Fidelity - SF6 (13 page)

Catherine uttered a gentle laugh and protested, "I’m not sure my memory goes back that far, Jamie."

"Come on, Mother," she insisted, sitting next to her on the window seat. "Skip said we’re leaving at one, so you’ve got fifteen minutes to jog your memory."

"All right, Dear," she agreed, cocking her head to gaze at the ceiling for a moment. "I’m a little embarrassed to admit just how shallow I was at nineteen, but I may as well be honest. I’m quite sure that I didn’t have a list like you do, Jamie. I was more concerned with how a man looked and how he made me feel." A faraway look settled on her face as she grew thoughtful and said, "Your father made me feel special, I suppose. He was older than the boys I generally dated, and he seemed much more mature and settled. It’s hard to explain, but we just clicked. In retrospect, I think he reminded me of my father."

Jamie rolled her eyes at this revelation and said, "Gee, I have no idea what that’s like, Mother.
Jack was soooo different from Daddy."

"Well, you were just my age when you started getting serious about Jack," she agreed with a laugh. "Do you think I would have wound up with a Ryan if I had waited another couple of years?" When Jamie’s round eyes stared back at her, Catherine laughed heartily and insisted, "I’m kidding, Dear. I’ve yet to be attracted to a woman…even though some times I wish I had been."

Now Jamie’s stunned expression turned to concern. "Why would you wish that, Mother?"

Getting to her feet, Catherine laughed again and said, "I can’t imagine that every woman in a 22-year marriage doesn’t at one time or another wish that her husband had some of the qualities that her women friends had. And for that matter, I’m sure every man wishes his wife thought and acted more like his male friends at times. It’s part of the tension that keeps things interesting, Honey."

"Hmm…interesting," Jamie murmured, thinking that Ryan could resemble a man quite easily, so long as her little bag of tricks was in the vicinity.

An hour later, mother and daughter were sitting near the bow of the large, luxuriously appointed yacht, letting the wind play in their hair and generally enjoying the experience.

"Were you finished with your list of spousal attributes, Jamie? It seemed like there were a few more things on your list."

She laughed and admitted, "It was a fairly extensive list. But most of the details aren’t important. Only one big thing was an absolute deal-breaker for me, and thankfully Ryan is the perfect fit for this attribute."

"I can’t wait to hear this one," Catherine teased, a broad smile on her face.

Jamie grew quiet for a moment, thinking about how important this trait really was to her. "I wanted someone who wanted to have a family. It was very important for me to choose a mate that would be a good father. Obviously I’ve had to re-think the title, but whether she would be the birth mother or a co-parent, she would be fantastic. She’s loving and patient and very gentle, and she is a tremendous amount of fun when she’s around kids. I can’t think of anyone who I would rather raise a child with."

Catherine looked just a trifle taken aback as her smile dimmed. It took her a moment to reply, but Jamie waited patiently, having assumed that this might be hard for her mother to accept. "I must say I had not given that thought any consideration. I just assumed that most lesbians remained childless, and that we wouldn’t have grandchildren."

"I think that’s probably accurate, in raw numbers," Jamie agreed. "I don’t know what the statistics are, but I’d guess the majority of lesbian couples don’t have kids. But I think that might be changing for women our age. There were so many babies at the Gay Pride Parade it looked like a really colorful day care facility!"

"Gay Pride Parade," Catherine said with a look of stunned disbelief. "I…I have a hard time imagining you at that event, Dear."

"Yes, we went, Mother, and I know just what you mean because I had a hard time imagining myself there. But Ryan’s very much involved in the community, and we had a great time. It’s taking me a little while to get comfortable, but I really enjoy being around her friends."

"I just thought that since you don’t really consider yourself a lesbian…" she said tentatively, not sure what to make of this development.

"It’s not a big deal, Mother. "I’m not going to lead the parade or anything. I do enjoy going to those events, though, and I expect we’ll continue to do so. You don’t have to be a member of the club to go either…Ryan’s father and her brothers and her aunt were there to support us, and of course, Poppa was there for his congregation."

Catherine shook her head, trying to get her mind around this concept. "I just had no idea…"

"Don’t worry, Mother," Jamie assured her. "It’s taking me some time to get used to all of this. I assume it will take you a little while also."

Catherine nodded, deciding to be completely honest. "I don’t want to upset you, Dear, but the idea of you having children will take me a while to get used to. I just don’t know that it’s wise to raise a child in a non-traditional family. It seems to me that is an additional burden for the child."

Jamie had a tremendous amount to say regarding this issue. She and Ryan had discussed it from nearly every perspective, and they had covered it extensively in her psych class. But she knew that she had come to embrace the idea only after a good deal of discussion and soul-searching, and she knew that her mother had not had time for either. She knew there would be plenty of time to do that before she and Ryan made any concrete plans to have children, so instead of defending her point, she said, "We’re not planning on having children for several years. We can revisit this when we’ve decided to proceed, okay?"

"That’s a good idea, Dear," Catherine agreed immediately, obviously not in the mood to discuss the issue at the moment either. "Anything else on your list?"

"One last big one," she acknowledged. "I always dreamed about having a partner who loved me as much as I loved them. I wanted someone who would consider me an equal partner and who always respected my opinions, even when we disagreed."

"And your Ryan does all of these things?" she asked with a twinkle in her eyes, knowing the answer.

Jamie shot her a shy grin as she acknowledged, "Yep. Every one of them. She treats me like I’m a precious gift. She never really loses her temper or yells at me. And even though we’ve just been together a short time, we’ve had some pretty trying situations already. I think I would have seen her temper come out if it was going to."

"That is a big issue," Catherine agreed, privately wishing that her own husband had the ability to consider her an equal partner in their marriage. Thinking of Jim brought up the topic that she knew he was fixated on. "How does she really feel about our money, Jamie?" she asked a bit hesitantly.

"I was concerned that the money would be a problem, too," her daughter responded with a serious look on her face. Jamie waited just a beat for the surprise to register on her mother’s face before she smiled broadly as she added, "But she loves me in spite of it."

The Santa Cruz-bound women got back into the Lexus after lunch and spent the rest of the drive discussing what could be expected from the upcoming season. "You know," Jordan said, "we really have to go out of our way to set an example this year. This is the youngest team I’ve been on at Cal, and there’s going to be a leadership vacuum if we don’t step up."

"Weren’t you one of the leaders last year?" Ryan assumed Jordan would take charge of almost any situation, so she had not really even considered this point.

"Nope. The two seniors were really dominant. They did a good job of keeping the team focused, even though we weren’t very good. And the year before that, we had three seniors who kicked butt when it was necessary. But you and I are the only seniors this year; of course, you’re by far the oldest player," she teased, getting a smirk out of Ryan.

‘I see your point, Junior," Ryan mused. "I’m not unwilling to step up, as long as the returning players don’t think I’m stepping on toes. It’s pretty rare to have a senior walk-on, and I don’t want people to think I haven’t earned my stripes."

"The juniors saw you play for USF," Jordan reminded her. "I don’t think they’ll mind having you keep them in line. The four sophomores are all pretty quiet, and the freshmen already think you’re a goddess just from watching you in the weight room, so there won’t be a problem with them."

Ryan’s right eyebrow popped up a couple of times. "A goddess, huh? Smart girls."

"Right," Jordan laughed, always amused by Ryan’s cockiness. "So I think we have to go all out this week, to really show these kids how hard we’re going to have to work. I don’t think we need to give rah-rah speeches or anything like that. Let’s just work our asses off to set an example."

"I wouldn’t have it any other way," Ryan agreed, privately musing that she couldn’t see the point of doing something if she wasn’t going to go all out. "We’ll see if you can keep up with me," she taunted.

"Hi, Love Bug," Ryan said into the receiver, once she found the phone in the hallway of the dorm they were assigned to. "Bad news all around, Babe. The cell doesn’t work, and there’s no phone in the room. I’m going to have to use the phone in the hallway of the dorm." She grimaced as she considered the effect that was going to have on their plans for extracurricular phone usage. "Which reminds me…I don’t mind that I’ve never gotten to live in a dorm. How do people stand these places?" She looked around the long hallway, wondering how a space that large, painted a bright peach, could look so dull and drab. Remembering that she was talking to Jamie’s message center, and that her question would, perforce, remain unanswered, she concluded, "I’ll hang out by the phone at nine o’clock your time, okay, Babe? If I don’t hear from you then, page me with the time you will call, and I’ll be here. We’re having dinner at seven, so don’t call from 6:45 on, okay? Love you. Miss you."
Hate this
, she added to herself, feeling quite ill at ease in the strange dorm so far from her beloved.

The 14 members of the volleyball squad gathered on the floor of the empty gym, a smallish facility that looked like it would generally be used for pick-up basketball games, or rec league play. They had all followed their own schedules over the summer, and some of the girls had not been in town, so this was really the first chance they had to be all in one place.

Ryan looked speculatively at her teammates. She knew many of the women from their morning workouts, but she was not sure what position most of them played, even though she could hazard a guess based strictly on height.

The setters and the defensive specialists were generally the smallest players, and were fairly easy to spot.
More Jamie’s height,
she thought, a smile curling her lips. The middle blockers were generally the tallest players, but she knew that she and Jordan were two of the three tallest team members, even though both of them were outside hitters. The other six-footer looked like a middle blocker to Ryan’s assessing eye, and she hazarded a guess that a shorter, but powerfully built woman also played in the middle. She figured that Coach would carry four outside hitters, and she was engaged in trying to guess who the other two were when the student manager called them to attention.

"Hi, everybody," the nervous looking young woman said. She cleared her throat, then shifted from one foot to the other, tossing her head to sweep her shoulder length hair back from her face. "I’m Liz Chang, and I’m going to be the student manager this year. It’s my first year at this, so you might have to bear with me while I learn my job, but I’ll do my best for you all. First thing we have to do is some paperwork." She handed out multi-part forms to each player, and the team members compliantly dropped to the floor and began to fill in the forms with the pens Liz provided.

Only in school or the military can you give a group of people a form to fill out and have them drop to the floor to do it
, Ryan grumbled, still feeling grumpy about being confined to a dorm for a week. Once they had written in their emergency contacts and listed food allergies and any other special needs, Liz gathered the forms and announced that the coaching staff would be along presently.

As predicted, the staff made their entrance, and the players stayed where they were when Rich Placer indicated they should remain in their relaxed positions. "Okay, everyone. Good to see you all. Let’s spend a few minutes getting to know one another, and then we’ll get started."

Everyone spent a moment or two introducing themselves, and Ryan concentrated intently, trying to associate the names with the faces. Coach then introduced assistant coaches Ken Nakajima and Erin Malloy, and launched into a detailed assessment of their potential as a team. He realistically admitted that they would have their hands full with UCLA, USC, Arizona, and Stanford in the PAC-10. Both UCLA and Stanford had beaten them handily the previous year, and both had their key players returning. Nonetheless, he claimed that this year’s team had the talent to do very well in their non-conference games, and if they played well he thought they could make the NCAA tournament for the first time in several years. Ryan and Jordan exchanged determined looks, each knowing that the other was thinking of aiming even higher than just a tournament appearance.

"I’d like to spend today getting an idea of where each of you is in terms of fitness and ability," he announced. "Now that we’re into our practice time, we won’t run as a team any longer. I think each of you will get enough of an aerobic workout that you can stop running, but if you still choose to do so, have at it. Just don’t leave all of your energy out on the road." He looked directly at Ryan and Jordan as he said this, well aware that his competitive seniors had a tendency to overdo their training. Ryan grinned slightly and nodded, showing that she had received the message. "So, since we’re not going to be running any longer, let’s celebrate by having a final blowout!" His proclamation was greeted with groans, even though no one knew exactly what he was proposing. These lifelong athletes had learned at an early age that whenever a coach tried to make an exercise sound like fun–they were in trouble. "Let’s head over to the track." His enthusiastic voice did not diminish the grumbling, but everyone dutifully followed him.

The well-maintained track was located right next to the gym, and Coach Placer explained his goal. "I’d like to gauge your physical condition and your stamina by having you run a series of 400-meter laps." Now the groaning increased among most of the players, but Jordan just sat down on the bleacher and pulled out a pair of shoes. While she was lacing them, Ryan sat next to her and casually asked, "Spikes?"

A quick nod of her head caused her long blonde hair to cascade down her shoulders. "It pays to be prepared," she announced.

"It also pays to have been on the team last year," Ryan reminded her, adding a sharp slap on the back.

Coach allowed them a few minutes to warm up, then had the players run in pairs until everyone had finished the first lap. He timed them with a stopwatch, with Erin keeping notes on everyone’s performance, and after all had finished the first heat, they switched partners and did another.

Ryan was paired first with Jordan and then with the tall woman named Jenny Fletcher, who was, as Ryan had predicted, the incumbent middle blocker. She was a pretty good runner, but Ryan beat her handily, even though the 400 was a little long for her. Ryan’s best track event was the 100, but she was no slouch in the 200 or the 50 for that matter. Speed had always been her greatest asset, and she was both surprised and pleased when she turned in a near personal best in the 400.