The “animal” was a beaver and a great source of private shame for Georgiana. When she was in the sixth grade they had taken a woodworking class at school and been instructed to choose different projects. One girl made a small game where a seesaw launched a ball on a string through a hoop. Another made the base for a lamp that would flick on and off using a system of pulleys. Georgiana found instructions for making a ten-inch beaver that rolled on four uneven wheels, causing its wide, flat tail to thump up and down. She spent weeks on it, sanding the wheels and covering it with varnish, making a pretty crosshatch pattern on the tail. It wasn’t until they shared their final projects that someone realized what she had done.
“You made a beaver, Georgiana? You know what that means, right? You literally made a beaver!” The laughter was endless. She was a nice girl—Georgiana had never spoken about her vagina, never mind learned slang for it. Somehow everyone else seemed to get the joke, though, and it was the highlight of the year for most of the class, cementing Georgiana’s reputation as utterly asexual. Every time she looked at the beaver she felt a pang of humiliation. She knew she shouldn’t care anymore, but over time it had come to symbolize her romantic failures and deep lack of maturity.
“I’ll come take a look, but I really don’t have much space,” Georgiana hedged. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t bear to imagine Sasha throwing the stupid beaver away. She had spent weeks making it and putting it in the garbage just felt wrong. And she was secretly proud of the tennis trophies even if they were from high school and college.
After they finished lunch, after Georgiana went and kissed her father hello and goodbye, after she agreed to go with her mother to a philanthropy-themed luncheon the following week at the University Club, she followed Cord and Sasha back to their house. Sasha gave her an empty Fresh Direct bag for her to pack her things, and she made her way up to her childhood bedroom. She admired the trophies lining the shelves, but then realized there was actually a lot more stuff still there. She had books and photo albums, a crystal Tiffany dish that once held her earrings, a tin of dried rose petals she had brought home from her grandmother’s funeral, a drawer full of old glue sticks and gummy bottles of nail polish. She sorted through it, leaving the junk and piling the things she felt nervous about Sasha throwing away into the bag. Someone had swapped Georgiana’s favorite marigold coverlet for a plain white quilt, making the room look like a sterile hotel. She found the marigold one folded in the bottom drawer of the dresser and, just to make a point, spread it back on the bed where it belonged. When she finished, she realized the beaver was still sitting on her desk. She didn’t actually want it in her apartment. She poked her head out her door and looked around. Cord and Sasha were in the kitchen making coffee, so she buried the thing in the back of her closet.
* * *
Georgiana had once woken up in bed with a naked couple. It was her senior year of college, and she’d driven to Amherst to visit Kristin. They had gone to a Chinese restaurant and had scorpion bowl races, where they ordered two giant vats of red punch for the table, divided into teams, and sucked out of straws to see who could finish first. They then went to a bar where Georgiana didn’t know a soul but had a wonderful time drinking buckets of Bud Light and playing “I never,” which Georgiana was very good at since she had never really done much of anything. They went back to Kristin’s off-campus house, where Georgiana was assigned the bed of another girl who was away visiting her parents in Boston, but when she got up to pee in the night, she ended up slightly turned around in the dark and climbed back into the wrong bed—the bed where Kristin and her senior-year fling were passed out. They woke up six hours later, wildly hungover, only to realize that Georgiana was in the wrong bed, and while she was wearing a navy T-shirt that said henry street tennis and a pair of leggings, the other two occupants were completely buck naked. Luckily, they thought it was totally hilarious, and they told everyone at brunch in the dining hall, where Georgiana ate four waffles before she realized she was still drunk and had to sleep it off before getting in her car and driving back to Brown.
To this day that was only the third penis Georgiana had ever seen, not counting the end of Boogie Nights or The Crying Game. （Movies didn’t count. Neither did porn, not that Georgiana watched any. She was very afraid of her phone getting a virus.）
* * *
—
Georgiana wanted to wake up next to Brady. She wanted to eat waffles with Brady. She definitely wanted to see Brady naked. When he came back from his two-week trip, they resumed their Tuesday tennis dates. Brady’s hair was slightly longer, and he had gotten some color on the bridge of his nose. Georgiana teased him that he’d actually lied to everyone and taken a beach vacation instead of hanging out in government conference rooms. Nobody looked this good after talking about malaria and flying cross-country in coach.
After they played for an hour, they were both sweaty and thirsty. It was a warm evening and Georgiana took a big swig from her water bottle while Brady changed out the tape on his racket grip.
“Did you cheat on me while I was gone?” joked Brady. “I see you got that nice underspin on your backhand. Who’d you play with?”
“I know! I figured out what I was doing wrong! My mom and I were playing over the weekend and suddenly it clicked.” She threw her water bottle back in her bag and pulled her hair out of her ponytail.
“That’s so cute you and your mom play together,” Brady said, and Georgiana promptly felt about twelve years old.
“She’s nearly seventy, so I go easy on her. She actually told me I should let you win.”
“You talk to your mom about me?” Brady asked, bumping her shoulder with his own.
“She asked who I was playing tennis with!” Georgiana said mock-defensively. “I didn’t say we were, like, lovers!”
“So that’s it then? I’m just someone you play tennis with?” He bumped her shoulder again but left it there so that they were leaning against each other, his whole arm warm on her side.
“I guess so far.” She leaned back against him and she could feel their closeness with every inch of her body. He reached for her face and tucked her hair behind her ear. She lifted her chin and he kissed her, his lips soft and warm. They looked at each other and laughed. She felt lightheaded with happiness.
“Come on.” Brady grinned, tossing the grip tape into his bag and zipping it closed. Georgiana grabbed her stuff and together they walked the path out of the park, simultaneously pretending nothing had happened and knowing that everything had changed.
* * *
—
The next week they made plans to play after work, and since the courts were a ten-minute walk from Georgiana’s apartment, she cleaned her place ahead of time and left a bottle of wine and a six-pack in the fridge. In the morning she moisturized her arms and legs carefully, she washed her hair even though it was going to get sweaty, and she debated for a solid ten minutes about her underwear. White cotton underpants were obviously not sexy, but she couldn’t fathom playing sports in a lace thong so she settled on a light pink bikini pair that were at least small enough to be cute.