Chapter 1

I'd been playing mixed doubles tennis with Pete and Laura Ettinger for consecutive Sundays all spring and summer at the indoor club to which the three of us belonged.

My own doubles partner was whatever female friend of mine that I could persuade to get up early Sunday for two hours of competitive sport. That left out the devout Christians and the sleep-in-on-weekends set, but over the past seven or eight Sundays, I had shown up with four different partners. Some of them were better company than others, and some were better doubles players than others, but I guess the main thing they demonstrated to Pete and Laura was that I was an unattached male.

Pete and Laura were a three-years-married, upwardly mobile childless working couple. Like me, they lived close to the second-rate indoor tennis facility to which we dedicated our Sunday mornings. Pete was marginally more proficient with a tennis racquet than I, and Laura generally could outplay my guests, but the matches were competitive enough that the two of them reminded me from time to time that I was a treasured "find" —- a tennis devotee who could be relied upon for foursome duty on a regular basis.

After our hard-fought two-hour sessions, we would adjourn for a restaurant breakfast designed to assure that no weight loss we'd experienced that morning would be permanent.

Usually, but not always, my female companion would join us for breakfast, but on this particular morning my partner, Jessica Barnwell, a workaholic from my own place of employment, begged off in favor of a quick shower at the club and the rest of her day at the office.

No matter. Pete and Laura were quickly becoming comfortable friends and fun people to spend time with. At breakfast, the three of us covered the week in politics, the weird people we worked with at our respective weekday endeavors, and the relative merits of Pete's favorites, the Boston Red Sox, as against my own beloved Orioles.

Laura, originally from Chicago, occasionally would put in a word for the Cubbies, but her heart wasn't in it. It was all amiable enough. Why should Pete or I get emotionally involved in an argument when we both knew the Orioles were going nowhere again this season.

On this particular Sunday, though, I was without female companionship and Laura decided to address that issue. "Do you have a regular girl who just isn't a tennis player?" she asked me, "or are you working on all of these women you've brought in to play? How is it you show up with a different partner every week?"

"Ahh, just because you two manage to combine tennis with romance, it doesn't mean we all can," I said. "I'm not dating any of the women I've brought to the club. They're all just friends from work or neighbors from my apartment complex."

"Couple of them were pretty fine," Laura said. "It hasn't occurred to you that you might try to start up a little something?"

I smiled at Laura. "I'm a guy," I said. "Naturally, you get a long-legged female in a short skirt, wearing those cute little satin underpants, and she bends over to pick up Pete's most recent double-fault, certain thoughts are bound to pass through my mind."

"You've had —- what? —- four different honeys out here to play?" Pete said. "I thought three of them were downright delicious, and the other one, the chunky one? I wouldn't kick her out of bed, either!"

I already knew, from past breakfasts, that Pete and Laura had the kind of easy relationship that would permit him to come out with such outbursts without suffering consequences at home. Laura didn't bat an eye, but she still had her un-batted eye on the ball —- the original question she'd asked me:

"So, Adam, is there a non-tennis-playing Eve stashed away someplace? Your go-to girl for mixed singles?"

"Alas, not at the moment, no," I said. "I'm between engagements. I had something going a while back, but it's getting to be ancient history now, and there's nobody else in the immediate picture."

"It's the promotion, isn't it?" Pete said. A few weeks earlier, I had burdened them with the boring-but-familiar story of my recent upward mobility at work, and the resulting additional demands on my time and energy.

"I have been working a little harder, and fretting about work a little more frequently," I said. "But I'm not a nutcase like Jessica, today's partner. She's off to work without breakfast or, probably, lunch either. On a Sunday, yet! Listen, if I find the right woman, I'm prepared to clear my schedule and make time for her."

"Make time to make time!" Pete said.

"Well, try to find one who's a tennis player," Laura suggested. " ... Adam, would you be interested in coming over to our place for dinner one night this week?"

"What night?"

"Name it," Laura said. "I am not a gourmet cook, but neither am I a total klutz in the kitchen. Pete and I would like to see you someplace besides that flea-bitten tennis club and this second-rate diner."

"I don't know," I said, allowing the skepticism to be heard in my tone. "You just quizzed me about my love life, and now you're asking me over for dinner. That sounds like a set-up to me!"

"Set-up, spelled A-M-B-U-S-H," Pete said.

"Not true!" Laura said. "We would never try to fix you up without giving you plenty of advance warning. I'm talking about just the three of us, over some kind of casserole dish. Cheap wine and conversation. You've never even seen our apartment."

"My social life consists of tennis every Sunday morning with this married couple I know. That's about it. You name the preferred weekday evening and I will show up on your doorstep."

"Tuesday," Laura said. She was already drawing me a diagram of the directions on the back of a napkin.

Tuesday evening I showed up with my own bottle of cheap wine and with an equally inexpensive bouquet for my hostess.

True to her word, Laura had no female friends hiding in the closet, and the three of us spent a relaxed evening enjoying each other's company. Pete and Laura were so easy going, I found myself wishing I did have a current main squeeze that I could bring around for their inspection.

Pete asked me if I was planning to participate in the tennis club's quarterly Thursday Night free-for-all, in which the whole place was turned over to one-set tournament-style singles matches until a "champion" could be anointed.

I had tried the free-for-all only once before, and had been bounced in my second match of the night. It was very likely that the same thing would happen again. The tournament was co-ed, and some of the more zealous female players advanced all the way to the fourth or even fifth rounds of play, depending on the luck of the draw, but Laura said she had another, less strenuous engagement planned for that night.

"You and Pete go," she said. "You'll both lose promptly and get home early -— probably before I do."

She was right. One or two sets would most certainly finish me for the evening, and Pete was unlikely to last much longer. So, why not?

Thursday night, we met at the club. The matches started at eight and, sure enough, I was all through after only one round. Pete won his first two one-set "matches," but was bageled in his third-round set by one of the club's more zealous players.

I hardly even needed a shower, but joined Pete for one anyway. "How about a beer on our way home?" he said.

We left our cars in the lot at the club and walked the half-block to a small restaurant we knew had its own bar. It was a quiet night and we pretty-much had the eight-seat bar to ourselves.

"Laura really likes you," Pete said after we had been served.

"Well, it's mutual," I said. "The two of you have been a Godsend. Not just tennis friends. I've gotten to the point where I consider you both real friends. And you've got such a great relationship, I've been wishing I had a partner of my own to bring along to the party."

"That would be nice," Pete said. "But, listen, Adam ... From what I've been able to gather, you're kind of an easy-going guy, you know?"

"Easy-going? Sure, I guess so. Although that phrase covers a multitude of sins."

Pete made sure he couldn't be heard by the bartender or any nearby customers, and spoke to me sotto voce. "Laura and I, we're kind of out-there, a little bit, y'know? Sexually, I mean? Nothing weird, or anything. No whips and chains, y'know? But we enjoy, I mean, we're kind-of like ... into making movies."

"Movies."

"You know, Pete said. "Home movies. Of us. Doing it. Having sex."

"Uh-huh." I didn't know where this conversation was going, but wherever it was, it was going to get there without any false moves on my part.

"We've got this first-class digital camera that does pretty good," Pete said. "But it just, y'know, sits there, pointed at the scene, and if you move around, even a little bit, you get out of the frame and the whole thing is kinda, well, Amateur City, you know?"

"I've seen some of those movies on the Internet," I volunteered. "They've got remote controls you can use to adjust the focus and, I think, even, whatchacallit, to pan in and out and stuff."