Tom Lake(68)

“Let’s get you back to the room,” Sebastian said.

Duke shook his head very slowly so as not to upset his equilibrium further. “I’m going to lie down for a minute,” he said, meaning on the ground.

I thought Sebastian would object but he patted his brother’s back and then walked him onto the court where Duke stretched out parallel to the fault line.

“Keep playing,” he said, his voice subdued, his hand making a little circle in the air. “I don’t want to ruin the afternoon for everyone.”

“Too late,” Pallace said.

“Do you want to play a set?” Sebastian asked her.

She shook her head, lifting up her leg to flex and point her foot. “Ankle,” she reminded him. Pallace had a flare--up of tendinitis in her left ankle and if she wasn’t dancing she tried to rest it. She was sitting on the court near Duke’s head but had nothing to do with him.

Sebastian turned his racquet at me. “You’re up.”

I hadn’t had that much to drink but it took very little. Despite Duke’s predictions, my muscle for consumption remained weak. “Let’s go to the lake.”

Duke had his arm across his eyes, the tender underside of his wrist turned towards the sun. “You can’t move me and you can’t leave me here. You might as well get a lesson out of it.”

Now I was sorry for having chased Cody off. Cody would have sold his mother to play a game of tennis with Sebastian. I asked Duke how he was feeling.

“Potentially better. Not better right this minute but I can see how this could really help in the long run.”

“Oh, fantastic,” Pallace said. “Now you’re bulimic on top of everything else.”

“Quiet,” Duke whispered.

“Come on.” Sebastian handed me a racquet. “Unless you’ve been drinking, too.”

“A little bit,” I admitted.

Duke gave his head a very slow shake. “She fakes it.”

My beloved, sick and stretched out on the ground, how I felt like kicking him. Not hard. Only once. I told Sebastian I would play.

On that day I was a bad girlfriend, a bad actress, a bad drinker, but by god I could play tennis. The magic that tequila had brought to the performances of Duke and Homer and Sal came to me on the tennis court. Who knew? I started slow and built my game. I knew that Sebastian was probably operating at two percent of his ability and I didn’t care. I was confident, loose. I gave him everything. I slammed my return to the opposite corner of the court and got one honest point off of him. Pallace whooped and called my name. Duke turned gingerly onto his side and opened one eye. I remembered myself in that backlot pool, in the bikini I still wore. They had wanted to see if I could swim.

“The cricket’s coming for you, brother,” Duke shouted, inasmuch as he could shout.

I was running, reaching. I didn’t care how I looked. Again and again I found a way to get the ball back over the net. The universe had conspired to grant me a single decent game of tennis, and I went in with everything I had. I could see the light change in Sebastian’s eyes. He was taking me seriously, not as an opponent, but as a person on the other side of the net, and the attention enlivened me. He shouted instructions, encouragement. He was a wonderful teacher, and he was doing his best to improve me. I leapt for a serve beyond my range, leapt and lunged and was felled by something like a gunshot I hadn’t heard. That was my exact thought, not that I had fallen but that I’d been shot. I crumpled onto the hot surface of the court. Duke was still there, lying a dozen feet away. He wiggled his fingers at me. How had he been lying on the court all this time? It was hot like a cookie sheet straight from the oven.

“You get used to it,” he said.

Sebastian was crouching down beside me, his dark eyes warmed by concern. All summer long I had conscientiously failed to notice his beauty but having his face that close to mine made it unavoidable. “Hey,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder gently. “Just stay there a second, catch your breath.”

“I’m fine.” I blinked. I was fine, more surprised than hurt. “I didn’t scrape my knees.”

“Is she okay?” Duke raised up on one elbow for a moment then eased himself back down.

“I don’t know yet.”

“She might be faking it,” Duke said. “She doesn’t like it when I get too much attention.”

Pallace was there, her hand on my face, her face so close to my face. “Are you very hurt?”

Everything had stopped and everyone was watching. I felt so foolish. I pushed myself up to a seated position. I swayed at first and then sitting seemed fine. Still, the question of what had happened, the explosion inside my calf that had very clearly come from outside my calf, was unresolved. “Did someone shoot me?” I asked her.

Pallace rocked back on her heels. “Oh, fuck.”

“Oh fuck what?”

“It’s her Achilles,” Pallace said to Sebastian.

Sebastian squeezed my shoulder. He did not disagree.



“You ruptured your Achilles?” Maisie asks.

“How did we never know this?” Emily asks.

I lean over and pull up my right pant leg, show them the thin white line that runs from my heel up the middle of my calf. “Apparently they’re much better at this now. Now they only make a tiny incision.”