by Alix Nichols
“Well, congratulations,” I say, looking at the wall.
“Thank you.” He stands and leaves the room.
Lucas has a girlfriend, is all I can think about as I pull my clothes on and see myself out.
Last night he cheated on her, and I was an accessory to his dalliance. He wants to sleep with me again so he can try kinky stuff she won’t do. I hate him for that, and I loathe myself.
On some level, I’ve always known he didn’t find me hot enough for a proper relationship. But I lived in denial. Except now, there’s no hiding from the bitter and humiliating truth. I’ve been blind enough not to see it and to fall in love with him.
And that brings me to the second truth, which is even more distressing than the first.
Now I know he’s a jerk—and I still love him.
Lucas
Six Years Later
The horn marks the end of the game, and the guys shout and throw their fists up.
“Go France!” our fans in the arena chant.
The Czech fans show remarkable restraint in expressing their disappointment.
I glance at Michel and Frederic from the French Swimming Federation. They give me the thumbs up, and I nod, beaming.
This wasn’t just any victory.
The men’s national team, which I’ve had the honor of coaching since last season, just qualified for the knockout stage of the European Water Polo Championship.
Eric, who’s been screaming his head off for the last thirty seconds, pulls himself together and nudges me with his elbow. “We did it.”
“It’s huge.” I smile before arching an eyebrow. “But this is not our endgame.”
He nods. “I know, I know—our endgame is the podium. We’ll get there.”
My assistant coach is a former Pro A player just like me, even if we’ve never played for the same club.
But I knew him Before Amnesia. The pro water polo world being so small in France, everybody seems to know everybody. Besides, Eric and I had a common friend, Isabelle Ferrand. She used to play for the women’s team in my club, but she quit water polo and went back to school to get a degree in marketing a few months before my attack.
Four years back, I looked her up and arranged a meeting. Encouraged by my therapist, I was on a mission to talk to everyone from my past in the hopes of triggering a memory—any memory. But we didn’t connect. Isabelle was aloof. I was still weak and easily overwhelmed. We soldiered through a disjointed conversation for half an hour, at the end of which we bid each other a relieved farewell and went our separate ways.
Beats me how she and I could have been friends when we had nothing to say to each other.
Then again, perhaps Before Amnesia, we did.
I’ve collected so many facts about the first thirty years of my life, I sometimes tell myself it doesn’t matter anymore that I can’t recall things. But most of the time, when I’m at a loss about what kind of person I used to be, I’m reminded just how much it matters.
If only I hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time that night!
The police reconstructed the events leading up to my attack with very few holes. I’d had a regular day. I’d worked out at the pool in the morning. Then I’d grabbed lunch with a couple of my teammates. I’d gone home and had a video chat with Angie, who was doing a beachwear shoot in Brazil. Back to the pool for the afternoon practice. Nothing special, no tiffs with anyone.
In the evening, Eric and Isabelle had spotted me in Le Poivre, waiting for someone. We’d exchanged a few words, and they’d left. Unfortunately, I hadn’t told them who I was meeting.
The cops were unable to establish that, either.
No one knows if that person ever showed and if he’s the one I had a fistfight with. When I fell, hit my temple against the curb and passed out, there was so much blood, he might’ve assumed I was dead. He might’ve freaked and hightailed it out of there, taking my wallet to make it look like a mugging.
Or, more likely, whoever I was waiting for never showed. I’d had too much to drink, and some asshole in the bar marked me as easy prey and followed me outside.
A regular mugging, with a very unfortunate outcome, but no mystery behind it.
“I hear you’re dining with the Swimming Federation reps tonight,” Eric says, breaking me from my thoughts.
There’s a tiny hint of envy in his voice.
“It’s to talk shop,” I say. “I’d rather be celebrating with you guys.”
“I bet you would,” Eric says.
This time, both his smile and his tone are earnest, and I chastise myself for my earlier discomfort. So what if Eric feels a little resentful about being left out? Anyone would in his place. The man is ambitious and serious about his career. I can relate. And I can certainly understand his wish to be involved when the “grown-ups” talk shop.
“I’ll give you a detailed account,” I say. “And next time they invite me, I’ll insist you come along.”
He waves dismissively. “Don’t. Someone needs to keep an eye on the guys, so they don’t get too carried away.”
“Zach can do it,” I say. “He’s the oldest and wisest of the lot.”
Eric nods. “I guess he can.”
In the evening, I join the Federation reps at the hotel restaurant.
“I just wanted to say, once again, what an honor it is for me to coach the national team,” I say while we wait for our food to be served. “You entrusted me with a huge responsibility, and you won’t regret it.”
Michel raises his glass. “Amen to that. The decision wasn’t Fred’s and mine alone. It was the entire board’s. Everyone was inspired by how you’d started a brand-new club and taken it to national silver in two years.”
“It was my luck players like Zach Monin joined from the outset,” I say.
Frederic takes a sip from his glass and swishes the wine in his mouth. “Zachary Monin’s joining you had nothing to do with luck.”
His tone is sardonic and cold, the only way the Chairman of the Federation ever sounds. But he’s a good sort—fair and unburdened by any of the prejudices people of his generation sometimes harbor.
Not my parents, thank heavens.
Besides, Frederic does have a point. Zach “The Nuke” Monin and Denis Milevic joined Nageurs de Paris because the three of us used to play together for Boulogne back in the day.
My genius goalie Noah and a few younger players signed up because Zach is the country’s top scorer and a demigod in the water polo world.
Our talented hole defender, Julien, assures me he joined after he watched recordings of my own exploits back from when I played hole D on the French Olympic Team. He says he was impressed by my endurance. Hell, I’m impressed by it every time I watch those old games. Without false modesty, I was good—a top-notch hole D fans worshiped and several premium division European clubs warred over.
Shame I don’t remember that.
But, yeah, it does look like my past as a good player had more to do with the club’s success, than dumb luck.
“Your job is cut out for you, Lucas,” Michel says. “Get the French water polo team to where it was six years ago, before you and Zachary took a break. And then take it further. We want a European medal, my boy. We haven’t had one in decades.”
Funny how what Michel speaks of as a “break,” Frederic, who’s blunter, calls a knockout. As for Zach’s hiatus, he refers to it as a knockup. Zach had put his life on pause for four years after his newborn son was diagnosed with epilepsy and his ex had left the two of them to fend for themselves.
I guess Zach and I would finish pretty close if we contended for the “Shittiest Water Polo Break of the Decade.”
“A European medal for this year, if you can,” Frederic says, giving me an emphatic look. “And next year, aim for the World.”
I nod. “The best way to make water polo as popular as handball is in France is to get our guys up on the podium.”
Michel arches an eyebrow. “You think your te
am can pull it off?”
“I know they can.” I give him a hard stare. “And I’ll do what it takes to help them.”
“That’s the spirit.” Frederic pats my shoulder before tilting his head. “What do you think of your assistant coach?”
At the Paris club, Leanne and I agreed not to hire assistants for now. The budget we’re working with permits only one additional employee, and that’s going to be a publicist as soon as we find a replacement for Martin. But things are different with the national team. The money comes from the Swimming Federation, and—frankly—I’m happy to have an assistant coach. I wouldn’t be able to train two teams at once without one.
“Eric is doing great,” I say. “He’s just as driven as I am.”
Michel chuckles. “He certainly is.”
Our server turns up with the appetizers.
“You’ve got to love beer cheese!” Michel points to his plate.
Frederic adjusts his napkin. “Is this your first time in Prague?”
“First time post-amnesia.” I pick up my fork and knife and smile. “So yeah, first time.”
Isabelle
Josiane and Sylvain Touquet
are ecstatic to welcome little
Nicolas Touquet into the world!
Our prayers have been answered
in the form of our darling boy.
I skim over the darling boy’s birth size and weight and stare at his photo pasted next to the text.
“Ecstatic” is the word Sylvain and his wife chose to describe their feelings for him.
I have no doubt they are.
As I slip the card back into its envelope, lock the mailbox, and head to the elevator, memories of my longest-lasting relationship flood in. Almost two years with a man who bored me silly and never failed to underwhelm in bed! But Sylvain aspired to be a father just as much as I yearned to be a mother. In hindsight, that common dream was the only thing that held us together as a loveless couple. Until it didn’t.
We’d tried to conceive during those two years, naturally and otherwise.
We failed.
Doctors didn’t find anything fundamentally wrong with either of us. The potential culprits of our infertility were non-fundamental things such as Sylvain’s lazy sperm and my hostile womb.
Yep, that’s what they said—a hostile womb.
There’s a more complex and scientific explanation to what’s wrong with me, but the brutal metaphor dropped by one of my OB-GYNs sums it up nicely. My uterus attacks all invaders indiscriminately, squirting acids and killer antibodies at anything that gets too close.
In short, it’s hostile.
And now that Sylvain has managed to make a baby with another woman, there’s no more doubt who the weak link was.
Oh well, maybe it was all for the best.
If my womb had been welcoming and Sylvain and I had produced an offspring, we would’ve been obliged to stay together for the baby’s sake.
I had started dating Sylvain when I was twenty-eight, about six months after Lucas broke my heart. When I declined every single one of Lucas’s attempts to bang me again, every invitation to go for a drink or hang out with our common friends, he got the message and stopped trying. But it wasn’t enough for me. I still saw him at the pool and bumped into him at various events. The French water polo world is much too small.
So I quit it.
The night of his horrible mugging, Eric and I bumped into him at Le Poivre. He said he was sorry. He didn’t say he missed me or needed me or he was leaving Angie. Just that he was sorry.
When I was thirty, Sylvain and I admitted we weren’t made for each other and broke up.
I haven’t had a long-term relationship since.
Now at thirty-four, I guess it’s time to kiss my dreams of motherhood goodbye. With my biological clock ticking, my womb unconquerable and my seductive skills fast deteriorating, what are my odds of becoming a mother?
Notice how I didn’t even mention my “plain” looks.
I step inside my apartment, drop my purse on the entryway table, and place Sylvain’s card next to it. Then I open the second envelope, a draft contract. Eric, aided by my former coach Leanne, both of whom now work for Lucas, has been conspiring for several weeks to bring me in as a publicist.
I’ve been resisting.
Not because I love my current job.
I don’t.
And it’s not like Lucas isn’t offering a better salary.
He is.
Besides, I’m totally over him.
It’s just… working for him would be weird.
He knows we used to be friends. But he doesn’t know we slept together. Neither does Leanne, or Eric. The official version I gave everyone at the time was I’d gotten fed up with water polo—had enough of the grueling workouts, always being hungry, and dreading the next somebitch who would try to drown me or grab my suit so hard it would tear.
No one needed to know I had to get away so I could lick my wounds. No one needed to know I had any wounds to start with.
Eric supported my decision.
Leanne tried to dissuade me before realizing it was no use.
Lucas… I don’t know what his reaction was because I carefully avoided him. And then he got mugged, spent three months in a coma, and forgot who he was.
I bet he’s still a jerk, though. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, amnesiac or otherwise.
My phone rings.
“Did you see the terms we’re offering?” Leanne asks, not bothering with small talk.
“I did, and they’re good. It’s just—”
“What?” she asks before yelling, “I saw that hand! Natalie! What do you think you’re doing?”
Um, that one was clearly not for me.
“Sorry about that. You were saying?”
“It’s just I’ve turned the water polo page of my life and moved on.”
“Well, make a U-turn and move back.” She sighs. “We need you. I need you.”
“Why? There are plenty of hungry young publicists out there who’d love the opportunity.”
“It’s you we need,” Leanne says. “You’re a former player and a woman.”
“Why does my being female matter?”
I can barely make out Leanne’s reply because of the noise around her. “Because the club has a women’s team now.”
“So?”
“Hang on.” The noise recedes—Leanne must be moving to a quieter spot. “Let me give you an example. Martin, the publicist Lucas fired recently, was hitting on the girls.”
“I’m sure they were able to reject him politely.” I smirk. “Or hit him, if politeness didn’t work.”
“The older ones, yes, but we also have a few teens. When he came on to Letitia—she’s only eighteen—the poor girl was in a flap. He had somehow convinced her he was so important that Lucas would kick her out if she didn’t humor him.”
“What an asshole!”
“Exactly.”
“What happened?”
“Fortunately, she confided in me,” Leanne says. “I talked to Lucas, and the next day Martin was out.”
“Good.” I kick my shoes off and head to the kitchen. “Hey, not all men are like Martin. Or, you could always hire a female publicist. I’m not the only one!”
“You’re the only one who knows the sport so well. You used to be semi-pro, for Christ’s sake!”
I open the fridge and survey the empty shelves. “Please. Anyone with half a brain can figure out the rules and get up to speed after they’ve seen a few games.”
“It’s that extra sensitivity someone who’s never played can’t have,” Leanne says. “I’ll give you another example. Martin did a calendar with the boys, and it was a big hit, so he wanted to do the same with the girls.”
I smirk. “I bet they hated the idea.”
“Of course, they did. As a woman, one of the reasons you do professional sports is because you want to be more than a ‘pretty little thing.’ And you certain
ly don’t want to be photographed naked.”
“True.”
“Well, Martin didn’t get it, and I doubt even a female publicist who hasn’t been an athlete would,” Leanne says.
I grab a yogurt, shut the fridge door, and pick up a cereal box to fix some “dinner.” Yay. I love single life. No racking your brain about what to cook to make your dear husband happy. No worrying the kids aren’t getting enough vegetables. No fuss, no pressure. No need to eat sitting at the table or bore one another with uninspiring stories about our uninteresting days.
What’s not to love?
“All I’m asking,” Leanne says, “is that you come over for a chat with Lucas and me before you say no.”
I let out a resigned sigh. “All right.”
“Tomorrow after work?”
“OK.”
We say goodbye, and I dig into my crunchy no fuss meal. The same I had for breakfast. And for dinner last night. And for breakfast yesterday morning.
As I chew, my heart quickens.
I wonder what Lucas will look like when I see him tomorrow, what he’ll sound like, smell like, feel like when we cheek kiss hello.
Then I wonder why I’m wondering about him, and the answer depresses me even more than the fact I’ve hit my mid-thirties, and I still eat cereal for dinner.
Lucas
“Here.” Isabelle hands me a manila folder.
I glance at Leanne and Eric, both of whom have been singing Isabelle’s praises nonstop for the last couple of weeks.
They shrug as if to say they have no clue what’s inside.
I open the folder and pull out a stapled printout. “What is this?”
“Just some ideas I jotted down last night.” Isabelle smiles. “I don’t plan to work for you guys, but I want you to have this and share it with whomever you end up hiring to be your publicist.”
Leanne takes the document from me and leafs through it slowly. I skim the subheadings. Where to look for corporate sponsors… Who might be interested and how to get them to a yes… Ideas for commercials… How to use the Easyfundraising app… Tips on attracting celebrity backers…
