The Hunt (20 page)

The two of them were already wearing their tennis whites, and Caro looked every bit as blond, tanned and glorious as I’d feared. I thanked her for the clothes she’d brought to lend me, charmingly packed in an L.L. Bean tote she’d strapped to the back of her bike, and Peter and I went to change. In the ladies’ locker room, I unpacked the bag’s contents and spread them out on a bench. They included a sports bra in a size thirty-four C, which, short of emergency breast implants, I would never either fill or need, a white tennis dress trimmed with pink piping, and little white socks with matching pink pom-poms. There was also a note, written in a neat cursive script:

This is my favorite tennis outfit—it always brings me luck! I hope it isn’t too big on your adorable little figure! Can’t wait for our game—it’s going to be so much fun! C

It seemed as if everyone in the Bay area, and not just the Forrest family, was confused about the meaning of the word fun. I took off my own clothes, storing them in the locker I’d been assigned, and donned the dress Caro had left me, at which point it became abundantly clear that little was the operative word for any description of my figure. The skirt should probably have hit at midthigh, but without Caro’s various curves to fill it out it came down nearly to my knees, although it was hard to tell since the fabric was almost the exact same color as my skin. I pulled my hair into a ponytail as fast as I could in order to minimize any time in front of the mirror, grabbed the racket Caro had described as “one of” her spares, took a deep breath and went to join the others.

I knew that the odds of my having developed any athletic skill or eye-hand coordination since I’d last been forced to play this game were minimal, so I felt it was important to set everyone’s expectations suitably low. “In case Peter didn’t tell you,” I announced to Caro and Alex as we walked onto the court, “I really suck at this.”

Caro laughed. “I’m sure you’re much better than you think. And we’re just going to play a friendly game. Nothing to worry about.”

“And it’s doubles,” said Peter. “I’ve got you completely covered.”

We spent a few minutes hitting back and forth, with Peter and me on one side and Caro and Alex on the other. I managed to avoid most of the balls that came my way, but the one I did hit made it over the net, although it wobbled a bit on top before falling over. “See,” said Peter encouragingly. “You’re a natural.”

And then the match began for real.

If this had been a movie, the next hour would have been condensed into a montage set to something peppy and upbeat, with snippets of Peter and Caro and Alex expertly sending the ball across the net interspersed with snippets of me for comic relief. There would have been shots of the ball flying off the tip of my racket and onto the next court, the ball zooming past me
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as my racket hit nothing but air, the ball zooming at me as I jumped out of its path, and at the shining climax, the moment when I swung at the ball so hard I lost my grip and my racket flew from my hand, soared twenty feet up into the air and nearly decapitated Peter on its descent.

It didn’t help that everyone was so nice about my stunning ineptitude. Then things got even worse when, with one set over, we switched partners for a second set. Peter and Caro played together as a seamless team, a tennis pas de deux, fielding the balls with the sort of ease that comes only with years of shared practice. And while Peter had, against all odds, seemed to find my gaffes endearing, Alex Cutler found them less so, though he did do his best to hide his annoyance. My screwing up also appeared to be contagious; Alex’s own skills deteriorated as the game wore on, and I noticed he was limping slightly.

“Is your leg all right?” I asked. It was his serve, and I was handing him the balls I’d collected from the net. It seemed only fair to do the collecting since I was the one who’d sent them into the net in the first place.

“Oh, it’s fine,” he said. “I bumped into something the other day, and my knee’s a bit sore. That’s all.”

“Are you sure you want to keep playing?” I asked, trying not to sound as hopeful as the prospect of an early finish made me feel.

“It’s no big deal,” he assured me. Sadly, I returned to my position at the net.

Behind me, I heard him bounce the ball a few times and then call out the score. I didn’t really understand tennis scoring, but I understood enough to know that we definitely weren’t winning.

Then his serve came whizzing by me, and Peter scrambled to receive it. Fortunately, he hit long and deep and to Alex’s side of the court. Alex returned it, also scrambling, and lobbed the ball high in the air. I heard him swear as he stumbled on his bad leg.

“Got it!” yelled Caro, sighting the ball as it arced up and over the net. She stretched her racket behind her head, waiting for just the right moment to bring it forward with a snap.

If this were still that movie montage, what happened next would have been in slow motion. Of course, if it had happened in slow motion, I would have been able to get out of the way. Instead the ball sprang off Caro’s racket strings with such power and speed I barely had time to register it hurtling toward my face.

The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and the blue sky above me was filled with spinning silver stars. There was also something warm and sticky pouring from my mouth, and I had the unfortunate feeling that that something was blood.

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“A t least you didn’t lose any teeth,” said Peter.

A crowd of onlookers had gathered around us, either drawn by the excitement of unexpected violence or eager to take a break from their own games. One woman had come running from an adjacent court, announcing that she was a doctor and bending down to take my pulse and check that my jaw wasn’t broken. It wasn’t, and my tongue was still intact, too. But the ball had split the corner of my lower lip, which was what accounted for all the blood. I’d never known a lip had so much blood in it and I would have been happier not finding out.

The doctor and Peter debated for a bit about whether I needed stitches, but after she’d made liberal use of an antiseptic that stung so badly I nearly did bite my tongue off, she assured me I’d be fine. “There will be some swelling, but that should go away in a week or two,” she said.

“Or two?” I asked feebly. It hurt to move my mouth, and judging by the muffled way my words came out, my lip was already well on its way to swollen.

“Three at the most,” she said, packing away the first-aid kit somebody had brought her from inside the clubhouse. “Be sure to put some ice on it.”

The crowd began to disperse, probably disappointed by the relatively tame nature of the injury I’d sustained, and Peter helped me up to my feet.

“Rachel, I’m so sorry,” said Caro who’d been hovering to one side, her eyes filled with concern.

“I really didn’t mean to hit you.”

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“I know you didn’t,” I said. And I did. She was too thoroughly nice and wellmannered for even her subconscious to consider doing such a thing.

“Come on,” she said, leading me off the court. “Let me help you get cleaned up.”

There were a couple of women leaving the locker room as we walked in, and they looked at me with a combination of sympathy and revulsion. Once I saw myself in the mirror, I could understand why. My lower lip was several times its usual size, blood streaked my chin, neck and the previously pristine front of my borrowed tennis dress, and most of my hair had escaped its ponytail. Some strands were plastered to my forehead with sweat, while others corkscrewed out from my scalp in a number of unlikely and less than attractive directions.

“Ack,” I said, first at my reflection and then to Caro, indicating the red stains on her dress. “I’ve ruined your lucky outfit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured me. “You only proved it’s not really lucky. Now, while you’re rinsing off I’ll go find something cold to put on your lip.”

I undressed and stepped into the shower with care, soaping up as best I could. When I emerged, wrapped in a big white towel, Caro was waiting. “Here,” she said, smiling and extending her hand. “This is just as cold as ice, and it won’t drip.”

It was as if the gods had decided today would be a good day to torture me. She was holding a can of Diet Coke.

The only reason I managed to restrain myself from opening the can and drinking the soda down in one magnificent gulp was that my ability to drink anything without a straw had been severely compromised. Instead, I held the sealed can up to my lip and prayed it was possible to absorb some of its contents through osmosis.

Caro insisted on staying with me as I dressed, just in case I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror and grew woozy at the sight. And while this was considerate of her, knowing she was watching me made me self-conscious. Some people—Hilary, for example—had sufficient body confidence that this sort of thing didn’t bother them, but I’d never been the type to strut naked around a locker room, particularly not in front of my fiancé’s ex-and probably future-girlfriend.

Mostly I did everything I could to avoid locker rooms altogether.

“I love your clothes,” Caro said to my exposed torso as I pulled my top over my head. “They’re so…New York.”

I was wearing jeans, a cotton tunic and ballet flats. It was hardly an outfit I’d describe as especially urbane, but I could see how anything that couldn’t be purchased at a sporting goods store might be described as “New York” in this environment.

“Peter really seems to love it there,” she continued.

“Where? New York?” I asked, surprised. There had been a few rough patches when Peter had first moved east, and it would be premature to say he’d accustomed himself to Manhattan living as yet. And seeing him back in San Francisco had made it all too clear how much he missed its outdoorsy lifestyle. Central Park was a pretty spot, but it couldn’t match the countless nature-based activities available in Northern California.

“I’m sure it’s just as much you as it is the East Coast. I’ve never seen him so happy. The two of you make such a great couple.”

I’d moved over to the mirror, where I was trying in vain to fix my hair without actually looking at my face, but I could see Caro reflected behind me. Her expression was completely free of guile.

“You think so?” I asked, wondering where she was going with this.

“You complement each other so well,” she said.

“Sometimes it seems like we have nothing in common,” I confessed, marveling as I did that I was admitting this to her, of all people.

“But that’s what keeps things interesting. Take Alex, for example.”

“What about him?”

“Well, I know a bunch of people think we’d be a good couple. Even Peter wants to set us up.

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He’s trying to be subtle about it, but….” Her voice trailed off.

“But Peter’s not so good at subtle,” I supplied.

“No,” she said with a laugh. “Peter’s definitely not so good at subtle. He’s too much of a straight shooter. He tried to act like organizing this tennis game was just a casual thing, but it was pretty obvious he was trying to play matchmaker.”

I froze with one hand on my comb and the other grasping a chunk of hair. Even with everything that had happened the previous night, I clearly remembered Peter telling me it was Alex and Caro who had suggested the game. So why hadn’t he admitted that he was the one who’d initiated it? If his conscious motive was, in fact, to throw Alex and Caro together, why hadn’t he just told me the truth? Anxiety fluttered down from my chest to take up residence in my stomach. Maybe it was actually starting to happen: the feelings Peter had been repressing were finally escaping from the subconscious pit in which he’d tried to keep them buried, and he’d wanted an excuse to see Caro and me at the same time, the better to compare and contrast and sort out what he truly felt. That was a disconcerting thought—it was pretty obvious who’d come out ahead. In fact, if the contest had indeed started, it was probably already over, as well.

Caro was still talking, and I tried to concentrate on her words rather than my panic. “Things would never work with Alex and me,” she was saying. “I can’t put my finger on it, exactly, but we just don’t click. We have a lot of the same interests, and we have a lot of friends in common—we’ve gone sailing a couple of times, and we’re even in the same cycling club—but there’s something missing.”

“Oh?” I asked, but I wasn’t surprised to learn Caro was in a cycling club. She was probably in all sorts of clubs dedicated to activities that Peter would love, things like kayaking and rock climbing and Ultimate Frisbee. I wasn’t in any clubs, except for a book club that hardly ever met. When we did meet, we usually skipped the book and went straight for the booze.

“We carpool every so often, when there’s a cycling outing or to parties, but somehow it’s always hard to keep the conversation going. He gave me a ride home the other night, and it felt like the drive would never end.”

I was looking for anywhere to take my thoughts but where they currently were, and typically, my mind zeroed in on the wrong part of what she was telling me—namely, that if Alex had given her a ride home from the party, then he most definitely hadn’t been with Hilary. But it couldn’t hurt to be sure, and trying to identify Hilary’s new man was infinitely preferable to wondering how long it would be before I was in the market for a new man, as well. “What kind of car was Alex driving?” I asked. “The other night?”

“What?” asked Caro, surprised by the direction in which I was taking our little locker-room chat. “Um, an SUV of some sort. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Is that the only car he has?”

“It’s the only one I’ve seen him drive. It’s convenient because he can strap his bike onto the back.”

Part of me was relieved to hear this. I didn’t want Alex Cutler to be Hilary’s first love. His tennis court behavior suggested that underneath the pleasant exterior lay the interior of a jerk.

“Speaking of couples,” said Caro, even though we hadn’t been, “What’s going on with your friend Hilary and her boyfriend? His name is Ben, right? The tall guy with the dark hair?”