Her family couldn’t forgive her. They still saw Mullin all the time, still went out on his boat, still joined him for beers at the reservoir and the sandbar. When she was home for holidays, her brothers made a point of letting her know they were going out to meet him at Bluffview for dinner, at the Cap Club for drinks. When she brought home a new boyfriend two years later, they gave the guy the cold shoulder and, because he had hair past his ears, referred to him as “the hippie” to his face. When the guy broke up with her a few weeks later, she could hardly blame him. Who would want to get involved with a family like hers?
Ten years later, Sasha still saw Mullin when she was home visiting her parents. He was still best friends with her brothers, still came over to watch the Super Bowl, took them out on his boat—now a bigger and better Whaler. He had his own landscaping business, he was doing well for himself, but instead of moving on he clung to Sasha’s family as if it were his own. Sasha didn’t know if his father still lived in the peeling green house. She made a point of never asking. Mullin had irrevocably changed something between her and her brothers, but also in how she thought about love. She had seen what all-consuming passion looked like, how it felt to ride the currents of intense adoration and fury, and she didn’t want it. She wanted someone stable, someone easy, someone who loved her but not enough to lose himself entirely.
FIVE
Georgiana
Georgiana knew that between millennials and their therapists her contemporaries had figured out how to blame their parents for all sorts of life problems, but when it came to Georgiana’s pathetic dating history, it really was her parents’ fault. They sent her to a private school down the street, where everybody knew everybody else’s business and had all been friends since they were four, and so by the time they hit puberty they were all basically siblings and the idea of dating felt downright perverted. They sent her to an all-girls summer camp until she was twenty, where everyone burped and let their leg hair grow long. They made her take ballroom dancing classes at twelve, where the boys wore white gloves, and her assigned partner, Matt Stevens, kept time by exhaling forcefully through his nose, directly into her face. It was no wonder she arrived at college a virgin, a fact so humiliating she lied about it to everyone, including her freshman-year boyfriend, Cody Hunter, who happily but unknowingly deflowered her in a single, extra-long bed that smelled of Axe body spray and lacrosse pads.
She had plenty of friends who were guys, but whenever she was interested in anyone, she avoided them rather than face the embarrassment of her blushing and social awkwardness. This meant that at the age of twenty-six she had had a total of three boyfriends, two sexual partners, and the romantic confidence of a tadpole.
As much as she wanted to build on her one great lunchtime conversation with Brady, she found herself unable to re-create the situation. When she saw him in the halls she smiled and said hello, but it seemed one of them was always with another colleague or on the way to a meeting starting momentarily. They overlapped at lunch a few more times, but there were always others at the table picking at plastic containers of Thai takeout or salad.
Lena and Kristin were endlessly indulgent, willing to discuss even the smallest hallway interaction and parse it for meaning, but even they agreed that if Georgiana wanted to make Brady her fourth boyfriend/third sexual partner, she was going to have to find a way to talk to him again. It turned out, though, that Brady took care of the issue himself.
Georgiana had a weekly tennis match on Monday evenings, so she changed into her skirt and top in the second-floor office bathroom, the one papered with maps of Laos and Cambodia, and slung her racket and bag over her shoulder, heading down the spiral staircase, out past the mailboxes and reception, and into the warm evening. As she was about to cross Montague, she heard a voice behind her and turned.
“Hey, Georgiana, wait.” It was Brady.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” She smiled, her stomach immediately flipping like a fish.
“You walking to the tennis courts?”
“Yeah, I have a match at six.”
“Oh cool, I’m going that way too.” He smiled. The walk sign illuminated, and they crossed together, along with a sea of joggers, bicyclists, commuters carrying laptop bags, and mothers pushing strollers.
“Who are you playing?” Brady asked.
“Oh, today I’m playing this girl June Lin. It’s annoying because our matches are supposed to be entirely five-fives, but she’s definitely a five-oh. She’s just not great, but whenever we play I get annoyed and end up trying to force her to run and then get sloppy.”
“So you’re really slumming it by playing down to her level, huh?” he teased.
“I mean, I’m not trying to be a brat, but there is a different circuit for five-ohs. I don’t understand why she wants to lose all the time.”
“So you always beat her?”
“Well, no, because I get frustrated and screw up!” Georgiana laughed.
“So maybe she is going along, beating all these five-five players, and it’s just convincing her further that she’s a five-five?” Brady asked, faux innocently.
“I mean, that’s exactly what’s happening! It’s a vicious cycle!”
“I gotta tell you, Georgiana, you come off like a nice person, but underneath you’re a competitive beast! I was going to ask if you wanted to play sometime, but now I’m not so sure,” he teased. The light breeze was ruffling his hair, and he had rolled his shirtsleeves up his forearms. Georgiana was suddenly aware of how close they were, how easily they had fallen into step, how little goose bumps were now covering her bare legs. She shook the thought away before she became fluorescent red and ruined everything.
“I’d love to play. Let’s do it,” she said.
“Cool, are you free after work tomorrow? Or is that too much tennis two nights in a row?”
“There’s no such thing as too much tennis for us five-fives. But I’m not going to go easy on you. And if you’re not at least five-oh I’m going to be a real snot about it,” she warned.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. And just so you know,” he tilted his head at her, squinting his eyes, “I think you’re actually a ten.” With that he turned and walked back the way they had come, and Georgiana died forty-seven deaths inside. It was the cheesiest, best thing any man had ever said to her, and she immediately pulled out her phone to text Lena and Kristin. They had been waiting on the shore, searching the seas for signs of hope, and finally, their ship was coming in.
* * *
—
The next evening they met on the front steps of the mansion and walked together to Atlantic Avenue. Brady had on athletic shorts with a small, clear sticker still affixed to the leg, and his tennis bag looked brand-new. They warmed up at the net playing mini tennis, volleying the ball back and forth. She could see he held the racket comfortably, had a nice swing, and moved with the ease of a practiced athlete. They backed up to the service line and rallied. He was strong—Georgiana always liked playing against guys—and they took turns walloping the ball cross-court, neatly placing their shots in the same spots over and over. When they started playing for points, Georgiana realized that she was indeed much better than he was, but that he was a fun competitor. He played fast and hard but occasionally hit one crazy shot that was so wildly misplaced they had to chase it onto the adjoining courts, yelling apologies to their neighbors and stifling their laughter. They played for an hour until the whistle signaled the end of their session and the next pair sauntered onto the court, stretching ostentatiously, unwilling to miss even a second of their allotted time. Tennis players were notoriously intense.