Georgiana and Brady began playing once a week, usually on Tuesdays. At work they maintained a professional distance, exchanging quiet nods and grins in the halls, sitting at opposite ends of the lunch table. But on the walks to and from the courts they talked. They talked about Brady’s travel bug; about the year after college he spent in the Peace Corps, stationed in Uganda; the time he attended a wedding there and they slaughtered a goat and asked him to take the first bite even though he had barely met the bride and groom and the idea of goat made him queasy. His parents were international aid workers, and he’d grown up traveling with them, had a passport full of stamps by age ten. Georgiana told him about the safari she took as a child, her grandmother so bored by the entire thing that she read a novel in the back of the Jeep while drinking gin from a tiny flask; and the time her brother climbed Kilimanjaro with his college roommate and ended up getting so sick he lost fifteen pounds. （Cord quickly gained it back on a steady diet of corn chips and salsa.） With each story told, Georgiana was horribly aware of the differences in their lives. While Brady had struck out on great adventures, had seen so much of the wide world, Georgiana had lived as a coddled rich girl, and, if pressed, would admit that most of her great adventures involved a sleepaway camp that cost twelve thousand dollars a summer or college trips to the Caribbean or Mexico that passed in a haze of mezcal and cerveza.
* * *
—
When Brady went away for two weeks, traveling to a malaria conference in Seattle, Georgiana felt her days go flat. Gone was the bubble of expectation she felt each morning walking down Hicks Street to work, eager to spy him at the printer or mailboxes. Gone was the happy swagger she felt thwacking the tennis ball at him, knowing he was spending an entire hour facing her, waiting for her to dictate his next move. She felt her life was on pause, and fourteen days stretched before her like an eternity.
To pass the time, she met her brother for dinner at the Ale House on Henry Street after work one night. She hadn’t really spent any time with him one-on-one lately, and so they took a booth in back and ordered pints of Sour Monkey, burgers and fries, and a plate of calamari. Much to their mother’s horror, Georgiana and Cord were absolute garbage disposals, eating anything and everything. When she was eleven and Cord was home on college break, they would hold contests to see who could eat the most chicken tenders, who could eat more hot dogs. It was disgusting, but they loved it, and their mutual enthusiasm for junk food was a bond between them.
“So, we haven’t even really talked about your honeymoon. How was it?” Georgiana asked. “And please don’t tell me how many times you boned.”
“Well, we boned a lot.” Cord nodded seriously. “Mostly doggy style.”
“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes.
“No, it was awesome. Turks is beautiful, we did tons of hiking and swimming and snorkeling, and we got massages and did all the romantic crap.”
“Sounds like an episode of The Bachelor. Cool.”
“It was unabashedly cheesy. Literally everyone at the resort was on their honeymoon. It was all couples and rose petals and people holding hands and feeding each other strawberries and champagne.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that was your style, but okay.”
“Aw, are you jealous because you don’t have anyone to get a couples massage with?”
The waitress came by and dropped off the platter of calamari, and Georgiana set about squeezing lemon all over the crispy mess.
“First of all, couples massages are just weird. I think they’re designed so that people who hate each other can do something romantic and not talk.”
“Hot take, okay.”
“And secondly, maybe I do have somebody.”
“Ooooh, that’s exciting. Anyone I know?”
“Nah, a guy I work with.”
“That’s tricky. Do people at the office know about it?”
“No way. We’re keeping it quiet.”
“That’s smart. I slept with my boss once and now it’s all anyone at work talks about.”
“Cord, your boss is Dad.”
Cord cackled and grabbed one of the big, gross calamari pieces with all the frilly legs and shoved it in his mouth. He really was the best brother, happy to give her valuable life advice and eat all the scary bits of squid.
* * *
—
Without Brady at work, Georgiana was actually incredibly productive. She cranked out new copy for the annual report, she sorted through photos, she ate lunch in record time, proofreading her own work at the table while her colleagues talked animatedly and unappetizingly about digging new latrines in Mali.
On the Sunday of Brady’s second week away, Georgiana was hungover （Lena’s boyfriend had hosted a single-malt tasting）， but she dragged herself out of bed to meet her mother at their racket club, the Casino. They had an eleven o’clock court time and they would retreat to the apartment for lunch afterward. As they began to hit, Georgiana could feel the difference all her extra playing had made. Not only had she doubled her weekly tennis, but she’d started running a bit more often, wanting to keep herself fast on the court.
“Georgiana, you’ve lost weight,” her mother said approvingly. She was always the first to notice even the most infinitesimal of fluctuations in Georgiana’s figure. “Do you have a new beau?”
Georgiana was startled by her mother’s guess. They rarely spoke about her love life, and when they did her mother usually referred to men as Georgiana’s “friends” with barely a wink.
“Well, there is a guy I’ve been playing tennis with,” she admitted, her cheeks, already pink with exertion, growing ever pinker.
“That’s nice. Don’t forget to let him win sometimes, dear.”
Classic mom, Georgiana laughed to herself. Georgiana would never let anyone win on purpose, not even if they had a broken leg. When Cord was getting ready to hike Kilimanjaro he had received six inoculations in one arm and could barely swing his racket, and Georgiana still played her heart out and spanked him royally. He would have fallen over with shock if she’d done anything less. Competition was their family love language.
At noon they walked back to Orange Street, where Georgiana’s father was at his desk with a stack of newspapers and Cord and Sasha were unpacking a bag of bagels and smoked salmon on the kitchen table.
“Oh my God, bagels from Russ and Daughters!” Georgiana exclaimed, making a dive for the bag to grab a poppyseed.
“Put it on a plate, dear, you’ll enjoy it more,” her mother admonished as Cord laughed. Sasha was carefully arranging silverware and napkins on the table as though Kate Middleton or the cast of Queer Eye were coming by shortly to judge her. Georgiana just wished Sasha wasn’t there. It was exhausting being around someone who tried so hard all the time.
As they ate, Sasha broached her favorite topic: what of their family memories she might throw in the garbage. “Georgiana, I know you really don’t have a lot of storage in your apartment, but I was wondering if you might want to take your tennis trophies? And there is that wooden animal I think maybe you made? The tail goes up and down? Do you want that?” she asked in a hopeful voice, carefully spreading the thinnest layer of cream cheese on a plain bagel.