“That’s a bummer.” Suddenly she remembered Ty’s prank at the ice cream shop. “You’re not going to believe what your brother did.” She relayed the story, pretending to be offended when Emma laughed at her. Not with her this time, but definitely at. “What is it about your family and friends threatening me, anyway? First Maddie and now Ty. Anyone else I need to worry about?”
“Dani,” Emma said immediately. “Definitely Dani.”
“I feel like if she ever gave me the shovel talk, it would be dead serious.” She winked, proud of the pun. “Get it?”
“Yes, Jamie, I get it. How could you think Ty meant it, though? Maddie, yes, but my little brother?”
“He was sneaky,” she defended herself. “He sucked me in, telling me how happy he was that we’re together.”
“I could see that.” Emma clasped Jamie’s free hand. “You’ve always been a Blakeley family favorite too, you know.”
“Your mom and brother, maybe. Your dad was less than thrilled at the prospect of me being in your life, if you’ll recall.”
Emma’s grip on her hand loosened. “I recall.”
Normally Jamie didn’t bring up Emma’s dad, but cuddling with her in her mom’s house at the holidays brought a sense of easy intimacy. Maybe that was why she finally voiced the question she’d long been curious about: “Do you think he didn’t like me because I’m gay, or because I look like a boy? Or both?”
Emma looked away. “I don’t know. I was barely speaking to him then.”
“Oh. Right.” It was possible Jamie was the only one feeling a heightened sense of intimacy. Or maybe she simply shouldn’t be asking Emma about her late father so close to Christmas. The holidays were supposedly difficult for families who’d lost someone, no matter how far in the past the loss might be.
Beside her, Emma moved restlessly. “I really don’t know, Jamie. I was too angry with him my senior year to care much about what he was thinking or feeling.”
“You had every right to be angry. He cheated on your mom and walked out on you and your brother. Even if he did come back, there’s no taking away what he did.”
“I know. I get that it’s justified anger and all of that, but it still sucks that he died thinking I hated him.”
“He died thinking you were angry with him,” Jamie corrected, smoothing her fingers over Emma’s soft cheek. “Still shitty, but there is a difference.”
Emma closed her eyes and leaned into her touch. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
“Hello, of course I’m right.”
Emma’s eyes flicked open and she smiled. “Goofball.”
“Your goofball.” Jamie pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
“My goofball,” Emma agreed, tugging her closer. “Love you, James.”
“Love you too, Em.”
A moment later Emma murmured, “I have an idea about how to warm you up. Want to hear?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve hooey of any sort…”
Emma cracked up, and then she kissed her.
Her ideas, Jamie thought contentedly just before they both fell asleep, were pretty freaking awesome.
Chapter Eleven
The kitchen was occupied the next morning when Emma and Jamie returned from a brisk, snowy run around Lake Harriet.
“Good morning, girls,” her mom said, closing her newspaper with a smile. “I had no idea anyone else was up this early.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Emma said, smiling back. Minnesota was starting to feel more and more like home—or a second home, anyway. She had a feeling that would be true of any place her mother chose to live.
“How is it out?”
“Not bad,” Jamie said. “I still have feeling in all my extremities, so that’s a plus.”
“Speaking of extremities,” Emma said, swatting her affectionately, “you can have the first shower.”
“Well, yeah. I beat you, remember?” she said with that swagger that always made Emma’s heart go all aflutter.
Her mother was watching them, so she only huffed and turned away. “In your dreams, Maxwell.”
“You’re the one who’s dreaming, Blakeley.”
“You wish.” Emma tossed her a banana from the bowl on the kitchen island. “Now get going before the smell of sweat kills my mom’s appetite.”
Jamie’s eyes widened, and then she skedaddled from the kitchen as fast as her tights-encased legs would take her.
“Emma,” her mother admonished, “that wasn’t nice.”
“Hate to tell you, Mom, but I don’t think ‘Minnesota nice’ is a thing in Seattle.” She crossed to the refrigerator and, after rummaging through its extensive interior, emerged with a carton of eggs. “French toast?”
“If you’re cooking.”
“I’m cooking.”
As Emma had known she would, her mom moved from the table by the window to a stool at the breakfast bar to keep her company.
“How was the trail around the lake?” she asked as Emma assembled various bowls and utensils.
“Mostly clear. It’s warmer today, so we decided to run outside instead of taking turns on your treadmill.”
“Ah.”
“Which,” Emma prodded, glancing over her shoulder as she cracked an egg into one of the bowls, “is a little bit dusty, I noticed.”
“It’s the holidays,” her mother said, waving a hand. “I’ll get back to my routine once you kids go back to your lives, but for now I want to be with my children. Is that so bad, Emma?”
“Nice try, Mom,” she said, adding more eggs to the mixing bowl, “but I think you can spare a half hour for a workout. It’s not like I haven’t made time to exercise since I got here.”
“That’s different, honey. Your job depends on how fit you are, whereas mine most definitely does not.”
Emma moved to the sink to wash her hands. “Why don’t you join a tennis club? They play indoors year round, don’t they?”
“I thought about it, but with my work schedule, it’s hard to commit to anything that requires regular attendance.”
“I know it’s hard,” Emma said, drying her hands. “But that doesn’t mean you should just give up. You and Dad used to be so active, and now…” She trailed off as she stacked bread on a cutting board. She didn’t want to make her mother feel bad about herself. She simply wanted her to be healthy. Or, healthier.
“We were younger back then, honey. We had enough energy to work sixty-hour weeks and still attend your games and take Ty to the skate park. I’m not that young anymore. It’s normal for a woman’s metabolism to slow down at my age. It’s the life cycle of the body at work.”
“I know,” Emma repeated, adding a dash of cinnamon to the egg-milk mixture. And she did understand that, in theory. But when you spent ninety-five percent of your time with professional athletes, your notion of what constituted a “normal” body tended to end up skewed.
Her mother sipped her coffee. “This is nice, by the way, just the two of us. I’m sorry I had to work so much before your brother and Bridget got here.”
“It’s fine,” Emma said. If there was one thing she understood, it was the importance of work. “It gave me a chance to get to know Roger better. Has he always been a soccer fan, or have you been training him?”
“I might have trained him. You’ll be happy to know he’s now an official Manchester United fan.”
“Well done, Mom,” Emma said approvingly.
“Speaking of soccer, how are you? You appear very fit, although admittedly it’s hard to tell with all the layers.”
“Ha ha.” She shot her mother a mock glare before adding butter to the oversized non-stick pan warming on the burner. Her mom had such nice kitchen gear. Maybe she should invest in some quality pots and pans herself. Right. Because she was home so often.
“Another residency camp starts soon, doesn’t it?” her mom asked.
“A week from today.” Emma felt her shoulders tense and tried to relax them, knowing her mother woul
d notice.
If she had, she didn’t mention it. “How’s the new coach working out, really?”
As she dunked several slices of bread in the soupy mixture, Emma experienced déjà vu—hadn’t her mother asked nearly the same question the last time Emma was home for the holidays? And hadn’t Emma sat at the breakfast bar dithering over being at January camp with Jamie, who was still the same lovely person she’d always been only, unfortunately, with a serious, live-in girlfriend? Now somehow a year later, Emma was the serious girlfriend, albeit not of the live-in variety. Yet.
“Jo is fine,” she said. “Good, I think. Better than Craig, definitely. Since she played for the federation and has been coaching in the system for a while, there’s a layer of knowledge and understanding that he simply didn’t have.”
She spread the melted butter around with a spatula and then used a fork to transfer the sodden pieces of bread from the mixing bowl to the pan. They sizzled briefly before settling into being cooked. Emma fiddled with the flame height. She missed cooking with gas. Electric stoves were so imprecise. Her off-campus house in North Carolina, where she’d first learned to cook spaghetti and steamed vegetables for twenty, had contained a huge old gas stove. So had her loft in Boston. Built in a historic building that once housed a factory, the apartment had come with radiators and gas appliances. Seattle, meanwhile, was the land of electric appliances. That was one of the only downsides to her home state, as far as she was concerned.
“How does Jo compare to Marty?” her mother asked.
Emma shrugged and turned to face her, leaning against the oven handle. “She’s similar, but more systematic, I guess. Deliberate and structured whereas Marty was more the wing-it type.” She hesitated. “It wasn’t only the last game, though. I didn’t get as much playing time overall in Brazil.”
“I noticed,” her mom said, hands clasped around the ceramic mug Ty had made her in tenth grade art class. “Could it be retaliation for your efforts around the turf issue?”
“I don’t think so. If it were, she’d have to bench half the team. And anyway, Ellie says that as a former player, Jo supports any push toward equitable treatment.”
“All right then. That leaves you not getting involved with scoring.”
Emma nodded. “Yeah.” Despite their insane work schedules, she and her mom talked and video chatted regularly. As a result, her mother was well-acquainted with most of her recent national team troubles.
“So what’s your plan, honey?”
She turned back to the burner and checked the bread. Ready to flip. “Ellie offered to work with me during January camp. Jamie and Maddie did, too.”
“Sounds like your people are rallying around you.”
She hadn’t thought of it like that. “I guess they are.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve always liked Ellie and Maddie, and Jamie is obviously wonderful.”
“Obviously.”
“You two seem happy,” her mom commented.
She smiled over her shoulder. “We are. Or I am, anyway.”
“I think it’s safe to say she is too. Took you long enough to find your way to each other. It was all I could do last Christmas not to shake some sense into you. I swear, Emma, it felt like you were doing your best to avoid the happiness being dangled directly in front of you.”
“I wasn’t avoiding it,” Emma insisted, but the protest sounded weak even to her ears. She checked the bread. It was ready, so she added it to a plate warming in the oven and transferred additional slices to the pan. “Anyway,” she added, casting about for a new subject, “Ellie told me some things about her family I didn’t know.”
“What kinds of things?”
Emma filled her mother in on Ellie’s relationship with her parents, particularly her father.
“That poor young woman,” her mom said. “I had no idea.”
“Neither did I. Actually, it reminds me of something Jamie said. About Dad.”
“Oh?” Her mother’s tone was slightly confused but open, a combination that gave Emma the courage to continue.
“You know how he didn’t like Jamie? Well, she asked me if I knew why, and I realized I don’t.” She cleared her throat. “I was just wondering—do you?”
Her mother was silent for a moment. “I wouldn’t say your father didn’t like Jamie,” she said finally, plucking at a linen napkin on the bar. “He thought she seemed like a good kid. A smart kid, maybe a bit wild, but not unlikable.”
That couldn’t be right. Emma placed the finished slices in the oven and switched off the burner before turning to face her mother. “Then why did he tell me over and over again that he didn’t think our friendship was a good idea? The last time we talked about her, in fact, he thought Jamie and I were dating. When I asked him if that would be so bad, do you know what he said?”
Her mother shook her head, brow creased in a way that Emma recognized instantly. It was the same look she and Ty got, too, when they were upset.
She stopped. What was she doing? It was Christmas, and she was upsetting her widowed mother over something that had happened a lifetime ago. She turned back to the stove and relit the burner. “Never mind. It’s not important.” She added more butter to the pan and dunked more bread in the mixture. A few more pieces and the bowl would be dry.
“Don’t do that, Emma,” her mother said, voice rising slightly. “I know that our family isn’t always the best at communication, but this is clearly important or you wouldn’t have carried it with you all these years.”
Emma stared down at the stovetop. “I don’t want to upset you. It’s the holidays.”
“And you and I have what, five minutes more, tops, before your brother or Roger or someone else comes down those stairs? Talk to me, Emma, while we still can. Please.”
“Fine,” she said, transferring the final pieces of toast to the pan before turning back to her mother. “The night he took me out to dinner at Seattle Center, Dad told me that he didn’t want me getting involved with ‘someone like Jamie.’ So I told him she had more integrity in—I think it was her elbow, or maybe her little toe? Either way, more than he did in his entire body.”
She still remembered his expression when she’d stormed out, leaving him by himself at his favorite restaurant. She used to feel so special when he would take her out for a father-daughter dinner date. But by then, he was spending more time away than at home. Rather than allow what she’d perceived as his rejection of who she was—who Jamie was—to hurt her, she’d found refuge in anger.
“And you thought that meant he didn’t like Jamie?” her mother asked. “That he was opposed to your relationship with her because she was a girl?”
Emma nodded, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. Before her mom could say anything else, she turned and flipped the bread in the pan. No need to set off the fire alarm. Although it would serve her brother’s lazy ass right to be awakened by the alarm, hard-wired through the house and serviced by a company with the local fire department on speed dial.
“Oh, sweetie,” her mom said, abandoning the breakfast bar and coming closer. “I’m so sorry. I knew that you two had argued, but I didn’t know what about.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not your fault he was homophobic. May he rest in peace,” she added, flashing a wry smile at her mother. Enough time had passed that they could sometimes invoke dark humor about his passing.
Her mom wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “That’s just it, though—he wasn’t homophobic. Do you want to know why your father worried about your friendship with Jamie? Why we both did?”
They both did? “Yeah, I think I do.”
“When your dad met Jamie’s mother at Surf Cup, the night you two took off without telling anyone, Sarah told him that Jamie had suffered a recent trauma and that she was worried she might do something to hurt herself. That was your father’s first impression of Jamie—of a troubled girl whose mother thought she was capable of self-harm.”
Emma
frowned. Had Jamie considered harming herself? It didn’t seem like something she would do, but Emma hadn’t gotten to know her until a few months after France. Then again, Jamie’s mom hadn’t handled the assault or its aftermath well at all. Case in point, violating Jamie’s privacy in order to yell at her club coach.
The french toast was done, so she added the last slices to the warming plate and turned off the burner. Then she settled back against the counter beside her mother, facing out toward the lake.
“I didn’t know that,” she admitted.
“You have to understand, Emma, that as a parent your first concern is always going to be your own child’s safety. Peer groups are so important in adolescent mental health; all the research says so. Your father and I used to stay up late at night worrying about Dani’s brother’s influence, or about one of the girls on the soccer team who we knew was having problems. We could make sure you were well fed and that you got enough sleep and had adequate emotional support, but the one thing we were powerless to affect was who you and your brother chose to care about. It was what we worried about most while you were in high school. It’ll probably be the thing that you worry about most with your kids someday, too.”
Emma flashed to a slightly older Jamie dressed like Emma’s dad used to in a sports jacket and tie, recording their future daughter’s soccer game from the sideline. It was a nice image, almost nice enough that she wished she could skip over the intervening years and be there now. But in the future she imagined, their kids were still young enough that she and Jamie didn’t stay up late at night worrying about their peer groups.
“You honestly think he didn’t dislike her?” she asked. “That he was only worried about collateral damage?”
“I do. And that’s a good way of putting it.” Her mom slipped her arm around Emma’s shoulders again. “He wasn’t homophobic, sweetheart. He may not have known how to talk to you about it, but I truly believe he would rather have seen you end up with a woman like Jamie, sweet and sensitive and so in love with you, than that awful boy you dated your senior year—what was his name again?”
Outside the Lines Page 23
