“Hey,” said Mom.
I sat up, startled.
“I asked you how school was.”
I confessed right then to library detention—I needed her to sign the form for homeroom tomorrow, and with two glasses of wine under her belt, now was a good time.
Mom leaned forward and I slid down in my chair. “Why?” she asked.
“I threw an apple across the cafeteria.”
“Julia.” All disappointment and shock.
“I won’t do it again,” I promised, slurping through the straw.
Poppy read, “Mushroom and peco—”
“Pecorino,” I interrupted. “It’s cheese.”
“Rizzz…”
“Otto,” I finished. “It’s a rice thing.”
Poppy shook his head, moved his finger down the page. “Roasted half chicken,” he read. That was mine. With pommes frites. “Not for me, I don’t think.”
Mom rolled her eyes but didn’t engage. Instead, she lifted her empty glass to Jess; Jess pointed to me, and I nodded, too.
“Do you want to go ahead and order?” Jess asked when she returned with our drinks.
Mom checked her watch and handed her menu to Jess. “Filet mignon,” she said. “Medium rare.”
Jess turned to me; I nodded: chicken.
“Mr. Cole?” she asked.
“Let’s see,” said Poppy. “Where was I? Ah, here.” He removed his glasses and looked up. “How’s the lamb?” he asked.
“It’s great,” said Jess. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“Are you guaranteeing that?”
I looked at Mom, but she was staring off across the room.
“Yes,” said Jess. “Guaranteed.”
“And what’s behind this guarantee?” asked Poppy, holding the menu to his bony chest. “Money back? Free dessert? I was in insurance for forty years, mademoiselle, and a guarantee is a guarantee.”
“Poppy,” I said. “How about if it’s not good, you can tell us about it all the way home?” Then the Shirley Temple got hold of me and I shot my hands in the air, shaking and waving my arms, and shouted, “I GUARANTEE it!” Like the guy on the Forever Leather commercial? Only no one recognized it.
“Julia,” said Mom sharply, but I didn’t care—Jess was mine, and I was tired of sharing.
She left to put in our orders and no one spoke. I tried to make my second drink last by sipping through the straw and counting to ten between sips. The room was starting to spin and I couldn’t feel my shoulders. To steady my vision, I shut one eye and rotated my head, telescoping the room.
“Maybe we should call home,” said Mom.
“We haven’t eaten,” said Poppy.
“Call,” I said, “Not go.”
“Relax,” said Mom.
I tossed my napkin on the table. “I’ll call,” I said.
I threaded through the dining hall to the hostess station, telling myself Dad would answer. Or better yet he’d walk in the door. But the light over Main Street had turned from orange to gray, and I knew he wasn’t coming. Dad was a note-leaver, a phone-homer, a check-inner, always modeling the behavior he expected from us, he liked to remind us. He was not careless, not forgetful. He just wasn’t here.
I dialed our number and held the receiver to my ear. After six tolls, the machine clicked on and I heard my voice telling me to leave a message. I pressed the flash button and dialed again, this time Sam’s mom’s number. Sam picked up on the second ring.
“Hey,” I said. I could hear him chewing, potato chips or something. “What are you eating?”
“Cornflake catfish.”
“Perkins,” I said.
“Mayhi,” Sam agreed. “What’s up?”
“Can you pick me up in an hour?”
“Where are we going?”
I shrugged, but Sam couldn’t see it.
“Hello?”
“To play tennis.”
Sam gulped, liquid jogging in his throat. “We just played,” he said.
“I didn’t.”
“Fine,” said Sam. “The BASS’s ass will be there. Wait on the porch.”
* * *
When we came in from dinner 59 Susquehanna was all lit up, but Poppy announced he was exhausted, going to bed, and we let him go. I followed Mom back to the kitchen, where we found Teddy bent over the island, nursing a Stewart’s milk shake. The hips and knees of his gray baseball pants were dusted red, and his dirty stirrups were perched on the rungs of my stool.
I shoved Teddy to one side and sat. “Can I have a sip?” I asked.
“Don’t use my straw.” I forked off the top and took two gulps. “That’s enough,” said Teddy. I took one more gulp before he snatched it back.
“Have you seen your father?” asked Mom.
Teddy jerked his head toward the ceiling.
“He’s home?” I asked.
“Showering,” said Teddy with a mouthful of ice cream.
Mom kissed the top of Teddy’s head at the place where his part whipped into a cowlick. “Did you win?” she asked.
“Perfect game,” said Teddy.
“Fun,” said Mom, but Teddy was like, No, Mom, a perfect game is a blah blah blah. No one was listening, except, apparently, Dad, who came down the stairs just then, newly showered, and said, “What’s this about a perfect game?”
His hair was damp, his feet bare.
“What happened to you?” asked Mom.
“Nothing,” said Dad, frowning. “I was at work.”
“You didn’t pick up when I called.”
“When did you call?”
“Six thirty,” said Mom. “It went to voice mail.”
“I guess I didn’t hear it.” Then, “I left you a message.” Dad pointed to the machine. “I told you I’d be late.”
“Hugh,” said Mom, “it’s almost nine o’clock.”
Sam would be here any second. “I have to go,” I said, moving toward the staircase.
“I guess you heard Julia’s good news,” said Mom.
“No, what?” Dad turned to face me, lacing his hands behind his back: the undivided-attention pose.
“Tell him,” said Mom, and the desperation in her voice startled me, stopped me cold.
“I have an exhibition match,” I said.
Dad’s eyes flashed wide, then quickly narrowed into something like panic. “That’s fantastic, Jules,” he said, but his voice came out high and thin.
“That’s great,” said Teddy, missing everything. “You should treat it as a legitimate competition. Maybe if you win, your coach will put you on the team.”
“I’m surprised her coach didn’t tell you,” said Mom evenly. “At your meeting at the hardware store.”
Dad moved around behind me, pinning me between my parents. “I forgot about that, actually. Did he call here?”
“He came by,” said Mom. “To tell Julia about the match.”
Seconds passed, and the only sound in the room was the last of Teddy’s milk shake bubbling through his red straw. After a final slurp, he stood and placed one hand on the bottom of the cup and with the other cradled its side. “He pulls up,” Teddy announced. “He fakes.” It was like he was in a different kitchen with a different family. He launched the cup toward the open trash compactor and we heard it bang the side of the garbage, then bounce twice on the floor. Teddy thundered after it. “It’s a put-back,” he cried. “And the crowd goes wild!” He cupped his hands over his mouth and ahhhhed, cheering himself on. “The effort,” said Teddy, “the relentless effort,” heading now for the stairs. “He never gives up,” Teddy reminded us. “His focus is unparallel.”
I changed quickly, then went outside to wait for Sam. The moon was a pancake in the sky. I stood at the curb and looked back at our house, where the white porch rail was offset by the tidy green lawn. I closed one eye, trying to focus against the pull of champagne still bubbling around in my head. Upstairs, my parents’ bedroom was lit up, bright yellow, and I thought it was true that you co
uldn’t tell much about a family from the outside.
I heard the Badass Scirocco Scirocco before I saw its headlights and was standing in the street when Sam pulled up.
“You’re walking,” said Carl from the passenger’s seat. “Otherwise one of us has to get out.”
I knew right then the night wasn’t going to end well. My ticker-tape tally of Sam—a running log of his gestures and responses, glances and touches, where he sat, how he walked, who he talked to, where he looked, when he laughed; his whole self, his every move; his very Sam-ness in relation to me—took a hit for a loss, plummeting on the news that when I’d tried to put us in the same place at the same time, he’d brought Carl.
Sam opened his door and stepped out, pressing the lever to release the seat back. “I’ll get in back. You can practice your driving,” he said, taking my racket with him.
I settled in front, warm where Sam’s body had been. Behind me, his knees punched knots in my back and his breath puffed lightly on my neck.
“No Leaping Stall-Outs,” he cautioned. “You almost ended the BASS last time.”
I toyed with the gearshift. “Will someone put it in first for me?”
“Can’t,” said Carl. “You have to learn.”
So I stepped on the clutch and pushed the gearshift into what I hoped was first while Carl covered his mouth, trying not to laugh.
As we stuttered forward at about two miles per hour—a classic Shake and Bake—I caught sight of my brother stationed on our porch, standing sentry in his baseball uniform. What must we have looked like, goofing around in Sam’s car? Children, I figured. Carl snorting with laughter, in danger of drooling; Sam saying, “You’re in third, tardmore,” the deepness of his voice belying the puerility of his words. Even if Teddy had been listening, we were coming in on our own frequency, Radio Slitter.
I repositioned the gearshift, jammed the gas pedal, then jerked my foot off the clutch. We lurched forward, the smell of rubber burning the air.
“Profit!” said Carl.
I shifted into second and sped up, ignoring the stop sign and whipping left onto Beaver.
“Third gear,” Sam called.
But I wasn’t shifting. The car groaned and roared in my ears as I navigated between the stone pillars at the entrance to Bassett Hall, then gunned it around the office buildings to the courts. I drove onto the grass at the top of the hill, narrowly missing a pine tree.
“Clutch,” said Carl.
I clutched and he yanked up on the emergency brake and we came to a stop with pine needles brushing the windshield, a branch gently sweeping the roof.
Sam reached between the seats and turned off the ignition. “Very nice,” he said. “Now get me out of this bitch.”
Carl set off across the dark lawn, disappearing onto the path, then emerging by the metal switch box next to the gate. Seconds later, the giant purple bulbs of the court lights began to hum and glow.
I sprang my seat forward to free Sam, who reached for my hand, and I helped haul him out. Breached, his legs came first, long and tan, with the hem of his shorts rising.
We walked in darkness down the hill to the courts. I could just make out Carl on the opposite side of the net, draped in a gauzy glow of light. He bounced a ball on his racket, knocking it higher and higher, the thunk of his strings a drumbeat, the buzzing lights his chorus, and the night was alive; I felt it in the fine hair on the back of my neck.
“You brought Carl,” I observed.
Sam said, “He called right after you did. I had to invite him.” I felt Sam’s hand on my waist and I glanced up. “He likes you, you know—Carl. He told me in Myrtle Beach.”
But the name was so far from the one I wanted to hear that I couldn’t register it. I shook my head as Carl called out, “Watch this,” then I felt Sam’s hand pulling me along the shrouded path to the courts. We arrived in time to see Carl drop-serving a moon shot into the air, high up above the lights, which were starting to shine now. It arced easily, weightlessly, before plunging back to earth, bouncing once, dead, then dribbling into the corner, where it came to rest in a crusty patch of snow.
“Sam,” I whispered, but he was already busy cracking a new can of balls. He held the can to his nose and inhaled deeply from the fizz of compressed air, then peeled back the metal lid. He tossed one ball to Carl and handed another to me, nodding toward Carl’s side of the court.
It made no sense for me to play with Sam. Of the three of us, Sam was by far the best player, capable of feeding alternate shots to Carl and me and keeping the ball in play no matter how poor our returns. But I didn’t want to go with Carl.
“Come on,” said Carl. “Let’s see your tennis spirit.”
My stomach knotted around the sound of his voice, balling his words into a fist that I coiled back and held. I couldn’t quite see the shape of the blow, but its potential energy swelled in my chest, sending tingles down my arms and flushing my neck and face. The night air couldn’t cool me. My vision tunneled on Carl, my roadblock, the wedge keeping me from Sam.
Sam started the rally from the service line and Carl returned his first feed into the net. “Big surprise,” he said, fetching it while Sam fed me a slice, which I dinked back.
“How was detention?” Carl asked.
“Swelfare,” I heard myself say.
“You didn’t miss anything at practice,” said Carl. “Except an extra set of wind sprints for sucking at overheads.”
He hadn’t been given an exhibition match—he would’ve said something by now, and I began to see where I’d throw my jab. It wouldn’t take much. Carl would never see it coming.
Sam started the rally again, but we were arrhythmic—Sam, Carl, net. Sam, me, wide. Carl, Sam, Carl, Sam—and soon the dissonance spread to our conversation. Questions went unanswered, words like feeds knocked straight down into the net. My racket felt heavy in my hand. We backed up to the baseline, trying to redeem the rally, but the game only got bigger, messier, with more ways to mishit and farther to travel to correct our mistakes. Carl hit a ball into Court 2 and trekked after it; the tape at the top of the net caught my slice and I left it where it fell. Sam fed me another, our final ball, and I watched it go by without moving.
“Nice look,” said Carl, reappearing at my side. “Next time you should swing.”
I stared at him. He had a ball. I held out my hand for it.
“What’s wrong?” asked Carl.
“Just hit,” said Sam, ignoring me.
Carl bounced the ball twice at his feet, then caught it in his hand and started to rock back for a serve. His racket went up as his left arm lofted and I pictured him gilded, frozen at the baseline, his hand a pink-petaled flower at the toss.
“Claw gave me an exhibition match,” I said, and watched as Carl’s arms dropped to his sides. The ball landed behind him with a soft bounce.
“Are you serious?” he asked. I shrugged. “When did you even see him?”
“After practice. He came to my house.”
“To give you an exhibition match?”
“Right,” I said.
“And you just took it,” said Carl.
“He offered,” I said.
“Did you even ask about me?”
I felt my anger ebb even as Carl’s started to flow, the tide of our feelings shifting, and I could see that in a different world we might still have avoided a fight altogether. But our battleground was a bathtub; we’d grown up together and outgrown our vessel, and there was nowhere else for our waves to go.
Carl stepped toward me, saliva on his lips, blood storming his cheeks and ears. He was three inches shorter than I was but he seemed to rise to meet me. “That should’ve been my match,” he said, his breath a visible vapor in the air. “You’re not even on the team.”
“Claw offered,” I said.
“Why?” Carl demanded. “You ditched. I had to file over here by myself and line up for all these fucking drills while you were home watching TV.”
“I wasn�
��t watching TV,” I said.
“Really?” asked Carl. “Then what were you doing? Watching Sam? Because that’s far worse. That’s pathetic.”
We both looked at Sam, who seemed a mile away on the other side of the net.
“Fuck you,” said Carl. Then to Sam: “Let’s go.”
Sam shrugged, sweeping the air with his racket, and the arcs and curves seemed to mean something, but I couldn’t read them. Finally Sam crossed the court to the gate and slipped into the darkness, and I heard the doors open and close on the BASS. The engine roared to life and Sam and Carl motored off, brake lights shining, then dimming as the car disappeared down the hill.
At home, I hooked my racket next to my mother’s coat in the entryway, then I pried off my tennis shoes and dropped them next to Teddy’s cleats. Quietly, I padded up the front stairs and past my parents’ room to Teddy’s bedroom, where the light glowed under his door.
“Teddy,” I said. “Can I come in?”
I peeked around the doorjamb. Teddy was sitting on the floor, flipping through one of his baseball-card binders, a collection he’d spent ages amassing.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I stood with my hand on the door in case he told me to get out.
“Seeing how much my cards are worth.”
I started to sit but Teddy told me to shut the door, so I went back and shut it, then knelt on the rug with my hands folded in my lap.
Teddy looked at me. “I’m thinking of selling them.”
“Could you get a lot?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I’m seeing.”
Teddy had open the Beckett Price Guide next to his left knee, which was newly skinned, pink at the edges and deep red in the middle. He’d showered since I’d seen him on the porch and now wore a pair of mesh shorts and an old Cooperstown Redskins T-shirt, ripped beneath one armpit. Deep in thought, he’d pushed his hand into his hair, and I noticed a line of tiny pimples on his forehead.
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