Girls of Summer

by Kate Christie

  “Wow,” the guy said. “I wondered if the corner units were as spacious as advertised. Check and check.”

  “Thanks for the help,” Emma said, extending her hand. “I’m Emma, as you already deduced.”

  “Jackson,” the guy said, shaking her hand gingerly.

  “Hannah,” the girl added, smiling as she took Emma’s hand in turn. “It’s so great to meet you. We’re huge fans. Like, huge.”

  “Even if you play for the Reign,” Jackson added.

  “Speaking of, you’re not moving into the building, are you?” Hannah asked, her head tilting.

  They had recovered their equilibrium faster than Emma would have expected. Maybe seeing her sweaty and unmade up in shorts and a ratty “I heart NYC” T-shirt had set them at ease, or maybe it was the twenty-something Portlander quotient. Hipsters were not supposed to be intimated by mildly famous peers.

  “No, I live in Seattle. This apartment is…” She trailed off as voices echoed down the hallway. In another moment, Jamie appeared in the doorway, swearing as she backed inside wrestling the mattress. “Hers.”

  Jamie glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows knit. Emma could tell she was about to snap again when her eyes fell on the couple who were now gazing avidly between them. Doh.

  Whoever was in the hallway failed to notice Jamie’s pause, probably because the mattress took up most of the doorway. Jamie yelped as it bonked into her and nearly knocked her over. “Hold up,” she called, rearranging her grip. Then she continued into the apartment, shooting Emma and their impromptu visitors a harried smile before guiding the mattress into the bedroom on the opposite side of the apartment. VB, who was at the other end of the bed, nodded at them briefly.

  “Jamie Maxwell,” Hannah said, and it was clear she wasn’t asking. “Jamie Maxwell is moving into our building, and you and Jordan VanBrueggen are helping her.”

  At that moment, Ellie and Jodie ducked into the apartment with pieces of the bed frame, followed by Ainsley with more wood sections, and Emma had to hide another smile as Hannah reflexively clutched her boyfriend’s arm.

  “You okay there?” Emma asked as the guy visibly paled.

  “No, yeah, I mean, um,” he mumbled, eyes still glued to the national team’s current captain and leading scorer and, in Emma’s opinion, shoo-in for the hall of fame.

  The players emerged from the bedroom a moment later, and there were introductions all around. Then VB mentioned that the truck was double-parked, so they should probably get back to it… Jackson and Hannah said they understood, and chatted amiably with Jamie about the building’s quirks and the management company’s responsiveness as the group returned to the ground floor.

  “You’re going to love living here,” Hannah assured Jamie. “The tenants are mostly young professionals who are really active. Oh! And there are lots of cute dogs here, too.”

  Jamie gave Emma a meaningful look, and she knew instantly they would be having the “why we can’t get a puppy in a World Cup year” conversation again that night.

  Jamie’s new neighbors helped them move the rest of her belongings in, and then, back on the street again, asked if they could take a selfie with the group. Naturally, the players complied. Jodie even offered to take a picture of the pair with the Thorns players arrayed around them—and Emma too, of course.

  “It’s so great meeting you,” Hannah enthused after the photo had been taken, looking for a moment like she might try to hug Jamie.

  Emma inserted herself into the space between them and extended her hand again. “You, too.”

  As Jamie shook hands with their moving help, she asked, “Actually, could you maybe keep that photo private? I’d rather not have the whole world know where to find me just yet.”

  “Oh, right, of course you don’t,” Hannah said, nodding quickly.

  “Totally,” Jackson echoed, similarly struck. “We won’t post it on social media.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Jamie said with an easy smile that Emma envied. Then again, Jamie liked people in general in a way that Emma could honestly say she didn’t.

  As they headed down the sidewalk toward Burnside, Emma heard Hannah whisper to Jackson, “I told you they were together!” His response, however, was lost to the long blast of a nearby car horn.

  Emma exchanged a look with Jamie, who only shrugged and said, “I mean, she isn’t wrong.” Then she reached for Emma’s hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “Sorry I was a dick before. It’s just so effing hot.”

  “I know, right?” Emma agreed.

  Seattle and the Bay Area definitely had better climates to offer than Portland. Maybe she would be able to convince Jamie to move north, after all. There was plenty of time to work on her.

  Chapter Three

  “I love Chipotle!” Jamie said, sighing as she closed the lid on her now empty to-go dish.

  “Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t you?” Emma asked, pushing a last few grains of rice onto her spoon and trying not to pout over the fact that she had finished her burrito bowl. “Their food is the nectar of the gods.”

  They were alone in Jamie’s living room, the evening sky darkening beyond the windows. Jamie had invited their moving help to dine with them at Chipotle, but everyone had claimed to have some place else to be. So Emma had treated their friends to takeout and she and Jamie had come back to the apartment to eat dinner on the coffee table Jamie had bought on Craigslist. The food had tasted just as good on the wood veneer surface as it would have on a live-edge table built from a reclaimed urban redwood. At least, Emma assumed so.

  Jamie turned sideways on the couch and eyed her. “Nectar, seriously? You are such a dork. I can’t even.”

  “I can’t even?” Emma echoed. “What are you, a teenager?”

  “Not last I checked.” Jamie’s blue eyes narrowed as she set her Chipotle dish on the mission style coffee table and reached for Emma’s. “Didn’t you say something about breaking in my apartment properly?”

  “I think we did that last night, didn’t we?” Emma said, trying not to think about the couch’s previous owners. Jamie had vacuumed and washed it with baby wipes—a cleaning hack she’d found online—before moving it in, but even so, the fact that the gently used furniture had lived in someone else’s home for the past few years creeped Emma out. What if the previous owners had been meth users? Just because they lived across the street from Ellie and Jodie didn’t mean they couldn’t be addicts. Admittedly, it would be difficult to afford the mortgage in Ellie’s neighborhood if they were, but still.

  Jamie smiled. “I meant in the bedroom, Emma.”

  “Oh, thank god! In that case, yes. But how about a shower first?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Ten minutes later they were standing close together in the clawfoot tub, water streaming from the gleaming chrome shower head. There was no shampoo, but Jamie had brought along her lavender soap from Ellie’s, and soon they were soaping each other, movements languid as they washed the day’s grime from one another’s skin. The water pressure wasn’t quite as strong as at Emma’s place, but she didn’t think either of them minded as they watched each other through the rising steam. This was her favorite Jamie, quiet and vulnerable and so strong, her hands gentle and her eyes warm with affection and something else Emma couldn’t quite define but that she knew was probably reflected in her own face. It didn’t matter that they’d sniped at each other half the day. Their relationship was strong enough to survive moving tensions exacerbated by Portland’s cloying heat.

  A belly full of Chipotle didn’t hurt, either.

  Clean again, they backtracked to the bedroom where Jamie made sure the blinds were closed. Then they climbed naked between the sheets on the brand new bed, giggling when the mission-style frame creaked slightly. Their friends had teased them earlier about breaking the place in, citing thin walls and the proximity of neighbors, and now Emma realized that they were completely right. The 1920s building was charming and attractively renovated, but the older constructio
n offered significantly less insulation than she was used to.

  “Music?” Jamie asked, grinning, her short hair tousled and damp.

  “Why not?” Emma said, smiling back at her.

  Which was how they made love for the second time in Jamie’s new apartment in the bed they had bought together accompanied by Beyoncé on the Bluetooth speakers it took Jamie ten minutes to locate in the very last box she checked: kitchen supplies, naturally. Unlike the previous night, this time was slow and silly, with plentiful shushing and laughter, and it felt like college all over again but not in a bad way. Being with Jamie in Portland was still so different from being with her in Seattle, where Emma knew the city and had arranged her life rigidly so that her down time from soccer would be as comfortable and stress-free as possible. But that difference was more intriguing than anything—at least, now that the worst of the move was over and the overhead fan was cycling cooler evening air through the apartment.

  Jamie’s arms were loose about her as their breathing and heart rates slowed and settled, her lips warm against Emma’s forehead as she stroked one hand lazily up and down her arm. Street noise drifted up through the open window, car engines and voices from neighboring blocks muffled by the distance. City lights filtered in through the gaps and around the edges of the blinds, white and yellow and, in one window, noticeably blue.

  “Is that the Volvo sign?” Emma asked.

  Jamie’s bedroom faced a Volvo dealership with an old-fashioned neon sign that dwarfed the five-story building that housed it. Fortunately, the sign faced downtown, as did Jamie’s apartment, so Emma found the blue light more romantic than obtrusive.

  “Totally,” Jamie said, her voice slightly gravelly after sex. “I told the team I could see it from my living room window, and they were all, ‘That’s so cool!’”

  “It is cool,” Emma agreed, turning her head slightly so that she could inhale the scent of soap and Jamie lingering at her girlfriend’s collar bone.

  “You know what’s even better, though? There are three coffee shops between here and the stadium.”

  “Aw, did you have me in mind when you were apartment-shopping?”

  “Of course.” Jamie pressed another soft kiss to her forehead. “I always have you in mind.”

  Emma felt tears prick her eyes and blinked them back. Silly post-orgasmic hormones.

  A few minutes later, Jamie pulled away and sat up, elbowing a pillow higher against the headboard. “Actually, can we talk about something?”

  Emma swallowed down her fear of the phrase that had signaled an end to every relationship she’d ever been in: Can we talk? “Of course,” she said, trying to channel magnanimity as she sat up beside Jamie. “What’s up?”

  Jamie looked down at the cream-colored sheets Ellie and Jodie had given her as a housewarming gift, brow knitting as she smoothed a wrinkle away. “I’m not really sure where to start with this.”

  Emma took a calming breath and channeled her mom’s bedside manner. “Take your time. You can talk to me about anything, you know.”

  Jamie’s tone was wry as she said, “I know—in theory. It’s just harder to do in practice.”

  Emma was a little relieved to see that she wasn’t the only one who struggled with talking about feelings. Predictably, though, Jamie didn’t struggle for long. She took a deep breath, released it, and launched right in.

  “Remember how I said being in Lyon was anticlimactic? Well, as it turns out, I might not have been entirely accurate about that.”

  Emma tried not to let her concern show as Jamie’s words from all those weeks earlier on the moonlit Breton beach washed over her: I wanted it all to go away. I felt like I couldn’t stay in my skin. “What do you mean?”

  Jamie squinted at her, head tilting sideways. “Um, I might have invited you to spend my first night here with me not just because it’s romantic but because, well, it’s possible I was nervous about staying here by myself.”

  “That’s understandable,” Emma assured her. “I’m still nervous at my place sometimes, too. I think it’s part of being raised female in this culture—knowing you might not be safe anywhere, not even in your own home. Actually, not just in this culture. In this world.”

  Half of Jamie’s face was in shadows as she faced Emma, her features barely discernible in the filtered blue light from the Volvo sign. “It’s not just that,” she admitted. “I—well, I’ve been having nightmares since we got back from Lyon. And I’ve been struggling with some other signs of PTSD, too.”

  Emma’s heart sank as Jamie checked off the list of symptoms she’d been dealing with since Lyon. Nightmares? Check. Obsessive showering? Check. Panic attacks? Check.

  “I’m so sorry,” Emma said, reaching for her hand and squeezing it tightly, wishing she could somehow inoculate Jamie with her touch against the trauma that had never quite left her.

  “It’s not as bad as when I was younger,” Jamie said, squeezing her hand back. “Probably because I recognize what’s happening and I have ways to short-circuit some of it before it can really take over. But, well, I wanted you to know. In the spirit of being honest.”

  “I’m glad you’re telling me,” Emma said, running her thumb over the back of Jamie’s hand in what she hoped was a soothing manner. “Was it the trip to Lyon that triggered everything, do you think?”

  “Partly. But I think it was what happened with Jenny in St. Louis, too. I’ve been thinking about that, trying to imagine what Shoshanna would say about it, and I think she would have said that it was a test that showed how far I’ve come. I mean, I didn’t just freeze up and tune out. I stepped up, you know? I acted. I didn’t let him hurt any of us. I think Shoshanna would say that’s a good thing.”

  Emma nodded slowly, digesting what Jamie was saying. She hadn’t thought of what had happened in St. Louis in those terms. Mainly she had been furious with Jamie for risking herself against an uncertain threat. Now, though, she could see how empowering Jamie’s actions might have felt. She wasn’t the same girl who had lain unmoving while a drunken stranger assaulted her in the back of a French bar, nor the same girl who had fled the country the next day without telling anyone about the attack. She had grown into a strong woman who, when faced with a potentially similar situation, had taken quick, decisive action to protect herself and those she cared about.

  Shoshanna, Emma suspected, would say that was a great thing. Except that there were nightmares, apparently, and obsessive behavior. And panic attacks.

  “And yet…?” Emma asked.

  “And yet, then we went to Lyon, and now I think my mind is trying to reconcile what happened in St. Louis with the experience of being back in the city where—well, you know.”

  Emma did know. Lyon was where Jamie had lost so much that she’d had to become an entirely different person. A stronger person in many ways, but different all the same.

  “Would it help to talk about everything?” Emma asked, her hand still tight around Jamie’s. “Or would it be too much?”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie admitted.

  Emma lay quietly, allowing Jamie the time and space to make up her mind about what she needed. After a minute or so, Jamie pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, her hand tense in Emma’s, her face shadowed by more than blue light from the blinds.

  “It was my decision,” she told Emma, “not to go after the guy. A US embassy rep in France reviewed the case, and given the lack of physical evidence… I think I told you before I took a shower after I got back to the hotel, and the rape kit my mother insisted we do at the hospital only had my DNA, so there wasn’t really anything to go on. The embassy rep we met with in San Francisco said it would be an uphill battle to get anyone in France to take me seriously. I mean, I went to the bar willingly and my friends and I accepted drinks from the guy, so…”

  Emma tried to smother the angry sound that rose in her throat. “Accepting a drink in no way implies consent for anything else. And besides, you were fifteen!”

  �
�No, I know.” Jamie smiled a little, picking at the sheet again. “You should have seen my mom. She was all, ‘Are you trying to say the attack was my daughter’s fault?’ She gave him her glare, and he, like, quailed before it. Understandably.”

  Emma nodded. She’d never actually seen Jamie’s mother’s famous Death Glare, but the legend preceded the smallish woman.

  “He was like, ‘No, of course not, ma’am. I’m simply saying this would be a difficult case to win.’ I don’t think he was wrong, either. I totally botched the whole thing.”

  “Understandably,” Emma said, echoing Jamie’s own words. “You were just doing the best you could to get through it.”

  “I know. But it meant there wasn’t any evidence. So after that meeting, I pretty much begged my parents to let the whole thing go, and they agreed even though they clearly didn’t want to. It was my decision, and they said they supported my choice. At the time, I was just relieved the whole thing was ‘over.’ But now…”

  She paused, her eyes closed briefly, and said, her voice low in the quiet bedroom, “Now I kind of wish we’d gone after the guy. If nothing else, it might have stopped him from trying the same thing with some other girl who didn’t know how to fight back.”

  Emma winced, because she understood why Jamie might think that. If Emma were in her shoes, the “what ifs” would drive her slightly batty. Or maybe a whole lot batty.

  “The people at the bar might have known him,” Jamie added, turning her head to stare at nothing. “Maybe the police could have tracked him down even without DNA evidence.”

  “And then what?” Emma asked. “You were here, in a totally different country. Could you really have gotten him arrested?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe not. At least I would have been able to say I tried.”

  And yeah, Emma got that. But what if Jamie had tried and failed? Emma remembered the post-France Jamie, the girl who flinched if you came too close, the girl whose smile didn’t reach her eyes, the girl who played soccer like it was the last game she might ever get to play. “I think that who you are now could handle what an investigation and trial would take, but who you were then? I don’t know. I think she made the right decision.”