Outside the Lines

by Kate Christie

  “I assumed Jamie knew too,” Jo had told her when Emma came up to her room that night.

  “No, and I don’t want her to.”

  “What about her friends on the team? Won’t they try to talk to her about it?”

  “I asked them not to mention it either.” Accustomed to dealing with their own trolling issues, Ellie and Maddie had readily agreed, while Angie and Britt had told her they already ignored most online commentary.

  “Is that really the best decision, Emma? It’s only a matter of time before she sees one of these tweets.”

  “There are things you don’t know, Coach. Information that isn’t mine to share. But if you knew, I think you’d understand why I want to protect her from all of this.”

  At that, Jo had balanced her pen on two fingers like a teeter totter. “I appreciate that you don’t want to give away Jamie’s confidence,” she’d said finally, glancing up at Emma meaningfully, “but I think I might understand why you’re so protective of her. Pete Tyrell, one of her old club coaches, and I go way back.”

  Emma’s eyes had narrowed. Pete was the coach who’d taken Jamie’s club team to Lyon. Was Jo saying she knew about Jamie’s assault? But Jamie had never told Pete what happened the last night of the trip, so how could he have told Jo?

  All of a sudden it had hit her. “Her parents,” she said softly. “They told him?”

  “They were upset,” Jo explained, “as any parent would be. I think her mother needed someone to blame. When he found out what happened to Jamie, Pete blamed himself too. No coach wants something like that to happen to the kids on their watch. Well, no good coach. I think you and I both know there are people who can’t be trusted around kids.”

  Emma had nodded, her eyes misting over. “She doesn’t know he told you, does she?”

  “No. It’s her business. If she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.”

  After dropping her bombshell, Jo had asked Emma if she’d contacted the authorities about her online harasser. Emma explained that technically, the guy on Twitter hadn’t done anything illegal, and she was hoping it stayed that way. That was good, Jo had agreed. Still, she thought that Emma should meet with Caroline Jankowski, the team’s PR rep, during January camp. Whether she included Jamie in the meeting or not was up to her. But the federation had experience with these matters, and Jo felt certain that Caroline would be able to offer advice and access to additional resources.

  Emma had realized that night that Jo was on her side, and Jamie’s too, with the full weight of US Soccer behind her. It made a difference, as much as Emma might wish it didn’t. Three years ago, she hadn’t reported the incident with Sam because she’d chosen not to press charges, and her contract only required her to inform the federation of official police reports. Now she wondered: If she had asked for help back then, would things have gone differently for her and Sam?

  Before she could go too far down that rabbit hole, she reeled herself back to the present. The situation was under control. She and the coaching staff were on the same page, and Jamie hadn’t been distracted by Emma’s online drama. When Jamie had asked her about the meeting in Jo’s room, Emma had only shared Jo’s suggestion that she meet with the PR rep to discuss social media strategy. She hadn’t let on what that conversation would likely entail: a review of the kinds of online behavior that were illegal under state and federal statutes versus the sort that simply had to be endured, without recourse to official channels.

  From everything Emma had read, the latter type of harassment was far more common—and preferable, too, because in most cases it went away on its own. That was what had happened last time, after she and Sam broke up and the furor around the last World Cup finally died down. Hopefully that would be the outcome this time, too—except that they wouldn’t lose to Japan in the World Cup finals and she and Jamie wouldn’t break up. Right. The power of positive thinking.

  She closed her eyes, shutting out the little voice reminding her that another World Cup was only six months away. Positive god-damn thinking: They would win the World Cup and ride off into the sunset. They would win the World Cup and ride off into the sunset. THEY WOULD WIN THE WORLD CUP AND…

  She punched her pillow, but quietly so as not to wake Steph, and tried to think of something else to worry about—tomorrow’s return trip across the bumpy Brazilian atmosphere, for example. That was it. She settled into the familiar fear, almost welcoming its pull. After all, gravity and potential mechanical failures were things over which she had long since accepted she had zero control.

  Chapter Ten

  Snuggled up on her parents’ couch in front of a roaring fire, Jamie sighed for approximately the thousandth time since arriving in Berkeley the night before last. From the dining table across the room, Meg pelted her with popcorn in a surprisingly accurate throw.

  “Hey!” Jamie picked the popcorn off the couch and tossed it in her mouth. No use letting good food go to waste. “What was that for?”

  “For mooning over your girlfriend like a lost puppy,” Rhea supplied, fingers moving rapidly over her own popcorn string.

  “I’m not—” Jamie started, but then she stopped. Maybe she was.

  “Dude,” Meg said in that half-mocking, half-affectionate tone only a sibling could muster, “why don’t you go visit her?”

  “I am. New Year’s at the Space Needle, remember?”

  This would be the first time in memory that Jamie failed to attend New Year’s at the Embarcadero with her parents and the Thompsons. While she knew she would miss being with family and friends, she was hoping that ringing in the new year with Emma would mark the start of an era. The idea of watching Seattle’s fireworks with Emma from her deck made Jamie feel more grown-up than almost anything else she’d done this year. Except, maybe, buying her own car, and even then her parents had co-signed the loan.

  Maybe 2015 would be the year she could finally claim financial and emotional independence from her family of origin. It would definitely be the year she turned twenty-seven, anyway.

  “I meant go see her in Minnesota,” Meg said. “She’s there until right before New Year’s, isn’t she? I assume you have frequent flyer miles up the wazoo, with your recent jet-setting lifestyle and all.”

  Jamie sat up on the couch, frowning. “I can’t just show up on her mom’s doorstep.”

  “Why not? She did here last year, didn’t she?”

  This was an excellent point. Also, hadn’t Emma all but asked her in London to “show up unannounced” sometime in the near or far future?

  Becca’s mom poked her head into the combined dining/living room. “How are the popcorn strings coming, girls?”

  “Fine, Mama Ruth,” Meg said cheerfully.

  “Good. Because the eggnog is spiked, ready, and waiting. Well, not for you,” she added with a smile at her daughter-in-law. Her very-pregnant-with-twins daughter-in-law. After hanging out with Tina Baker when she was pregnant the previous winter, Jamie hadn’t expected Rhea to be quite this huge. Then again she was carrying an additional human being in there.

  Incidentally, Becca kept calling the babies their BOGO twins—as in, Buy One Get One free. They’d gone through a sperm bank in LA that was apparently considered top-notch but that also charged quite a bit for their services.

  “Turns out it’s expensive to be sperm-challenged,” Becca had complained earlier. Rhea did not seem amused by this term nor by her wife’s nickname for their unborn daughters. Unsurprisingly, this did not prevent Becca from repeating both ad nauseum.

  Ruth turned to Jamie. “And what exactly are you doing, young lady?”

  “Offering moral support?” Jamie hazarded from her cozy spot by the fireplace.

  She’d gone outside earlier to help with the annual hanging of the lights, but too many light-hangers was an actual thing, she’d discovered. Instead of incurring another person’s wrath, she’d retired to the living room and built up the fire. For the sake of the greater good, of course.

  Becca’s m
om pursed her lips. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Well, I suppose you’re still suffering from jet lag.”

  “Right. Jet lag,” Jamie agreed.

  “More like lovesickness,” Rhea murmured snidely to Meg, who hid her laugh behind a handful of popcorn.

  Jamie was about to stick her tongue out at her sister and Rhea when the door to the front porch opened, revealing Becca dressed in her usual thousand layers, including a faded 49ers balaclava. Becca hated cold weather so much that Jamie had been shocked she’d chosen NYU for college, and even more surprised when she stuck it out all four years. Rhea was a large part of the reason she hadn’t transferred back to the West Coast after her first New York snowstorm. They’d met at the library during their first week of classes, though it had apparently taken them a couple of years to figure out they belonged together. Still, they’d been together ever since, and now their “we” was about to expand.

  “Yo, ladies, the 2014-15 Maxwell-Thompson Street Light Show is ready for your viewing pleasure,” Becca announced. “Drop your popcorn balls and—wait, are you lying down on the job, James?”

  “Dude, no!” Quickly she rose, shedding her blanket. “I was tending the fire so you could warm up when you came back in.”

  Becca stared at her suspiciously. “Right. Let’s get the viewing over and the eggnog-sipping by the fire started!” Her gaze shifted to her wife and gentled immediately. “How are you, sweetheart? Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine,” Rhea said, sounding uncharacteristically annoyed. “I have to pee. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  As Rhea heaved herself up from her seat at the dining table and headed for the downstairs bathroom, Jamie was fairly certain she saw Becca’s shoulders fall slightly. In the years they’d been together, she’d never witnessed such tension between them. It was probably just the babies wreaking havoc. Pregnant women supposedly experienced mood swings that made PMS seem like nothing. She pictured Emma, her belly round (but not as large as Rhea’s, preferably; Jamie wasn’t sure she could handle twins), her face twisted in grouchiness for months on end. It would be hard, but at the end there would be the babies—BABY—making everything that had come before worth it. She hoped.

  Outside, the assembled members of the Maxwell, Thompson, and Kirschoff clans waited for Rhea to join them before Jamie’s mom did the honors, flicking the master switch to the massive light strings hung around the gutter, the trees in the front yard, and even the bushes that lined the walkway. It was pretty amazing, Jamie had to admit. But then, it always was. Her parents took their holiday lights seriously. It was the ideal blend of her mother’s artistry and her father’s tech wizardry, they claimed.

  Did Emma’s mom decorate her house in the Twin Cities with lights, or was that something she’d given up after Emma’s dad died? Assuming they’d hung lights in Shoreline at all.

  “Earth to Jamie,” her dad said, gazing at her expectantly.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said. “It’s great, as usual.”

  “Wishing you were in Minnesota right about now?” Meg asked.

  “Not at all,” she lied. No doubt unconvincingly—she’d never been much good at it.

  “Why would anyone want to go to Minnesota in December?” Becca asked, shivering at the mere thought of such ridiculousness.

  “Because she’d have Emma to keep her warm,” Meg answered.

  An assertion that Jamie couldn’t argue with.

  It was a perfect Maxwell-Thompson family holiday celebration, with the usual outdoor lights extravaganza followed by eggnog around the fire place, the informal party attended by good music and the scent of shortbread, gingerbread, and sugar cookies baking in the kitchen. Jamie enjoyed the family and friends time as ever, but this time she was only half present. The other half of her mind was, as her sister alleged, in Minnesota.

  Always in the past, no matter what her relationship status, she’d spent Christmas in this house with her family. And always, in the past, that had been enough. Last year, she and Clare had been planning to spend the holiday together for the first time when the national team called, signaling the end of their relationship as far as Clare was concerned. Jamie had ended up booking a flight that left London on Christmas morning, though with the time difference, she’d still managed to get home midday.

  Now, a year later, she was at home again, rehashing the same arguments about the consumerism of American holidays and which was better: shortbread or gingerbread cookies. (Pumpkin pie, obviously, Jamie thought, rolling her eyes to herself.) And yet it wasn’t the same. She missed Emma, a familiar sort of ache that all at once felt unnecessary. Why weren’t they together right now? Why weren’t they splitting time at each other’s family’s houses over the holidays—Christmas with one, New Year’s with the other—like Meg and Todd, Becca and Rhea, and even Emma’s little brother Ty and his fiancée? The main difference was that the other couples had been together longer than they had, but in point of fact, Jamie and Emma had known each other far longer than any of the others had. The only reason they weren’t together right this second snuggling on the couch beside Meg and Todd was that it had been her turn to do the asking, and she’d chickened out.

  When Todd went to grab his guitar to start the caroling portion of the evening’s entertainment, she excused herself briefly to make a call.

  Carpe diem, biatch, as Angie would say. Angie, who was home in New Jersey with her family while Maddie celebrated separately in Chicago with hers. But that was more by necessity. Neither of their families approved of their “lifestyle choice.” Unless they were prepared to have an Orphans’ Christmas, they didn’t have the option of being together at the holidays.

  A voice at the other end sounded, and she clutched the phone tighter. “Hi, it’s Jamie,” she said. “I have a favor to ask.”

  #

  She was beginning to feel like she spent half her life in airports waiting for luggage to crawl past at either abysmally slow or psychotically fast rates. In this case, at the Minneapolis airport, the current rate was Way Too Slow. But at last, as it usually did, the baggage carousel spit out her suitcase and duffel. She sent a quick text and headed outside, stopping directly as pre-arranged beneath the glowing “1” sign.

  And, hell’s bells, it was COLD. She huddled deeper into her puffer coat, trying to remember if its insulation was good to zero degrees. How was this temperature even possible in mainland America? Seemed more suited to the Yukon Territory, honestly. At least baggage claim exited onto a covered drive. The exposed roadway up on the ticketing level was, presumably, even colder.

  Fortunately—thank the good lord in whom she did not believe—she didn’t have to wait long. Soon a sedan slowed in front of her and ejected a tall, poshly dressed man from the passenger seat.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “You’re super tall.”

  He grinned down at her. “Well, I was only thirteen the last time I saw you.”

  “Shut up,” Jamie said, laughing as she pulled him in for a hug. “It’s good to see you, Ty.”

  “You too, Jamie.” Before they could freeze to death, he helped her deposit her bags in the trunk. “Back seat okay?”

  “I don’t care as long as it has heat,” Jamie assured him, sliding into the thankfully warm car and slamming the door. “Jesus. I mean, hi,” she added as she realized the woman in the driver’s seat was watching her.

  “Hi,” the woman replied, smiling somewhat shyly. She was even prettier in person than on Facebook, Jamie realized. Well done, Ty.

  Ty folded himself into the front passenger seat. “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, it’s freaking cold! Oh, Bridge, this is Jamie. Jamie, meet Bridget, the kind and amazing woman who has agreed to share her life with me.”

  “Don’t you mean certifiable?” Jamie teased.

  “I resemble that!” Bridget exclaimed, casting her a mock glare.

  And yeah. She would fit right in with the Blakeleys.

  Bridget placed the car in gear and started awa
y from the curb, maneuvering around haphazardly parked vehicles and baggage-laden people in varying stages of dress, from the heavily bundled to the barely bundled at all. Jamie was definitely going to borrow a hat and gloves—assuming she left Emma’s mom’s house at all before their flight to Seattle in two days’ time. It was brief enough of a visit that she might be able to get away with staying inside.

  “Congratulations, by the way,” she said, projecting her voice into the front seat.

  Bridget smiled at her in the rearview mirror as Tyler said over his shoulder, “You mean on the Longest Engagement EverTM?”

  Jamie bit her lip. “They told you they call it that?”

  “I overheard them,” he admitted. “Not the most tactful of people, my family.”

  “Speaking of, does Emma know?”

  “Nope, not a clue.” His smile was smug, and reminded Jamie a bit of his older sister when she was especially proud of herself for some bit of geekery or another. “Mom claimed we ran out of beer, so as long as Em doesn’t go check the garage stash, we should be set.”

  That was good, Jamie told herself as she nodded at Ty and glanced outside at the frozen Minnesota landscape. Why was she so nervous, then? Because everyone who knew Emma knew how she felt about surprises. Sure, she’d said in London that Jamie was always welcome, but had she meant it?

  As Bridget guided the car across the city, Jamie sincerely hoped she had.

  She only managed a glimpse of Emma’s mother’s “new” house as they drove up the long driveway on the non-lake side. Still, she saw enough to realize that while the property might not be quite as imposing as the old house overlooking Puget Sound, it was impressive all the same with its wide, snow-covered yard and peaceful setting across the street from a good-sized lake. Her attention wasn’t on the house itself, though. She was more concerned with the people inside.

  Bridget stopped the engine and cast Jamie an encouraging smile. “Ready?”