“Yeah,” Jay said. “Of course. What were you thinking? The beach?”
“The beach feels a little …” Lara made a face that Jay tried desperately to discern. What did she mean? The beach was too romantic? Too cheesy? Too cold? Too dark? He wasn’t sure.
“All right,” Jay said and he took her by the hand and out the front door, past the partiers, past the valets, and then into the relative quiet darkness of the makeshift parking lot the attendants had made of his sister’s side yard.
He walked right past two people making out with a fervor that struck him as immensely funny until he realized it was Kit’s friend Vanessa and that DJ they’d hired. He instantly looked away and then found himself looking back, stunned at the intensity. He had no idea Vanessa had it in her.
“Uh,” Jay said, trying to forget what he’d seen. “Let’s go to Hud’s truck.” Jay’s own car had no top and no doors, but he knew Hud’s truck would be unlocked. They headed straight for it.
Jay didn’t just want to get Lara alone because he wanted to have sex with her. Yes, if Lara made a move on him, if she laid her long bare legs across him, he would strike. But he also wanted to talk to her. He wanted to ask her how she had been and what she was up to and did she think she would still like him if he was a nobody? He wanted to find out where she grew up and what her favorite movie was.
Jay came upon Hud’s truck in the second row, toward the very back of the pack. He pulled Lara toward it, and opened the door for her. There wasn’t much room and Lara had to squeeze into the ten-inch crack between door and frame. She managed. And when Jay shut the door behind him, they were finally alone.
“Hi,” Jay said.
“Hi.” Lara smiled.
Then neither of them said anything more. They simply looked at each other, comfortable and silent.
“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” Lara said, finally.
“What does that mean?” Jay asked. He shifted slightly so he could face her, bending his knee and resting his leg on the bench seat.
Lara shrugged softly. “You’re much calmer than I figured.”
“Calmer?” Jay asked. He was eager to know how he seemed to her, eager to see himself reflected in her eyes.
Lara laughed. “You seemed arrogant,” she said. “Before I really knew you.”
“And I don’t seem arrogant to you now?” It was a new feeling, this desire to glean what the other person wanted from you and then find a way to be it. If she liked arrogance, he would play it up. If she didn’t, he’d be the most humble guy she’d ever met.
Lara shook her head. “And you’re quieter than I thought, too.”
“You thought I was a loud dickhead,” Jay said, smiling.
Lara laughed and lifted her hand to her earring, playing with it. “I did,” she said.
“Are you disappointed?” Jay asked.
“No, I’m not disappointed. That’s not what I meant at all,” Lara said. Her voice was reassuring. “I guess what I’m saying is that people are surprising. I always thought you were cute even when you were a loud dickhead. But I like that you’re not. You’re more complicated than that.”
Jay knew this was a compliment despite the fact that he had never aspired to complexity. “Complicated, huh? I don’t know about that.” What had happened to all the artificial indifference he normally relied on? Maybe this was the new him. Maybe he was becoming more like Hud.
Hud was always better with women than Jay. Jay slept with more women, hotter women, too. But Hud knew how to love them. Jay hadn’t known to be envious of that kind of skill until now. Until all he wanted was to know Lara, earn her trust.
Could they take vacations together? Would she come to Hawaii? His days surfing the North Shore were probably over but could he teach her to surf in the gentle, nonthreatening waves of Waikiki? He wanted to bring her to his favorite café in Honolua Bay. He wanted to order her haupia.
“I’ve been trying to impress you,” Jay admitted.
“Impress me?” Lara said. There was delight in the wrinkle of her eyes, in the curved edges of her lips.
“Yeah,” Jay said, nodding. His head was down but his eyes were up and focused right on her. “Ever since …”
“That night,” Lara said.
“Yeah, ever since that night, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
“You haven’t?”
Jay knew he was a fish on a hook, that she was reeling him in. He wanted to be reeled in. It felt good to be drawn in, to become intoxicated. It was the first time he’d ever desired someone so strongly, and he liked the feeling, the sweet ache of this specific wanting.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. “I’ve … I’ve gone into the Sandcastle I don’t even know how many times, trying to run into you.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. He had been exposed and it thrilled them both.
He leaned toward her and put his lips to the spot on her cheekbone that bumped right up to her eye. It was hard like bone and smooth like velvet.
“Is it crazy to think I might love you?” Jay whispered in her ear.
“It sounds a little crazy, yeah,” Lara said, laughing. “You don’t know me all that well.”
Jay was barely listening to her. He was lost in the commotion of his own heart.
“I don’t know …” he said, kissing her collarbone and running his hands up her legs. “I think I know enough.”
He kissed her on the mouth and held her in the front seat of his brother’s truck. He thought of what they were about to do as more than just sex. It was a way for him to show her what he felt for her. It was a connection, a sacred act. He put his hands slowly up Lara’s shirt, unbuttoned his pants, kicked off his shoes. Lara’s skirt was pushed up to her hips. And Jay slipped his hands underneath. He gingerly, and with great appreciation, slipped her underwear off, leaving it hanging at her feet.
“Do you have a condom?” Lara asked.
He didn’t. But he figured Hud might have some in the car. He turned to the dashboard and grabbed the keys from where the valet had left them. He took the smallest key and fit it in the glove box. With a turn, the box fell open with a thud. And there were condoms. Three. All in a row, in their shiny foil packets. Jay picked them up, ready to tear one off.
But then.
Jay grabbed the photo in the glove box that had now entered his field of vision, only to see that it was a full stack of photos. Photos of his ex-girlfriend blowing his brother.
Photos that broke his already malfunctioning heart.
Hud and Ashley had taken their shoes off and neither one of them knew where they’d left them. They had walked so far down the beach that they did not exactly recognize where they were in the dark.
Hud had already asked her a list of questions. “How long have you known?” Three days. “How far along?” Seven weeks. “Was it the weekend we went to La Jolla?” I think so. “Are we ready to be parents?” I don’t know how to know something like that.
And now, as they walked hand in hand along the water, they were both quietly considering two futures: one with a baby and one without.
Hud was thinking about renting a house; an Airstream was no place to raise a child. He was thinking about a two-bedroom and he imagined himself painting a nursery yellow. He thought of the sort of master bedroom his mother had. He had always liked that it had two sinks in the bathroom. He had always liked the idea of a mother and a father, together, at those sinks, every night.
Hud suddenly stopped, and Ashley stopped with him.
“What’s the first thing you thought?” he asked her. “When you found out? When the test tube turned whatever color it turns.”
“It’s a ring that appears at the bottom.”
“Well, then, when the ring appeared. What was the first thought that popped into your head?”
“Well, what was the first thing in your head? When I told you?” Ashley said.
“Honestly?”
�
��Yes.”
“I thought, How is it possible to love something that fast? Because I feel like the minute you said it, I felt it. And that doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Ashley’s eyes started to water and when she smiled, a tear fell.
“You didn’t think, Oh shit, or Fuck, or How do I get out of this?” Ashley asked, wiping her tears away.
“No,” Hud said, pulling her toward him. “Did you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not once.”
“So we’re having a baby,” Hud said, holding her.
“We’re having a baby.”
And they stood there, the cold water swirling up and chilling their ankles, smiling at each other.
There would be rocking chairs and swaddles, mashed bananas and high chairs, the pride of a first step. There would be a wild and beautiful future.
But for now, right now, Hud had no choice but to stop dancing around a lie. His families, old and brand-new, were his to reconcile, his to fight and fight for. And he would do that now. He did not necessarily feel up to the task, but that hardly mattered.
“Should we turn back?” he asked.
Ashley looked up at him and gave him a gentle smile. She leaned into him farther, held his hand tighter. “All right,” she said.
It was time to tell Jay the truth.
1:00 A.M.
Brandon was in the guest bathroom of his own home looking in the mirror. He was pretty buzzed already, heading straight to drunk. And he was staring at himself wondering how he had made so many mistakes in such a small span of time.
How could he have done all of this to Nina? She had weathered so many things so young and he had always liked to think of himself as the beginning of good things for her. He liked to think that maybe, in some small way, he was her knight in shining armor.
And then, like a moron, he’d started sleeping with Carrie Soto. There should be a way to undo your fuckups. Not just redeem yourself for them but actually undo them, make them so that they never happened. He wanted to take back every second of heartbreak he’d caused his wife. She did not deserve any of it, had done nothing to deserve his complete and disastrous breakdown. He wished the world would let them all just pretend the whole thing never happened.
Brandon stared into the mirror and looked at his face, looked at the lines that had started to form. Every day of your life feels like you’re climbing up the mountain. And then you get there and you stay for a bit. And it’s nice at the top. But then you start sliding down the other side.
He hadn’t seen that part coming. And it had hit him hard.
• • •
This had all started because, nine months ago, Brandon had been the number one seed in the Australian Open. Then he lost in the second round in an upset to a seventeen-year-old Scandinavian named Anders Larsen.
From his first serve, Brandon had begun to worry that he was spinning out. He used his signature slingshot, something very few players could return. It cut fast and clean across the court.
But Larsen returned it.
It knocked Brandon off his feet, having to volley back and forth for the point. Point went to Larsen. So did the next one.
The serve after that, he double-faulted. He found himself growing angry, looking at this teenager in front of him. The crowd started muttering, some of them cheering for Larsen.
Larsen smiled at Brandon as he waited, crouched over and ready.
It went through Brandon’s mind that all the papers were anticipating Brandon and Kriek in the finals but now it was looking like he might not even make it past round two.
He began overthinking. His shoulder started feeling tight. For a moment it was as if his muscles did not remember. His serve got looser, slower. Every time he hit a forehand without spin, without precision, he grew more and more angry. Every backhand that missed his intended mark pushed him further into his own head and out of the game.
Break point.
When he missed the return on Larsen’s last volley, he instantly felt the cameras on him. He’d felt this way before, trapped by the camera. The feeling had been manageable enough to shake off when the camera had caught him in victory, or even in a loss to a worthy opponent. But this had been a slaughter. He was Goliath and he had just lost to David.
Larsen turned to the stands and shook his fists in the air, having beaten the current number one player in the world. The crowd cheered.
Brandon, as he usually did in his rare moments like this, held his face tight, showing no sign of distress. He walked, his whole body tense, to the net. But this time, try as he might, he could not muster a smile as he shook that little fuck’s hand.
He knew his father would have been disappointed by his lack of sportsmanship. But that was the least of his problems.
As he slinked into the locker room, his coach, Tommy, trailed behind him. “What the fuck was that! I’ve never seen you so in your head! You don’t have much time left on the court if that’s all you have to bring!”
Brandon was silent, his heart pounding. Tommy shook his head and left. And when he was gone, Brandon punched a hole in the wall of the men’s locker room.
Obviously, he’d lost before. But in the second round of a tournament he was supposed to win?
• • •
Brandon had gone home to Nina. But the second he opened the front door and saw her, he could not stand the look on her face. Her eyes were wide and welcoming; her mouth was turned down softly in a kind frown. “How are you doing?” she had asked him.
He’d wanted to jump out of his skin. Nina had put her arms around him and hugged him. And then she’d put her hand to his face. “You are a great man,” she’d said. “You’ve already proven that. I mean, you have ten Grand Slams. That’s unbelievable.”
Brandon had taken her hand and moved it away from his face. “Thank you,” he’d said, as he got up and went to take a shower. He could not bear to look at her.
Next up, in January, he was out in the third round at the U.S. Pro Indoor. Fucking McEnroe. Then he lost in straight sets at the Davis Cup in March; the U.S. team didn’t even make it to the quarterfinals. At the Donnay Open, he lost in the semifinals and chucked his racket on the ground. It made headlines. He pulled out of Monte Carlo on account of his shoulder.
Brandon stopped coming home directly after his matches. He told Nina he had to visit his mother or his brother in New York. He made plans for himself and Tommy to stay longer in Buenos Aires and Nice. When he did finally come home, he would talk to Nina about dinner, and the restaurant, and her siblings, and his travel plans, and her schedule, and what art to buy for the downstairs den. He would not talk to her about tennis. He would not tell her his shoulder was killing him. He would sneak out to doctor’s appointments—never told her he’d begun getting cortisone shots.
He was supposed to be indestructible. He was supposed to be humble despite being brilliant, affable despite his sheer domination on the court. He was not supposed to be out in the early rounds and pitied by his wife.
Enter: Carrie Soto.
Carrie Soto was considered the greatest female tennis player of all time. Brandon had met Carrie before but they had never had a conversation until one day back in May in Paris. He was at the French Open without Nina because he’d insisted she stay home.
He was sitting on a bench outside the locker room at Roland-Garros just before his first match, adjusting the sweatband on his head. Carrie Soto walked by him, with her tense body and perfect posture in her tennis whites.
Her dark hair was pulled back, under her visor. Her rosy skin, wide eyes, and button nose made her seem cute. But then when she got in earshot of Brandon, she leaned over and said to him, “Your nice guy routine doesn’t fool me. You’re as bloodthirsty as the rest of us. Get your serve in line, and murder them all.”
Brandon turned and looked at her, his eyes wide.
She smiled at him. And he smiled back.
Brandon won his first match. Then another. And by t
he skin of his teeth, over the course of two weeks, he earned the Coupes de Mousquetaires. When he won the last match of the finals, he pumped his fist into the air.
Meanwhile, Carrie Soto crushed every single opponent she had with force and determination. She grunted with every serve, yelped as she volleyed, dove with abandon, smearing her tennis whites with the red clay of the court. And she won the Coupe de Suzanne Lenglen.
The night after he won, Brandon ran into Carrie at their hotel, the two of them raging champions pacing in an elevator. Brandon felt victorious and vulnerable, gleeful and unguarded.
“I told you you could be vicious,” Carrie said, grinning.
“I guess you’ve got my number,” Brandon said.
There was a pause as the elevator rose. When it stopped at Brandon’s floor, he said, “Let me know if you want to split something from the minibar.”
Ten minutes later they were in his room.
Carrie Soto was on top of him, and he could feel her muscles in his hands. He could feel, as she moved, how hard her thighs were, how tight her butt was, how swollen her calves and forearms were. He could feel, as he touched her, her strength and agility. He was holding her power in his hands.
And for one small moment, while he was lying underneath her, he thought he’d found the other half of himself.
When he woke up the next morning, his head throbbed with the realization of what he had done. But just before Carrie left Paris, she told him she thought, just maybe, this could be something serious. And that made him wonder if all of this wasn’t just cheating but perhaps something else, like a love affair.
He’d never thought it before, but maybe Nina was wrong for him. Maybe that was why she made him feel so small. And maybe Carrie was right for him. That was why she made him feel so strong.
So he kept seeing her. In L.A., in New York, in London. And soon Brandon had convinced himself that Carrie was his good-luck charm.
After they both won at Wimbledon, Brandon was flying high. He’d won clay and grass courts in the same year. Nearly unheard of. “This,” Tommy said, “is the Brandon I know.”
Malibu Rising: A Novel Page 23