Kate Christie (6 page)

At four thirty in the afternoon on Scrimmage Day, Coach held the first official team meeting to hand out uniforms and have the official team picture taken, to be added eventually to the dozens of photos already adorning the Intercollegiate Wall on the second floor of the gym. Then he gave his usual “Welcome, athletes, these are my expectations” speech—which by now, year three, I could almost recite with him—and released us to catch a ride home, six people to a car, for an hour’s nap before dinner.

We had become well-versed in napping on the run, sleeping as we had the past week wherever and for as long as we could.

The following day, Monday, classes were due to start and the regular season practice schedule to begin. No more two-a-days now. With the rest of campus coming alive again, we would be settling into our dual student-athlete roles once more, preseason a steadily fading memory. But for tonight, there was only the deep untroubled sleep of the well-worked athlete, tryouts behind us and a bright, unwritten season full of hope and potential still ahead.

I didn’t see Jess much those first few weeks back on campus.

Soccer opened with a 2-0 win on the road at Irvine. I scored one of our goals on a penalty kick, which was good—Coach had told me during preseason that if I wanted to make All-American I would have to increase my offensive points. Meanwhile, tennis won their opening two matches easily, blanking their first opponent and nearly shutting out the next. Second week of September, the national singles’ rankings came out. Jess, a preseason All-American selection, was ranked number one in Division II.

The Monday the tennis rankings came out, I stayed late after practice to talk to Coach about the defense. Our senior captains were a forward and a midfielder, and half the time they appeared to have no idea what was going on in the backfield. But Coach seemed distracted by the mountain of paperwork on his desk.

44 Kate Christie

After a brief, unfulfilling conversation, I took the elevator down from the coach’s office wing on the third floor to the lobby, where I stepped out directly into the path of someone exiting the nearby stairwell.

“Sorry,” I said automatically before I realized it was Jess.

Then, “Oh, hey! How’s it going?”

Tiny frown lines faded from her forehead as she focused on me. “Cam! Hey.”

We stood smiling at each other in the gym lobby, both dressed in practice gear, athletic bags slung over our shoulders.

It was good to see her. I felt a sudden surge of energy.

“Are you going to dinner? Want to head up together?”

I asked, picturing the two of us seated at a small table in the noisy student center, talking about our sports over a huge dinner befitting a couple of intercollegiate athletes.

“I can’t, actually,” she said, fiddling with the strap on her bag.

“I’m on a limited meal plan this fall, and I already ate breakfast and lunch on campus today.”

“Do you live on campus or off?” I started toward the door, aware that the ID booth attendant, a softball player whose name I couldn’t remember, was openly eavesdropping on our conversation.

“Off.” Jess reached the door first and held it open for me.

We emerged into the evening and rounded the corner of the building, heading toward the parking lot.

“Where? If you don’t mind my asking,” I added, remembering how private she was.

“I rent the third floor of a house on Cistern, just off Ocean View.”

We’d reached my car. I stopped next to the driver’s door and looked at Jess, trying to think of some way to extend our conversation. The opportunity to hang out might not arise again anytime soon. With classes and the season approaching full swing, neither of us had much time to spend on extracurriculars like a social life.

She stopped on the sidewalk beside my little Tercel, looking off toward her Cabriolet a few spots away. Then she looked back at me, a trace of shyness in her eyes.

Beautiful Game 45

“I was just thinking, if you wanted you could come have dinner with me. It’s only pasta and salad, carbo loading for Wednesday.”

I was nodding before she finished. “That’d be cool. You want me to grab anything on the way? Soda or something?”

“That’s okay, you can just follow me.”

She toyed with the strap on her bag again. Was she about to change her mind? I held my breath.

“Okay then.” She moved away.

I couldn’t believe it—Jess Maxwell had just invited me to her apartment. Not at all what I had expected tonight. I slid into my car and tossed my bag on the seat. It was starting to get a little chilly. Not to mention, I smelled like dried sweat and the outdoors. While Jess started her car, I pulled on a relatively clean SDU soccer sweatshirt. Much better.

Jess waved as she backed out of her space, and I followed her from the lot. As we left the university behind, I found myself relaxing when I hadn’t even realized I was tense. Soccer and school and team dynamics faded away, and all at once I was just a regular person driving through La Jolla as the sun drifted nearer the horizon.

On a tree-lined residential street a few minutes from campus, Jess pulled up in front of an enormous yellow Victorian house that looked like it belonged in San Francisco with its neat white trim and polished front porch swing. I stared at it in utter admiration.

This was the kind of house I had always wanted to live in. The Northwest bungalow I’d grown up in was sweet and more than comfortable, of course. But this, this was my dream house.

I parked on the road behind Jess’s car and got out as she walked toward me.

“You live here?” I asked.

“I know, I ask myself that almost daily. Come on,” she added, touching my arm as she passed. “I’m starving.”

“Me, too.”

I followed her up the drive to a side door entrance. That was the first time she had ever touched me voluntarily. Maybe she was starting to feel more comfortable around me. I wondered again if she knew I was gay. How could she not? All anyone had 46 Kate Christie

to do was look at me, I’d always thought. Adolescent boy, or mostly grown woman? Must be a dyke.

Jess unlocked the side door and we headed up a long staircase that doubled back in the middle. There was a door on that landing too.

“That’s the second floor,” Jess said. “My landlords live on the first two floors and rent out the top.”

“Cool.” I had to stop saying that. No need to sound like a dumb jock.

I followed Jess through a locked door at the top of the stairs into a narrow hallway. A mountain bike leaned against one wall across from a closet with sliding wooden doors. Boots and worn cross trainers sat in front of the closet, while a poster of Gabriela Sabatini adorned the wall above the bike, a navy blue Trek.

“Nice wheels,” I said as Jess led me toward the rest of the apartment.

“It’s the reason I’m on a limited meal plan this semester,” she said over her shoulder.

The main room of the apartment ran the length of the house.

The front section served as a living room, complete with a brown paisley couch, an old black La-Z-Boy recliner, a low wooden coffee table, a small TV that perched in the middle of built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and windows that overlooked the front porch and yard. The back half of the room was the kitchen and dining area, with another pair of windows that overlooked the backyard. The floors were warm wood, walls painted cream, decorations worn but attractive. All of the posters, an eclectic collection of Impressionist and modern art, were framed.

“Your apartment is beautiful,” I said.

Jess dropped her bag on the floor next to one of the mismatched dining room table chairs. “Thanks. I just cleaned yesterday. It’s not usually this neat.”

From the look of the place, messy to her probably meant a couple of books on the coffee table, an unwashed glass in the sink, maybe a jacket draped across a chair. Half the time I couldn’t find the clothes I wanted because they were somewhere in the pile on my closet floor. I doubted Jess ever had that problem.

I wandered into the living room, stopping by the window.

Beautiful Game 47

The blinds were up, and I could see my car parked behind hers out on the street. Turning away, I walked from poster to poster in silver, brass and polished wooden frames. There were five total—four in here and one in the kitchen hanging over a small circular table that was covered with an Indian print sheet similar to the one in my dorm room. I recognized Monet’s
Poplars
, brass frame and rose-colored matte bringing out the muted reds and golds. The only other work I knew was the kitchen poster, Picasso’s
Dove
, green and blue and red flowers entwined about the bird’s bodies.

The other three pieces were more abstract. I looked closer and realized they were paintings, not posters. I know nothing about art, but even I could tell these were good. One in particular I liked was a swirl of blues and grays and dots of white. It reminded me of a storm blowing in off the ocean, twisted clouds obscuring the lights that seemed to resemble stars and a misshapen crescent moon.

I headed back into the kitchen where Jess had filled a pot of water and set it to heat on the gas stove. She was washing her hands.

“I should do that too,” I said, and moved in beside her. “Quite an art collection you have.”

“Thanks.” She wiped her hands on a clean dish towel.

“I don’t recognize the paintings in there.” I nodded toward the living room. “I really like the one of the storm.”

She was staring at me, an odd look on her face, and I added,

“It’s supposed to be a storm, right? I mean, that’s just what I thought when I saw it.”

“No, you’re right. It’s supposed to be a storm.” She turned away. “What kind of veggies do you want in your salad?”

The strange moment passed, and we set about fixing ourselves food, Janis Joplin’s greatest hits playing on the living room stereo as we chopped green and red peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and cucumbers to put in the tomato sauce and our salads. Jess warmed a loaf of French bread in the oven, her favorite bread from her favorite bakery in town, she said. Once a week she tried to cook a big dinner. Last week it was grilled chicken.

For Thanksgiving, she was planning to cook a traditional turkey 4 Kate Christie

dinner downstairs for the couple she rented from, Sidney and Claire, and their friends.

“Wait.” I paused in de-seeding a pepper. “You’re staying here for Thanksgiving too?”

“Yeah.” She concentrated on the tomato she was slicing. “I actually live here year-round. I’ve had this apartment for a couple of years already, since summer before freshman year.” Turning away, she strode toward the refrigerator. “Anyway, what kind of dressing do you like?”

“Whatever. I’m not picky.”

I watched her pull salad dressing from the fridge. No wonder her place was so different from other student apartments I’d visited. Those were usually cramped, a bunch of guys or girls sharing a house or a multiple bedroom apartment with raggedy furniture and cigarette-scorched rugs.

Then again, Jess was different herself from most other students I knew. She seemed like an adult already, a real person with a real life complete with walls to keep everyone out and a past I was dying to know. Why was this apartment her home?

Where was her family? An image of the woman in the stands at the match the previous year popped into my head, but I didn’t want to scare Jess off this early in the evening by grilling her about her family life. While we finished making dinner, I let her guide the conversation toward classes and sports and people we both knew. Safe subjects. Impersonal topics.

“I heard Cory Miller, the starting quarterback, is dating a guy on the swim team,” Jess said as she pulled the bread from the oven and poked it with a finger. “This is ready. I think we’re good to go.”

“Awesome.” I helped carry the food to the table. I was even more impressed now—the glasses and plates and silverware all matched, and the glasses were painted with the same sunflowers that adorned the heavy gray plates.

“Looks great,” I said as we sat down.

“Let’s hope it tastes that way,” she said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind one ear.

She had disappeared into the room off the living room a few minutes earlier and reemerged clad in a gray Champion Beautiful Game 4

sweatshirt, dark hair freshly brushed and pulled back in a ponytail. We probably looked alike in our sweatshirts, faces flushed from practice still.

As she filled our plates, I asked casually, “Where did you hear about Cory Miller?”

I knew the swimmer in question was Jake Kim. If word got out, their relationship was destined to become the scandal of the sports world this semester, not only because they were both jocks but also because Cory was African-American and Jake was Korean and neither was out to his parents. Added to their familial issues was the fact that the university administration didn’t typically look kindly upon gay boys who played football.

I felt lucky sometimes to be a lesbian—at least we were expected to be high-performing athletes.

Jess handed me my plate, filled with mostaccioli noodles and vegetable sauce. “I heard from a friend on the football team, Chris Sanders. He actually said to keep it quiet.”

I was pretty sure Chris Sanders was one of the beautiful gay boys I’d seen at dances and at Zodiac. What did it mean that he and Jess were friends? She seemed so casual, chatting about these gay folks. Interesting.

“I already knew, anyway,” I admitted, swallowing a bite of pasta.

“I thought you would.”

“You did?”

She shrugged, her face unreadable. “Well, yeah. I figured all the gay jocks would hear sooner or later.”