‘。 . . zigzag lines that float across your field of vision, shimmering spots or stars, people who have migraine aura symptoms say that . . .’
Troy hadn’t really hated tennis. Some of their happiest family memories were on the court. Most of their happiest memories. Some of their worst memories were on the court too, but come on now, Troy still played. If he’d really hated tennis he wouldn’t still be playing in his thirties.
Was tennis her life’s theme?
Maybe Caro was right. She and Stan might never have met if not for tennis.
More than half a century ago now. A birthday party in a small, crowded house. Heads bounced in time to ‘Popcorn’ by Hot Butter. Eighteen-year-old Joy gripped the chunky green stem of her wineglass, which was filled to the brim with warm moselle.
‘Where’s Joy? You should meet Joy. She just won some big tournament.’
Those were the words that unfastened the tight semicircle of people surrounding the boy with his back against the wall. He was a giant, freakishly tall and big-shouldered, with a mass of long curly black hair tied back in a ponytail, a cigarette in one hand, a can of beer in the other. Athletic boys could still smoke like chimneys in the seventies. He had a dimple that only made an appearance when he saw Joy.
‘We should have a hit some time,’ he said. She’d never heard a voice like it, not from a boy of her own generation. It was a voice so deep and slow, people made fun of it and tried to imitate it. They said Stan sounded like Johnny Cash. He didn’t do it on purpose. It was just the way he spoke. He didn’t speak much but everything he said sounded important.
They weren’t the only tennis players at that party, just the only champions. It was destiny, as inevitable as a fairy tale. If they hadn’t met that night they would have met eventually. Tennis was a small world.
They played their first match that weekend. She lost 6–4, 6–4, and then went right ahead and lost her virginity to him, even though her mother had warned her about the importance of withholding sex if she ever liked a boy: ‘Why buy a cow when you can get the milk for free?’ （Her daughters shrieked when they heard that phrase.）
Joy told Stan she only went to bed with him because of his serve. It was a magnificent serve. She still admired it, waiting for that split second when time stopped and Stan became a sculpture of a tennis player: back arched, ball suspended, racquet behind his head, and then . . . wham.
Stan said he only went to bed with her because of her decisive volley, and then he said, that deep slow voice in her ear, No, that’s not true, your volley needs work, you crowd the net, I went to bed with you because as soon as I saw those legs I knew I wanted them wrapped around my back, and Joy swooned, she thought that was so wicked and poetic, although she did not appreciate the criticism of her volley.
‘。 . . this causes the release of neurotransmitters . . .’
She looked at the grater. It was covered in carrot, which the dishwasher wouldn’t wash off. She rinsed it in the sink. ‘Why am I doing your job for you?’ she said to the dishwasher, and thought of herself in pre-dishwasher days, standing at this sink, rubber gloves in hot dishwater, a skyscraper of dirty plates by her side.
Her past kept bumping up against her present lately. Yesterday she’d woken from a nap in a panic, thinking she’d forgotten to pick up one of the children from school. It took her a good minute to remember that all of her children were adults now: adults with wrinkles and mortgages, degrees and travel plans.
It made her wonder if she had dementia. Her friend Linda, who worked at a nursing home, said a wave of restlessness swept through the place at school pick-up time each day as the elderly ladies became agitated, convinced they should be rushing to collect long-since-grown children. Hearing that had made Joy teary, and now the exact same thing had kind of happened to her.
‘It’s possible my superior intellect is masking my dementia symptoms,’ Joy had told Stan.
‘Can’t say I’ve noticed,’ said Stan.
‘My dementia symptoms? Or my superior intellect?’
‘Well, you’ve always been demented,’ he’d said, and then wandered off, probably to climb a ladder, because his sons had informed him that seventy was too old to climb ladders, so he liked to find excuses to climb them as often as possible.
Last night she’d listened to a very informative podcast called This Dementia Life.
The cheese grater refused to join the frypan in the dishwasher. She studied the two items. It felt like a puzzle she should be able to solve.