Training Ground

by Kate Christie

  “What did you call me?” His mocking smile fell away and he surged toward her, slamming her into the pillar.

  “Justin, stop it,” Emma hissed, grabbing his shoulder. But he shook her off easily.

  “Fucking dyke,” he bit out, pinning Jamie against the hard stone. “You don’t belong here and you never will.”

  She blinked, feeling herself freeze as his face loomed over hers. Before she could convince her body to react, she glimpsed a flash of dark hair over his shoulder.

  “Back off, Justin,” Dani said, her voice low and threatening. “Otherwise my brothers here might lose their tempers, and I don’t think you want that.”

  Beside her hulked a pair of scruffy guys who looked like they could pick Justin up with one hand if they wanted. Apparently he thought so too. He let her go and took a step back, raising his hands in mock surrender.

  “That’s cool. I was just on my way out. Emma,” he added with a nod. Then he glared at Jamie again. “Freak.” And he went off to join his boys, most of whom were milling around uncertainly a little ways away.

  As he retreated, Jamie clenched and unclenched her fists, her breath coming in short gasps. It wasn’t too late. She could still hit him. Her mind seized on the nearest object—a folding chair in the back row—and she cycled through the possibilities in less than a millisecond: grabbing the chair and breaking it over his head; watching Justin be strapped to a stretcher and carried away in an ambulance; and finally, being arrested and hauled off in handcuffs herself for assaulting Emma’s ex-boyfriend at her father’s memorial service.

  Yeah, Justin Tate definitely wasn’t worth it.

  Tears of reaction stung her eyes as she forced herself to stay where she was. The last time someone had put their hands on her like that…

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked softly, touching her arm.

  Jamie flinched away from the contact. “Fine,” she muttered, and looked away from the hurt in Emma’s eyes. “I’ll be right back.” She stalked off without waiting for an answer.

  In the women’s restroom she headed straight for a sink, ignoring the older woman who did a double-take at her appearance. Jaw clenched, she dunked her hands under the cold spray and closed her eyes, trying to focus on her breathing. When she heard the other woman leave she relaxed a little, relieved that she hadn’t had to argue that no, she wasn’t a teenaged boy, and yes, she belonged in the women’s room. She didn’t think she could handle another confrontation so soon.

  The icy water soon shocked her brain out of fight or flight mode, so she moved on to reciting her mantra. The familiar refrain helped but she still felt jittery, as if her bones wanted to escape the confines of her skin. She and Shoshanna were going to have plenty to discuss at her next session. For one thing, she had never felt so close to bludgeoning another person. The rage had ignited suddenly, and her blood pressure must have risen with it because her vision had actually seemed to narrow and darken. Apparently “seeing red” wasn’t only a figure of speech.

  Behind her she heard the door open, and she leaned over the sink, splashing her face while checking the mirror surreptitiously. Not that she really thought Justin would come after her again, but stranger things had happened.

  Dani stopped inside the door. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Emma sent me to check on you. She had to get back to her mom and Ty.”

  “Of course.” Jamie turned the water off. She didn’t look at Dani as she pulled a paper towel from a dispenser and dried her face. “I guess it’s a good thing my mascara’s waterproof.”

  “What?” Dani looked at her blankly.

  Jamie tossed the paper towel. “Just kidding.”

  “Oh.” After a moment, Dani’s features relaxed into a slight smile.

  “Thanks,” Jamie added, “for showing up when you did.”

  Dani shrugged. “No problem. It looked you and Emma could use some back-up.”

  “You could say that.”

  They studied each other in the dimly lit bathroom, and Jamie wondered if she was imagining the change she thought she sensed in the other girl. Dani’s earlier doubt seemed to have vanished, almost as if she had decided at some point in the past couple of hours to accept Jamie’s place in Emma’s life—whatever that might be.

  “Come on,” Dani said, nodding at the door. “I’ll walk you back out there. Blake’s orders.”

  “In that case, we better get going,” Jamie said, and followed her out into the bright lights of the pavilion.

  #

  Emma barely made eye contact with the people who came to say goodbye to her family. She kept glancing toward the far side of the massive room looking for Jamie and Dani, and only relaxed when they finally reemerged from the hallway. They hadn’t been gone all that long and everything appeared fine, but Emma was still on edge. Justin could have hurt Jamie—in fact, it was possible he had—and it was all her fault. If she had responded to any of his overtures instead of completely freezing him out, he might not have gone after Jamie like that. Or maybe he still would have. Thank god Dani and her brothers had been there. Otherwise, Justin might have…

  She stopped the thought and tried to focus as another man she didn’t know stopped to offer his condolences. While her mother thanked him for coming, Emma forced herself to smile politely yet again. It was almost over. All week they had been planning the service, and now that it was nearly done she wasn’t sure what came next. She’d known people would show up; she just hadn’t realized how many.

  At first she’d hated the idea of their family’s pain being on display in front of such a large crowd. But then so many friends and acquaintances had shared stories of her dad’s impact on their lives that in the end, the service had turned out far better than she’d anticipated—even if she’d felt dishonest painting him in her eulogy as a selfless saint and herself as the good daughter. The reality was far more complex than most of the people present could have imagined.

  Beside her Ty fidgeted, his eyes on Jamie and Dani where they stood with the Minnesota cousins.

  “Do you want to go hang out with them?” Emma asked her brother.

  “Can I?” He looked surprised.

  Emma nodded. “Go ahead. Mom and I have this.”

  He offered her a grateful smile. “Thanks, Em.” And then he almost sprinted over to the small group, a bigger smile on his face than she’d expected to see today. Jamie held up her fist and they cycled through some elaborate greeting she must have taught him over the weekend while Emma had been occupied with her friends and working on the eulogy. It was so sweet how Jamie had taken it upon herself to look after Ty. She was like a big sister and a big brother all rolled into one. Ty was going to be bummed when she left.

  Who was she kidding? She was the one who was going to be bummed. At least they had a few more days together before she would have to face that particular loss.

  The pavilion finally emptied out a little while later. While family and close friends wandered off to enjoy the next few hours before the evening reception, Emma, her mom, Ty, and Jamie carried the mounted photo and a box of leftover programs to a nearby parking garage. As they stood next to the Volvo, her mom said, “It’s such a nice night and I don’t want to go home yet. What about a quick walk in the arboretum?”

  Everyone agreed and the plan was settled. As she’d done on the way into town, Emma let her brother have the front seat so that she and Jamie could share the back. Once the car was headed crosstown, she leaned over and said softly, “We always take a walk in the arboretum during the first week of April.”

  Jamie only nodded, gazing out the window at the city as they sped along Denny Way. Her jaw seemed squarer than usual somehow, and she still hadn’t really looked at Emma since the scene with Justin.

  Hesitantly, Emma covered Jamie’s hand with her own. “Hey,” she said, keeping her voice low.

  Jamie’s eyes remained fixed on the skyline, but at least she didn’t pull her hand away. “What?”


  “I’m sorry about Justin.”

  That got her attention. “Why are you sorry? He’s the asshole.”

  “I know, but it feels like it’s my fault he came after you.”

  “Why would it be your fault?”

  She thought again about telling Jamie why she’d broken up with him, but it still felt too much like an invitation to have The Talk. She couldn’t risk losing Jamie, not now.

  “I guess because he was only there because of me,” she said.

  “Oh.” Jamie looked out the window again, her jaw still tight.

  Emma knew she should say something. It was her ex-boyfriend after all who had threatened Jamie, her… what? Her best friend? Her girlfriend? Neither title quite fit. But what else did you call the girl you loved and who you were pretty sure loved you back, if not your girlfriend? Jamie had dropped everything to come be with her and hold her through the night so she wouldn’t have nightmares, and how did Emma repay her? With violence and fear, mixed messages and cowardice. Jamie deserved so much more than she was able—or willing?—to give.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. A memory flashed into her mind, that night at the EMP when her dad warned her away from Jamie for what would be the last time. What he thought about Jamie didn’t matter now, if it ever had. He was gone and Jamie was here, though not for long. Soon she would be gone too. And then so would Emma.

  Again Emma had the sense of time slipping away too quickly, carrying her away from everyone and everything she thought she knew. She wished there was a pause button she could hit, a giant do-over button that everyone got to use one time in their lives.

  But who would she choose to save, Jamie or her father?

  The arboretum was crowded. Ty ran ahead to climb trees like he usually did, leaving Emma to walk behind flanked by their mom and Jamie. She slipped her arms through each of theirs, relieved when, after a tense moment, Jamie’s eyes finally softened and she relaxed into Emma’s side. She had wanted Jamie to be in Seattle so badly the previous weekend, but now she was glad that if she was here for anything, it was this—the day they started the rest of their lives without him. The service had signaled a shift from handling the details surrounding his passing to beginning to adjust to life without him. He really was gone, and this was where the actual mourning started: here in this beautiful park he’d loved, with tulips blooming in colorful waves and cherry blossom petals floating on the breeze.

  She remembered her mother’s reading—insects that opened their wings for the first time to morning sunlight and succumbed to death at sundown on the same day; flowers that bloomed for a single hour before passing away to, what was it? Return to eternity. She had read that passage before more than once. Both of her parents were obsessed with John Muir, so she’d grown up with his collected works the way kids in other families grew up reading the Bible. Still, she’d never really stopped to think about the constant flow from birth to death of the creatures—insects, flowers, leaves, trees—all around her. At least, not that she remembered.

  Another memory sparked then, and she nudged her mother. “Tell Jamie about the first time you brought me here.”

  Her mom smiled, glancing across her to focus on Jamie. “Emma was a year old when we moved out from Massachusetts and already running around like crazy, of course. That fall, when we came around a curve in the path and saw a pile of leaves the gardeners had raked together, Emma stopped running and started to cry. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong until she took a handful of leaves and tried to put them back on one of the trees.”

  “Aw,” Jamie said, smiling over at Emma. “That’s so cute.”

  “She was. Still is, actually,” her mom added.

  Emma rolled her eyes, but secretly, she felt better at that moment than she would have thought possible. They walked on, reciting familiar stories about long-past family outings, and in the warm sunshine filtering through trees bursting with new growth, Emma could almost convince herself that everything would be all right.

  But then night fell, as it always did, and her fragile sense of well-being faded. By the time the informal reception they’d held back at the house began to wind down, Emma more than needed a break. She loved her extended family, but she could only take so much rehashing of the service and retelling of yet more stories.

  “Lucy,” she called, grabbing the extension leash from the hook with one hand and her fleece with the other. As the old dog lumbered over, Emma caught Jamie’s eye where she was drying dishes. Coming? Jamie nodded and tossed her towel to Kent, the oldest cousin.

  They pulled on jackets, stepped into sneakers, and slipped out of the warm, brightly lit house. The sun was still setting over the Peninsula. Overhead the clouds were dark gray, barely tinged with pink. Emma thought of all the times she and her father had taken this walk down the long driveway together, Lucy trotting along between them. He had been worried about the old dog’s health lately, concerned that he would go away and something would happen to her in his absence. Instead, the opposite had come to pass.

  How did you tell a dog that the person they loved most in the world wasn’t ever coming home?

  “You hanging in there?” Jamie asked.

  Emma reached over and slipped her arm through Jamie’s. “I am now.” She had never been a touchy feely person, not even with Drew, her first boyfriend. But somehow she felt better when she and Jamie were close, calmer, more at peace with herself and the world. It was selfish, she knew, but she had felt the connection ever since the night they met, and she didn’t have it in her to resist its pull right now, not after the day she had just lived through.

  Gently Jamie tugged her closer, and Emma was glad she didn’t seem to need to talk either. They simply walked the dog and looked at the light fading from the sky and listened to the sound of the waves coming and going somewhere below them.

  They didn’t get another chance to talk until bedtime. Then, as soon as they were snuggled up together as usual with Jamie’s arms around her and the darkness pressing in, Emma said, “Thank you for being here.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I almost lost it up on stage, but then I saw you looking at me and I knew I could do it.”

  “Yeah? ’Cause I totally thought you were going to freak out and pull a Ty.”

  Emma smiled a little. “So did I, to be honest.”

  “You did an amazing job, though, you know?”

  “Thanks.” The truth was, she did know. To her surprise, once she’d gotten going—and in spite of the occasion—she had actually enjoyed being up there in front of all those people. Another way she was like her father, apparently. He’d always liked public speaking.

  “So was that woman who left at the end the one your dad…?”

  Emma exhaled. “Yeah. I still can’t believe she had the nerve to show up.”

  “I don’t know. I kind of feel sorry for her. You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

  “True. But you can help who you fall in bed with.” As soon as the words were out, she realized her timing could have been better, given the fact they were currently lying wrapped around each other in her bed. “Anyway, who would have thought a memorial service would have so much drama? I’m sorry again about Justin.”

  “I told you, you don’t have to be sorry. You’re not responsible for his actions.”

  She knew she wasn’t, but Jamie might feel differently if she could see the big picture. Wouldn’t telling her only send more mixed signals, though? More mixed than, say, cuddling with her in bed every night and then pretending each morning that it hadn’t happened? She burrowed deeper into Jamie’s arms, seeking the sense of safety she provided so easily, so willingly. So selflessly.

  Selfless. Emma shivered a little, and Jamie hugged her tighter.

  “What?”

  “You know how I read that quote from Robert Ingersoll about character?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I told my dad a couple of months ag
o that he was pretty much completely lacking in character because I knew how much it would hurt him.”

  She didn’t mention they’d been arguing about her. What was it about Jamie that provoked the people in her life? No, the men in her life. Her mother had shown Jamie nothing but kindness, as had Ty. But her brother was still a boy, really.

  “Were you talking about the affair?” Emma nodded, and Jamie added, “Well, he did lie and cheat, so…”

  “I know, but that’s not the sum of who he was. It’s funny, today I actually felt like I was the one lying. I get that his purpose was greater than being my father, but I wish I could have said the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That being his daughter hurt. But those people today didn’t want to hear that I don’t think he was a saint. They don’t want to know that I think he thrived on the power of being a surgeon, that he liked having control over other people’s lives.”

  “Couldn’t he be all those things and still be what you said he was? Selfless and like, overall a good person?”

  “Yeah, I think he is. Was,” she corrected herself. “My mom is one of the smartest people I know, and she was able to take him back and trust him again. I guess it’s that today I felt like I had to focus solely on the good, and that feels dishonest because of where he and I are. Were. You know?”

  “I think so.”

  Emma paused. Then: “Jamie.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to tell me what I want to hear just because it was my father’s funeral today.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly why I have to tell you what you want to hear.”

  She smiled in the dark. “You’re a good egg.”

  “A good egg?”

  “It’s something this girl on the national team always says. She’s from New York though, so…”

  “Those right coasters are weird.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  Emma pictured Tori, born and bred in upstate New York, and realized she hadn’t thought much about her in the last few days, not even when she pulled on her pilfered T-shirt at night. Which was strange—when she was with Jamie, she barely thought about Tori, while at camp, Jamie was always on her mind, even when she flirted with Tori. Maybe especially then.