“Glad to know that Mimi can go from foreign battleground to marriage battleground.”
“Hey, Vivian asked her to do it as a favor—friend of the family and all.”
“Some family.” Nick shook his head.
“Anyway, Mimi asked me on the spur of the moment since she knew I was in Grantham and she wanted the scoop. So, live on the evening news, Vivian went on about wanting to seek justice, especially to protect the rights of a minor. She’s even offered to pay for a legal team to represent the girl in the event that Monsieur Renard’s team of high-priced lawyers try to smear her.”
“And here I thought this Grantham gig was going to be a snooze fest.” Nick attempted to take it all in. “Boy, was I ever wrong. The thing of it is, I’m still trying to figure out how we can work what you’re telling me into our episode.”
Georgie rolled the desk chair away. It banged against the edge of the desk. “Hey, I don’t want you making snarky remarks on the show about how the mighty, especially Vivian Pierpoint, have fallen.”
“I don’t know why you’re all hepped up over Vivian Pierpoint. She’s an adult with plenty of resources at her disposal. I’d be more worried about the girl. I mean, think of it. She’s somebody’s daughter, you know.” Strange—or not so strange—where his mind seemed to have wandered.
“Well, Vivian might be all grown-up and have money to burn. But that doesn’t mean she’s not somebody’s daughter, too. At times like this, she needs all the support she can get.”
If Georgie didn’t look so sincerely upset, Nick would have made one of his usual wisecracks.
Instead he thought of Penelope. By any stretch of the imagination, she was all grown-up—certainly professionally accomplished and financially secure. Yet even she was subject to abuse, well intended as it might be, from her father. Her father of all people!
So in the end, Nick actually tried to demonstrate a modicum of understanding, which, surprisingly, wasn’t as difficult as he might have expected. “It makes you wonder who you can trust, doesn’t it?” he asked.
To which Georgie nodded philosophically.
“Tell you what,” Nick continued. “Let me know if there’s anything we can do for her. I know she says she’s more concerned about the girl, but she doesn’t deserve such a raw deal.”
Georgie glanced up, a look of surprise on his face. Then that softened. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll let her know.”
For a few moments, the two sat there in silence. Georgie thinking whatever he was thinking. Vivian and what he could do to help her, was Nick’s best guess. And Nick? He was still thinking of Amara and what he’d missed. But mixed with the guilt was the sense of urgency—an urgency having to do with Penelope.
She was tied up all day tomorrow at the Rare Book Library, including helping Press prepare for his talk at the exhibit. But she had promised that the night was his.
They were scheduled to film at Lion Inn. Besides the usual kick-off dance for Reunions, the club was also sponsoring a Beer Pong contest. It promised to make great television.
And if he had anything to say about it, it would also make the perfect prelude to a great evening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“YES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, behold Beer Pong—the sport of tipsy college kids everywhere and, it appears—” Nick pointed at the Reunions throng crowded around a long piece of plywood atop two wooden sawhorses “—of today’s captains of industry and financial wizards. Come to think of it, maybe this explains something about why our economy is in the state it is.”
Nick stood in the games room on the second floor of Lion Inn, a spacious stucco, half–timber and stone building that combined architectural elements of a Tudor manor and an old-world hunting lodge. The cameras were rolling.
From downstairs, the sound of the band carried through the thick plaster walls and wood paneling. The festivities were just getting started. Members of this year’s graduating class and the corresponding tenth-year Reunion alums were yet to arrive since they were still in the grips of the annual softball battle. Nick was only glad his weary body would not be required to do anything more strenuous than attempt to throw a Ping-Pong ball in a plastic cup. How hard could that be?
“As many of you may know from reading such illustrious publications as The Wall Street Journal and Time—not to mention ESPN The Magazine—Beer Pong is practically a national pastime,” Nick went on, looking askance at the camera. “Alas, owing to my previous insistence of not diluting my drinking with any form of physical activity, I have not yet had the privilege of playing. This omission is about to be remedied.”
He turned to two men standing next to him. They both looked mildly embarrassed. “With me, I have here two Beer Pong experts who are going to explain the rules of the game. The only reason they’ve agreed to be on camera is because they had the misfortune of being two of my freshmen advisees when I was a junior at this institution. That was before persons in authority realized I was not to be trusted.” Nick mugged for the camera. “Anyway, since I am privy to information from their pasts that would be damaging to their current careers, they basically had no choice.”
Nick held up his hand. “Welcome, Justin and Hunt. Since you’re both ex-jocks, I know you must be experts at this, right?”
Justin rolled his eyes, and Hunt nodded his head.
“So give me some insight so I don’t make a complete fool of myself,” Nick instructed.
Justin gingerly walked closer to the end of the table. “Basically there are two teams that stand at either end of the table, and the object of the game is to toss a Ping-Pong ball—” he picked one up “—into one of the cups of beer at the other team’s end.” A triangular array of six red plastic cups was positioned at each end. Beer filled each cup about halfway up.
Justin demonstrated by shooting the ball down the length of the table. He missed. “Oops.”
“Hey, I may actually stand a chance!” Nick observed.
Hunt scooped up the ball before it bounced off the table. “I think I may need a new partner,” he joked.
Justin ignored him. “Now, if this were an actual game, I’d have to drink one of the beers at my end since I missed.”
“So what happens if a ball actually goes in one of those?” Nick asked.
“If Justin managed to put one in,” Hunt remarked, “then someone from the other team would be obliged to drink that cup of beer.”
Nick rubbed his hands together. “This sounds like my kind of sporting event. So, if I understand correctly, the winning team is the one that has at least one beer cup remaining on their side while the other team has had all theirs knocked out?”
“Exactly,” Justin said. “So shall we get started?” He picked up a ball and started bouncing it on the table, catching it neatly on each rise. “My suggestion is that Justin and I play as one team. That way we just need to find someone for you to play with, Nick.” He peered around the room for likely suspects.
“How about I play with Hunt and you look for someone?” Nick retorted.
“But Hunt and I always played together as a team back in college. Everybody knows you can’t break up a team.” He looked at Nick with an expression that declared there was no room for compromise.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m being set up here?” Nick joked for the camera. Nick sought out Georgie with his gaze. The producer never seemed to tire of seeing his on-air talent make a fool of himself, and he didn’t bother to restrain his obvious glee.
Irritated, Nick shifted his eyes around the room. Spectators watching the filming leaned against the walls or lounged in the tired-looking leather chairs. He tried to see if Mimi Lodge was in the audience. He remembered that she’d been a jock in college, and she clearly was no novice in front of the camera. Mimi was nowhere to be found.
But that’s when
he saw whom he wanted.
Without breaking stride, he maneuvered around some onlookers and zeroed in on a slim figure trying to disappear into the bank of photos displayed on the walls. They portrayed the members of Lion Inn Social Club through the successive years, dating well back to the forties when young men posed in suits and ties, in stark contrast to today’s coed and multicultural members.
“I pick you,” Nick announced. He shot out a hand and pulled the unwilling person toward the lights.
“Why on earth would you choose me?” Penelope protested under her breath. The soles of her black patent-leather ballet shoes slipped across the hardwood floor. In preparation for the potential for spilled liquids, the ancient Persian rug had been rolled up against one wall.
Penelope looked at him with abject fear in her eyes. “As I am sure you have already guessed, I am not an athletic sort of person. Unlike my brother, I might add.” She nodded in Justin’s direction.
“Don’t worry. We have a secret weapon,” Nick confided.
“We do?” She looked at him dubiously.
Larry moved the camera closer to her face.
She sent a panicked glance to Nick. “We do?”
“Sibling rivalry,” he declared in a stage whisper. “There’s no way you’re going to lose to your little brother, now, is there?”
She narrowed her eyes. “When you put it that way.”
Frankly it was the only way that Nick could think of at the moment. What he wanted to say, he couldn’t. The reason he’d asked her to come to Lion Inn this evening—insisted, really—was that all day he’d been thinking of her. No amount of locally farmed orange-colored beets, or veal from grass-fed calves that had been kissed on the nose before being slaughtered, could command his attention.
Because he knew, just like he knew she knew, that tonight was the night they would be together.
So, all right, a round of Beer Pong humiliation was not his usual form of foreplay. But then, Penelope was not usual. And, come to think of it, up until now, he had never really thought about the whole concept of “romancing.” He’d always just somehow fallen into bed, smoothly or, admittedly in some cases, awkwardly. But the notion of wooing had never entered the equation. Until now…
Maybe that’s why Beer Pong seemed about as good a place to start as anywhere.
“C’mon,” he coaxed her. “It’ll be fun. Well, maybe not fun, but at least potentially amusing. Trust me.”
And seemingly she did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THIS WHOLE BEER PONG competition was just the type of activity that Penelope had shied away from her whole life. When it came to conquering tough intellectual challenges she was more than eager. But anything that involved physical competition or team play? Not so much. Homeschooling under her father’s ever-watchful eyes might have produced a prodigiously gifted academic. But it did nothing for this kind of event.
Scared out of her wits, Penelope realized the sudden pain in her right temple was due to the way she was maniacally grinding her teeth. “Nick,” she said, unhinging her jaw.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” he said with a wink.
Yes, a wink. And like that, Penelope felt her heart flutter. And that’s when she knew. Here in the overcrowded, noisy, hot games room of Lion Inn—a place she had never set foot in all her four years of college—she had found love.
How else to explain the way Nick gave her the courage to do the impossible? And that’s when she also realized that she didn’t want to let him down. Because for some reason, she trusted him.
So, albeit nervously, she shook her head and stepped toward the Beer Pong table. “All right. ‘Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.’” She quoted Admiral Farragut.
“Just so long as they don’t bring in the big guns,” Nick joked. He positioned her close to his side, then looked across the table at Justin and Hunt, who were confidently grinning. “Okay, hotshots. Seeing as we’re strangers in these parts, we’ll let you go first.”
“Great.” Justin picked up a Ping-Pong ball and dipped it in another cup of amber liquid—presumably beer—that was positioned at the side of the table. He shook it before holding it aloft.
“Hey,” Nick protested. “Is that legal?”
“It’s all according to house rules,” Hunt assured him. He folded his hands over his T-shirt, a faded Grantham Lightweight Crew shirt. With almost zero body fat the strength of his sinewy arms was intimidating. The easy smile, which seemed all nice and friendly, paradoxically added to the fear factor.
“Why do I feel we’re being suckered?” Nick said out of the side of his mouth to Penelope.
“You’re only figuring that out now?” She put one hand to her mouth as she studied the board and her brother’s motions. Justin bounced his shot in the middle of the table. It ricocheted up, arcing over their triangular array of cups. As the white ball descended in flight, it ticked off a rim of one cup, just missing its target.
The crowd oohed.
Nick held up his hands in protest. “Hey, now I know we’ve been hoodwinked. You never mentioned anything about bouncing the ball.”
Justin laughed and began drinking one of the beers. “I happen to prefer the bounce shot, but you can make your pitiful attempts at our cups any way you want—a fastball or slow pitch. Whatever.” Then he leaned forward. “House rules say we alternate. So it’s up to one of you.” He looked at his partner, bobbing his head confidently. “Like we have anything to worry about.”
Hunt nodded. “Damn straight. Isn’t Nicholas Rheinhardt the candy-ass television host who was left crippled after some massage?”
“So now it’s come down to trash talk, huh?” Nick responded. “If you really want to go there, that’s something I excel at.” He spoke to Penelope. “Any advice here would be extremely welcome.”
She tapped her lips with a finger. “Let’s see. The cups appear to be sixteen-ounce with an approximate diameter of three and one half inches. Given the configuration of the vessels and size of their top openings, I believe that in the early stages of the game it is best to throw the ball with a high arc.”
“And what, pray tell, makes you say that?” Nick asked, not looking totally convinced.
“How can I explain this?” She paused. “Let’s just say it’s similar to an approach shot in golf. A good one has a nice arc that allows it to drop down without moving too far. In effect, we’re talking about a trade-off. Even though an arcing shot may be harder to control in regards to accuracy, it will come down practically vertically. Ergo, I recommend an arcing shot while there are still a number of cups on the board because such a ball dropping vertically has a better chance of making it into the cup.”
She held up her finger when Nick was about to speak. “I’m not done.” She was in full lecture mode. “By contrast, toward the end of the game, when there will be fewer cups on the table—thus reducing the total size of the target—I recommend a lower arc. This path requires less force and therefore provides the possibility of greater accuracy.”
Nick stared at her dumbfounded.
Penelope was perplexed. “You disagree?”
“I’m still working on your use of ergo.” He shook his head. “And you postulate all this because…?”
“Because it’s based on classic laws of motion, of course.” When that didn’t seem to satisfy him she added, “I took a course in introductory fluid mechanics in college.”
“You took a course in fluid mechanics? Why?”
“The professor had won all sorts of teaching awards. I thought it might come in handy one day.”
“Did it?”
She shrugged. “We’ll see, won’t we?” She handed him a Ping-Pong ball. “Since I’m stronger on theory than practice, I suggest you go first.”
He studied her a moment before taking the ball. He bent his elbow and held his upper arm upright. The ball was between his thumb and forefinger.
She leaned toward him with her shoulder. “Remember, a high arc.”
He dropped his hand. “I got that part.” He set himself again.
“Hold it,” she shouted. She reached out for the cup on the side of the table. “Dunk the ball first.”
Justin and Hunt watched amused from the other end of the board. “To think my brainy sister needs to imitate me,” Justin joked.
Penelope addressed her brother. “It’s not a matter of imitation so much as aerodynamics. Wetting the ball increases its mass, thus lowering the effects of air resistance on the trajectory.” She pushed the cup in Nick’s face.
“And here I thought it was just some Lion Inn superstition.” Hunt laughed. “Like giving the ball good juju.”
Nick sniffed the cup. “This is beer? Is water any better?”
She frowned again in thought. “No, it shouldn’t make any significant difference since the mass of both liquids is essentially the same.”
Nick dunked his Ping-Pong ball. “If a Grantham University professor recommends this course of action, who am I to question it?” He readied his throwing stance, making a couple of practice arm movements.
“High arc,” Penelope repeated with a whisper.
“Penelope,” Nick snapped. He let the ball go.
As one, the whole room leaned forward, arching their necks to mimic the flight of the ball. Up it went before dropping in a perfect parabola.
Plop. It landed in the center cup.
“All right,” Nick shouted and turned to high-five Penelope, who needed a second to register just how to respond.
“How embarrassing. That’s the first time I’ve ever given a high five,” Nick admitted.
“For me, as well,” Penelope confessed.
Their eyes locked.
From across the table, Hunt removed the ball and chugged the beer. “Not to worry, bro. That was merely beginner’s luck.” He wiped the ball on a paper towel, then dunked it carefully. “Now you’ll see what happens when the pros take over.” He raised his arm, and tossed a perfect, arcing ball.
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