The Teammates
Once upon a time in Maine...
As soon as her Econ 101 class was dismissed, Jennifer Faulkner bounded out of her seat, rushed down the hall, took the stairs in leaps, bolted out the door and ran as fast as she could across campus. The team roster had been posted since nine o'clock, but she didn't want to skip class so early in her first semester. Might as well have, she thought, I couldn't concentrate on anything that old dubber said anyhow.
She reached the fieldhouse in a matter of minutes.
"No running in the athletic building," a receptionist snapped as she passed through the lobby. She slowed her pace to a fast walk. "No fast walking, either." She found the bulletin board outside the door of Coach Blanchard's office. She closed her eyes tight, swallowed hard, then looked at the list.
Her eyes ran down the names. Allen, Darlene. Cote, Martha. Davidson, Sheila.
Faulkner, Jennifer.
"Jeezum crow," she said aloud. She scanned the rest of the roster. She was one of only two first years to make the cut. The other was that big power forward from Rhode Island, Ortega. She doubted she'd get much playing time, at least not this year, but she had made the goddamn squad, and that was an achievement. She fished her phone out of her pocket.
Her father picked it up on the third ring.
"Daddy, I made the team!" she shouted excitedly into the phone.
She could barely hear his reply. It sounded as if the wind were blowing directly into the other end of the phone. She did make out the words "great" and "proud," but not much else.
"Daddy, I can hardly hear you. Where are you?"
The wind subsided. "Is this better," Alvin said clearly.
"Yeah, I can hear you now. You out on the boat?"
"I'm doing a test on the new rigging I put on Jim Cyr's catamaran. Rounding Turtle Head right now. When's the first game?"
"I'll email you a schedule. I don't think I'll get much floor time this season, though."
"Don't matter. I'll pay to see my girl sit the bench if need be."
"I love you, Daddy."
"I love you, honey. And I'm wicked proud of you."
She hung up and turned to leave, but another notice, printed on bright green paper, drew her eyes back to the bulletin board. In big cursive letters, the header read "G.A.A. Gay Athletes Alliance." She read the text underneath. It announced that the Alliance would be throwing a start of the semester party on Saturday. It gave an address just off campus.
Just what I've been looking for, Jennifer thought. Although she had understood that she was a lesbian since her early teens, there was little that she could do about it. There had been other girls who were interesting in experimenting; some kissing, a little bit of furtive touching, but she was the only student in her school who was openly gay. Dating any of her classmates was out of the question. There were summer girls though, girls from Boston or New York who were more open. She was pretty, had a nice figure and made no secret of her interest, so she had gained some small bit of sexual experience. But she wanted more than secretive groping in the dark, or fleeting summer flings. She wanted to be in love.
Now she was at a big university. There were almost ten thousand students here; that number had to include a lot of lesbians. Who knows, she thought, maybe it includes the right lesbian. I am going to that fuckin' party.
***
Danielle Ortega pulled the green flyer from the back pocket of her jeans and unfolded it. She checked the address and slipped it back in her pocket. She walked up the driveway to a big Victorian house. There were two men on the porch. They stopped talking and looked at her as she mounted the steps.
"G.A.A?" she asked.
One of the men held out his hand and nodded. "You're in the right place. Keith Mullins."
"Hi. Danielle Ortega," she said, shaking his hand.
"You're new here, aren't you."
"Yeah. I just made the basketball team."
"Wow, congrats." He raised his hand for a high five, then added, "Martha's inside, so you've got at least one teammate here."
"Great," Danni said, but she felt her chest tighten a little. Martha Cote was a junior, and the starting power forward. She was directly above Danni on the depth chart. They were teammates, but they were natural rivals as well.
Danni went into the house. She felt socially awkward, and was glad to see that the house was crowded. She wouldn't stand out so much in a crowd. After squeezing her way through the living room and into the dining room, she found a table of hors d'oeuvres. She picked up a celery stick stuffed with cream cheese and munched on it as she wandered into the kitchen.
A small group of women were standing around a beer keg. The one nearest turned and looked at Danni. It was Martha Cote.
"Well, if it isn't the bitch who wants to take my place," she said, then laughed. She held out her hand and Danni shook it. "Just fuckin' with you, girl," Martha continued, "Welcome to the team, glad to see you here."
Danni sighed with relief. Martha drew a red cup of beer and handed it to her. "You're twenty one, right? Of course you are," she said with a wink. Danni took the beer and sipped. The other women, members of the soccer team, introduced themselves, then returned to the conversation they had been engaged in before she had entered the room.
As soon as she thought she wouldn't be noticed, Danni slipped out of the kitchen. She lingered in the dining room, nursing her beer and exchanging a few words of small talk here and there. She had always felt like an outsider. Even as a little girl, even in temple, where they were the lone Sephardic family in the congregation. By the time she was in the fifth grade she was already taller than all but a few of the boys, and her shyness only worsened. It was only in middle school, when, at the insistence of her brothers, she tried out for the basketball team, that she found a comfortable space. But even there, she was not entirely at ease. While she enjoyed the camaraderie of her teammates, there remained a lingering sense that something wasn't right. Even when she led the team to a near win in the state finals, she somehow felt apart from them.
It wasn't until her senior year that she began to understand the source of her uneasiness. There was no epiphany; no incident that triggered the revelation. Somehow, one stray thought at a time, she began to realize just why she felt so different from everyone around her.
She'd had a few dates with boys from school, but her parents were very protective. They did not want her dating gentiles, and there were few Jewish boys her age available. But when she thought about rebelling, dating who she pleased, with or without parental permission, she understood that she didn't really care about dating boys. As she thought about it, she realized that whenever she watched a movie or television program, it was always the actresses, not the leading men, who drew her attention.
On the day she received notification that she had been accepted to the University of Maine on an athletic scholarship, a thousand thoughts tumbled through her mind. For the first time in her life she would be on her own, free of her parent's control, free of the gaze of the community in which she'd grown up. Free to be who she was. That night, as she prepared for bed, she put her toothbrush back in the rack, looked deeply into the bathroom mirror, and in a very quiet voice, said to herself, "My name is Danielle Ortega. I am a lesbian."
Having accepted her sexuality, she had no idea what to do about it. But then she travelled to Orono for freshman orientation.
She wondered afterwards what had made Angela single her out for attention. Was she sending out some sort of gay signal? Had she been sending it out all along? Whatever it was, Angela, one of the seniors helping with the orientation of the new students, seemed to give her special attention as she led a tour of the campus. In the dining hall that evening, they sat together. Angela somehow made Danni feel comfortable, so when it became obvious that she was flirting with her, and then suggested they go to her room, Danni agreed. In the morning, she looked at herself in Angela's bathroom mirror and grinned. "See," she whispered to herself, "I told you I was a lesbian."
They exchanged numbers and talked on the phone a few times, and Danni fantasized that they would date when September came, but late in the summer, Angela told her that she had become engaged to a guy from her home town. This is all more complicated than I expected, Danni thought.
***
After an hour or so of mingling among the other G.A.A. students, Danni figured she could make a discreet exit. She had taken a small first step into actually living as an out gay person, now she wanted nothing more than to retreat into privacy until she was ready to take another. She decided that she had better go to the bathroom before she began the long walk back to her dorm. After a search, she found it, down a hallway off the living room. When she tried the door, it was locked. She leaned on the wall and patiently awaited her turn.
Jennifer strode up the driveway. She heard music and the murmur of voices from inside and knew she was in the right place. She opened the front door and stepped inside. A woman with a crewcut and a Black Bears sweatshirt handed her a beer. Oh yeah, she thought, this is definitely the place. She meandered through the crowded rooms, nodding and smiling at the other guests and sipping her beer.
"God damn," someone said. She turned around and saw Martha Cote, standing over the buffet table, loading a plate with shrimp. "Looks like Coach recruited nothing but baby dykes this year."
Jennifer was puzzled but smiled. "You're Martha Cote, right?"
"Yeah, and you're...is it Jessica?"
