Emancipated (11 page)

People had hooked up at the party last night—Paolo was sure of it. But not him. A couple of girls had approached, one very sweet and unassuming, the other aggressive and raunchy. Months ago he'd have hooked up with one if not both. Yet he'd made excuses with both these girls. What was wrong with him?

Paolo's thoughts strayed to Lucy. For a few blissful moments, he imagined her lying in bed alone. Almost certainly, that wasn't the reality of what lay behind the door to Lucy's room. It had filled with weirdoes of all types as the night went on. They'd probably all passed out in their clothes.

Paolo slid out of bed. Okay, so he seemed to be developing something of an obsession with Lucy. But it would wear off. Eventually. How long could he be expected to feel this bad?

The house was entirely still. Dressed only in shorts Paolo padded down to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge to get milk. When he closed the door, John-Michael was standing next to the sink wearing a white terry-cloth robe, grinning. It looked like he was still a little drunk, or high.

Paolo muttered a quick “good morning” and then returned to his room. He was fully awake now, and slightly wary of falling asleep again for fear of what he might dream. Instead, he pulled on a T-shirt, some tennis shorts, socks, and his sneakers. From his closet he picked out his second-best racket. He filled an empty water bottle from the cold water tap, grabbed two bananas from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table and left the house, heading for the tennis courts farther down the beach. Once summer vacation started he was booked to hit the tennis tournaments. It was time to begin some extra training, more than the hour or two he was able to snatch at the country club.

The beach was almost deserted, aside from joggers and people walking their dogs. It was surprisingly chilly out on the sand. Last night's cool air had persisted, whipped into a steady onshore breeze. Paolo finished eating the second banana, tossed the peels into a nearby garbage can, and broke into a gentle jog.

The courts were about a mile down the beach. When he arrived, he was slightly surprised to find someone already there. A jet-black-haired guy in his early twenties, tanned, and with a slim, wiry frame; a body you more often saw on a cyclist than a tennis player. Paolo watched the guy hit a few serves. He was obviously working on some kind of killer ace, throwing all his weight and energy into noisy serves, at least 30 percent of which weren't landing inside the box. Paolo did a few stretches and then returned to watching the guy serve. After a few minutes, the tennis player stopped, turned to him, and said, “You waiting for someone? Or looking for a game?”

Paolo doubted very much that this guy was going to provide much competition. Last time he'd been ranked, Paolo was twenty-fourth in the United States and tenth in the state. He was a little surprised that the guy didn't recognize him. But Paolo reminded himself that outside the precious enclaves of the country club and tennis circuit most people just played. They didn't watch.

Yet, once in a while, this guy landed a serve that impressed Paolo. There were a few that Paolo wasn't even sure he'd be able to return. The serve, however, was no more the whole game than putting was in golf. A game would be more fun than just working on his serve, as he'd also intended.

“Sure,” Paolo answered. “I'll play.” They played a set. For a while, Paolo hardly dropped a point. The fifth and sixth games, however, proved to be more of a challenge. Out of the blue, the guy broke his serve. In the end though, Paolo still won the set 6—1.

They shook hands and each sipped from their water bottles.

“My name's Darius,” the guy said. “Play again? I bet you fifty dollars that next set I can take a game off you.”

“Make it two games,” Paolo said, “and you got a deal.”

“Make it a hundred,” the other guy said with a confident grin.

Paolo took the set again, but this time the guy took one game to deuce six times. It was slightly surprising to be held within a point of winning for quite such a long run, but then again, he wasn't as warmed up as the other guy, who'd been out awhile.

“You're very good,” Darius said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck, pushing back shoulder-length hair. Paolo noticed the back of his neck was covered with tattoos—the kind of Eastern mystic stuff people were so into.

“I'm a pro.”

Darius rolled his eyes. “Aha. That explains it. I like to think I'm pretty good. But no one has ever taken a set from me by five games. Ever.”

“Huh. You're taking it well. Very sportsmanlike.”

“I knew you had to be good. Who else comes out here to practice on a Saturday morning?”

“You?”

Darius laughed. “Busted! Listen, let me win my money back.”

“Do you have it on you?”

Darius shook his head, smiling.

“Then I guess you better win. I tell you what, you win the next game and we're even.”

To Paolo's faint surprise, Darius did just that. On the third deuce, Paolo felt his will fade. What did it matter to lose one game? He didn't know the guy, but he seemed cool. It had been a long time since Paolo had been forced to work so hard in any game that didn't count.

Darius was panting as Paolo went up to the net to shake his hand.

“Nice going, man,” Paolo said. “You just beat the twenty-fourth best player in the USA.”

“No kidding. Turned out all I needed was a real incentive. Care to see how I play for five hundred?”

Paolo stared for a second. “You're serious?”

“You've seen my game.”

“Dude, it feels wrong.”

Darius fixed him with a steely gaze. “I'm the one making the offer.”

They played another game. Paolo won. Darius insisted on a rematch, double or nothing. In a few more minutes, Paolo had won a thousand dollars. Pretty soon it was two thousand. Each game was hard fought, until both players were straining at every point. When he was four thousand dollars up, Paolo realized that he hadn't been in a fight this intense since his last pro semifinal.

And then he lost. It was the kind of mistake that any player can make: a double fault on a deuce point. Darius punished him with a volley as fast as Paolo had ever seen. Once again, they were even.

“You gotta let me go up. You've had me on the wire this whole time. You need to feel what that's like,” Darius said, breathing hard.

Paolo stared at Darius. The guy had to be crazy. He'd gotten lucky enough to bring the score back to zero.

“Tell you what: If you're chicken, I'll let you go straight back to four thousand. One game. You'll be right back where you were.”

Paolo shook his head. “I'm not chicken, man. But you got lucky.”

“Yeah. I knew it. You can't face that I may be better than you. One game. I'll prove it. I'm wrong—you get four thousand. And then we stop. Word of honor.”

“You want to play one game for four thousand dollars?
US
dollars?”

Darius plucked the strings of his racket like it was a guitar. “Yeah, US dollars. C'mon, man, out of the two of us, you're the pro.”

Sweat was streaming down Paolo's back and into his shorts. He wasn't tired yet, but at this point he'd usually stop and take a short break. Darius, however, seemed to become calmer the more he played.

For the first time Paolo was beginning to sense some real doubts about his ability. He didn't like the way this whole scenario was making him feel. Walking away now would leave the doubts lodged deep within his
psyche. What if they reared up again in some crucial competition? There were already games in his schedule that Paolo simply couldn't lose. He'd be haunted forever by Darius and this court.

Paolo felt his resolve solidify into something implacable. He had to beat Darius. Kill the curse before it took hold. The money would just be a bonus. What was at stake was worth a lot more than four thousand dollars to Paolo.

“One game?”

“One. Four large, winner takes all. We finish things here and go straight to the bank for the scratch.”

Paolo looked around. At the mention of the bank, he'd suddenly wondered if Darius was part of some scam to express kidnap him. He'd heard of such things—people being marched to an ATM at gunpoint—but usually in tougher neighborhoods. And it was barely ten o'clock. There was still hardly anyone on the beach apart from the joggers and dog people.

Darius reached back, grabbed a foot, and stretched his hamstrings. “I can beat you, Country Club. You just don't want to believe it.”

Paolo picked up two yellow balls and headed for the service line.

But it turned out that Darius was right. He beat Paolo, and this time with relative ease.

Three of his four serves blistered past Paolo at speeds that would have pleased any of the world's top ten players. As they shook hands at the end, Paolo began to wonder how to tell Darius that he didn't have four thousand dollars to spare.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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KITCHEN, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28

“Where's Paolo? And Candace?”

Lucy responded with a sullen glare. Maya wasn't sure if Lucy was taking a shot at Maya's whining or joining in with her implied criticism of the two housemates who'd escaped early enough to get out of cleaning up.

Maya found Lucy pretty difficult to read at the best of times. Neither girl was particularly sociable—they both preferred to watch TV or spend time on their computers. Maya guessed that Lucy was composing, watching videos, or even chatting. They'd both left friends behind in their previous schools.

It made sense for Maya to make an effort—she was a freshman at Our Lady. The school was popular with middle-class families of Latin descent who wanted to hold on to a precious aspect of Mexican and Central American religious life—plenty of the types of girls that Maya's family would love as friends for her. That way, she'd be invited to houses where Spanish was spoken and Mexican food served.

Maya loved Mexican food and she didn't mind listening to a bit of
cumbia
now and again, but she was far from fluent in Spanish. Worst of all, as far as her family was concerned, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been to Mexico.

Lucy, one of only a handful of black girls at school, was a junior. She didn't have much time left to bond with new people, and the older girls at school seemed like a cliquey bunch to Maya. Lucy spent a lot of time alone. Given the kind of haughty
señoritas
who went to Our Lady, Maya guessed that being alone didn't bother Lucy. It seemed pretty clear anyhow—Lucy preferred to hang out with boys.

Lucy stood up straight, both hands filled with trash she'd gathered from the kitchen floor and table. Finally, she replied to Maya's question.

“Candace had to go to the studio. She got the TV show. You don't remember?”

Maya gasped. “And I didn't even say anything about it. Man! I was so into my coding.”

Lucy stuffed the party debris into a plastic garbage bag. She handed Maya a mop and brush set. “Floor disinfectant's in the cabinet under the sink. Make sure you use plenty. I'm sticking to this floor pretty bad.”

Maya poured three capfuls of pine-scented syrupy fluid into a bucket and turned on the hot water. She lifted all six chairs onto the rectangular table that dominated the center of the kitchen and began to mop the wooden floor. It was alternately greasy and sticky with food residue and soda spill.

“So, do you know where Paolo is?” Maya asked.

“Well, he's not in my bed,” Lucy said with a wry smile.

“Poor Paolo.”

“Poor, nothin'. The boy needs to get used to hearing the word ‘no.'”

Maya chuckled. “He's so cute. I bet he doesn't hear it too much.”

“That kid's confused. He only wants me because I'm not interested.”

Maya doubted that. Lucy was beautiful and exuded an almost intimidating level of confidence. Her musical talent was obvious to anyone who had ears. But Maya didn't say anything. Lucy would probably accuse her of sucking up.

At that moment the front door opened: Paolo. He seemed drained, his hair was slick with sweat, a racket in his left hand. He took one look at the cleanup operation and gave both girls a guilty look.

“Hey, I'm sorry. Totally slipped my mind.”

“John-Michael's upstairs,” Lucy said tartly, “cleaning the triple. Paolo's face fell very slightly. “Oh. And Grace?”

“Cleaning up the backyard. I think it'd be nice if you helped John-Michael. That room's kind of bombed out.”

Maya could see Paolo struggling to control some kind of impulsive response. She guessed he didn't feel it was fair to have to clean up the one room he hadn't even entered the whole party. He must really like Lucy because all he did was smile a little tightly.

Lucy hesitated. “Everything okay, Paolo?”

Paolo shrugged. “I . . . I guess.”

“Where you been?”

Maya realized that Lucy was right. Paolo didn't look comfortable at all. Maybe his worries went beyond the mess that awaited upstairs?

“I was playing tennis down on the beach.”

“Yeah, we got that, the whole racket and all. What happened?”

Paolo tried to smile, but it wasn't remotely genuine. Instead Maya caught a sudden, startling glimpse of something rather odd in his expression. For a second he looked like a frightened little boy.

“Well, I . . . I actually lost.”

“To some guy on the beach?!”

Paolo nodded. He didn't bother to fake-smile anymore.

Lucy peered at him for a moment. “So?”

“I lost some money to him.”

Maya said, “How much?”

“It doesn't matter. I couldn't pay. Most of my money's all locked up in long-term savings.”