Outside the Lines

by Kate Christie

  Or loses them.

  On the day of the finals, Emma had attempted to ignore the voice of self-doubt whispering away in the back of her head. But the voice grew stronger during the first half when she banged a shot off the crossbar, and grew to a cacophony at the end of regulation when she mistimed a tackle and was called for a foul outside the box. With two minutes left in regulation, Jenny Latham bent the ball around Seattle’s wall and into the far corner netting. That goal had won the game for Kansas City, and while Jenny and her teammates celebrated, Emma hadn’t been able to resist checking for Jo in the stands.

  She’d found her near midfield jotting notes in an old-school notepad. “CUT BLAKELEY,” she’d imagined one of the notes read, though the likelihood of Jo doing so wasn’t very high. “BENCH BLAKELEY” had a better chance. By giving up the foul that led to Jenny’s goal, Emma had lost the championship for Seattle. She wasn’t the only one who thought so, either. Her Twitter mentions the next day were mostly positive, but while the fans chose to emphasize the broader picture—It was a great run! You played so well all season!­—Emma could read between the lines.

  Soccer wasn’t the only factor in her current crisis of confidence. Her Twitter troll had grown bolder over the summer, hinting at plans to contact her in real life. He hadn’t crossed any lines, at least not yet, but that didn’t stop Emma from worrying. On several occasions now, she’d been outside the stadium or her training academy when she’d suddenly become aware of the prickly sensation of being watched. More than likely it was nothing, but each time it happened she grew a little less secure.

  Normally at camp she felt safe. The team had its own security, and the hotels they stayed in promised to safeguard their identities. But not only had some kid from Salt Lake stalked Maddie and Angie’s arrival and posted a photo of them entering the team hotel, there was the new relationship policy to worry about. She and Jamie, already so vulnerable being themselves out in the world, now had to regulate their behavior when they were with the team, too. Truthfully, they already did, so she supposed it wasn’t much of a change. It had simply felt safer when everyone pretended not to know. Like the players who partied too hard in the off season or made other questionable choices off the field, she’d assumed the couples on the team had free rein to live their lives as long as they weren’t hurting anyone.

  The thing about assumptions, Emma reminded herself, is that they make an ass out of you and me. Check.

  “Are we still on with my family tonight?” Jamie asked as they walked away from the crossbar station.

  Honestly, Emma wanted nothing more than to hide out in the hotel with their friends and watch silly movies she’d seen a dozen times. But they wouldn’t have another opportunity to spend time with Jamie’s family anytime soon, and besides, she’d already committed.

  “Can’t wait,” she said, nudging Jamie with her shoulder. “Now let’s go kick some soccer tennis ass.”

  “We are so going to clean up, aren’t we?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Or not.”

  Emma only shook her head and smiled as she kept on moving toward the next challenge. National team camp really was better with Jamie. Good thing Jo Nichols appeared to share that sentiment.

  #

  The restaurant Jamie’s sister had picked was airy and open with a patio warmed by heat lamps. The afternoon’s temperature had hovered in the low 70s—perfect soccer weather—but the evenings in Salt Lake cooled down quickly. Emma, for one, appreciated the heat lamp at the center of their table. She was also grateful for the secluded feel of the enclosed patio, with its potted plants, a fountain, and fairy lights. She and Jamie had considered asking Meg if they could do take-out at her and Todd’s house, but Jamie’s sister had been so excited about a night out with their parents footing the bill that they had decided to let her and Todd choose the evening’s entertainment.

  “So, Emma,” Jamie’s dad said after their server had brought their drinks, “how have you been? You had an excellent season in Seattle, even if Portland did manage to best you in that last match.”

  “Yeah, it was a good season,” she agreed, and cleared her throat slightly. Chill, Blakeley, she told herself. It was ridiculous to be nervous. She had known Jamie’s parents practically forever, and after a rocky first meeting, they had been nothing but kind to her. Of course, she hadn’t been sleeping with their daughter then. Even back in January, she and Jamie had been little more than friends. Now they were so much more, and everyone sitting around this table knew it.

  “Who would have thunk it all those years ago?” Jamie’s mother said. “The two of you making your way in the world as professional soccer players. We’ve certainly come a long way, haven’t we?”

  “Absolutely,” Emma agreed. “But there’s still a ways to go in terms of equity and inclusion.”

  Meg snorted. “I can’t believe those boneheads at FIFA are making you guys play on turf next year.”

  “I know, right?” Todd added. “They would never make men’s teams play on artificial surfaces.”

  And with that single comment, Jamie’s brother-in-law won her over.

  They decided to share a taster platter while they waited for their entrées, and Emma was surprised at how easily the conversation flowed. It was like she was a teenager again visiting Jamie and her family at the beginning of a year that would prove desperately difficult before it ended. And yet, thank the soccer gods they weren’t those clueless, soon-to-be heartbroken teens anymore.

  It wasn’t long before Meg brought up that first visit: “Do you remember how you scared off that group of bullies at Jamie’s game?”

  “Of course.” If only it was as simple now to deal with asshole boys and men…

  “What are you talking about?” Jamie asked.

  At the time, Emma had convinced Meg not to tell her sister what had happened. She knew how easy it was to tune out crowd sounds when you were playing, and if Jamie hadn’t realized she was being heckled, Emma hadn’t wanted to be the one to clue her in.

  “Oh my god, you should have seen her,” Meg said now, and launched into an enthusiastic retelling of how Emma had silenced the hecklers by commenting on the size of their genitals. Emma saw Jamie’s father blink down at the table even as his wife let out a short, startled laugh.

  “I didn’t actually say anything about their, you know. I…” Emma trailed off as she realized that making a crude gesture might be equally as vulgar in Jamie’s parents’ minds. Why had Meg needed to bring up the only story in their shared history that contained a reference to male genitalia?

  “That’s right,” Meg said. “You just did this.”

  As Meg supplied the crude gesture in question, Emma considered the pros and cons of excusing herself from the table—and never returning.

  “Wow. My hero, I think?” Jamie bit her lip to keep from laughing, a battle she soon lost. “I can’t believe you never told me that!”

  “It’s not exactly one of my prouder moments,” Emma groused.

  Still laughing, Jamie reached for her hand across the table. Before she could catch herself, Emma flinched away. Jamie changed courses smoothly, picking up her water glass as if that had been her intent all along, but Emma saw Meg exchange a look with her mother. Fantastic. Now they thought she was a closet case making Jamie pretend they weren’t together in public. And, okay, maybe it seemed like that from the outside, but… Well. Maybe she really was.

  At least Jamie didn’t seem upset. If anything, she was squinting at Emma like she’d been the one to screw up. All at once Emma wanted to tell her the truth about why Sam had left, to explain about the Twitter troll who might in fact be the same man with a renewed fixation. She wanted to tell her about the police station in Boston and the afternoon she had spent recently filling out online abuse reports, worrying the entire time about the reaction she might be triggering. But while revealing the truth would make Emma feel better, what would it do to Jamie?

  Better to stay quiet f
or now and avoid the public eye. Once Jamie was on the team—or not, although that wasn’t a possibility Emma was willing to entertain—there would be plenty of time to clue her in to the shady side of dating Emma Blakeley, longtime USWNT player and veteran sociopath attractor.

  Jamie’s dad intervened in the conversation and introduced the less personal topic of the upcoming CONCACAF tournament. After a moment, Emma recovered her equilibrium and joined in. She could always talk about soccer. As Jamie described the potential hurdles facing the team at World Cup qualifying, Emma thought that was something else she and her girlfriend had in common.

  Girlfriend. She took in the bright, caring people who had made Jamie who she was, people Emma had known and cared about for more than a decade now, and she felt her shoulders relax and the nearly omnipresent worry slip away. This was good. They were good, and as Jamie had said, her parents clearly supported their relationship. It was one thing to hear your girlfriend say her family loved you, but it was another to spend an evening with those same people and feel for yourself their affection and respect.

  Except Meg. Jamie’s sister, who had been one of their biggest champions from the start, according to Jamie, was still watching her with a slight frown even as the conversation moved on.

  They lingered over coffee and dessert well into the night, tables turning over around them as they stayed where they were in the center of the fairy-lit patio. Emma was warm and comfortable and a tiny bit tipsy from the glass of wine she had ordered, an uncommon treat during training camp. Typically she cut out alcohol the week before a match, but life was short, and the wine had helped dull her nerves. At last, after their second server of the night checked in on them again, Jamie’s parents paid the bill over their children’s insincere protests.

  “You know, Sarah,” Todd said as Jamie’s mother signed the credit card receipt, “your children may have taken their leftist upbringing too much to heart, since neither values money all that much.”

  Meg laughed. “Says the pot. You should be a partner in a dental practice by now, and instead you’re a poor, starving music student married to a fellow starving music student.”

  “True,” Todd agreed, and slid his arm around her shoulders.

  In Emma’s family, meanwhile, the emphasis had been on being of service to others, service that in her dad’s case happened to include a lucrative patent and a large life insurance policy.

  “Speak for yourself,” Jamie said. “I’m on track to make more than twenty-five thousand dollars this year. That’s right, twenty-five big ones. I know you’re all jealous.”

  Her parents laughed, but their smiles seemed resigned as if to say yes, they had indeed raised their daughters to prize personal happiness more than individual wealth.

  Emma hated to hear Jamie putting herself down, though, even as a joke. “Just wait,” she said. “Once we win the World Cup, you’ll have a dozen different sponsors banging down your door.” She didn’t mention that if they failed to win gold, as the team had done in each of the three previous World Cups, millions of dollars’ worth of sponsorships would quietly dry up.

  Jamie’s smile lost its self-deprecating edge, and she held Emma’s eyes as she nodded. “Once we win the World Cup.”

  They almost managed a clean getaway. Jamie’s parents had paid, everyone had shrugged into their jackets, and Emma was laughing at something Meg had said when she saw it: the familiar visage of a nervous teenager. Or three nervous teenagers. As she watched, the shortest of the three linked her arms through her friends’ and tugged them forward.

  “Excuse me,” she said determinedly, her voice wobbling slightly. “Are you Emma Blakeley?”

  Emma could feel Jamie’s family watching as she sighed inwardly and stepped forward, lapsing into her professional persona with ease. “I am. Are you soccer players?”

  The conversation went the way it usually did. The girls were in town with their club team from Boise to watch the national team play on Saturday. They were huge fans—they recognized Jamie too—and how amazing that it was actually them! At this restaurant! Tonight! Emma smiled and nodded, but she couldn’t help wishing they would cut to the chase.

  Finally, the middle girl asked, “Could we get a picture with both of you?”

  Before Emma could politely decline, Jamie said, “Sure. Right, Blake?”

  “Right,” she said, and prepared to pose, careful not to stand near her girlfriend.

  When they’d finished, Emma held out a hand. “Would you mind not posting those photos online? We’re out with family tonight,” she explained, waving toward the Maxwells.

  The girls agreed but seemed disappointed. To improve the odds of their compliance, Emma offered to get some of the other players to take selfies with them after the match on Saturday. As they walked away happier than they’d been a minute earlier, Emma sighed inwardly. Crisis averted. She hoped.

  Jamie waited until the three girls were out of ear shot to ask, “What was that about?”

  “I was just feeling selfish,” Emma lied. She resisted the urge to slip her arm through Jamie’s, settling for an elbow to the ribs instead. “Come on. We have a curfew to keep.”

  “It’s like two hours away,” Jamie pointed out. But she followed her lead, as she nearly always did.

  In the parking lot behind the building, Meg and Todd announced that, rather than squish into the back seat of the rental car like earlier, they’d decided to walk the half mile home.

  “It’s a nice night,” Meg said. “Besides, it’ll wake us up for all the planning and reading we failed to do before dinner. Right, T?”

  Todd slapped her upraised hand. “Right, M.”

  During the round of family hugs that followed, Todd bent his head and told Emma that he was psyched to have another non-Berkeleyite in the family, particularly one as awesome as she was. Touched, Emma almost didn’t notice that Meg was murmuring urgently to Jamie, her eyes flicking to Emma more than once.

  While the sisters were thus engaged, Jamie’s dad singled Emma out and said, “Can I have a word?”

  Startled, she nodded.

  “I just wanted to say that I’m online a lot, and if you ever need advice or assistance, I hope you’ll reach out.”

  Emma squinted up at him, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was getting at.

  “Also, if Jamie should ever need help of any type—I know therapy isn’t always covered by health insurance—my cell number is on the back.” He handed her his business card.

  “Is this about Twitter?” she asked as she tucked the card into her purse.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “We have a general rule on the national team,” she told him. “Never read the comments. Also, what happens online almost always stays online.”

  “Thanks, Emma. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  And then Meg was at her side to say goodnight, her hug noticeably less warm than it had been at the airport. Emma couldn’t blame her. Meg had always had Jamie’s back, and she always would. As someone else who loved Jamie, Emma could appreciate that.

  “Great to see you,” Emma said, squeezing Meg’s shoulders before stepping back.

  “You too,” Meg said, her brow still furrowed.

  Emma let Jamie usher her into the back seat of the waiting sedan, where they fastened their seatbelts and linked hands, waving to Meg and Todd until they were out of sight.

  “That was such a nice dinner,” Jamie’s mother said, turning around in the passenger seat to smile back at them. Her eyes flicked over their joined hands and away again. Emma flashed to the night she and Jamie had met, to the elevator ride they’d shared with their parents, disapproval wafting off her father and Jamie’s mother in equal amounts. But Emma was no longer a confused teenager. She hadn’t been that girl in forever.

  “It was nice,” she agreed, clutching Jamie’s hand more tightly and turning on her professional charm again. “Thank you so much, Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell. I had a lovely time tonight.”

&nbs
p; “It’s Tim and Sarah,” Jamie’s dad said. “And we’re glad to get this time together. I for one am happy that you two are together again after all these years. I have to say, I always hoped it would happen.”

  “You did?” Jamie asked, clearly nonplussed by her father’s admission.

  “I liked your other partners too, don’t get me wrong,” he said, slowing the car at a stop light. “But I always thought there was something special about the two of you.”

  “So did I,” Emma said, scooting as close to Jamie as her seatbelt would allow and smiling into her eyes.

  “Me too.” Jamie grinned back at her.

  “Well, I guess that makes it unanimous,” Jamie’s mother announced. “Because so did your sister and I.”

  “I’ll take unanimous,” Jamie said, squeezing her hand.

  “Works for me,” Emma agreed, and turned her head to watch out the window as the buildings and streets drifted past, the sky overhead darkening the further they got from downtown.

  “You doing okay?” Jamie asked, her voice quiet.

  “Better than okay. That was fun.”

  “I told you, you’ve always been a Maxwell family favorite. Which reminds me.” She lowered her voice even more. “What was with my dad’s cloak and dagger shtick back there?”

  Emma smoothed the clasp on her purse. “He wanted to check in, make sure you were doing okay.”

  “And he didn’t ask me because…?”

  “He knows I’m a more reliable source of information. What about Meg?” she added. “I saw her talking to you. She thinks I’m a closet case, doesn’t she?”

  Jamie frowned. “Meg doesn’t understand what it’s like to live in the public eye.”

  Even though she’d been expecting it, Emma felt her shoulders fall. Sometimes she hated what being on the national team meant to the rest of her life.