Summertime Guests - Wendy Francis Page 0,27

he’s disappointed to see that the post has received only a handful of likes. Why are people so sheepish when it comes to calling out corrupt politicians on the terrible things they do? He’s much more likely to get a positive response to a post of a puppy chasing its tail (an easy hundred likes, no problem). But say one thing about how people should be held accountable for their actions, and suddenly, all those so-called friends have crawled under a rock.

Not that everyone has to agree with him, of course. And yet, more often than not, he’s surprised when they don’t. Because he’s usually posting about tough-to-argue-against ideas, things like saving the environment or being a responsible citizen. If he were pressed, he’d probably admit that he posted as a distraction from what he really needs to do—which is to call his department head, George, and alert him to the harassing text he got from a student. It’s university protocol. Nearly twenty-four hours have passed since Charlie’s text. But there’ve been no follow-up messages, which Jason interprets as a good sign—the kid probably just needed to blow off steam.

Next to the tennis net, there’s a white chair (very Wimbledon-like, he thinks), where he tucks his phone underneath a towel and out of the sun. It’s ten thirty-five. They’ve reserved the court for an hour, which should be plenty of time for his girlfriend, a former junior tennis champ, to crush him. Next to the court is a mounted brass plaque that Jason steps over to read. It says In July 1921, the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, also known as “Silent Cal,” played tennis with his wife, Grace, on this court. They were honored guests of the Seafarer several times during his presidency.

“Hey, did you know President Coolidge played here?” he shouts over to Gwen, who’s already on her side of the court and stretching, her legs in an inverted V, her hands flat to the ground.

Her blond ponytail bounces when she lifts her head. “No. Cool,” she says, as if she’s not really all that impressed.

Jason goes to uncap the can of fresh tennis balls, purchased for a princely sum at the hotel gift shop this morning (because even though they’d remembered their rackets, they’d somehow managed to forget tennis balls). Each ball is stamped with the Seafarer emblem, a modern outline of the hotel with three wiggly lines for waves underneath. As they tumble out of the canister, the familiar chemical scent whisks him straight back to childhood when he and his little sister, Ruth, used to hit balls back and forth at the end of their narrow street. He stuffs two into his pocket and trots over to his side of the court. Gwen’s already in position on the service line, and they swat a few back and forth, warming up. When Jason hits three consecutive balls out of bounds, she yells, “Don’t worry. I’m not judging!”

“Ha! Right,” he calls out, his thoughts returning to when tennis was his get-out-of-jail-free ticket. Whenever their dad was having one of his nights, as his mother used to call them, he and his sister (now happily married and a financial adviser in Manhattan) would grab their rackets and play until the sky grew dark, by which time his dad would have usually passed out on the couch. His father’s moods back then were volatile, unpredictable, hard to read. One minute the family would be sitting around the dinner table and talking about high-school football, and the next thing he knew his dad’s hand would wrap around his wrist in a vise grip after Jason had asked for the potatoes to be passed. “Think you might want to add a word to that request?” he’d demand, and Jason would squeak out “Please?” Even after he’d acquiesced, his plate would sometimes end up on the floor, and Jason, in tears, would have to sweep up the shattered, jagged pieces.

Inexplicably, his father’s wrath never fell on Ruthie, only on him and, by default, his mother. Sometimes when his mom tried to intervene on Jason’s behalf, his father’s face would flush crimson before he’d stand up and slap her across the face, the lingering imprint of his hand still visible on her cheek hours later.

Quickly, Jason learned the skills of an artful dodger, and later, as his body began to assume the bulk of adolescence, the punches of a fighter. He’d read up on what it took to emancipate yourself,