by Sean Kennedy
Emma felt she had done the right thing. She didn’t even know if she was in the running yet—which was something she actually hadn’t gotten around to telling Alya—and there were no missed calls or messages on her mobile when she checked it.
Maybe Emma had just borked everything for nothing. That was so unlike her.
EMMA WAS at a loss because she wasn’t sure whether to go back to her room, where there was an excellent chance Alya would be and another confrontation in the cards—or to go anywhere like a nearby café… until when? Or what? No matter what she did or where she went she would have to face Alya sooner or later, so she headed back to her room. Emma wondered how much grovelling she would have to do despite the fact she thought she deserved an apology as well. Getting onto this shoot was a huge opportunity for her—or at least it would be if they actually contacted her and let her know one way or the other whether she was part of it or not.
Her mobile rang. She was expecting it to be Micah, but the number was private, and Emma couldn’t help but feel a small thrill. This was it!
“Hello, is this Emma Goldsworthy?”
“Speaking.” She tried to sound as calm as possible.
“Hi, Emma, this is Jess calling. I’m an intern with Burt Heckling Photography, and I’m arranging the talent for the shoot this Saturday.”
This Saturday? That was fast.
“Hello?” Jess asked.
Emma realised she hadn’t actually said anything to her. “Sorry, I was just confused because nobody has actually confirmed with me if I’m part of it or not.”
“They haven’t?” Jess sounded annoyed. “Sorry. I’ve had this happen with a couple of other people today. I guess the preliminary interviews have fallen behind.”
“So I’m definitely in?” Emma just wanted to be sure.
“Definitely have you down on the shoot. And you wouldn’t be on the shoot if they’re not interviewing you as well.”
“Oh. Good.” Emma may have sounded nonchalant, but she was basically cartwheeling along the nature strip.
Jess confirmed her email address with Emma and said that all the necessary information would be included such as location, pickup time—pickup time, like Emma was a model!—and the forms she needed to sign. “Just print them out and bring them along on the day, already filled out. We’ll just be handling the photography. The journalist will arrange a time with you for an interview, either in person or on the phone.”
Emma’s mobile pinged. The email had arrived already. This Jess was very officious, it seemed. Or was it efficient? Emma couldn’t remember. Anyway, she did a good job.
“Any questions?” Jess asked.
Emma had a vision of Alya. She wasn’t laying claim to any psychic powers or anything like that, but she saw Alya upset in her room, and she knew she had to try or else she really was the heartless, ambitious wench Alya currently thought she was. “Just one.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have all the people you need? I mean, my friend Alya is also gay and a hockey player here at the AIS. She would be a great subject if you need more.”
“I’m really just an intern,” Jess said, but she sounded kind. “I don’t get to make any of these decisions. But I can tell you that they already have a number of hockey players from the AIS lined up for the piece, so if they wanted more people they would want them from a different sport. Especially boys. Boys weren’t as eager to sign up.”
“Oh, okay,” Emma said, although she hated letting Alya down again. “I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Sure thing,” Jess replied. “See you on Saturday.”
As Emma hung up she remembered what Jess said about the other hockey players from the AIS. She wondered who the hell they were and why she hadn’t heard anybody else bragging about it yet.
EMMA HAD hoped when she received the phone call it would result in her returning triumphantly to the dorm rooms, tracking Alya down, and telling her that Emma Goldsworthy had secured her a place in the photo shoot—thereby proving herself a worthy friend and generously forgiving in spirit.
Emma should have known by now not to rely upon dreams. Or if not dreams, fanciful flights of imagination.
Alya wasn’t in the common room, so Emma gathered up the last reserves of courage and, cowardly lion she was, then knocked gingerly upon Alya’s bedroom door.
“Who is it?” came her voice from within.
“The person you least likely want to see right now.”
Emma could hear her shuffling off her bed and towards the door, which cracked open enough to let her head with its hangdog expression pop through. “You’re not the least likely person I want to see.”
“You could have just said ‘come in.’”
“I said ‘not the least likely.’ That doesn’t mean you’re not pretty far from the bottom of the list.” But she gave a halfhearted smile and moved Emma towards the couches in the common room.
“At least I’m not the bottom, I guess.”
Alya flung herself down and cuddled a cushion to her chest. “I was being an arsehole. Congratulations, and I do really mean it. Now.”
Emma couldn’t help smiling. “Good.”
“I didn’t think I was the jealous type, but what with Kerri breaking up with me and you and I becoming better friends, I didn’t realise I was feeling that shitty about myself.”
“We’ve all been there. I was there, not that long ago.” Emma didn’t think it was worth mentioning that it had only been this morning.
“You were?”
“Yeah.”
“You never told me.”
“I’m a dark horse, Alya.”
She frowned. “When, exactly?”
Emma relied on ancient history. “Settling in here, feeling out of place, watching Trish succeed in America and Micah succeed with the Dockers. I just felt like I was being left behind.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“Your turn will come. Just like it did with me. And then you’ll make someone else horribly jealous.”
“So it’s all part of the circle of life?”
“Yes, it is, Simba. And see where the light touches the land? All of that will be yours some day.”
She shook her head. “You dork.”
“I did try to get you in,” Emma told her when they finally reached a comfortable silence. “I spoke to them earlier. But they said they already had a lot of hockey girls from here, so they were trying to get some boys to diversify.”
Alya snorted. “Must be the first time they had to search for boys to make something diverse.”
“I know, right?”
“Anyway, who do you think it is? The other girls from here, I mean?”
Emma shrugged. “No idea.”
“It’s Trish and her girlfriend,” someone to their backs said.
They both jumped, to find Gwen searching for her elusive hockey sticks. They hadn’t even known she had come in.
Now she had confirmed Emma’s worst fear.
“She’s back?” Emma tried to sound calm.
“Came back yesterday,” Gwen said, her butt in the air as she looked under the couches. “She’s in Alicia’s dorm.”
“How do you know she’s in the photo shoot?” Alya asked her.
“Duh. She’s Trish Webber. Of course she’s going to be in it.” Gwen now appeared again. “Anyway, they were down at the café bragging about it. I didn’t know you were in it too, Em.”
“I just found out,” Emma said. Her mind was racing. It was only slightly behind her heart.
“I’m glad at least one nice person is doing it.” Gwen shrugged.
Alya looked a little shamefaced that someone else’s reaction had been more generous than her own. However, she seemed to have missed the “nice” comment. Emma would have to get Gwen alone later and find out what she meant—was Trish not as universally adored as she thought herself to be?
One could only hope.
“Anyway,” Gwen said. “Have either
of you seen my hockey sticks? They’re the ones with the—”
“Skull and crossbones tape,” Alya and Emma finished for her. Gwen’s sticks and their tape were pretty notorious on the field—if you saw that tape coming for you, you knew it was headed for your skull.
“And no, we haven’t.” Emma spoke on Alya’s behalf as well.
“Maybe I left them in Sinead’s room,” Gwen mused.
Alya perked up, scenting gossip on the wind. “And why would they be in Sinead’s room?”
Gwen visibly coloured. “No reason. Anyway, gotta go.”
The roadrunner wouldn’t have left so obvious a speed trail in its wake.
“There’s a story there,” Alya said, turning back to Emma. “And there’s a story here!”
“There’s no story,” Emma mumbled.
“Yes there is! Trish is going to be at the photo shoot!”
“So?”
“And her girlfriend!”
“That wasn’t confirmed.” Emma shrugged. “Besides, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Liar.”
“Think what you like.”
“It’ll be awkward, though.”
Emma shrugged. “I’ll admit to that.”
“I take it back, what I said earlier.”
“What bit?”
Alya sighed. “That I was jealous of you. Because, really, sometimes you’re not lucky at all.”
“There are worse things,” Emma said, although she couldn’t think of any right now.
“But you can’t pull out,” Alya said. “That would be stupid.”
Emma stared right at her so Alya could see she was speaking the utmost truth. “I wouldn’t even consider it.”
AND WHY would she?
Emma wasn’t going to let Trish dictate her life, and she wasn’t going to let Trish stop her from trying to get ahead in anything that she wanted to do. Alya was right—it would be awkward. But Emma could live with awkward as long as it got her on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Or at least on the fold-over flap.
She would prefer the cover, of course.
Emma hadn’t even seen Trish since she got back from America. She had somehow managed to avoid her over the past twenty-four hours, and it would probably be even worse to speak to her for the first time in a couple of years on the day of the actual shoot when Emma would already be nervous enough. She had to be prepared.
She had to seek Trish out and get this bloody reunion done and dusted.
Chapter 5
GWEN HAD said Trish and her girlfriend were in the café. Hopefully they would still be there.
But Emma had to freshen up first. It wasn’t to impress Trish. It was so she wouldn’t think that Emma was unkempt and wild since she left her. That Emma was cool, calm, and had been taking on the world in Trish’s absence and done so without a care.
Alya came in to use the loo and caught her primping in the mirror.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” Emma drew a perfect arch of eyeliner below her lid.
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Alya said.
“Just go to the toilet,” Emma said.
She did so, closing the door to the stall behind her. Emma had the sneaking suspicion Alya was watching her through the crack, so she continued to nonchalantly apply makeup. Not too much, of course. Just the no-makeup look, using makeup of course.
“I know what you’re doing,” Alya said, muffled behind the door.
“I don’t want to know what you’re doing.” Why did women always have to treat the loos like a gang hideout? Get in and get your business done and get out was Emma’s motto. Once her makeup was back in her bag, she would be out of there.
The toilet flushed, and Alya emerged to wash her hands. Damn, she was quick. Emma was hoping to be gone before Alya finished.
“As soon as Gwen said Trish was in the photo shoot, you got a gleam in your eye,” Alya accused her.
“But probably not for the reason you think.” Emma ran her mango gloss over her lips and smacked them together satisfactorily.
“You’re doing the desperate ‘I’m fine without you’ touch-up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Emma was craven and her lies were transparent.
Alya rolled her eyes. “I did it to Kerri just after we broke up. I looked like I was wearing a bad Snapchat filter, I had so much makeup on. And I could tell she thought I was pathetic.”
Emma threw her lip gloss back in the bag. “That shithead! She had no right to judge you!”
“Well, I was being pathetic. I shouldn’t have done it. Well, I mean, I shouldn’t have cared what she thought about me. And she never said anything. I could just tell she felt a bit sorry for me. And that was a million times worse.”
Emma stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look like herself. At least, not the campus Emma. “Going out on the town” Emma, but that wasn’t the Emma who would be popping into a uni café at three in the afternoon.
“I’m keeping on the lip gloss.” Emma investigated her bag for her makeup removal pads.
“Yeah, to remind her who she’s no longer kissing.”
Emma grimaced. “On second thought, everything goes.”
TRISH AND her girlfriend were still in the café. There was no turning back now.
Trish was a queen surveying her court. She probably would have crushed mean girl Regina George beneath her ASICS sneaker without pausing from eating her spinach and ricotta roll. Which looked damn good, Emma thought, and her stomach was rumbling audibly as she considered just snatching it and running away into the oncoming night, cackling like a madwoman.
By now Trish had seen her, and she leaned in to say something to her girlfriend. What’s-her-name—okay, Kelsey—looked up, studied Emma like a bug under her microscope lens, and nodded coolly. Trish stood, ignored the girl who had suddenly appeared before her wanting to talk to the great Trish Webber, and made her way over to Emma.
Trish spoke first. “I wondered when I would run into you here.”
“At this café? I have to admit, it’s not usually one I hang out at.” Playing dumb was a specialty of Emma’s. You lured your prey in so they thought they were the ones who had power over you, and then you bared your shark teeth and bit them in two.
Maybe her fantasies were getting a bit too violent.
But Trish didn’t seem to notice. “No, dummy. Around campus.”
Dummy? Was this Trish’s new term of endearment for her after the breakup? Emma could feel her power slipping through her fingers.
“I’m not that hard to find, really. They have, like, a campus directory and everything on something called the internet.”
“I wasn’t sure you would want to be found.”
“Really? Why would you think that?”
Trish started looking a little uncomfortable. “Just after the way everything ended between us.”
Emma scoffed. “That?”
Now she looked angry. “Yeah, that.”
“Oh, Trish.” Emma had a fine line to ride here; she wanted to sound sincere with only a hint of mockery. She couldn’t cross over into full-blown bitch territory. “That was such a long time ago. I mean, it’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it?”
Relief crossed her face. The girl was going through the entire gamut of emotions right now. She should have done a theatre course instead. “So you’re fine? I mean, you look good and all.”
Look good and all? “Fine and dandy.” Emma grimaced inwardly at how faux chipper she was being.
“It’s just I didn’t want things to be awkward between us. I mean, I’m not expecting us to be best mates—”
Emma resisted the urge to laugh in her face.
“—but to at least be comfortable around each other, you know?”
The devil was in Emma. “What, like have coffee with you and your girlfriend? Like, right now?”
Panic was evident in Trish’s face. “What? Really?”
But even
Emma couldn’t be that mean. “Relax, I’m just kidding.”
She sighed. “You always did.”
“No, seriously, I’m glad I saw you. It would have been awkward if the first time we saw each other again was at the photo shoot this week.”
Trish stared at her. “What photo shoot?”
“For Sports Illustrated. About the out kids in sport rising through the ranks.”
Dumbfounded. There was no other word for it. Trish was dumbfounded. “You’re in the Sports Illustrated shoot?”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not… it’s just….” Her eyes suddenly widened, as if it had all become clear. “Oh. Micah.”
Even if she was right, Emma wanted to whack her over the head with her stick (if she’d had it on her) for jumping to the conclusion that Emma couldn’t get onto the shoot on her own merits.
“Micah will be there. But he has nothing to do with me getting in,” Emma lied.
Trish could see right through her. “If you say so.”
“Well, that was always your problem, wasn’t it? You were so obsessed with getting yourself ahead that you never looked around to see that other people were just as capable of doing the same.”
“Wait a minute, that’s not fair.”
“Do you not remember what you said when I told you I wanted to apply to the AIS?”
“No.” But Emma could see by the set of Trish’s eyes that she did. Really, it wasn’t one of her proudest moments.
“I’ll remind you, shall I? You said I shouldn’t get my hopes up—that it was tough to get in and sometimes big fish in little ponds can’t survive in the ocean and that it’s better for them to stay where they are.”
Oh, Trish remembered. She closed her eyes, and Emma knew it was because she was too embarrassed to look at her. “I was trying to make you feel better. You were so worried, and I wanted you to know if you didn’t get in that you weren’t a failure.”
“That’s very noble of you. But imagine what your reaction would’ve been if I’d given you that speech when you were applying.”
