nearly up.”
“I bought the next hour.” When she smiled, the tip of her nose bent.
“Ah. You like racquetball.”
“I like you.”
Her thigh muscles lifted as she walked to the back of the court.
On the third point of the third game, while lunging at the ball, Peter knocked Cassandra to the floor, hard.
“I’m sorry.” He was uneasy at his sudden violence. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’m fine.” She jumped back to her feet. “Go. I’m ready.”
She won the game.
In the fourth game he decided to resort to strategy—pure strength was not working. Try to force her into his rhythm. But she caught shots before they bounced, halving his time to react, and knew what it was he wanted to do and was able to do it just that much more. If he carved deadly touch shots, she carved them back, only a slice more accurately. If he countered with wicked ricochet shots, then she used them, too, weaving a blue blur around him in the white box. She possessed deadly accuracy. She was doing everything he was doing, and she could do it better, and exactly when she wanted. With practice he might get to be that kind of player, but not soon. It took years to be able to achieve this devilment with the ball.
They began a long rally and worked closer to the front wall until they were lunging desperately for each shot, slapping the ball as hard as they could, back and forth—lunge, dive, slice—unrelenting, moving only on reflex. He threw himself into the game, trying to crush the ball with each stroke. He sensed Cassandra adapting to his higher level of intensity. He madly flailed his racquet and slammed himself from wall to wall while she coolly maneuvered each point. He gripped the racquet handle with both hands like an axe and waited for the serve. At 19-17 in the fifth game, her lead, there was a knock on the window. A couple stood ready outside the court. The time was up. Cassandra turned to him. She was hardly winded.
“We didn’t get to finish.”
Outside the court, Cassandra picked her towel off the waiting bench and wiped her forehead.
“That was
good,”
she nodded.
“Where did you learn to play so well?”
“Tennis is my base, though it’s such a different game.”
He found himself staring at the corrugations of muscle in her forearm. “Did you play a lot of tennis?”
“Enough to pay for business school way back when.”
“You were pro?”
“A couple of years. Best I did was the quarterfinals at Forest Hills. A freak string of tournament victories. I was ranked something like one hundred and eighty-sixth in the world that year, my zenith.” She laughed, revealing receding gums and extensive dental work.
“What happened at Forest Hills?”
“Chrissie Evert, who was a
kid
then, burned the panties off me, that’s what. I couldn’t match her ground strokes. It was over in forty-nine minutes. I decided to go to business school full-time, and that was the end of the tennis.”
He responded with an appreciative silence.
“Hey,” Cassandra said without hesitation, putting her hand tightly on his shoulder. “Let’s have dinner.”
She suggested a small place ten blocks away, and numbly he said that was fine. They’d meet outside the locker rooms in twenty minutes, which was enough time, he decided, for him to grab a few minutes inthe whirlpool. There he rubbed his forehead and tried to enjoy the swirling, bubbling heat that surrounded his body. The whirlpool was near the club pool, and a man and a woman splashed in the shallow end, laughing and surreptitiously nuzzling under the water. Apparently the man’s foot was between the woman’s ankles. Their desire depressed him, and he sank down into the water, thinking of Janice.
What had happened to her so long ago lived with him. If it was possible to be driven by a wrong done to another, then he had been driven, and for a long time now. Each time he prosecuted a crime, it was, in a private way, done for her, because the man who had hurt her
“I bought the next hour.” When she smiled, the tip of her nose bent.
“Ah. You like racquetball.”
“I like you.”
Her thigh muscles lifted as she walked to the back of the court.
On the third point of the third game, while lunging at the ball, Peter knocked Cassandra to the floor, hard.
“I’m sorry.” He was uneasy at his sudden violence. “Here, let me help you.”
“I’m fine.” She jumped back to her feet. “Go. I’m ready.”
She won the game.
In the fourth game he decided to resort to strategy—pure strength was not working. Try to force her into his rhythm. But she caught shots before they bounced, halving his time to react, and knew what it was he wanted to do and was able to do it just that much more. If he carved deadly touch shots, she carved them back, only a slice more accurately. If he countered with wicked ricochet shots, then she used them, too, weaving a blue blur around him in the white box. She possessed deadly accuracy. She was doing everything he was doing, and she could do it better, and exactly when she wanted. With practice he might get to be that kind of player, but not soon. It took years to be able to achieve this devilment with the ball.
They began a long rally and worked closer to the front wall until they were lunging desperately for each shot, slapping the ball as hard as they could, back and forth—lunge, dive, slice—unrelenting, moving only on reflex. He threw himself into the game, trying to crush the ball with each stroke. He sensed Cassandra adapting to his higher level of intensity. He madly flailed his racquet and slammed himself from wall to wall while she coolly maneuvered each point. He gripped the racquet handle with both hands like an axe and waited for the serve. At 19-17 in the fifth game, her lead, there was a knock on the window. A couple stood ready outside the court. The time was up. Cassandra turned to him. She was hardly winded.
“We didn’t get to finish.”
Outside the court, Cassandra picked her towel off the waiting bench and wiped her forehead.
“That was
good,”
she nodded.
“Where did you learn to play so well?”
“Tennis is my base, though it’s such a different game.”
He found himself staring at the corrugations of muscle in her forearm. “Did you play a lot of tennis?”
“Enough to pay for business school way back when.”
“You were pro?”
“A couple of years. Best I did was the quarterfinals at Forest Hills. A freak string of tournament victories. I was ranked something like one hundred and eighty-sixth in the world that year, my zenith.” She laughed, revealing receding gums and extensive dental work.
“What happened at Forest Hills?”
“Chrissie Evert, who was a
kid
then, burned the panties off me, that’s what. I couldn’t match her ground strokes. It was over in forty-nine minutes. I decided to go to business school full-time, and that was the end of the tennis.”
He responded with an appreciative silence.
“Hey,” Cassandra said without hesitation, putting her hand tightly on his shoulder. “Let’s have dinner.”
She suggested a small place ten blocks away, and numbly he said that was fine. They’d meet outside the locker rooms in twenty minutes, which was enough time, he decided, for him to grab a few minutes inthe whirlpool. There he rubbed his forehead and tried to enjoy the swirling, bubbling heat that surrounded his body. The whirlpool was near the club pool, and a man and a woman splashed in the shallow end, laughing and surreptitiously nuzzling under the water. Apparently the man’s foot was between the woman’s ankles. Their desire depressed him, and he sank down into the water, thinking of Janice.
What had happened to her so long ago lived with him. If it was possible to be driven by a wrong done to another, then he had been driven, and for a long time now. Each time he prosecuted a crime, it was, in a private way, done for her, because the man who had hurt her
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