Jersey Tomatoes are the Best

by Maria Padian

  “I’m sorry!” I burst out. “I’m so sorry I’ve wrecked everything, Daddy!” My shoulders begin shaking. I don’t think I can make them stop. It scares me, being this out of control.

  “Eva! You have nothing to be sorry about!” he says. I’m crying too hard to reply. My mother pulls the phone from my hands.

  “Bob? She’s gotten herself all worked up. I’ll call you later.” She turns the phone off. She crouches beside the couch, her face level with mine. She puts both hands on my trembling shoulders, and speaks fiercely into my face.

  “Eva, listen to me. First thing tomorrow we’ll see your doctor, and he’ll put all this in perspective. Do not overreact.”

  My heart pounds wildly in the gaping hole inside my chest. I’ve gone from floating to frantic in under a minute, and that scares me, too.

  You are going to get so fat.

  No dancing. Not even walking, except with crutches, for a month. Your ass is going to balloon. And when your toe does heal, you’ll be too enormous to ever dance again.

  “Eva, stop it!”

  Horror, panic, in her voice, startles me. I open my eyes … when did I close them? … and see her staring at me. She’s gripping my wrists, hard.

  “Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself?”

  You are such worthless vomit. You are such a pig.

  The cover’s blown off the shaky ground we’ve been dancing on. Some subterranean explosion, kindled by a long fuse that leads to barrels of dynamite, has blasted the house of cards to smithereens. Floating, floating, the small singed cards are floating … while someone screams in the background. What ignites something like this? An injury. A disappointment. A missing friend. A missing period. A body that betrayed me. And finally, a word. A word my mother hopes some second-opinion doctor will diagnose away. A word the doctor in the emergency room didn’t hesitate to speak aloud.

  Anorexia.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  HENRY

  I’m a bottom-feeder. An unseeded, unknown player at the junior invitational tournament in Miami. And I’m winning.

  Not only am I winning: I’m upsetting. Because I’m a sub, they’ve slotted me in as a wild card draw, which means I’m pitted against the top seeds right away. On Friday night, the opening-round match? I defeat number three. In straight sets. She was this college freshman from California who threw her racket when she didn’t like a line call. Bad move. ’Cause after that racket flew across the court … I owned her.

  Not with words. Not with attitude or drama. I beat her with game, pure and simple.

  It wasn’t easy. She kept giving me all these wonderful opportunities to crush her, to play with her head and make her feel like a loser. Like, the first time she double-faulted, and swore (a big no-no), I could hear a few gasps from the audience.

  The old Henry would have rolled her eyes. Made some face that drew laughter. Maybe even shaken a finger at her and said, “Now, now, none of that!” The possibilities were endless, and hard to resist.

  Instead, I wiped the emotion from my face. I wore a mask of concentration and pretended I didn’t notice her self-destructing, and the only sounds from my mouth were the grunts I made when I hit the ball. I turned myself into a robotic tennis machine, which, it turns out, is way more lethal than a smart-mouthed jerk.

  Afterward, Missy hustled me straight back to our hotel. We ended up in a dim corner of the restaurant’s lounge, downloading with David and his coach, Harvey. David wasn’t scheduled to play until Saturday morning, so he and Harvey had just arrived. As Missy entertained them with descriptions of the reactions following my upset win, I tucked into a chicken-salad sandwich.

  “What’d I say?” David commented smugly to Missy. “Didn’t I tell you she was going to kick ass?” Missy smiled thinly.

  “Our girl is very good, David. But let’s not forget that Carly is a head case and routinely blows matches she should have won.” Carly was the California racket thrower.

  “Oh, please. Please!” David looked at Harvey entreatingly. “Can you get her to admit that I was right? For once?”

  “Admit that he was right for once, Missy,” Harvey said, grinning. Missy shrugged.

  “If Henry beats Stephanie tomorrow, I will admit that you were right. For once,” she said. David smiled knowingly at her. They have some ongoing jokes, these two, which makes sense. David spends more time with the coaching staff than he does with his own family. He’s been living full-time at Chadwick since ninth grade.

  * * *

  As it turned out, I beat Stephanie, the number four seed, in straight sets the next morning. Two hours later, during the hottest part of the day, I took out number five. That involved some work. We went to three sets, one of them a tiebreaker. But when it was over I was lined up to play on Sunday. In the final.

  That night, alone in my hotel room, I’m just about to turn the lights out when I hear the soft knock. I climb out of bed, pull the door open until the chain checks it and through the crack see David. His tennis bag is at his feet. He and Harvey must’ve only just returned.

  I push the door closed, slip the chain and let him in. He wastes no time wrapping his arms around my waist. He keeps stepping, I stumble backward, and when we fall on the bed he covers my giggles with his mouth. I move my hands to the back of his head … I love to touch his hair … and it feels stiff with dried salt and sweat. He’s definitely smelled better.

  He rolls back on the bed, so we’re side by side, our eyes inches apart.

  “Guess what couple from the same club is playing in the finals tomorrow?” he whispers.

  I jump up, with a little yelp of glee.

  “You won?” I ask excitedly. Although I shouldn’t be surprised. He was seeded first.

  “Yup,” he grins. “Took me four sets, but I’m there. And I hear, gorgeous, so are you.”

  I’m dying to tell him about my mind-game-free wins, how I beat every one of those girls on pure tennis; but he has other ideas. He pulls me down again, rolls on top of me, and starts the kissing at my neck, just behind my ear. Slowly, his lips slide lower, come around, until he reaches the hollow at the base of my throat. I can’t help it; I feel it coming, and despite my best efforts to control myself …

  I whoop. My body jerks involuntarily, and I dissolve in hysterical giggles. David rolls away from me, onto his back, and sighs impatiently.

  “I’m sorry! I really tried this time!” I say instantly. “But you know that is my most ticklish spot.” I’m truly sorry, but the laughter creeps into my voice nevertheless.

  This annoys him.

  “It’s, ah, kind of a mood breaker, if you know what I mean?” he replies sourly.

  “I know. I’m sorry, David.” I place my hand on his chest. I lean over and kiss him lightly on the lips, once. Again. I look into his eyes, trying to convince him of my sincerity. This has been emerging as an issue between us: my knee-jerk laughter whenever he makes romantic overtures. Especially near my neck. His grouchy expression relaxes slightly. Another kiss, one he returns.

  “You taste salty,” I comment softly. He murmurs in agreement.

  “I need to shower,” he says. He sits up.

  “Join me?” he asks. Only a trace of a smile.

  He’s serious.

  At this precise moment the last person in the universe I want in the room with me and David would be my father. But that’s whose voice speaks in my ear. His paranoid words of wisdom accompany the semisick feeling that spreads in my gut as I realize what David is suggesting, and I’m transported back to that breezy outdoor restaurant in Boca on the first day of camp, and Mark is telling me to trust my instincts.

  I don’t think this is what my dad had in mind when he told me, “Never be afraid to say no.”

  I don’t want to say no to David. But I don’t want to shower with him, either.

  “I … don’t know if that would be such a great idea,” I say softly. Hesitantly, as if I’m actually considering this suggestion. So I’m not
saying no. Or yes.

  To my incredible relief, David shrugs.

  “Yeah, it’s probably not. We’d never get any sleep, would we?” He’s looking at me with this confident smile. No worries or rejection. He thinks I’ve got tomorrow’s games on my mind, and the importance of a good night’s shut-eye.

  He leans over and gives me one last, chaste kiss on the cheek before rising from the bed. He picks up his tennis bag and heads for the door. Then he pauses, his hand on the knob.

  “I’m half tempted to knock at Missy’s room, just to say, ‘I told you so!’ ” he declares.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “You know, about you. Kickin’ ass?”

  I smile at him. “I guess that means you were right. For once.”

  “Damn right I am!” he says, laughing. His white teeth flash in his tan face. Movie-star-bright teeth. A random thought crosses my mind: has David had his teeth done, or does he just brush really, really often?

  “See you at breakfast,” he says breezily, and walks out. I wait one moment, listening to his retreating footsteps and the rustle of his tennis bag, before jumping up and opening my door just a crack. His room is way at the far end of the hall. I see him stand before it, pull his key card from his pocket, insert it and go inside. His door clicks shut.

  I rechain my door, then fall back on my rumpled bed. One cleansing yoga breath. Then another. It takes a few minutes before my heart slows its wild beating.

  * * *

  He clinches it in three straight sets the next day, out of which I only get to watch two. That’s because they start the boys’ final moments after my opponent and I finish the girls’. I’m in the locker room, toweling off from my shower, when Missy calls in to say he’s already up 3–love. I race to get dressed, but then I’m held up by the reporters. The Chadwick “communications” people have set up a mini press gathering in one corner of the refreshments tent. There are two aluminum chairs, circled by six more chairs, but I end up sitting alone because my opponent decided to beat it, no comment.

  You can’t blame her. She lost to an unknown, unseeded nobody two years younger than her. Some Jersey Tomato who doesn’t have a full-time coach, an agent or a sponsor.

  “I’m just a teenager who likes to hit tennis balls,” I reply to their questions. The handful of reporters laugh, on cue. Missy, standing off to one side, obediently smiles in kind, the fake smile I’ve learned to recognize. She is stressed because this happened way too fast, too unexpectedly, for her to script what I should say.

  I tell them I’m from the Garden State and proud of it, and that I learned to play in my backyard, coached by my dad. They’re lovin’ it. It’s so Cinderella story, and these guys are bored with the usual suspects. Then the questions get more complicated.

  “Henry, the girls you beat have been playing the junior circuit for years. How do you explain your win here?” asks one. I shrug.

  “I guess three weeks at Chadwick is like three years on the circuit?” I suggest. Laughter, especially when Missy calls out, “Yes, we told her to say that!”

  “Maybe it’s not so complicated,” I continue. “I mean, whether you hit a million balls in your backyard or on an expensive court in a private club, it’s still a million balls, right?” Nods, followed by scribbles. I wonder, if I started reciting from Dr. Seuss, would they quote that, too? “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish …”

  “What do you think is the best part of your game?” another asks. I pause.

  It occurs to me that the answer to this question, the honest-to-goodness answer, would have been different only one short month ago. Back then, someone might have said, “Her strokes are okay, but she wins by being bitchy and breaking her opponents’ concentration.”

  Not today. Not this tournament, not tomorrow … not anymore. I feel this rush.

  “Self-control,” I answer seriously. They pause. Frown.

  “What do you mean? Do you mean mental toughness?” one asks. I shake my head.

  “I prefer to think of it as control. That I’m controlling the point,” I reply. My shots. My skills. My conditioning and foot speed. Not my mouth.

  Missy steps forward.

  “Thanks, everyone, but we have to wrap this up. Chadwick is playing in the boys’ final, and we want to watch. If you have follow-up questions, please refer them to our communications office.” She leans close to me and whispers, “Let’s go.”

  By the time we arrive and find Yoly, her mom and her little sister Carolina in the stands, David and his opponent are sitting. The scoreboard reads 7–5, first set to Ross. My heart does this little skipperdy beat, and I fight the urge to flash him a thumbs-up, a blown kiss, something. But I know it wouldn’t be welcome. He is staring at the court a few feet ahead of him, oblivious to the packed bleachers.

  David’s in the zone. There is no breaking that concentration.

  General applause from both sides of the court signals the resumption of play, and David and his opponent head back out to the field of battle. I pull on my sun visor and settle in for the match.

  It’s the best tennis I’ve ever seen, not counting pro matches on television. His opponent is good, but David is … incredible. His racket-head speed and flawless technique result in these withering, barely returnable shots. He is so quick to the ball that he never seems rushed; every stroke looks like a demonstration for an instructional video, or like he’s posing for a Tennis magazine cover photo. Click.

  When it’s over, people stand. The applause is loud; there’s even some cheering, which is unusual in tennis. David’s won in three sets, and while it clearly wasn’t hard for him, there were plenty of opportunities for him to show his stuff. He strides quickly to net to shake his opponent’s hand, and makes a point of pausing, speaking with him briefly.

  Guys with cameras have spilled onto the court, as well as tournament officials, scurrying around to set up a mike stand for the courtside trophy ceremony. Amidst the chaos, David scans the crowd. When he finds me, he flashes the best smile ever. My heart does a 360.

  “Go down to him,” someone murmurs, giving me a gentle shove. I turn. Missy.

  “Is that okay?” I’m surprised.

  “Absolutely. He’ll love it,” she says reassuringly. “Go on.”

  I don’t need a second invitation. I shoulder my way through the spectators, stepping carefully down the bleachers. I push through reporters. I find David near his courtside chair, rummaging through his enormous tennis bag. As he pulls out a dry shirt, he sees me approach.

  “Hey,” he says, aiming a heart-melting grin in my direction. I can’t help it: I close the last five feet between us with a skip, a little jump, and my arms are around his neck. I hear him laugh softly, feel my feet lift as he swings me around, and I experience this nanosecond of completely perfect, golden happiness.

  Then I hear it. The metallic whirr of digital cameras. The buzz of lenses maneuvering into focus. Clicks. David puts me down, and we both turn to face a gauntlet of people taking our pictures. I recognize the Tennis magazine guy I met after my match, saying something to one of the photographers. I look at David, a ready apology on my lips, for getting in his way. But he’s glancing over my head. Back in the stands, toward Missy and Harvey, and he looks at them questioningly, nods slightly, then winds one arm around my waist.

  “Smile, Henry,” he says, aiming one at the growing hive of photographers and onlookers. The clicks increase as I obediently pose; they rapid-fire when I shyly lean my head against David’s shoulder.

  I fell into this moment. Spontaneously skipped to his side.

  So why does it feel staged?

  * * *

  The air inside La Cubana is thick: heavy with garlic, roasted meat, fried bananas. Actually, not bananas. Yoly tells us they’re plátanos, and even though they look like bananas, they aren’t. A few small plates piled high with them, thin golden rounds that crunch oily in your mouth, line the center of the long table before us now. David and I sit at one end with Yoly and
her cousin Enrique.

  The Cruzes’ restaurant is the sort of place my mother would describe as a hole in the wall. Mark would call it a dive. It’s packed with Formica tables and booths upholstered in red vinyl. The walls are a crazy quilt of hand-painted murals depicting island scenes (I’m guessing Cuba), old concert posters and framed, yellowed news clippings about baseball players.

  Even though the menu is written in English and Spanish, David and I yield ordering to Yoly and Enrique. Yoly insists on empanadas to start, followed by lettuce-and-tomato salad. Dinner will be the restaurant’s famed cerdo asado, or roast pork, along with ropa vieja, which is Spanish for “old clothes.” Yoly explains it’s actually spicy shredded beef. We’ll also have black beans and white rice, plus something I’ve never heard of: yuca.

  “It’s a root vegetable, like a potato,” Enrique tells us. “Cook it with a few pounds of garlic, and it melts in your mouth.”

  Enrique smiles easily at us across the table. He’s older, almost twenty, and is handsome in a sort of not-tall, square-jawed way. He studies business administration at Miami University, but comes home lots of weekends to work at the restaurant. “Better money than my campus job,” he explains, “plus free food.” His mother, Yoly’s tía Blanca, does a lot of the cooking at La Cubana. It’s her pork we’re destined to eat.

  “Best pork in Little Havana,” Yoly tells us after the waitress gathers the plastic menus and hurries off to get our drinks.

  “Which means best pork in Miami,” Enrique adds.

  “Which also means best pork in Florida,” Yoly counters.

  “And that means best pork in … the country?” David suggests.

  “More like the world,” Enrique corrects. “Excepting Cuba, of course.”

  “Well, I’m psyched,” I declare. “Even for the yuck-thing. Bring on the garlic.” As if on command, my stomach makes a low, audible groan. Everyone cracks up.

  “Someone needs to feed this girl,” David says, smiling. “She’s earned it.”

  “Oh, we’ll feed you, all right,” Enrique says. “When we come out with the flan for dessert, you will both be begging us to stop.” Everyone laughs.