Finding Mr. Brightside
Page 9
Abram apologizes in spite of it actually being my fault, then sends another try my way.
ABRAM
ABOUT THREE RALLIES into the warm-up, Juliette complains of cold-wrist problems, which is a cover story for her being embarrassed about nailing her last shot straight past the baseline, into the backstop. She removes a sweatshirt from her purse and puts it on. She looks good in it. There’s something about a girl like her in my hoodie: It doesn’t fit, but it just fits.
She puts her tennis scowl back on and jogs to the baseline. I hit the next ball to her, and I can tell she’s relieved when it brushes across her strings and bounces right back to me. She forgets to follow through, so I start exaggerating the correct path of the racquet after I make contact, thinking maybe she’ll pick up on my technicalities. She does—in a sarcastic way that actually ends up improving her stroke—so mission accomplished. We rally for a few minutes longer until she starts walking up to the net with her hands on her hips. She might be defaulting. I trot up to join her.
“Everything okay?”
She rests her racquet on her hip, looking down at mine. “Are you really left-handed?”
“Nope, I’m fake left-handed,” I say with a smile, using one of her favorite words to call people out with. “I write with my right hand, play sports with my left. Could’ve gone either way, but Dad thought I should be a lefty.”
“Because he wanted you to have the ad-court advantage?” she asks. Not sure why I’m surprised she knows the game that well, given her close friendship with Heidi and formidable online research skills.
“Pretty much, yeah,” I say, hitting the clay off the bottoms of my shoes with the edge of my racquet, just like he used to do.
“That was … awesome of him,” she says, surprising herself. “Smart.”
“Yeah … it was.” For a second, I think about all the additional hours my dad must’ve spent teaching me to be left-handed. It frees me up to appreciate him and not feel guilty about it, or retroactively protective of my mom. “Thank you for saying that,” I tell Juliette.
We hit for the next hour, during which she keeps telling me to stop making her look better than she really is by placing the ball in her strike zone every time. I can only do so much, as the uncoordinated ladies at the country club back home, where I taught a few summers ago, can attest. Unlike them, Juliette has athletic ability when she lets it come naturally, when she’s just hitting the ball, letting her string tension do the work instead of the tension in her shoulders, and not analyzing her shot as it heads over the net. This is why tennis can be therapeutic for people sometimes: It requires you to problem-solve but doesn’t leave enough time to overthink.
“I’d recognize that lefty forehand from a mile away!” a booming voice calls down to the court.
I look up to find a couple of ghosts from my tennis past, staring down at me from the stands.
27
Juliette
ABRAM WAVES UP at our unexpected visitors, a mask of anxious politeness freezing over his face. Isn’t that the same mask I wore when cornered at Starbucks earlier? I’m going to need it back if he expects me to make a friendly impression on that Brawny-paper-towel-of-a-man who keeps pulling up his shorts. Incredible how the petite brunette seems to love him anyway—maybe forgiveness is easier to generate with a heart-shaped face like hers? The width of her smile certainly appears effortless.
“We’ll come up and say hi,” Abram tells them. He jogs around the net post to my side, takes my hand. “Terry and Linda McEvans,” he says into my ear. “Neighbors, love tennis, used to hang out with my parents.”
“Did they hang out with our parents?” I whisper.
“Not that I know of.”
As we walk up the stairs, I really want to blame him for us being in this situation. If only it weren’t my fault for making the reservation. When we reach the top, I take a small step in the opposite direction, hoping elsewhere is still an option. Abram calmly herds me back in tandem with him.
“I told Terry to wait till y’all were done,” the woman says as we approach them, “but the doctor said he can’t help it if he’s chronically obnoxious.”
“Doc’s right, I’m untreatable!” Terry says proudly, twitching his mustache. “And ’bout had myself a heart attack when I saw the name Abram Morgan on the court assignment calendar.” He looks at Abram with squinty-eyed amusement. “How you hitting ’em these days, champ? We has-beens want to know.”
“Infrequently,” Abram says too honestly, smiling. I would’ve gone with a lie/frown combo.
“That’s not what I like to hear,” Terry says good-naturedly, and he and Abram begin working their way through a complicated handshake-hug-handshake ritual. Linda shakes her sleek nightly-newscaster hair back and forth like she doesn’t understand it, either, before fixing her energetic brown eyes on me.
“Hi, I’m Linda McEvans. Terry and I live just down the road from the Morgans.” She has the kind of duskily feminine voice that cracks at all the right times, with just a hint of southern twang.
“Your neighborhood is very nice,” I say, in the voice of an alien who doesn’t vacation on Earth very often. “I’m Juliette.”
Terry extends his furry paw and introduces himself to me, saying, “The pleasure is all mine, Juliette.” Indeed, but I like how his grip is loose and unassuming; firm handshakes are overrated.
Terry stands back and picks up Abram’s racquet, takes a few imaginary practice swings. “I know I don’t look like much now,” he says to anyone who’ll listen, “but I used to play a lot of competitive tennis in my day. And you know who forced me into my third or fourth retirement?” He points to Abram. “Last year’s version of this guy.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, I retired pretty much right after that tournament myself,” Abram says.
Terry McEvans has more restraint than my snap judgment gave him credit for, because he doesn’t ask why, just reaches out and pats Abram’s shoulder like he’s been there, quit that.
“You mind if I take his forehand for a spin?” Terry asks me. “Five minutes is my max these days, promise.”
“By all means,” I say, awfully. What’s next? Be my guest? Spin away? I hand Abram the racquet he let me borrow.
Terry whispers something into Abram’s ear, making sure I hear the part about me being a “keeper.” I like the honest part where he mumbles “If you’ve got the energy to keep catching her” better. Linda smacks him on the arm for it before they head back down to the court, leaving us ladies to a few minutes of small talk followed by a lifetime of never seeing each other again.
Linda sits down on the bleachers and pats the spot next to her. What if I acted like it was already taken? I sit down and wait for the questions to begin as she removes a huge canister of sunscreen from an elephantine purse that rivals mine in size. I want to ask where one can purchase such a tote monster, but I don’t, because now we’re unspoken purse rivals.
“I’m paranoid about sunscreen,” she says, speaking my language, and then proceeds to lambaste herself with the coconut-scented spray. She passes the bottle to me casually, as she might to a friend she’s been sharing with for years. I give my arms another thin coat.
“Do you mind if I use this on my legs, too?” I ask Linda.
“Of course not.”
No wonder I’m so pale.
We watch as Terry feeds the first ball to Abram, who then hits it back a million times harder than when playing me. Abram glides into each of his shots, totally balanced, timing each movement perfectly, popping the ball right back to the same annoying location above Terry’s head every time as a thwooomp sound echoes around the court.
“So much talent,” Linda says, but not like it’s a shame he’s been wasting it—as if she, too, is mesmerized by what Abram can produce with an easygoing smile on his face. Linda McEvans could’ve been a model in a past life, provided she was about a foot taller in that one. She takes care of herself, too. I bet her bathroom is full of expensive
face creams and firming serums I’d have a hard time not slipping into my purse. I’d bet she’s like a Heidi, someone who gets prettier and prettier the more you get to know her, while I do the opposite.
She also has something on her mind. She’s less obvious about what’s eating her than Starbucks Janette, but it’s in there somewhere, throbbing inside her temples, wanting me to acknowledge it.
ABRAM
JULIETTE SEEMS TO BE getting along okay up there with Linda. Then again her expression hasn’t changed yet, so Terry’s guess is as good as mine, and he’s too busy having fun. His enjoyment is making it hard to wrap things up in five minutes. He laughs as my latest return lands right on the baseline, takes a bad bounce, and whizzes past him. Excuse my French, but it feels good to be hitting le shit out of his serve again. I’m surprised to find myself feeling this way, but I doubt Juliette is. She’s known all along tennis is in my blood. My dad’s way of communicating with me.
When we’re done, Terry puts his beefy arm around my neck and says, nonchalantly, “I’ll make a comeback if you do, champ.”
“Maybe. Let’s see how lame we pull up in the morning.”
The two of us sit down on the bench. Terry pours a cup of water over his head and turns to me, forehead dripping. “You know your mom told us to check in on you, right?”
“I figured she might.”
“Suzy loved watching you and Ian play tennis, Abram. I don’t get the sense it’s gonna bring back bad memories for her, should you someday decide to start kickin’ everybody’s ass again. But, hey, what do I know?” He yells up at Linda and asks her the same question. She rolls her eyes and asks if he needs any ibuprofen.
“One more game?” Terry asks, nodding his head yes for me.
Juliette
ABRAM AND TERRY are shaking hands, having just finished a game called Butt’s Up that they asked our permission to play. Now Terry’s going back to the service line, bending over, and sticking his butt into the air. “Give me what I deserve!” he shouts. Linda groans and then laughs as Abram runs back to the baseline, prepares to take aim. He deliberately skims the ball just past Terry, who proceeds to fall down like he’s been hit anyway.
“Did Abram’s father ever bring another woman around?” I ask Linda quietly.
Linda turns to me, and she may be the definition of an unflappable Southern woman who’s either been through it all herself or heard it all before, but her smile doesn’t show as seamlessly this time.
“You mean your mother, hon?”
My fingers tighten around the edge of my seat. “So you met her?”
“We saw them here playing tennis a few times, had dinner with them once,” she admits guiltily. “She was enchanting, your mother. The life of the party. Terry and I tried not to judge—we’re certainly no angels ourselves—but of course it was hard not to think of Suzy and … everyone else involved.”
Before I can apologize, Linda goes on to eulogize how sorry she is for my loss. The words don’t sound quite as depressing in her southern accent, but I still feel like I’m attending another funeral. When she’s not paying attention, I shoot Abram a look like we should really be going soon.
ABRAM
ON OUR WAY OUT of the club, Terry and Linda offer to give us a ride home in their pimped-out golf cart. Juliette’s fingers find their way to the skin on the back of my arm, pinching a no into it. I wonder if I’ll ever learn what her yes signal feels like. Terry tries to make it happen by touting the cart’s satellite radio and playing us a sample song, but all he gets me is pinched in the exact same spot.
“They’re pretty nice, eh?” I say to her, when their golf cart has buzzed far enough away.
“Yes,” Juliette says, “but I never want to see them again.”
She’s said this about a lot of people, of course—me, that happy family at the beach this morning, old teachers we pass in the hallway who’d love to keep in touch. She always means it, but this time she’s got some extra oomph behind it.
28
Juliette
“EVER NOTICED HOW TIRED being at the beach makes you?” Abram asked me earlier tonight. “Not really,” I said, then he called his mom, I started e-mailing my dad, and he passed out on our couch bed twenty minutes later, the end.
Now not only am I alone with my thoughts again—they’re telling me it’s my own fault for “going there” with Linda—I’m sore from tennis and starving. This popcorn isn’t cutting it; not when I’m craving—can’t believe I’m admitting this to myself—a Doritos Locos Supreme.
There’s hope.
His eyelids are twitching.
“Abram.”
No response.
“Taco Bell?”
Nothing.
I move my laptop station closer to him, lean over until my face is nearly touching his. It’s warmer down here by his mouth, just as I suspected, maybe even anticipated on my worst days. I should’ve made it easier for him to kiss me in the ocean last night. His lips look firm, a little on the chapped side but in an intriguing way that makes sense for a boy; otherwise, I’d just make out with Heidi every once in a while and call it a phase. Bizarre that his breath hasn’t offended me once since we met—must be his candy-flavored toothpaste. His lids twitch again, but he still doesn’t open his eyes. His lashes are even longer from this close up. That’s sort of interesting. Eventually, I manage to pull myself away from him. I don’t go far.
ABRAM
I OPEN MY EYES, relieved to see Juliette hasn’t fled to jog off her insomnia yet; in fact, she’s maybe a little closer to my side of the bed than when I started dozing.
“Hi,” she says softly, and I can see she’s still typing the same e-mail to her dad on my laptop. So far, she’s written Hello, Dad: How’s the new novel? Have you gotten up from your swivel chair since I left? Are you and the Keurig getting along?
“Hey there.”
She minimizes the e-mail, turns toward me, and everything about her is more exotic and hypnotic than it’s ever been. I think this pretty much every time she makes eye contact with me, but today her face seems a bit fuller and healthier than it’s been this past year, possibly due to her increased exposure to my snacks. To this point, there’s an open bag of popcorn beside her. I’m pleased that she a) helped herself to my stash, b) hasn’t apologized for it yet, and c) curtailed the Adderall enough today to allow hunger to resume its rightful spot in her empty stomach.
Emboldened by my sleepy state, I reach over and pull her closer to me, against me, and she doesn’t object or eject herself from the bed. In fact, she gets under the covers, finds the perfect position for almost every part of her body to connect with mine as I loop my arms around her and find her hands. Just like that, there’s no such thing as a problem in my world.
“I brought up my mom to Linda. Mistake.”
“What did she say?”
“That they hung out with our parents once, and she felt bad for your mom. I thought I could handle it, but it just … made me feel guilty by association. Which is ridiculous because I barely associated with my mom, especially toward the end; she was like a roommate I drank coffee with occasionally, a shady friend who gave me Adderall and disappeared all day, and I wish I was making sense.”
“You’re making a lot of sense,” I say.
“It’s been over a year, and I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to be dealing with this, and I’m sick of taking Adderall but too tired to figure out how not to, and … I want a Doritos Locos Supreme but I can’t even drive myself to Taco Bell.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
She’s shaking now. I roll her over to face me. Instead of trying to hide the tears in her eyes, she lets them do their thing right in front of me. I resist the urge to kiss them from her skin, because she probably wouldn’t hate anything more. Instead, I graze her cheek with the side of my fingertip an
d slide them away, nonchalantly, as if only so she won’t have to worry about clogged pores.
“Sorry,” she says, sniffling, “I’m the world’s ugliest crier.”
“Or its reigning prettiest,” I suggest as an alternative, which makes her cry harder for some reason. Time to rely on something other than words—take the action I’ve been meaning to take since CVS. I realize it’s not a solution to anything, but it’s the only thing I know will keep me from shedding a few tears myself, and then we’d really have ourselves a legitimate dude contender for the world’s-ugliest-crier competition. And no one wants that.
29
Juliette
MY CRYING HAS SLOWED, thankfully, but the ugly won’t be evacuating my face anytime soon. What’s with the strange look of determination coming across Abram’s? It’s not going anywhere, either. Haven’t seen an eyebrow furrow of this magnitude since his last beer-pong rematch.
ABRAM
NOT EVEN A WHALE jumping out of the ocean and swallowing the house could stop me from kissing her. Still don’t want to take any chances, though, so now I’m rushing in a little faster than I would if I had a reciprocation guarantee. I slow down as I reach the very edge of her lips, and then finally, after all this time that seems longer than it’s probably been, I close the deal. Our lips are touching, we’re kissing, and I get to feel what she really feels like. So far she seems relaxed, eyes closed, not open and wondering how she landed herself in such a bind. I make every second count, not by overdoing it, by just experiencing her as much as possible—the softness of her lips, the smoothness of her other exposed areas when they brush up against me accidentally—without preconceived notions of how this miracle of all miracles should be unfolding.