by Robin Page
Witness, he thinks, as he steps out of the big car, the car that says to everyone that he is important.
He watches the driver retrieve his bags. There is a bellhop. He is black, in a uniform that is strangely militaristic. There are epaulets. Simon’s servants were Hutu in Kigali. He could not know himself or his ineffectualness then, but his wife, Vestine, saw it. Knew it. She saw how deeply he had failed. What is it to be a man? The answer in her eyes, unwavering.
BEFORE HE LEAVES BOSTON, HE VISITS THE COMMON AND RIDES IN THE swan boats on the only sunny day. He buys a book for Lucy: Make Way for Ducklings.
When he gets back to Los Angeles, he knocks on Jocelyn’s door. Lucy’s eyes dance when he hands the book to her.
“Come on in,” Lucy says, before her mother gives her permission. “I’ll read it to you.”
“May I?” he asks.
“Of course,” Jocelyn says.
“Come on. Come on,” Lucy says, patting the space on the couch that is right next to her.
“Are you sure you can read?” he asks. “You seem so young. You must be a genius.”
“I’m really smart. Right, Mama? Right? Aren’t I like a genius?”
“Right,” Jocelyn says, smiling at him. “A very modest genius.”
Chapter Seven
Jocelyn
1
WINTER HAS FINALLY COME TO LOS ANGELES, AND TWO TENNIS DRILLS are rained out. Jocelyn sits at home, thinking about Kate’s mouth, her tanned legs, her thighs. What would her skin feel like? Jocelyn would like to see her squirm with need, beg. She is aware of all of these feelings, but she cannot reconstruct the cause. Even the cart overturning is unconvincing as an origin. The effect of her imaginings is the erasing of everything else.
During her days at home without tennis, she tries to figure out what’s happening. She reads and rereads the texts between them, but they deal with workout times, practices, money owed. Nothing is inappropriate or flirtatious. On occasion the words seem sly and sexual.
JOCELYN: Is it too wet to play today?
KATE: Maybe.
JOCELYN: Very wet over here . . .
Jocelyn writes the words intentionally, and then, to make them less odd, she adds:
JOCELYN: . . . by my condo.
She tries to stay calm. It is nothing. It is everything. It has to do with aging, she thinks. It has to do with feeling better physically from tennis or her mother dying. Maybe therapy is having a strange effect on her. It is making her too open. She has started to hate therapy, but Conrad insists. He tells her she needs to stay ahead of it. He still finds her crying sometimes, before she can hide. She can’t help but brush the tile.
She tries to convince herself that this thing with Kate will pass, whatever it is. She cleans the kitchen, meticulously organizes her dresser drawers. She thinks she wants to do it with Kate, but what does she want to do exactly? Would Kate be willing?
She reminds herself that she is crazy, which helps. Fucked-up childhoods have long teeth. She should tell her therapist about it. Confess. She should confess, but at the bottom of that thought is the idea that she might not really want to be done with it.
After days and days of contemplating and considering and intentionally staying away from drill class (I will not go. I will not go. I will be married. I will behave.), the obsession leaves her as quickly as it has come. She is happy. She fucks her husband. She comes. When they finish, he rolls over, tells her he loves her, loves their life.
“I can’t believe we still have this kind of sex,” he says, staring at the ceiling.
“Me either,” she says.
“I have to go out of town again,” he says.
“Why?” she asks.
“You know why, silly girl.”
He is smiling at her, leaning on his elbow now. “Work,” he says. “I have to pay for this.” His fingertip makes a circle on her stomach. “You think a woman like you would be with a man like me if I didn’t make a ton of money?”
She laughs lightly, because she is supposed to. She would be with him, no matter what. She wants to be with him.
Her phone buzzes. Conrad tells her to forget about it. She reaches for it anyway, reads:
KATE: I’m teaching on Monday and Tuesday. Do you want anything then?
There is an instant surge—a flash, like a light being turned on. I want everything then, she thinks.
She fantasizes in the minutes that follow. She stares at the phone. The fantasy is the perfect situation—twenty-four hours in a hotel room, drinks after work, but what work? Jocelyn doesn’t work. Jocelyn is a mother. She can’t work and do that. Her eyes must be open and attentive at all times. Not that the predators are easy to see, but they are there. She needs to talk to Maud about Mr. Baird still. She cannot let Kate get in the way of that.
“Who’s texting you?” Conrad asks, still caressing her stomach.
“Tennis.”
She says yes to both days. A smiling emoji buzzes in return. She wonders if she is just money to Kate, but then lets the thought go. Her husband’s mouth is on her skin now. She allows it. She is thinking about Kate. The whole room swells with her. It is like Alice overflowing, her presence too big for the Wonderland house. She pushes his head down. She has decided. In the roar of a second orgasm, she will pretend Conrad is someone else: blonde hair, green eyes looking up at her from between her legs, watching her come, seeing her lose control.
“When are you leaving?” she asks, as he makes his way down.
“Tomorrow. Early morning.”
2
THE FIRST TIME THEY TOUCH IS DURING A PRIVATE LESSON. CONRAD IS out of town. She arrives for the lesson at eleven o’clock, and Kate seems happy to see her. It feels like friendship, not business. Jocelyn likes it, likes taking instruction, likes running around and getting tired. Nerves vibrate inside her from the start.
“Be gentle with me,” she says, as Kate warms her up, running her back and forth to hit balls. “I hurt myself cleaning.”
“Cleaning?” Kate says, not missing a feed. They both laugh a little. “Don’t you have anyone to help you?”
There is a moment of terror that pings in Jocelyn, a reminder that she might not quite be right for this life at the Miramar. She might not fit into the club and all that it represents. Or, more horribly, her wrongness might show. She does not have a maid. She doesn’t like strangers in her space. She has an aversion to anyone going through her underthings. She is obsessively clean. In the past when she’s tried, the women were always disappointing.
“Well, yes,” she says. The lie comes. “But not a live-in.”
Kate’s eyes sparkle. “You’ll have one of those soon enough. Once you get more and more into tennis, you won’t have time for cleaning.”
“Who says I’m getting more and more into tennis?” she asks.
“I say.” Kate’s voice is assured, bossy even. She smiles.
Jocelyn smiles back, and then they play.
At a break, when Jocelyn is getting water, Kate says, “Where did you hurt yourself exactly? Did you pull something?”
They are a foot apart—a wooden bench with an attached table is beside them. Their large tennis bags are balanced there. The question is nonchalant, and yet not exactly. Jocelyn looks up into Kate’s eyes and sees possibility. She feels the animal terror of adolescence, primeval fear, and then silence. Jocelyn decides, feeling her heartbeat surge. Her hands tremble. She lifts her skirt, just an inch, but she is aware of it for what it is: an invitation.
“Here,” she says and takes Kate’s hand and places it on the inside of her thigh. “Right here.”
Kate stares at her. Jocelyn sees surprise move across Kate’s face. A ripple. A grin. She seems to be assessing: What is the risk? What is the responsibility? Jocelyn watches as Kate glances around at the other courts. No one is near enough to see. Her hand stays where it is.
“Is this the right spot?” Kate says then—very quietly. Jocelyn can feel blood pool in her cheeks. Kate’s
eyes are as green as the peel of a lime. She keeps her stare still but moves her body to block anyone from seeing what is happening. Kate’s hand is warm and soft, not at all like Conrad’s.
For a minute, as they look at one another, Jocelyn considers pushing Kate down, making her kneel on the ground in front of her. She forgets where she is. She has a vision of Kate’s bruised knees.
Kate moves her hand inside Jocelyn’s tennis shorts in the way that her husband has done many times before. The edge of her panties lift. There is the catch of breath. The tip of a finger. Jocelyn hasn’t blinked.
“How about here?” Kate says. “You tell me, because I don’t want to hurt you.” Her voice is a whisper. “I want it to feel good.”
“I like it,” Jocelyn hears herself saying. The fingers move between her legs more easily. A wet puddle in a hand. She leans into Kate’s ear, smells the clean scent of shampoo in the blonde tendrils that have come loose from the bun.
We are in cahoots now, robbers in a crime, she thinks, but says, “Yes” and then, “Please.”
THEY HEAR THE HEAD PRO, HARTFORD BENNINGTON, RUNNING—THE slap of his feet. Kate pulls away quickly—all business. He is tall. It seems as if his body moves the ground. Jocelyn tries to snap out of the dream she is in.
“Sorry,” Kate says.
“I just . . .” Jocelyn says, but can’t finish. She wants to put Kate’s hand back. She smells the edge of herself in the air.
“We can’t,” Kate says.
Jocelyn has to force herself not to beg, and says, “Yes. Of course.”
“Go back to the baseline,” Kate almost shouts.
Jocelyn tries to orient herself. She is slow to move. Hartford walks by, lifts his hand. Kate waves back.
“Please go back to the baseline,” Kate says again, even more firmly. “Jesus. Fuck. What are we doing?”
Jocelyn doesn’t answer. She walks to the back of the court, but she is unsteady. She finds that she is in a kind of daze. Her entire body feels swollen from the brief contact, especially the space between her legs. She is afraid to run, although Kate is instructing her to. She is afraid she will come on the court. She worries that her wetness will run down the inside of her leg, which has happened once with her period, the sheer, almost clear blood of the first day. She wants to grab Kate, move her, make her.
When they break, they both get water. They look away from each other. Kate speaks first.
“We can’t do that. Ever.”
Jocelyn feels her face redden. She is embarrassed, so disappointed. How could she have thought? She starts to say something, but Kate reaches out, touches Jocelyn’s hip, just on the outside of her tennis skirt. She lets her thumb graze the front of Jocelyn’s thigh. There is pity in the touch, and Jocelyn doesn’t like it.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, but . . .”
“I understand,” Jocelyn says, not wanting to hear any more. All of it a reminder of how stupid she is. “Don’t say anything else.”
“I’m married.”
“Yes. Me too. Of course.”
They do not mention it again. They hit balls back and forth. Kate gives instruction. Jocelyn listens. A robot inhabits Jocelyn’s insides. At the end of the private, Kate looks in her appointment book.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. “Right? I mean I’ve got you down.”
Jocelyn doesn’t know if she should come tomorrow or not, so she says nothing.
“I’ve got to switch to court seven now,” Kate says. She shuts her book. “They’re cleaning this one. You can stay here. Take your time. You can get your stuff together. Maintenance will wait for you.”
Jocelyn doesn’t move.
Kate gets her bag, pushes the cart of balls. “Just text me if you want to cancel,” she says and walks off. She doesn’t say goodbye.
Jocelyn feels dismissed. Crumbs, she thinks. She has given me crumbs, and now I am angry because she has taken them away. Raw shame overwhelms her as she tries to recount exactly what happened, whose fault it is, whose fault it will seem. The details are vague—the quality of vision like that of being underwater.
Jocelyn sits down on the bench, looking at the spot on the court where they were standing. She wonders what this thing that has happened will mean now. Disgust at herself, at her weakness, fills her. The image of her maternal grandmother comes to her. Jocelyn wants to scream it away; knows she might cry. Old and wrinkled, she was, her wig always a bit offset. The balding scalp beneath was almost cylindrical. Jocelyn hated her grandmother. Her grandfather’s erection whenever she sat on his lap, the expectation that it should be tolerated.
“Dirty little beggars!” her grandmother would say when she saw them in their makeshift Halloween costumes, and Jocelyn would feel the bottom of her stomach drop out.
She feels the same way now, sitting on the bench on her own, thinking of the touch, how drawn she was and needing. She remembers being hungry as a child. Another secret to be kept. The hidden candy melting under pillows, eaten inside sheets.
She hears the steady beat of balls being hit back and forth—a woman is laughing. She hears Kate’s voice loud and instructing as if nothing has happened. Am I the only one here? she wonders. In this place? And then just as suddenly, What if I am the only one here?
Jocelyn stands, getting herself together. She feels sweaty and unwell, like a child who has had a tantrum. She walks to the front desk, and then realizes she has forgotten her tennis bag. When she goes back to court 3, it is there. Maud is there too.
“What’s wrong with you, chickadee?” she asks. “We were supposed to meet at twelve thirty. We’re all waiting. Did you forget? You look a mess.”
“I don’t feel very well” is all Jocelyn can think to say.
“You can play, can’t you?” Maud is a bit whiny. “You have to play. We’ve been waiting.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn says. “Sure. Of course, I can play.”
SHE DOESN’T PLAY WELL, AND THEY LOSE THE FRIENDLY. THERE IS TOO much on her mind, and Missy being there makes it worse. Jocelyn hates her. More now than when she first met her. She doesn’t know why she is there or who invited her. Missy gloats over the win. She walks to the net. They shake hands.
“I’ve really got to dash, girls,” she says. “It’s been fun, but I’ve got a new girl. She’s probably washing my tennis clothes in hot.”
She laughs a high whinnying laugh, but no one else gets the joke.
Jocelyn walks with Maud out to the parking lot.
“That was fun even though we sucked,” Maud says. “You sucked anyway.”
When Jocelyn doesn’t respond, Maud says, “Earth to Jocelyn. Come in, Jocelyn.” Maud’s voice is joking, but it doesn’t lift the mood. None of them likes to lose. Ever.
“Sorry,” Jocelyn says. “I did suck. I’m just . . . well, I have a lot on my mind.” Like Kate, she thinks. Like what the hell happened.
“Okay,” Maud says, neutrally.
“I hate losing to Missy,” Jocelyn says. “She’s so over the top. She’ll be talking about it for days.”
“Who cares? She’s an idiot.”
“I know,” Jocelyn says. “That’s why I hate losing to her.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll beat them next time.”
Maud says it like a woman who has had everything she has ever wanted and expects more of the same. There isn’t even a hint of doubt.
“Maud?” Jocelyn says. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, Ms. Serious.” Maud puts a hand on her shoulder. “What’s that face?”
“It’s about school, you know. I’ve been thinking about Mr. Baird. He’s Lucy’s new teacher. You’ve heard that Ms. Serrania has left, right?”
“I heard. Yep.” Maud glances at her watch. “Let’s walk and talk. I’ve got a facial at two.”
“I just can’t help but feel weird about him being a man.”
Maud sighs. “Mr. Baird is fine,” she says. “They wouldn’t hire anyone who wasn’t.”
>
“Yes,” Jocelyn says. “I keep telling myself that.”
“They vet them,” Maud says, matter-of-factly. “Also, the way I like to think of it is that it’s important for girls to have male teachers before they become adolescents. I fell in love with my art teacher when I was thirteen. He could have done anything he wanted to me. That’s what happens when you don’t have a male teacher until your hormones are raging. He was gay, by the way.” She laughs, squeezes Jocelyn’s arm. “I figured that out much later. God was he beautiful though. Sort of like Prince.”
Jocelyn smiles. “You’re so funny,” she says.
“God’s truth.” Maud holds up a vowing hand. They are almost to their cars.
“So, I shouldn’t worry?”
“Nope.”
Jocelyn feels a shudder of relief pass through her. She wonders if she could talk to Maud about Kate. What would Maud think?
“Thanks,” Jocelyn says. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You’re welcome,” Maud says and hugs her. “Ask me anything, anytime, except to babysit.”
Jocelyn laughs.
Maud is looking through her purse for her keys. The white Range Rover gleams in a spot three over. “You headed home?”
“I’m actually going to therapy.”
“Mine is on Fridays,” Maud says. “Wealthy women and our problems.”
“Conrad kind of insists. I had a bit of a breakdown early in our marriage. I mean not since then, but, well my mother just died. He worries.”
“Oh gosh, honey. I’m sorry to hear that. That must be awful.”
“Yes, well. We didn’t have the best relationship. It’s just weird. I don’t want to talk about it. I suppose he’s right. I should go.”
“Unfortunately, we’ve got to do what the men say sometimes,” Maud says, making it light.
Jocelyn turns to look for her own car. Maud speaks: “Don’t worry so much, Jocelyn. Our kids aren’t stupid. They know when something isn’t right. You’re feeling insecure because of your mom. It makes you vulnerable.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn says. “Kids aren’t stupid.” She feels like a parrot.
