“It’ll be okay,” she said, rubbing a gentle circle against her girlfriend’s back. “I promise.”
As Clare leaned back and gave her a look that said she shouldn’t make promises she might not be able to keep, Jamie’s phone buzzed again.
“Don’t be too long,” Clare said, pulling away. “Your tea is getting cold.”
“I’ll be right there.” Jamie smiled reassuringly before glancing back at her phone.
Britt had texted, “The pub. Nine tonight. Be there.”
“I’m in!” she replied, and then silenced her phone as she went to finish her afternoon tea.
The Twelve Pins on Seven Sisters Road was only a short bus ride from their flat in Holloway. By the time she got there that night, nearly all the members of the Arsenal Ladies FC squad currently in London were gathered around a table in the Function Room, hastily set aside for their impromptu celebration.
“Well done, Max! Where’s the little woman?” Jeanie, their tall, butch center forward, smiled as she clapped Jamie on the shoulder.
“She decided to stay home.”
“Smart woman,” Britt said, sliding a lager shanty light on beer and heavy on lemonade her way. “Everyone listen up! To Jamie Maxwell, future World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist, for getting called back up to the show. May you dazzle the powers that be—and for fuck’s sake, stay out of the hospital this time!”
A chorus of cheers sounded around the table as Jamie held up her glass, grinning at her friends. “Thanks, guys,” she said, trying to memorize the feeling of happiness unfurling inside. If there was one thing sport had taught her, it was to enjoy the good times while they lasted.
This party, unfortunately, couldn’t last long. It was a weeknight, and almost everyone on the team had second jobs that allowed them to moonlight as low-paid professional women footballers. Jamie covered her own expenses by running social media accounts for several players on the Arsenal men’s side. The work came with a ton of perks: awesome seats not far from the home bench, and since her job required her to track down game day photos and post-match quotes, access to the locker room. It was a sweet gig as part-time jobs went. Unsurprisingly, most of her teammates weren’t as lucky.
By eleven, Britt and Jamie were the only two left. They moved into the main room of the pub as Judy, the owner’s daughter, came in to tidy up.
“Good luck in Los Angeles,” Judy said, pausing to give Jamie a hug.
“Thanks, Jude.”
“You will come back to us, won’t you?”
“Don’t worry, I still have another year left on my contract.”
As they slid into an empty booth, Britt held up her phone. “Speaking of LA, they released the camp roster.”
Jamie gripped her glass tighter, knowing what was coming. “So?”
“So no emergency surgery to save you this time.”
“Dude, it’s not a big deal. You saw us last year. She was perfectly friendly and so was I.”
In addition to being her current club teammate and longtime best friend, Britt was also the only person in her life other than her sister—and Clare—who knew of her history with Emma Blakeley.
“A few practices is nothing like residency camp,” Britt pointed out.
“Maybe not, but I do have a girlfriend, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“This is Blake we’re talking about. If you’re trying to say you don’t find her attractive, I call bullshit.”
Jamie wasn’t trying to say that at all. In the decade since they’d met at Surf Cup in San Diego, she had watched from afar as Emma evolved from adorable teenager to lovely woman. At twenty, Emma had been the youngest player on the roster at the 2007 World Cup, and since then her international football star had ascended steadily. Her face popped up regularly in fitness magazines, Nike ad campaigns, and articles and social media posts about the national team. As a central defender she wasn’t as well known to the mainstream public as the team’s leading scorers and legendary goalkeeper. But her girl next door looks and mediagenic personality ensured that she was only a little off-center in nearly every US Soccer marketing campaign. The lead positions were occupied by Jenny Latham, straight, pretty, and a dynamic scorer; Maddie Novak, beautiful and fiery and the team’s midfield playmaker; and Rachel Ellison, the current captain and leading scorer—and the only short-haired, out lesbian player the UWSNT had ever known.
“I didn’t say she’s not attractive, Britt. But we were kids. Or I was, anyway. I’m not sure she ever was.” She pictured Emma on stage at her father’s funeral reading a eulogy she’d written herself, seemingly collected before the crowd of hundreds only a week after her dad died. At the time Jamie was sure she had never seen anyone or anything more impressive.
Britt touched her hand. “Be careful, okay? You can’t afford any distractions, not if you want to make it this time.”
“I know. Thanks, B. How are you holding up, anyway?”
“Me?” The goalkeeper shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. “Okay. I haven’t given up all hope yet.”
Britt often said she’d been born at the wrong point in soccer history. Phoebe Banks, the current American keeper, had held the starting job for nearly a decade and didn’t show any signs of slowing down. Her back-ups were almost as good as she was, and despite a few injuries always seemed to make it back in time for the big cycle years.
“Good,” Jamie said, “because I’m still rooting for you.”
“Fat lot of good that does me.”
“I can’t help you picked the one position on the field that almost never gets subbed.”
Britt rolled her eyes. “Spare me the lecture on field player versatility, will you?”
Jamie reached across the table and tried to flick her arm, but the goalkeeper was too quick.
“You need to work on your hand-eye coordination, son,” she said, smirking.
“Is that a challenge?”
“You know it.”
“Bring it, then.”
“Oh, it has already been broughten.”
They played pool and threw darts for another hour, and Britt won almost every contest because Jamie’s hand-eye coordination didn’t get nearly the amount of work her foot-eye coordination did. After chatting with the pub staff a little while longer, Britt walked her to the bus stop around the corner. As soon as they stopped, Jamie was unsurprised to find herself being lifted off the ground and twirled through the air.
“Seriously, James, I am so freaking stoked for you!” Britt said.
“Thanks, buddy.” Jamie pulled away and patted her shoulder. “You guys still bringing the cranberries and pumpkin pie?”
“You got it. Allie can’t wait to experience her first American Thanksgiving.”
“My family still doesn’t believe I can cook, so we have to document the crap out of this.”
“You’d think they’d realize by now that we have to find something to do other than binge on Netflix.”
During the season, the team practiced at seven thirty each evening, which left plenty of daytime hours to fill. In the last three years, Jamie had taken advanced graphic design courses, studied German and Spanish, and volunteered at a variety of local organizations, including a nearby community kitchen where her fellow volunteers had taught her the art of “cookery,” as the Brits insisted on calling it.
“Anyway, I better get home,” Britt added. “Hi to your lady.”
“Ditto. Later.”
Britt waved and spun on her heel, heading for the nearby Tube station. Jamie took out her phone and scrolled through the photos they’d snapped in the Function Room. She found one of her and Britt, arms around each other’s shoulders with a couple of teammates smiling in the background, and posted it on Instagram with a caption that read, “I love @BrittCrawdad12 more than she knows—or probably wants to know. Thanks for the awesome night out with fabulous friends. #Shesakeeper #ArsenalLadiesFC”
When the red double decker pulled up only a little late, Jamie slid i
nto the first empty seat she found. As the bus meandered south toward Camden, she scrolled through her feed. A few minutes in and her post had already garnered a couple of hundred likes, mostly from Arsenal fans and her faithful contingent of American followers, who, judging from their comments on her photos—“I can’t” and “ILYSM!!!” and “I’m dead”—were predominantly fifteen-year old Tumblr girls who wanted to either be her or be with her. She’d been out since she was fourteen, and despite the pressure on female professional athletes to refrain from using the “l” word, had never tried to hide who she was. Europeans didn’t seem to care as much about the queer thing, and since she wasn’t that well-known outside her sport, she hadn’t attracted many bible-bangers or other haters.
All that could change, she knew, if she became a regular on the national team. She would take it, though. She would willingly withstand almost anything to represent her country at the highest level of her sport. Even share a hotel room with Emma Blakeley, if it came to that.
As if of their own accord, her fingers brought up Emma’s feed. She had posted a photo a few days before of herself with fellow national team members Maddie Novak and Jenny Latham, all made up and decked out in Nike gear, supposedly working out somewhere warm and sunny. The caption, “#Nike #NikeStrong #USWNT,” reinforced Jamie’s suspicion that the photo was part of a shoot, because who looked that good while working out? Which wasn’t to say that Emma and the other two women didn’t look good doing most things. But pro athletes tended to exercise hard enough to sweat in buckets, and the image on Emma’s feed revealed only the lightest of sheens.
The bus hit a pothole and Jamie juggled her phone briefly. Regaining control, she checked Emma’s photo quickly, relieved that her bumbling hadn’t resulted in her accidentally “liking” the picture. She didn’t need Emma to know that she was creeping her feed on the way home from the pub. At least they weren’t strangers on social media. They’d started following each other on Instagram during the Olympics last year and had been Facebook friends even longer, ever since the first time their WPS teams played each other. Their teams had gone out together in the Mission after the game, and she could still remember the way they had watched each other across the bar until finally Jenny Latham, Jamie’s teammate at FC Gold Pride, had waved Emma over.
“Emma, this is Jamie Maxwell from the U-23s. Max, say hello to Blake.”
To her surprise, Emma had actually held out her hand, eyes uncertain as if she thought Jamie might freeze her out. Jamie had only hesitated a second before reaching out and tugging her former friend into a quick hug.
“It’s great to see you,” she’d said, smiling as she pulled away.
Emma had smiled back, brow slightly furrowed. “Really?”
“Of course. I can’t believe it took this long.”
“Honestly, I can’t either.”
“You two know each other?” Jenny had asked, watching their reunion curiously.
Emma’s eyes were still on Jamie’s. “You could say that.”
They’d found a quiet corner and caught each other up on the past six years, and as the evening wore on, Jamie had felt the tension easing from her shoulders. She couldn’t remember why she’d been so nervous about seeing Emma. True, things had ended beyond badly when they were teenagers. But Emma still seemed like the same smart, kind person she’d been in high school, and the connection between them, though frayed, was still there. By the end of the night, Emma was scrolling through her iPhone showing her photos of the woman she’d been dating for a few months. She’d seemed happy, and enough time had passed that Jamie could be happy for her, too.
The next time they’d seen each other in Boston, Emma had brought her girlfriend to the post-match dinner. The group was smaller this time, and Jamie had enjoyed her conversation with Sam, a sports photographer, about LGBT representation in professional athletics. She could see why Emma liked her. Sam was intelligent and attentive. They looked good together, too, a fact that wasn’t lost on Emma’s many social media followers. She may not be officially out, but she had posted a few photos of her and Sam all dressed up and out on the town. You’d have to be an idiot not to figure it out.
All of that was before the 2011 World Cup made Emma and her fellow national team members household names. Jamie had heard through the soccer grapevine that Emma and Sam broke up not long after the US lost to Japan in the finals. A little while later the WPS folded and Emma moved back to Seattle where she’d been photographed out and about with a bearded, tattooed hipster. Apparently she still favored fluidity when it came to her sexuality—not that her sexuality was any of Jamie’s business.
At her stop, she stepped off the bus and walked the short distance to her building with her raincoat hood up and her snapback pulled low, a bottle of mace at ready inside her jacket pocket. Even after three years, London still occasionally spooked her. She didn’t think she was meant for gritty urban life. But she made it home without incident and let herself into their flat on the second floor of a terraced house. Inside she dropped her keys on the table near the door, kicked off her boots, and headed into the kitchen.
Clare had left the light on over the sink, and as she drank a glass of water, Jamie surveyed the smallest room of their flat. The refrigerator was one of those tiny English types that looked like a holdout from 1950 but had in fact been manufactured sometime this century. The stovetop was burners only while the oven was mounted at face level above a row of drawers. Jamie wasn’t sure how this setup saved space, but it would simplify cooking their Thanksgiving turkey. She hoped.
This apartment had been home for almost a year now, longer than anyplace else she’d lived since college, and Clare’s presence was a big part of the sense of well-being she always felt here. While they had spent time apart—Jamie usually went home to California for a couple of weeks in the off-season—the upcoming trip felt different. Residency camp with its constant training sessions, group meetings, and team meals meant being out of touch in a way they hadn’t previously experienced.
On the side of the refrigerator was their calendar, and Jamie drifted closer. “Thanksgiving!” was scrawled over Thursday’s square in her handwriting, with Clare’s characteristic smiley face below. A primary school teacher, she was big on smiley faces. Jamie had always found this endearing, seeing as Clare’s smile was the first thing she’d noticed when Britt’s girlfriend Allie introduced them at a dinner party eighteen months earlier. Allie and Clare had gone to university together, and Jamie had been fully aware that Britt and Allie were setting them up. But once she met Clare, she forgot to be irritated by their mutual friends’ machinations.
Her phone buzzed again, and she turned it off and plugged it into the charger on the counter. Clare had to be up early for school, but she might have waited up. She usually didn’t like to go to sleep without saying goodnight.
Jamie headed down the hallway, hopeful when she noticed the light coming from their bedroom. There she discovered Clare propped up against her pillows—fast asleep, book open on her lap, reading glasses perched low on her nose. Carefully Jamie slipped the glasses off and moved the book to the bedside table.
“Goodnight,” she murmured, kissing her girlfriend’s forehead before turning out the light. “Love you.”
Clare sighed and slid lower under the covers. But she didn’t say anything as Jamie moved quietly about the darkened room getting ready for bed.
Chapter Two
Emma had always loved returning to training camp after a break. No matter what had happened in the last friendly match, tournament, or cycle, camp always felt like a fresh start. Part of the shine was the younger faces the coaching staff liked to bring in for the longer residencies. Not only did the new kids change team chemistry, but they also kept the returning players hungry. Nothing like riding the bench for a match or two to remind you that your position was only as stable as your fitness, work ethic, and quality of play deserved.
This time, though, as her airplane taxied toward the ar
rival gate at LAX, there was a different quality to her sense of anticipation. She was looking forward to seeing her friends on the team, but despite her assurances to Dani to the contrary, she was anxious too. For once her pre-camp jitters had nothing to do with what was about to happen on the pitch.
As the plane slowed to a stop, Emma turned her phone on and texted her mom to let her know she’d arrived safely. Out of habit, she checked her Instagram feed. Her teammates had been arriving throughout the day, and there were the obligatory group shots. A certain Arsenal player had yet to arrive by the looks of it… Crap, there went her brain again. Why was it stuck on someone she’d only seen a few times in the past decade? She didn’t like worrying about something she couldn’t control. And yet there the worry was, stubbornly persisting.
Everyone else in business class leapt out of their seats the second the plane stopped, but Emma remained where she was, playing on her phone. While US Soccer paid for coach, her frequent flyer miles basically meant free upgrades for life. Like father, like daughter—though hopefully not when it came to heart disease. According to the tests the federation required, she was as healthy as, well, a professional soccer player. Good thing, too—residency camp almost always started out with extensive fitness testing. The beep test with heart rate monitors, forty and one hundred meter sprints with GPS trackers, power analysis of vertical jumps, agility testing, body fat measurement, average VO2 max, and all the other tortures Lacey Rodriguez, the longtime fitness coach for the women’s side, could dream up.
As she waited, Emma cracked a new bottle of water and finished her half-eaten energy bar. They would hit the field tonight after dinner “to get the blood flowing,” as Lacey liked to say. It was a tradition to put in a light workout on travel days. Helped everyone recover and eased the newbies in right away, before their nerves could get the best of them. Emma wondered if Jamie would arrive before the night session. Players who came from overseas usually needed that first workout the most.
Game Time Page 2
