Pineapple Street(18)
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. And just so you know,” he tilted his head at her, squinting his eyes, “I think you’re actually a ten.” With that he turned and walked back the way they had come, and Georgiana died forty-seven deaths inside. It was the cheesiest, best thing any man had ever said to her, and she immediately pulled out her phone to text Lena and Kristin. They had been waiting on the shore, searching the seas for signs of hope, and finally, their ship was coming in.
* * *
—
The next evening they met on the front steps of the mansion and walked together to Atlantic Avenue. Brady had on athletic shorts with a small, clear sticker still affixed to the leg, and his tennis bag looked brand-new. They warmed up at the net playing mini tennis, volleying the ball back and forth. She could see he held the racket comfortably, had a nice swing, and moved with the ease of a practiced athlete. They backed up to the service line and rallied. He was strong—Georgiana always liked playing against guys—and they took turns walloping the ball cross-court, neatly placing their shots in the same spots over and over. When they started playing for points, Georgiana realized that she was indeed much better than he was, but that he was a fun competitor. He played fast and hard but occasionally hit one crazy shot that was so wildly misplaced they had to chase it onto the adjoining courts, yelling apologies to their neighbors and stifling their laughter. They played for an hour until the whistle signaled the end of their session and the next pair sauntered onto the court, stretching ostentatiously, unwilling to miss even a second of their allotted time. Tennis players were notoriously intense.
Georgiana and Brady began playing once a week, usually on Tuesdays. At work they maintained a professional distance, exchanging quiet nods and grins in the halls, sitting at opposite ends of the lunch table. But on the walks to and from the courts they talked. They talked about Brady’s travel bug; about the year after college he spent in the Peace Corps, stationed in Uganda; the time he attended a wedding there and they slaughtered a goat and asked him to take the first bite even though he had barely met the bride and groom and the idea of goat made him queasy. His parents were international aid workers, and he’d grown up traveling with them, had a passport full of stamps by age ten. Georgiana told him about the safari she took as a child, her grandmother so bored by the entire thing that she read a novel in the back of the Jeep while drinking gin from a tiny flask; and the time her brother climbed Kilimanjaro with his college roommate and ended up getting so sick he lost fifteen pounds. (Cord quickly gained it back on a steady diet of corn chips and salsa.) With each story told, Georgiana was horribly aware of the differences in their lives. While Brady had struck out on great adventures, had seen so much of the wide world, Georgiana had lived as a coddled rich girl, and, if pressed, would admit that most of her great adventures involved a sleepaway camp that cost twelve thousand dollars a summer or college trips to the Caribbean or Mexico that passed in a haze of mezcal and cerveza.
* * *
—
When Brady went away for two weeks, traveling to a malaria conference in Seattle, Georgiana felt her days go flat. Gone was the bubble of expectation she felt each morning walking down Hicks Street to work, eager to spy him at the printer or mailboxes. Gone was the happy swagger she felt thwacking the tennis ball at him, knowing he was spending an entire hour facing her, waiting for her to dictate his next move. She felt her life was on pause, and fourteen days stretched before her like an eternity.
To pass the time, she met her brother for dinner at the Ale House on Henry Street after work one night. She hadn’t really spent any time with him one-on-one lately, and so they took a booth in back and ordered pints of Sour Monkey, burgers and fries, and a plate of calamari. Much to their mother’s horror, Georgiana and Cord were absolute garbage disposals, eating anything and everything. When she was eleven and Cord was home on college break, they would hold contests to see who could eat the most chicken tenders, who could eat more hot dogs. It was disgusting, but they loved it, and their mutual enthusiasm for junk food was a bond between them.
“So, we haven’t even really talked about your honeymoon. How was it?” Georgiana asked. “And please don’t tell me how many times you boned.”
“Well, we boned a lot.” Cord nodded seriously. “Mostly doggy style.”
“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes.
“No, it was awesome. Turks is beautiful, we did tons of hiking and swimming and snorkeling, and we got massages and did all the romantic crap.”
“Sounds like an episode of The Bachelor. Cool.”
“It was unabashedly cheesy. Literally everyone at the resort was on their honeymoon. It was all couples and rose petals and people holding hands and feeding each other strawberries and champagne.”
“I wouldn’t have thought that was your style, but okay.”
“Aw, are you jealous because you don’t have anyone to get a couples massage with?”
The waitress came by and dropped off the platter of calamari, and Georgiana set about squeezing lemon all over the crispy mess.
“First of all, couples massages are just weird. I think they’re designed so that people who hate each other can do something romantic and not talk.”
“Hot take, okay.”
“And secondly, maybe I do have somebody.”