Stiltsville: A Novel - By Susanna Daniel Page 0,82

the chips and ordered my enchilada with no sour cream. “Are you on a diet?” said Margo.

“Sort of.”

“I mean, you look good.”

“It’s the tennis.”

“I’ll come watch tomorrow,” she said.

It hadn’t occurred to me to bring Margo to practice—would she even enjoy it? “That would be wonderful,” I said.

That night I checked the oven before going to bed, then in the middle of the night woke with the thought of Margo burning down her apartment, and couldn’t get back to sleep. In the morning I found her and Dennis in the kitchen, drinking coffee. The newspaper covered the breakfast table. “We were talking about heading down south,” said Dennis, “maybe taking a ride on an airboat.”

I felt a rush of relief that Margo wouldn’t be coming to practice with me. “Sure,” I said. “When will you be home? Should I make dinner?”

Dennis looked at me strangely. “You don’t want to come?”

“Of course I do. But I have practice.”

“You can miss one, can’t you?”

I felt my jaw clench. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, I told myself. I was probably the only one who had never missed. “I’d rather not.”

“We’ll come with you to practice, then we’ll all go,” said Margo.

“Sounds good,” I said. I asked Margo where this idea—the Everglades, the airboat ride—had come from.

“I was thinking about it the other day,” she said. “I remembered that place down Tamiami Trail, with the frogs’ legs.”

“You wouldn’t eat them last time we went,” I said.

“I’ll eat them now.”

At the club, Margo and Dennis followed me to the gazebo between the courts. Jane and Rodrigo were hitting and Jack was sitting in the shade with a cup of coffee, his visor pulled low on his forehead. He stood up as we approached. “Visitors!” he said. He put out his hand to Dennis, and I introduced them.

“Is my mom going pro?” said Margo.

“She’s on her way. The new racket helps.”

Margo had admired my racket in the car. She’d commented on the scratches and dings it had accumulated—I’d noticed this, too, and felt the pride of ownership that comes with using something hard.

“Mind if we stick around?” said Dennis.

“It’s OK with me if it’s OK with Frances,” said Jack. “We’re going to work on ground strokes,” he said. “Frances? Want to fill that hopper?” Jack touched my elbow briefly, a gesture of familiarity. I saw Dennis notice the gesture, and wondered if Jack had done it on purpose. I took the hopper two courts away to pick up tennis balls. Jack had probably been working on his serve before practice started. I’d caught him at it half a dozen times by now, and each time had watched his strength and control during the toss and follow-through, the power of his body. From across the courts I could hear the cadence of Jack’s and Dennis’s voices—and every so often Margo’s—but I couldn’t hear their words. The men stood facing my direction, both with their arms crossed against their chests. Margo sat Indian-style in a chair. When I returned to the gazebo, the hopper full, Dennis was saying, “I saw him play once,” and Jack said, “Yeah?”

“The man is a tree,” said Dennis.

Jack laughed. “He’s a big boy.”

“Who?” I said.

They looked at me. “Boris Becker,” said Jack. He took the hopper. “Was that ’eighty-six?” he said to Dennis.

“I believe so,” said Dennis.

Dennis didn’t care about professional tennis. Years earlier, Margo had worked as a ball girl at a tournament on Key Biscayne, and Dennis had enjoyed watching her sprint across the court for the ball, then snap into position at the edge of the net. When he’d clapped, he’d clapped because she had made a good ball-girl move, like managing three balls at once while Jimmy Connors barked at her to get him a different one.

Jack lined us up at the baseline for a drill: we each took a turn hitting three rapid-fire shots. I’d never hit the third shot before, but this morning I did. Jack called “That a girl!” and then it was the next player’s turn. I couldn’t resist glancing over toward the gazebo where Dennis and Margo both sat watching from behind sunglasses. Dennis gave me a thumbs-up and Margo waved, and I felt ebullient.

After an hour of drills, I was paired with Jane—we were expected to play at least one set at the end of each practice—and as we walked together to a court several down from where Dennis and Margo still sat, looking a little bored by this point, Jane said, “Your