by Maria Padian
Then the blizzard. A blizzard of words from my usually not-so-forthcoming-when-it-comes-to-guys friend. True, it was all mixed up with the usual tennis talk, but what came through loud and clear to me was that Henriette Lloyd, Most Lethal Teen Girl Athlete in the Garden State, was seriously smitten.
“Is he cute?” I interrupted. She was describing, for the umpteenth time, how embarrassed she was when this guy picked up a bra she’d left on the floor.
“What?” she said.
“This Little David guy. Is he cute?” She giggled.
“It’s Little Andre, and his real name is David,” she says. “And yes. Very.”
“How cute? Mike Adams cute?” I decided to run through our list of high school hotties.
“Cuter, but shorter.”
“Jon Dundas cute?”
“Yuk. I can’t think of Dundas as cute anymore. Too pervy.”
“Joey Wilson cute?”
“No, more like Troy Blaine cute.”
“Hen, they’re the same kind of cute.”
“No. Joey is like a good boy who dresses up as if he’s taking a walk on the wild side, but he’s not really. Troy is truly, deeply rebellious. Joey is a match that just went out. Troy is hot coals.”
“My god, Hen. Poetry! What’s gotten into you?”
“Eva … I like this guy.”
“I can tell.”
“No, I mean, I like this guy.”
“Be careful, Henry.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you like him.”
Then off she went, to meet him for breakfast and a little carbo loading. I imagine the two of them tucking into bucket-sized bowls of hot cereal, then jet-propelling themselves to the tennis courts, where they slam balls at each other for hours. Sweat pouring off their bodies. Calories burning. It doesn’t matter what Henry eats. She burns it right up.
I told her to call me on my cell, tonight, after her match. She was so busy gushing about the Little David guy that I didn’t have a chance to tell her about my big move to the annex. But I’ll tell her when she calls tonight. Which should be pretty soon. Her match started at seven; it’s already eight-thirty.
I reread the paragraph I’ve already reread. I am amazed at how my eyes can scan, and in some compartmentalized way comprehend, words, while another part of my brain races off in a completely different direction. I see the words on the printed page, but I’m thinking: Someone is making microwave popcorn. The fake, super-buttery smell oozes beneath my door. My stomach roars in response, and I have this urge to hurl the book against the door. I can’t read with all this noise.
I jump off the bed, lie on the floor and begin crunching. Fingers laced behind my head, knees bent, I curl and touch one elbow to the opposite knee. Uncurl, lie flat, breathe. One. Then crunch up again, this time touching the other elbow to the other knee. Uncurl. Two.
Your stomach is so flabby. What did you do today? Anything? Oh, yeah, right: you carried a couple of duffel bags from the car and heaved them into the elevator. Some exercise, you slug.
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. My abs begin to burn. Just a little.
Did you know that every time you walk, you jiggle? All that loose flesh hanging off you, pouches of fat, jiggling with each step.
I keep counting. The television sounds far away now. The elevator down the hall dings. Doors slide open. The girdle of muscle that wraps around my lower back, connects with my abs, is on fire. Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven.
You are so out of shape. Push through this, you wimp. You fat wimp.
Sixty. Sixty-one. Sixty-two.
Someone bangs on my door. I hear girls’ voices.
“Eva? Hey, knock knock!”
Marguerite. I hold my breath, hold my bent knees, mid-crunch, suspended. Word travels fast. I’ve been in the annex, what? Five hours? And already she’s tracked me down.
“She must be out,” I hear. Anna. Are they all there? The three of them must be handcuffed together. Another knock.
“Eva?” Then the sickening sound of a hand rattling the doorknob, and I realize, too late, that it never occurred to me to lock my door. I jump up from the floor, and when the fluorescent light from the hallway pours inside, I’m standing. I wipe beads of perspiration off my upper lip.
“Oh, hey! There you are! Were you asleep or something?” Two of them: Marguerite and Anna. They walk in.
“Sort of,” I say. “I was reading, and drifted off. What’s up?”
They both settle, uninvited, on my bed. Which I had just made, the blankets stretched tight and perfectly flat across the mattress.
“Welcome to the neighborhood is what’s up!” Marguerite exclaims. “We heard about you at dinner. Why didn’t you tell us you were moving in?”
“We only got the call last night that space opened in the annex.” I sit. On the floor. I spread my legs in a V and stretch, gripping one heel with both hands and pressing my forehead against my knee.
“So that must have been what Madame wanted to talk to you about on Friday afternoon,” she says. Half question, half statement. Of course she wants to know. That’s why she’s here. Screw the welcome-committee thing: Marguerite needs info.
“Yup,” I say into my leg. This would be so weird for anyone who is not a dancer. But if you have muscles like overused rubber bands, it’s perfectly acceptable. This girl I knew at Sonia Fleisch’s would interrupt herself, midsentence, face the wall, place one heel against it at about shoulder height, then slide, slide, slide forward until both legs were splayed flat. A perfect split from a standing position.
Anna joins me on the floor. She opens her legs wide, until they form a straight line with her torso smack dab in the middle. She leans forward and touches her forehead to the ground. Meanwhile, Marguerite checks out my room. Her eyes light on the framed photos I’ve arranged in a neat row on the little shelf above my bed. One in particular catches her attention, and she takes it down.
“Who’s this in the picture with you?” she asks. She holds the photo out toward me.
“That’s my friend Henry,” I reply.
“What is she, like, a model?” Marguerite says. Anna, curious, gets off the floor and joins Marguerite on the bed. She peers over her shoulder at the photo.
“That girl is really, really pretty,” Anna says.
“I know,” I say. I stand up. I hold my hand out for the photo. It’s of Henry and me, taken last summer on Long Beach Island. Paige’s mom had driven a bunch of us down, after we’d finished our final exams. It was a cloudless, hot day, and they’d all cooked themselves lobster-red, moaning in the van the whole way back. Everyone except Henry and me. She was already tan; I’d stayed under my big beach umbrella most of the day. I can’t remember who took the picture. We have our arms over each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera.
“She could be a model,” I tell them. “But she is the most un-model-like person you’d ever meet. She’s a total jock. Guys follow her around, panting, and she doesn’t notice. She’s too busy playing tennis.” I hold the picture in both hands as I say this. I like bragging about Henry to them.
“Tennis?” Anna asks.
“With a capital T,” I say. “Believe me, someday we’ll be watching Henry in the Wimbledon finals. She’s amazing. She’s at this camp right now, in Florida? One of those places where …”
Marguerite bursts out laughing. She’s sprawled across my bed now, staring at the ceiling and laughing.
“Oh my god,” she exclaims. “I know this is so random, but do you know that girl from Wisconsin who wears her bun practically on the top of her head, like she’s balancing an apple? And, you know, her hair is brown? Well …”
This girl has the attention span of a flea. Or a Rhonda. Maybe if you had some juicy ballet gossip for her, she’d actually listen.
My cell phone rings. It’s on the shelf above my bed, just over Marguerite’s head. It rings three times before I can get my hands on it and snap it open.
“Hello?”
I say eagerly.
At first I think it’s a wrong number. It sounds like lots of yelling on the other end. Chanting even, like “Wump! Wump! Wump!” Male voices wumping. I’m about to press “end” when I hear Henry.
“Eva! Eva, are you there? Hey, everyone, pipe down! I can’t hear a thing!”
“Hen?” I shout into the phone, as if that would help. “Is that you?”
The wumping subsides and I hear Henry, her voice slightly softer, as if she’s turned away from the phone.
“Hey, guys! Eva wants to know what’s going on!” Henry says. Screams follow. Shouting, cheering, thumping. Then a voice I recognize, clearly excited.
“Hello, Eva? It’s Yolanda. She won! Henry won! Woo-hoo!” A pause. I imagine Henry snatching the phone back, because it’s her voice I hear next.
“Eva! I’m sorry, this is so crazy. But I had to call you!”
“You beat him? The Perv?” I say excitedly.
“Straight sets!” Henry shouts, and I hear more riotous noise. Marguerite and Anna stare at me with these very confused expressions.
“It’s Henry. She just won a huge match,” I explain. Marguerite stands. She raises her arms in a big, V-like stretch. She practically yawns.
“Cool. Tell her we said congratulations,” she says, then heads for the door. Anna smiles and follows. “Catch you later, Eva,” she says. They leave.
The noise from the cell phone has diminished. Maybe Henry has moved to another room.
“Hen?” I say.
“I’m here. Phew! That’s better. I couldn’t hear myself think. Eva, I won! I beat him!”
“Of course you beat him!” I say. “You are amazing. He never had a chance.”
“No, you don’t understand. He doesn’t suck. He hits the ball really, really hard. Guy hard. I have never played anyone who hits like this.”
“Henry, you play against guys all the time.”
“Not like this. These guys are at a whole different level. They’re not just high school jocks slamming the ball at you. It is an entirely different game.”
She is soaring. So, so happy. Something wells inside me. Tears.
“I am really proud of you,” I say.
“I wish you were here!” she shrieks. “This is so cool!”
“I guess all that coaching from Little David paid off,” I say. She laughs. Then I hear her say to someone else, “She wants to know if Little David’s coaching helped.” She giggles. A sound I’m still not used to. I hear a male voice in the background.
“Tell her I’m Big David, okay?” A pause. Rustling.
“Henry?”
“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry. Look, Eva, I have to call my parents, and then these people have to throw me into the pool. Another Chadwick tradition. This place is so crazy! But I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I love you! I miss you!”
“I miss you, too. You are the best.”
Henry is gone before I say another word. I press “end” and the phone jingles its closing theme. The annex hum seems strangely muted now. My room feels like an insulated box. There’s a crack of light at the base of the door, and I can make out the passing shadows of people walking by. I feel so tired. I place the phone on my night table, crawl into bed, still dressed, and pull the covers over my head. I wrap my arms around my body and rest one hand on the hard, reassuring bone of my hip.
Chapter Seventeen
HENRY
David reaches around me. He came up behind me as I signed off with Eva, and as he gently pulls the phone from my hand, his lips brush my ear. I hear him breathe, feel him rest his cheek, briefly, against my hair, and I turn in the circle of his arms. There’s no time to look into his eyes. I’m kissing him, melting into this sweet, dizzy kiss that just … happens.
When it ends, he looks at me, one corner of his mouth turned up in this teasing smile I’m starting to recognize. He rests his forehead on mine and whispers:
“You taste salty.”
“How romantic of you to notice,” I say, and kiss him again.
He moves on to my neck. The spot behind my ear. The place where my neck becomes my shoulder. Little kisses, exploring, like butterfly wings. I stifle the urge to laugh.
He doesn’t know I’m ticklish. He doesn’t know anything about me, really. And right now, at this moment, I don’t know anything about me, either. Not this part, anyway. This swooning, crazy part that finds me sliding my hands down his chest, past his belly, to the belt loops of his shorts. Big baggy cargo shorts he always wears when he’s not on court. I hook my fingers in the loops and pull him in close to me. He makes this little “ummm” sound, and his lips return to mine. Press harder against mine.
* * *
It had been building since breakfast. When I got down to the cafeteria at seven-thirty he was already there, sitting at a table for two near the windows. He was writing on a small dry-erase board, and his empty dishes were pushed to one side. As I came up behind him, the sun shone brightly on the back of his head, igniting these red highlights in his brown hair.
“Hey. D’you already eat?” He looked up at me. The smile. Oh, help.
“Yeah, I got here early. Couldn’t sleep. Go on, get your breakfast. I’m plotting our strategy.”
Our strategy. Couldn’t sleep. Up thinking about me all night, David? Yeah, right. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Henry. As I shoveled scrambled eggs onto my plate and threw a couple slices of wheat bread into the toaster, I tried to redirect my thoughts. Refocus. Tennis. Eyes on the prize. Not on the guys.
When I got to the table, I slid my tray next to the dry-erase board, unzipped my Windbreaker and draped it over my chair. David looked up and his eyes went straight to my chest. One corner of his mouth turned up and his eyes crinkled into laugh lines.
“Last night’s T-shirt was friendlier,” he said. I glanced down at the words printed on the front: “Boys Are Dumb. Throw Rocks at Them.” I shrugged, trying to look all innocent.
“Just want to get in the spirit of the match, you know? The whole battle-of-the-sexes thing?” David leaned forward. He leveled his gaze at me, and spoke quietly.
“Don’t forget: I’m a boy, too, Henry. You don’t want to hurt my feelings.” I held his look, and leaned in farther. I dropped my voice to my closest approximation of husky.
“Actually, David, you’re no boy. You’re the man.” His eyes grew round. A flash, just a hint, of genuine surprise flickered across his face. For one deeply gratifying moment David Ross was slightly off balance. Yes! Point goes to Miss Lloyd. Fifteen–love. Then it disappeared. He moved on without a comment, returning to his plans.
As I wolfed down eggs, he drew sweeping lines on the dry-erase board and talked. Dundas, he explained, was impatient. He liked to finish points early, go for winners when he should still be hitting rally balls.
“His attention span doesn’t extend beyond four shots,” David explained. “The trick is hanging with him for those four, ’cause he hits really hard. Too hard, actually. He’s not fit enough to sustain that level of effort for five sets. Which is why he tries to finish points quickly. But people who can hang with him always beat him.”
“Is that how you beat him?” I asked.
“No. But I think that should be your strategy.”
“Well, how do you do it?” David hesitated.
“I hit harder than him, I’m fitter, and I don’t lose focus,” he finally said, shrugging.
“Oh, right. If you do say so yourself,” I smirked.
David sighed and tossed the dry-erase marker on the table. It skittered onto the floor. He didn’t bother to retrieve it.
“Listen, Henry, can we get serious for five minutes? This is not about me. It’s about your match in”—he glanced at his watch—“eleven hours. Now, do you want to talk tennis, or flirt? Because frankly, I canceled my morning drill session to work with you, and if you’re not serious, then I’m gonna go find my coach and …”
“Whoa. Hold it right there, cowboy. Flirt? In your dreams.” I wi
lled my face to remain cool, but it was useless. I could feel the crimson spreading over my cheeks like a brush fire. David held the thought for a good ten seconds, until I turned completely red.
“I stand corrected. I thought you were flirting outrageously with me instead of concentrating on the business at hand.”
“I don’t flirt.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s a shame. Because despite having a boy’s name and playing tennis like a man, you could be a really, really good flirter.”
“Don’t make me hate you, David.” That earned me another killer smile.
“Now that’s more like it!” he said. He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I think we’re ready to hit some balls!”
* * *
I’d never stepped foot inside the pro court before. That’s because it’s not intended for the general scrubs. Ringed with palm trees, screened with forest-green windbreaks secured to the high metal fence, it was like stepping into someone’s private living room. There were the stacks of fresh white towels. Icy water in an insulated cooler. A teak bench. Teak.
For the first hour, we drilled. First short balls, using exaggerated topspin so that they dropped three feet beyond the net. Next, net shots: sharp, hard. Then we moved back to the baseline, for fifty high, deep crosscourt forehands, catching them on the rise. Fifty backhands. Fifty down-the-liners. If the ball went out, we’d start the count over.
When we finally took a break, I was drenched. As I sat on the bench, swallowing a steady stream of icy water, I felt something cool on the back of my neck. David had soaked a washcloth with cold water.
“Behind your ears. Your wrists,” he said. “Pulse points. If you press something cold there, you can actually get your body temperature to drop.” I pulled the washcloth from my neck. It was already hot where it had touched my skin.
“I think I need complete submersion in the pool,” I said. “Or a dry shirt.”
Hmm. There’s an idea. A shot he doesn’t expect.
I went over to my bag, rummaged and pulled out a sleeveless, wicking tennis shirt. And a dry bra. I turned my back to David, took a deep breath and pulled the sodden clothes over my head. I dropped them on the ground and slipped the dry shirt and bra past my shoulders. When I turned, David’s shocked look greeted me.