'He tries to help you.'
'He does?'
'He's encouraging you, he wants you to win.' 'How can he help me? He doesn't know a topspin volley from a groundstroke.'
'He knows the basics. You don't have to be an expert to offer advice, do you?'
'If you say so, mom.'
She waited and stopped herself from calling him 'young man,' and saying something traditionally altogether dumb. If he was right, why couldn't she agree with him?
She wanted to say something, desperately. But she held back. She tried it in her mind several times. She tried it again while she drew on the cigarette one last time and rolled the window down and threw out the butt.
'Bo--' she stopped.
'What?'
'When you come back--we don't have time now. '
'For what?'
'A talk. As soon as you come back. Bo--let's cut out the baloney and tell each other how we really feel. All right?' She had rehearsed saying, 'Let's cut out the bullshit,' but couldn't do it.
Bo looked at her. He didn't seem surprised. He just looked up and said, 'Okay.'
She felt relieved, just a little self-conscious. 'I think I understand how you feel. I mean about dad. Sometimes we let people bother us too much and we feel guilty when we really shouldn't.'
'I don't feel guilty.'
She was injecting her own problem. 'I don't mean necessarily guilty. I mean we sometimes feel distressed, you know, disturbed, when there's no reason to. We sort of let things get out of hand.' She was using words instead of sticking to feelings and losing him.
Bo didn't say anything. Mickey was conscious of the silence. She wanted to fill it, quickly.
'Are you worried about your match?'
'Why should I be worried?'
'I mean have you been thinking about it, planning your strategy?'
'I played this kid before,' Bo said. 'He's big, he's almost sixteen. But he's got a piss-poor backhand.'
'Well,' Mom said, 'you should beat him then. Right?'
Mickey waited for Frank in the main hall off the lobby. She wandered past the entrance to the grill, looking in, thinking the room was empty, and was trapped.
Tyra Taylor called out, 'Hi, celebrity!' The three ladies in tennis dresses, at the table near the window, waved and motioned her to join them. 'We were just talking about you. Come on and have a Bloody.'
Celebrity. Tyra would hang onto that all day and use it to death. At least there were no other members in the grill. Mickey approached their table shielding her eyes with one hand, squinting, knowing Tyra by the annoying sound of her voice, but not able to see faces clearly with the wall of glass behind them and the sun reflecting off the lake. Tyra Taylor, Kay Lyons and Jan something, with three Bloody Marys and three empties, getting a good jump on Sunday. Tyra said she loved the article, it was darling. Jan agreed and told Mickey she should be proud. Mickey said thank you, not sure what she should be proud of. Kay asked her, straight-faced, what it was like being a tennis mom.
But Tyra was still saying the article was darling and the picture of Bo, Bo was darling, wasn't he darling? So Mickey didn't have to answer Kay.
She wrinkled her nose a little and said she didn't think much of the way it was written, though it was probably accurate as far as it went. (She wasn't trying to be cute with the nose wrinkle. Why was Kay looking at her like that?)
Kay said, 'The girl wrote it straight, didn't she? The moms did the talking?'
'I guess what I'm saying, I thought it was loaded,' Mickey said, 'out of balance.'
'What you're saying,' Kay said, 'you're not a real tennis mom and you wish the hell you hadn't been there.'
Kay smiled--she was still a buddy--and Mickey was instantly relieved. Tyra could call her a celebrity and belabor the darling write-up and it wouldn't matter so much. At least someone knew she wasn't a tennis mom. If she had time, she wouldn't mind joining them, she liked them.
But sitting with the ladies--it was a strange thing--Mickey would be with them but not with them. She would be perched somewhere watching the group, herself in it--the same way she saw herself with Frank when they were arguing. Never completely involved. The ladies appeared to talk in turn, but they didn't. There was an overlapping of voices and topics changed abruptly. Mickey wondered if there was something wrong with her, why her attention span was so short when it came to cleaning ladies, cub scouts, the PTA, clothes, golf scores, tennis strokes, historical love novels written by women with three names, dieting, what their husbands liked for dinner, how much their husbands drank, how their husbands tried to make love on Saturday night and couldn't, face-lifts, boob-lifts, more dieting--
She would think, What am I doing here? Then think, But if I weren't here, where would I be?
She would try to think of something she would like to talk about. She would think and think and finally give up. (One time she had asked, 'Do you know how people communicate with each other on the planet Margo?' But no one asked how, or even seemed to be listening. Barbara or someone was telling what her kids liked for breakfast.)
Mickey would watch and half listen, or let her mind wander, or find herself studying Tyra Taylor's perky moves, asking herself, Do I do that? Tyra was forty pounds overweight in a size 14 tennis dress. She would sit with her back arched, her head cocked pertly and nibble celery like a little girl. She was deceiving. Tyra appeared animated, but told long, boring stories in a nasal monotone about her maid's car trouble and her dog's hemorrhoids. Her dog, a miniature schnauzer, was named Ingrid. (Tyra would give Ingrid doggie treats saying, 'Her's hungry, isn't her? Yes, her is, yes, her's a nice little girl,' over and over, mesmerizing Mickey who didn't often speak to dogs. She was never sure what to say to them. She would think, Try it. But she couldn't.)
Mickey got away from the Bloody Mary ladies saying she had to see Frank and then get out there and be a tennis mom--ha, ha--but she'd have a drink with them on the porch later. She waited in the hallway a few minutes, watching the door that led to the men's grill and locker room, then came back into the main grill and sat at one of the near tables. When Rose appeared, Mickey asked her if Mr. Dawson had been eating lunch. Rose said no, he was in there having a beer. Rose said she told him his wife was in the big room and he said fine, he'd be right out. Mickey thanked her--she felt awkward--and said she might as well have an iced tea. She lit a cigarette and continued to wait ... hearing Tyra's voice ... nodding and saying hi to the members in tennis and golf clothes coming in for lunch.
They'd stop and act surprised to see her and ask what she was doing all by herself. What's the matter, was she anti-social or something? Didn't she have any friends? Mickey would smile or pretend to laugh and go through the story about Bo's match and waiting for Frank, just having a quick iced tea.
Why did she pretend to laugh? It was all right, everyone did. But why was she tired of it? If she felt like giving them a smart-ass answer, why didn't she?
Because she couldn't think of a smart-ass answer fast enough.
No, that wasn't it. It would be fun, though, if she had the nerve. They'd say, 'How come you're all alone?' And she'd say, 'Because I break wind a lot.' Or they'd say, 'How come you're all alone?'
And she'd say, 'Because shithead knows I'm here and he's making me wait.'
Marshall Taylor said, 'What're you thinking about?'
He squinted across the grill and waved to Tyra, then looked down at Mickey again with a solemn expression and winked. Marshall Taylor, with a Deep Run golf cap sitting on top of his head and golf gloves on both hands, winked, leaned in over the table and seemed about to tell her something confidential.
He said, 'How are you?'
'I'm fine,' Mickey said. 'How're you, Marshall?'
He frowned as though in pain as he glanced over at the window. Maybe he didn't like Marshall; the name. Most of the members called him Marsh.
'I seem to recall saying something last night while we were dancing. You remember?'
