Chapter 4

The courts were dead. Forty-five minutes to close. I had left the kitchen to hit balls until the insult left my body.

I went up the pro shop steps for a machine and stopped dead.

“Hey, girl.”

Gloria. Alone on the veranda, already mid-glass of the same white she drank by the bottle on gossip afternoons. Home uniform. White one-piece. Arms and legs dark from a life in the sun. Makeup that belonged on a date, not a tennis court.

“Oh. Hey...” It came out too high. “Thought I’d get some balls in.”

She tipped the glass at the empty chair.

“Sit. Drink first.”

The laugh after it was the practice laugh. The one that meant we were never going to get any better.

Below us, the courts were lit and empty, green behind the fence, the whole place holding its breath.

A waiter slid in from behind. The same one who kept our glasses full on the days we should have been practicing. My usual. He said my name and nothing else. Set the glass down and was gone. One more line on an invoice Alex would complain about in a month.

First time alone with any of them. Practices. Matches. The chat. Always a group. The air went thin.

“Everything alright, girlie?”

She was the kind of woman who could smell a cracked thing from across a table.

“Yeah. I think so.”

Too fast. She heard the kitchen in it.

“I’m here if you need an ear.”

The wine sat between us long enough for the offer to go stale.

“Sorry if the Tommy stuff freaked you out.”

Soft. Almost careful. Not the woman from the chat.

“It was surprising,” I said, and the laugh I put on it didn’t help.

“I suppose I went immune.” She tipped the glass. “Forgot it wasn’t normal.”

I should have left it. Got up. Gone for the ball machine I came for.

The pause stretched until I filled it.

“No guilt though?”

It came out on its own. Too sharp. Too much like I was asking for instructions.