Chapter Twelve
JAMIE LAY ON her stomach on the hotel room bed, clutching the extra pillow over her ears. She had only been in LA for a few hours and already national team camp was not living up to her expectations. She’d been psyched about this opportunity ever since she’d received the call the week after school let out. For the first—and possibly only—time all year, the U-16s, -17s and -19s would spend a week training together at US Soccer headquarters in Carson before another round of friendlies with the Mexican and Canadian youth teams. This meant that not only would she get to experience an awesome week of high-level soccer, but she and Emma would actually be at national team camp together. Even though things had been strained between them recently, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Emma before she left for North Carolina.
Her parents had been excited, too, because LA was close enough that they could come see her and Emma play. Instead of taking their usual time off around the Fourth, they put in for a week’s vacation to coincide with camp later in July. Even Meg was taking a week off from her job at a music store in the Mission to come down and spend time with the Pasadena relatives.
Jamie’s excitement had taken its first hit midway through the car ride down to LA, when a text popped up from Emma: “Hey. Are you on your way?”
“Yes,” she’d texted back, frowning as she looked at her watch. “Wait. Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane?”
“About that… Call me?”
“I’m in the car with my family.”
“Oh. Right.”
Jamie waited, chewing on her lip, and then she typed the question she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know the answer to: “Are you still coming?”
“No. I pulled a hamstring and my coach thinks I should rest it.”
Jamie looked out the window at the passing scenery. People who had never been to California were always surprised when they visited and discovered that most of the state was desert. “What about the redwoods?” tourists from the East Coast inevitably asked. “And the palm trees?” As if the presence of trees in a few coastal stretches signaled the existence of an abundant groundwater supply. In fact, California piped in most of its water from other states. What genius had come up with the idea to concentrate the nation’s food production in a state that was chronically short of water?
Emma texted again: “Jamie? Are you there?”
Instead of replying, she hit the call button beside Emma’s name. They weren’t that far from Bakersfield. Maybe the reception wouldn’t be too bad.
“I thought I’d lost you,” Emma said.
Jamie kept her face turned toward the window, her voice low. “Are you really not coming?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t risk it. There’s too much on the line.”
She didn’t sound that sorry, but then again, Jamie actually hadn’t talked to her much lately. It was summer, so they were both busy playing travel league, hanging out with friends, and, in Jamie’s case, working. She’d landed a job at Ben and Jerry’s and had already made a few friends among the mostly college-aged workers. Who knew that scooping ice cream would turn out to be the queerest of queer jobs in an already mightily queer town? With everything going on in their lives, she’d been hoping this camp might offer a chance to close some of the distance that had opened up between them.
“I’m sorry,” Emma repeated when Jamie didn’t say anything. “I really wanted to see you before—”
“Before you leave the West Coast and I never see you again?”
So much for being quiet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Meg pull her headphones off and stare at her, frowning.
“Of course you’ll see me again. It’s not like I’m moving to another country. Besides, there’s always the national team pool.”
“We both know there’s no guarantee for me.”
“That’s not true, Jamie! You’re so talented.”
“I’m also inconsistent and easily distracted, and my work ethic is sometimes a little iffy.”
“Who told you that?”
“Jolene Nichols at the last camp.” The U-16 coach had also told her she had a rare gift for the game and that none of those issues were unusual in someone so young. With time and dedication, Jo had said, she was sure Jamie could be one of the best midfielders in the country in her age group.
“Those don’t exactly sound like unfixable problems,” Emma pointed out.
Maybe she really was psychic. Which, honestly, was an alarming thought on so many levels.
“Look,” Emma added, “I would be there if I could. But preseason starts in less than a month and I have the World Cup to think about. You know how tricky hamstrings can be.”
She did. Only she had been looking forward to seeing Emma so much that now, somehow, training camp didn’t seem quite as appealing. She pinched the bridge of her nose. She was lucky even to have a shot at the national pool. It would be colossally stupid to let a girl get in the way of everything she’d worked for.
The reception blanked out for a few seconds. “I think I’m losing you,” Jamie said, and then winced at her word choice. Nothing like your subconscious mind to mess with you.
Emma’s voice dropped. “Will you call me when you get back from camp?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Geez, don’t sound so excited.”
Jamie dropped her chin to her chest, picking at a scab on one of her knees. “What do you want me to say, Emma? This was our last chance to hang out before you leave.”
“Maybe not.”
Jamie’s head lifted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I have a bunch of frequent flyer miles, and it’s not like Seattle and San Francisco are that far apart…”
“Are you serious?” She stared out the window again, trying to bite back the enormous grin trying to hijack her face.
“Completely,” Emma said, her voice soft. “I want to see you too, you know.”
She hadn’t known, actually. But the handful of words helped make the pain of Emma’s absence recede a little.
They’d hung up a few minutes later with promises to talk soon, and Jamie had stared out the window, picturing a weekend in San Francisco with Emma. They would walk on the beach and talk, and maybe this time Jamie wouldn’t be so afraid. Maybe this time she would tell her how she really felt. Because whether they were together or not, her feelings for Emma hadn’t changed. She was beginning to think they never would.
“You’re smiling way too much for that call to mean what I think it did,” Meg said.
“Emma got injured and isn’t coming,” Jamie told her, keeping her voice down so their parents wouldn’t hear her over the sound of Yo-Yo Ma’s greatest hits. “But… she might come to visit before she leaves for North Carolina.”
Meg sighed. “Jesus, James. What am I going to do with you?”
“Maybe let me be happy for as long as possible before reality comes crashing back in?”
“Sure,” her sister had said, nodding. “You let me know how that works out.”
Now Jamie clutched her pillow tighter, trying to drown out Britt’s snoring. The keeper had a deviated septum, as everyone on the team knew. Of all the girls in camp to land as her hotel buddy… Somehow she must have slept, though, because the alarm woke her the next morning at seven. Yawning, she stumbled around the room looking for her baseball cap. It wouldn’t be fair to inflict her bedhead on anyone.
“Did I keep you up?” Britt asked guiltily as they brushed their teeth side by side. At least, that was what Jamie thought she said.
“No.” She smiled reassuringly around her toothbrush.
“Oh.” Britt brightened and spat her toothpaste into the sink. “Sweet.”
They stopped by Angie’s room to pick her up for breakfast. Downstairs in the hotel conference room they went through the buffet line together, choosing from a smorgasbord of high-protein, low-refined sugar options. Jamie piled fresh pineapple on her plate next to eggs, toast, and bacon, and
then paused at the coffee machine. Normally she was a tea girl, but with Britt as her roommate, the hard stuff might be in order.
Coffee, naturally, made her think of Seattle, which made her think of Emma, and she smiled as she remembered the text Emma had sent that morning: “Good luck at camp! Kick ass, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She wasn’t sure what that last part meant, but the fact that Emma had been up early this morning thinking about her was enough.
“Okay, who’s got you looking so sprung this morning?” Angie asked as Jamie approached the table.
She frowned. “I don’t look sprung.”
“I don’t know.” Britt glanced at Angie. “There was some major cheesy smiling going on upstairs over the first text of the day.”
“Ooh, is it that girl from school?” Angie asked. “Faith?”
“No. We broke up last week.”
“But that picture you sent of the two of you was adorable,” Angie said, and Britt nodded in agreement. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t out to her parents and it got kind of old sneaking around.”
That part was true. It just wasn’t the reason Jamie had ended things. Only Shoshanna knew the real reason—Faith liked to party and wanted to move faster than Jamie was comfortable with, and rather than ask if she would be okay cutting back on the drinking and possibly slowing things down, Jamie had bailed. It was possible the decision might also have had something to do with the fact that she’d thought she’d be seeing Emma at camp. You know, maybe.
“Seriously?” Angie shook her head. “You have some high standards, Max. Almost no one I know is out to their parents.”
“Same here,” Britt agreed.
Just then a tall girl slid her tray across the table and into Britt’s, spilling her orange juice.
“What the hell?” Britt jumped up, whirling around with a glare that turned into a grin as she saw the other girl. “Dude! I didn’t know you’d be here!”
“Ditto,” the new girl said, and gave Britt a boisterous bro hug.
The tall girl turned out to be Samantha Sullivan, AKA Sully, from the club team Britt had played on in Tucson before moving to Phoenix. Sully had been called up to the U-19s in the fall, though she hadn’t made the roster for qualifiers. There was still hope she might make the World Cup team, though.
“Slim to none, but it’s better than nothing,” Sully said as she claimed the seat next to Britt.
The Arizona girls were chattering away about people from home when another U-19 girl walked by and nodded at Sully. She paused mid-sentence and returned the nod as the other player kept walking and slid in next to a couple of older girls at the next table.
“Damn. Who’s that?” Angie asked.
Jamie knew what she meant. The older girl was beautiful in an androgynous way, with light brown eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair that curled out from under her backwards baseball cap. Her entire being exuded confidence, unmistakable in the way she slid her arm around one of the girl’s shoulders and smiled down at her.
Sully rolled her eyes. “Tori Parker, our resident playuh. You know how they say sailors have a girl in every port? Well, Tori has a girl at every camp. The last couple of times she was into this girl from Seattle, but I heard she didn’t come this week because of an injury.”
Jamie almost spit out her pineapple. “Wait, you’re not talking about Emma Blakeley, are you?”
“Totally. You know Blake?”
Jamie stared at her, feeling heat rush up her throat. “Yeah, I do, and there’s no way she would hook up with someone like her.”
“She did, though. They were glued at the hip in Canada, and Tori’s roommate in Ottawa even walked in on them. As in, naked.”
That couldn’t be right. Emma wouldn’t hook up with some random lesbian on the national team, would she? And yet, it made sense in a horribly rational, gut-wrenching sort of way.
“Did you say the last two camps?” Jamie asked, unable to stop herself.
“Yeah. Sorry if you didn’t know,” Sully said.
“It’s not a big deal.” She forced a shrug. “I was surprised, that’s all.”
“You and everyone else. But straight girls are Tori’s jam, so…”
Jamie picked at her breakfast as the conversation moved on, chiming in here and there to keep up the illusion that her heart hadn’t in fact been ripped into a thousand bloody bits of torn muscle. But it had, and the last thing she wanted to do was go outside into the hot California sun and play soccer with the girl who had supposedly been caught in bed with Emma.
Fortunately, they stuck to their own age groups that day so Jamie didn’t have to encounter Tori on the field. They practiced outdoors early and late to beat the heat. Inside the rest of the day, they kept busy studying tactics and game film, except for an hour before dinner when they were all encouraged to drink lots of fluids and rest. Jamie lay on her bed drafting one text after another to Emma, but she didn’t send any of them. What could she say? “So did you really hook up with a girl whose main goal in life other than playing for the national team is to convert as many straight girls as possible?” This approach seemed a bit harsh, even if it was true.
But maybe it wasn’t true. Rumors were tricky at camp. Maybe Sully had it wrong. Maybe Tori only wanted everyone to think she had hooked up with Emma. What self-respecting lesbian wouldn’t want the world to think Emma Blakeley was into her?
After night practice under the lights, Angie came to their room and they watched a movie until curfew. Then Jamie and Britt got ready for bed and chatted sleepily until Jamie’s phone buzzed.
“Go get her, tiger,” Britt said, smirking, and rolled over onto her side.
Jamie stared at Emma’s text: “How was your first day of camp?”
She hesitated, and then wrote, “Interesting. It would be better if you were here.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I miss you, too.”
“Were you serious about a plane ticket?”
“I looked at flights today. Want me to send you some dates?”
Jamie hesitated. Then she typed, “That depends.”
“On what?”
“I heard a rumor today. Want to hear it?”
She waited, but Emma didn’t respond.
“Are you there?”
“Yes. What rumor?”
“I’ll give you a hint. It involves Tori Parker.”
Again the reply took a while. Finally Emma wrote, “Can I call you? I don’t want to do this over text.”
Jamie blinked, rereading the message. She’d almost managed to convince herself that the rumor was sour grapes or random gossip. But Emma’s text left no room for doubt.
She typed quickly: “Are you serious? You actually hooked up with her?”
“I’m calling you right now.”
Her phone vibrated, and even though she knew she shouldn’t, she answered.
“I can’t talk,” she whispered. “It’s after curfew.”
“Please?” Emma asked, her voice nearly as quiet. “Please, Jamie?”
She hesitated, and then she said, “I’ll call you back.” Without waiting for an answer, she threw her phone on the bed. Then she pulled on sweats and soccer sandals and crept from the room, heading down to the first floor. She should not be doing this. She should not be breaking curfew at national team camp to hear about Emma’s training camp hook-up. But her whispered please had sounded almost broken, and honestly, Jamie’s body was vibrating so badly with equal parts anger and hurt that she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon anyway.
In the lobby, she dropped onto a cushy chair away from the front desk and slouched down, hood up, one hand over her face. She took a few deep breaths and recited her mantra, but it didn’t help. Finally she gave up and called Emma back.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you,” Emma said, her voice thick.
Why was she the one crying? What utter and complete crap.
“Did you sleep with her?”
She held her breath, waiting.
“Jamie…”
“Did you?”
Emma sighed. “Yes.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Jamie squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head at the ache blossoming in her chest. “When?”
“In Canada.”
“I heard it was going on before that.”
“It wasn’t. Honestly.”
As if she had any right to use that word. “So you’re what, bi?”
“I don’t like labels. I’m just me.”
“Apparently being you involves hooking up with total skanks.”
Emma didn’t answer for a moment. Then: “She’s not a skank.”
“I think I know more about girls like her than you do. Did you know she’s already moved on to someone else in the pool?” As silence greeted her, she felt a glimmer of satisfaction. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“It’s not like we’re dating. She’s free to do whatever she wants.”
“Don’t you mean whoever?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Oh, I’m the ass in this situation?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Silence lengthened between them again. How had this happened? She’d known Emma was questioning her sexuality. Not only was there the kiss and Emma’s ensuing confession, but she’d attended a handful of GSA meetings that semester and had even participated in the annual GLSEN Day of Silence. Plus, no straight girl could like Giada De Laurentiis that much. And yet, Jamie had assumed Emma would open up when she was ready, would tell her about anyone who came into the picture, girl or guy, same as they’d always done. What did it mean that she hadn’t?
“Are you even injured?” she asked.
Emma’s pause told her all she needed to know.
Jamie expelled a noisy breath, trying to focus on her anger rather than the pain seizing at her lungs. “So you would rather not ever see me again than deal with me and your girlfriend in the same place.”
“I do want to see you. That’s why I was looking at flights. I wanted to tell you all of this in person.”
Training Ground Page 26