes as bright. Now those eyes settled on Jamie’s face only briefly before skittering away, and Jamie felt her chest tighten. She knew. Her aunt knew, and she couldn’t even look at her.

  Jamie stared at her mother. “Did you tell her?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low. “I needed—”

  “You needed? Seriously, Mom? I can’t believe you.”

  She turned and walked out, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she strode across the Spanish tile entryway. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even her mom’s story to share. Before she could formulate a plan, she burst out the front door and down the walk. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t look into their concerned faces and read the pity in their eyes. It only reminded her that she would never be—could never be—the same.

  “Jamie! Wait,” her father called after her.

  But she pretended she hadn’t heard. Leaving her aunt and uncle’s house behind, she began to run along the sidewalk, heading toward the nearby foothills. Her legs were tired from her morning swim but loose, and she ran at an LSD pace—long slow distance. She didn’t push it. Her coaches would kill her if she tore something in an angsty attempt to escape family drama. There was always something at the holidays, wasn’t there? She just wasn’t accustomed to being at the center of the ruckus.