Charles came over immediately with coffee and orange juice. “Good morning, Mr. Carter.”
“Call me Nick.” Nick looked around. “Um…say, Charles, has Ab…Miss Fremont been down here this morning?”
“I’m afraid you just missed her,” said Charles. “She just left to play tennis.” Charles didn’t add that Abby had sat at this very table and that she had looked up expectantly at every passing person.
“Okay,” said Nick with a shrug. He looked down at the menu. “I’ll have the fruit cup and a muffin,” he said, feeling a sense of satisfaction with himself.
“Bran or blueberry?”
“Blueberry,” said Nick. Charles departed with the order and Nick busied himself with his juice and coffee. He was ready to face the day. He’d watched the movie last night and then fallen asleep. He’d gotten up twice to put lotion on his face. By this morning, the worst of the red was gone. He still had a sunburn, but it wasn’t the raw, angry red of the day before. And the sting was gone. Whatever that stuff was that Sally had given him, it was magic.
“Nick Carter?”
He looked up. Two young women in bikinis stood beside him. They were very pretty and very well-built.
“Yes,” he said, giving them the Nick grin.
“I told you it was him, Lisa,” said the first girl looking at her friend. “She said it couldn’t be you,” she turned back to Nick, “because you were so f…” She stopped.
“…far from California,” put in Lisa.
Nick wasn’t fooled. “Well, it’s me,” he said.
Charles appeared with the food. He looked inquiringly at the girls and then at Nick.
“Uh, you girls had breakfast?” asked Nick.
They had, but they’d be happy to have more coffee, they said, plopping down into the chairs beside him and planting their ample breasts on the table.
“I’m Marybeth and this is Lisa.”
Nick spooned a strawberry into his mouth and nodded ‘hello’.
“What are you doing here?” asked Lisa.
“Vacation,” said Nick.
“Pretty dull place, don’t you think?” pouted Marybeth. “This is my parents’ idea of a graduation gift. I wanted to go to Europe. But they said ‘no’. Terrorists and all that’.”
“It’s nice here,” said Nick, non-committally.
“You going to be here long?” Lisa asked in a breathy whisper. Nick guessed she was trying to sound sexy. He thought she sounded like she was getting a cold.
“A couple more days,” he said. He broke his muffin in half and spread butter on it. Charles arrived with the coffee and two more cups.
Nick continued eating his breakfast while the girls talked around him. They were from Lansing, Michigan and had just finished Junior College. They were leaving the next day. Nick wasn’t sure why he felt relief at the news.
“Do you want to come down to the beach with us when you finish your breakfast?” asked Marybeth, tossing her long hair and sticking out her chest.
“Uh…that’d be great, thanks for the invite, but I…uh…I have a tennis date,” he said.
Charles watched from his vantage point by the serving station. Why Nick didn’t want to hang with these girls was beyond him, but he obviously didn’t. His body language spoke volumes. Charles decided to help him out.
“Mr. Carter,” he said, removing Nick’s dishes. “Miss Fremont says she’s ready to play now.”
“Thank you, Charles,” said Nick formally. He turned to the girls. “Well, ladies, it was a pleasure to meet you both, but I…uh…I have to go now.” He stood up and gave a nod of his head. They stood up with him. Marybeth put a hand on his arm and said that it was a real pleasure and if he had some time after his tennis match, well, they’d be on the beach all day.
Nick muttered some non-committal reply and followed Charles to the serving station. He slipped a bill into his hand and said, “Thanks, man, and uh…Charles…” His voice dropped to a whisper. “…where are the tennis courts?”
Charles smiled and spoke without moving his lips. “Through the hotel and across the driveway.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dennis was a little nervous. He’d seen how hard Abby could hit the ball the day before and he’d seen her agility. And she seemed to be in a mood today to serve up some more punishment. Dennis had to balance his desire not to re-injure his leg with his job, which was to play a good game. He also didn’t want to get his ass kicked by a woman.
Abby was not in a good mood. She hadn’t slept well. She had watched the end of the movie and turned off the television. She thought she’d go to sleep immediately and have lovely dreams about Mr. Clooney and Mr. Pitt, but she didn’t. She tossed and turned and felt anxious, but couldn’t really say why. She debated with herself about taking a sleeping pill. She had three bottles left, after all. Just one pill. That was all. Just one.
Finally, she got up and dug through her luggage to the very bottom. She shook one pill out of Sylvia and tossed it back with some water. She tossed and turned and was just debating getting up for another pill when she slipped into sleep. This morning, she felt slow and sluggish. A brisk shower had helped with that but not enough for her to give a tennis pro a good match. She made a decision that she would flush all the pills after she came back from the courts.
She had eaten a light breakfast on the patio, gravitating to the same table as the day before. For the view, she told herself. She realized that she was looking for Nick. Every time someone came by, she’d look up and then feel a twinge of disappointment. She wasn’t sure but she thought the waiter had noticed. Great! Another person to feel sorry for Ugly Duckling Abby.
“Off to the courts, Miss Fremont?” inquired Charles, as he removed the dishes.
“Yes, Charles. Dennis says his leg is feeling better today.”
“Not for long, I’ll bet,” smiled Charles. He and Dennis had had a drink together last night and Dennis had described both the ability of Abby’s game and the ferocity.
Abby went upstairs and changed into her tennis things. On her way back down, she stopped by the concierge’s desk to inquire how long it would take to have her car brought around if she decided to go into town. “No more than ten minutes, Miss Fremont,” was the response, but Abby didn’t really hear it. Over his shoulder, Abby could see out the back doors. Just standing up from a table was Nick, and standing up with him were two young women in bikinis. Two pretty young women. Two stacked young women. And one of them laid her hand on him in a very familiar fashion.
“Miss Fremont?”
Abby turned back to the concierge. “Thank you, James. I’ll let you know if I need it.”
She went out to the tennis court and started warming up. She hit the ball hard. But this time the face on the ball was her own…her own stupid, homely face, sitting atop her skinny, flat-chested body. Two pimples on a pumpkin. Two fried eggs on an ironing board. Boobettes. She’d heard them all. Her Aunt Penelope, the family black sheep, used to tell her, ‘Don’t sweat it, honey. A man doesn’t need more than a mouthful.’ Well, that was about all Abby had to offer. She had no pretty face or luscious body to entice a man into talking to her long enough to get to know her. Not that she wanted to get to know Nick, but it was just one more in a long line of humiliating experiences.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, for God’s sakes! She smacked the ball hard. It rocketed over the net and stuck in the fence at the other end of the court.
“Wow!”
Abby turned to see Nick standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets. Abby opened her mouth to tell him his sunburn seemed better, but then realized that she wasn’t supposed to know about it. “You got some sun,” she said instead.
He reached a hand to his face. “You should have seen it yesterday. I was like a tomato. I…uh… fell asleep…on the rocks.”
Dennis came out of his office. “Okay, Miss Fremont, I’m ready.” He stopped when he saw Nick. “Oh, do you have another partner?”
“Stop calling me Miss Fremont, Dennis. My name is Abby. And I don’t think Nick…I mean…” she turned to him, “Do you play?”
“No, no, you two go ahead. I’m so out of shape, I’d probably die in the first game. But do you mind if I watch?”
Abby shook her head and looked at Dennis. He was a pro, he didn’t care who watched. And the tiny blush creeping up Abby’s neck made him think that all her concentration might not be on her game.
He was wrong.
Abby centred her focus on the game and never lost it. Dennis was stronger than her, but he was careful of his leg. Abby had speed and agility and an uncanny knack for reading his mind. She moved to the spot where his shot was going to go almost before he’d made up his mind where he was sending it.
They played two sets, won one each. At the end of the second, Abby heard applause. She looked around. There were nearly a dozen people standing around watching them, dressed in tennis whites. Nick was leaning against a post, his arms crossed and a half-grin on his face.
Abby turned back to Dennis. “You have customers.”
“Yes,” said Dennis, “and my leg is giving me a message that it’s time for a break. But I’m happy to call this a draw.” He walked her to the gate and opened it. He looked at Nick, who had come to the gate to meet her. “This is a very good tennis player. You’d better be careful if you play with her.”
Abby blushed again. “Stop it, Dennis.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Why didn’t you ever compete?”
A shadow crossed her eyes and her mouth turned up in a bitter smile. “My mother said it would make me gay. She wouldn’t allow it.” Then she shrugged and waved her hand, as if erasing the memory. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” said Dennis, and turned to a middle-aged couple who were waiting less than patiently for the conversation to end.
“You’re really good,” said Nick, taking a step away from the court, assuming she would follow.
“Thanks,” she said simply.
“You hit the ball so hard, I mean for a…” He stopped. He wasn’t sure how welcome the rest of the sentence would be.
“For a girl?” said Abby. Nick rolled his eyes and nodded. Abby laughed. “I know that I don’t have the strength that men do, but I have a secret strategy.” She looked around dramatically as if afraid that someone might steal her secret. She leaned into him and whispered, “I picture my mother’s face on the ball.”
Nick considered that. “Man, if I did that, I could knock it into the next county. My mother…” He shuddered.
“It’s not always my mother. It just depends who has angered me recently.”
Nick laughed. “You’ve got class. I would have said ‘pissed off’.”
Abby drew herself up to her full height. She put her nose in the air and said in a haughty tone, with a hint of a British accent. “Young ladies of good breeding do not use vulgarity.” Then she laughed, “Miss Beecham. Saturday afternoons for three agonizing years.”
“Oh, I see,” said Nick in a British accent. Except that it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close. He screwed up his face. Abby laughed, her first full laugh. It was a deep, rich sound. Nick went on, “My finishing school was a little different than that. I actually got taught how to swear.”
Abby raised an eyebrow. “Really? From the boys?”
“Yeah. I guess we had a lot of time on our hands.”
“Do you swear a lot?” she asked.
“I used to. Not so much now.” He thought about the first three words she had ever heard him say. Two of them had been curse words. “Although you might think…”
She waved her hand, wiping the memory away. “I mean, in general. Sometimes…I mean, there are situations…where anyone would swear.”
“Not Brian,” said Nick. “Not only does he not swear, he gets upset when someone else does.” Nick thought for a moment. “Not ‘shit’ of course. He’s a southern boy…he says ‘shit’. But no God stuff. He’d rather hear ‘fu…’, I mean ‘the f-word’ than ‘for God’s sakes’. And if he hears…” Nick lowered his voice to a whisper, “’Jesus Christ’…he’ll go off on you.”
“I see…and what about the others?”
“Howie doesn’t swear. He doesn’t feel the need. He hardly ever gets mad and he’s always concerned that there might be a fan around.”
Abby nodded her head. She wished she could view the world like Howie.
“AJ swears like a trooper. At least he used to…man, when he was drinking…every second word out of his mouth started with ‘f’.”
“What about Kevin?”
“Ahhh,” said Nick with a smile. “Now, there is a man who knows how to curse. He doesn’t do it very often, but he picks his moments and…it’s like…” Nick tried to think of the right word. “It’s like…punctuation.”
Abby nodded. She understood what he was saying. “Very evocative of the moment.”
Nick nodded. Okay, sure.
He stopped walking. They had reached the front door of the hotel.
