The Girls I've Been(59)

“Always putting me in my place,” she says, winking at me.

“Excuse me?”

I look over my shoulder to my right. He’s in the court next to ours, grinning at our little display.

“The rattling throwing you off?” he asks me.

I smile. Not my smile. Ashley’s smile. It’s brighter, with no hesitation. Ashley doesn’t know about being wary. “Totally.”

“I’ll see if I can talk to maintenance about looking at it later today.” His eyes slide to my mother, who’s watching him, then back to me as he grins. “Pulling a McEnroe on the ball machine will just make it rattle more.”

“Listen to the wise man, honey,” Mom says, the smile in her voice more than her face. She won’t give him a smile yet, not until he earns it. That’s how it works. Thank you, she mouths at him over my head, a little secret between them, outside of me; another kind of reward.

He lifts his racket as a sort of goodbye before jogging back to the center of his own court, where his tennis partner is waiting.

I spend another twenty minutes hitting balls, trying to ignore the rattle of the machine and the gaze I can feel on both of us from time to time as he glances over between his own sets.

Mom finally checks her watch and waves me in. “I’m going to take my steam and you need to eat lunch, young lady,” she tells me, plucking a stray bobby pin from my braid and sliding it back into place. “Please don’t fill up on just garlic fries. Order a meal with a whole grain or a crunchy vegetable or maybe even two crunchy vegetables, please, I beg of you.” She holds out her hands clasped teasingly, and I know it’s for him, the man who’s still watching us out of the corner of his eye, but it’s like going from invisible to seen after weeks, and I can’t help but want to melt into the safe glow of it.

This is what we do. I can do this. Even if I made mistakes with Katie, like she said. I can make up for it.

I have to.

“I promise,” I say, packing up my tennis racket and chasing after all the stray balls with the ball basket before she slings an arm over my shoulder and we make our way to the club locker rooms.

“Ready?” she asks after I’ve showered and changed out of my tennis skirt and into a sundress. I nod. We split at the locker room door, me to the club restaurant and her to the bar across the way that still is a good vantage point into the restaurant. She’s half hidden by the palm fronds or whatever greenery they’ve got stashed everywhere.

I get a table for two and order a heaping mound of garlic fries. I page through my phone—Ashley watches tennis videos on Instagram and has kitten GIFs saved to her files—until my food arrives.

I can feel eyes on me the whole time. Setting down the phone, I dip the fries into the aioli the waiter brought and munch away, waiting.

I feel him before I hear him. The barest brush of air at my right before he sits down across from me.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to order just garlic fries,” he says.

My eyes go big. I project my guilt, dropping the fry on the plate.

He grins, taking a fry off my plate and eating it. “These are better than whole grains,” he agrees. “Not as healthy, though. You’re a pretty decent tennis player.”

The bam, bam, bam of his words is like a tennis play in itself, and it sets warning tingling down my spine. It’s rapid: agreement, followed by a criticism and right into a veiled compliment.

It’s a tactic Mom’s taught me to use. It sets my teeth on edge instantly.

“Thank you,” I say. “Are you a coach?”

He shakes his head. “I own some gyms here in Miami. Your mother . . .” He trails off, like even the mention of her is distracting.

“Heidi,” I supply helpfully, like I’m supposed to. When the marks decide to approach her through me, it’s supposed to be a cute little dance. I’m supposed to be helpful and smiling and giggle at the right moment when they fumble finding the right words.

“Heidi,” he says, and the way he says it . . .

My teeth grind together so hard my jaw hurts, and I don’t know . . . I don’t know if it’s my gut or if it’s because of what happened with Katie, what I’m feeling, which is Go, run, now. I’m caught in the indecision, a fish in a net, unable to flop out or breathe deep.

“And you are?” he asks me.

“Oh, sorry.” I hold my hand out with a little flourish. All the girls have good manners. “I’m Ashley.”

He shakes it. “Raymond.”

“Nice to meet you.” I drop his hand as quick as I can while still being polite. “I ordered a grain bowl with extra avocado, too,” I tell him, lowering my voice conspiratorially. “I wouldn’t disobey her.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Mom knows best,” I say cheerfully.

“You’re very good,” he says.

“I thought I was pretty decent.” It slips out of my mouth before I can stop it, so I follow it up with a smile for softness.

“I’m not talking about your tennis game. I’m talking about how you lifted the credit card out of that golfer’s wallet yesterday when you bumped into him.”

I go cold as I remember the lift I made yesterday, the black card that I had already used to buy a thousand dollars’ worth of gift cards, which can be better than a bank card if you don’t want to be traced.