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She called him and they went to the Club to play tennis.  Abby was a very good tennis player.  She played two or three times a week, against the club pro if he wasn’t booked.  He enjoyed playing with her.  She was better than most of the men who came to the club.  Of course, she was younger and in better shape.

Abby didn’t enjoy playing against prospective suitors.  It wasn’t very feminine, as her mother constantly reminded her, to run a man’s ass all over the court.  A gentleman gasping for breath could hardly propose.  Her mother begged her to lose gracefully, just once, Abigail.  Do you have to win every time?  No, her daughter replied, only when I’m better than them.

It was the definitive bellwether for her.  Not to tell if they were interested in her or not, they weren’t, she knew that, but to determine how deceitful they were willing to be to have a shot at the Fremont vault.

She knew who she could beat and who she couldn’t.  She had no interest in men who lost on purpose; or in men who lost and tried to act like it didn’t matter, when it really did; or in men who lost and then pretended that they had let her win.  She didn’t like men who apologized for beating her; she never apologized when she beat them.  And so far, the only man she’d ever played who had not fallen into one of these categories was Troy, the club pro.

And now Philip Randall.

Philip defeated her two sets out of three.  But they were hard-fought sets, both of them giving it their all.  They complimented each other as they played.  Good shot!  Well done!  He called the lines fairly; if her shot was out, he said so.  By the end of the session, they were both sweating and red-faced.

“That was wonderful,” he said, as they were putting their racquets away.  “I’ve really missed that.  You’re a good player, a real challenge.  Do you think we could do it again some time, Abigail?”

Certainly, she assured him with a smile, she was always looking for a worthy opponent.  Same time next week?

He accepted and they went to separate change rooms.  He didn’t offer to buy her lunch or even a drink.  Abby was glad.  That was when it got awkward.  At home, Abby waited for the inquisition from her mother.  But it never came.  “Did you have a nice time, dear?” was all she said. 

The next week after tennis, he invited her for a drink.  Then they started playing tennis twice a week.  The drink became lunch.  And that was all.  He never invited her out anywhere and she never invited him.  Tennis and lunch twice a week for a month.  And her mother never said a word.

That should have been the tip-off right there, thought Abby, the fact that her mother stayed out of it.  How could I have been so stupid as to think that she’d finally reformed, grown up, become a human being, whatever?  When all along she knew what was going on.

And what was going on was that the suite at the Renaissance was being paid for by John Fremont.  That Philip’s consulting business was a myth.  His only purpose in being in Chicago was to woo and marry Abigail Fremont.  And not only did he have her parents’ blessing, he had their solid financial backing as well.

Philip gradually upped the ante.  Tennis and Sunday brunch at the club with her parents brought out the wistful confession of how much he missed home cooking.  Restaurants were fine and Chicago had a lot of good ones, but every now and then, well…you just wanted tuna casserole.  At the time, Abby thought it was luck that he had named her favorite comfort food.  Before she had finished processing the thought, her mother had invited him home for dinner.  So Wednesday evening dinner was added to Tuesday and Thursday tennis.

Did he play bridge? asked Sharon at dinner the second Wednesday.  They were having Mrs. Smith’s famous meat loaf and scalloped potatoes.  This was John Fremont’s favorite and also one of Philip’s, as it turned out.

Yes, he did play bridge, quite well, in fact, and he was added to the list of extras for the Sunday afternoon Bridge Club.  Wasn’t that wonderful, said her mother, we’re always looking for an extra player.

Abby liked him.  He was a nice man.  But she wasn’t in love with him.  And he wasn’t in love with her.  He hadn’t made any kind of move in that direction at all.  She didn’t even consider him a boyfriend or a date.  She considered him a friend of her father’s.

Until the Tribune Ball.

Abby had never been.  You didn’t tag along with your parents to this.  You didn’t slap on an Organizing Committee badge and lurk in the corner.  You had to have a date.  The tickets cost a lot of money.  It was a big social event in Chicago.  Abby’s father asked her if she would go with Philip.  Abby wondered aloud why Philip didn’t ask her himself.  He will, said her father, if he thinks you’ll say ‘yes’.  He doesn’t want to ask you if you don’t want to go, her father explained.  He likes you, likes being your friend and playing tennis with you, and he doesn’t want to louse that up by asking you out if you don’t want him to.

Abby thought it over.  She was touched by Philip’s concern.  She didn’t want to jeopardize the friendship either.  So she gave her father the go-ahead and the next day, Philip phoned and asked her to the Ball.

It was while they were dancing that their relationship changed.  Philip was a good dancer.  Of course, he was.  Philip was good at everything.  It was during a slow dance.  They had managed successfully to avoid the first two, but they were on the dance floor when the third one began.  Philip pulled her into his arms without a word.  They moved around the floor.  Suddenly, he sighed.

What the hell was that about? thought Abby.  She felt his hand in the small of her back pulling her closer.  His hand moved up and down her back.  His other hand pulled hers in close to his body.  Abby stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.  His breath in her ear was warm.  He went to move away from her.

“No, it’s okay,” she said, and leaned her body into his.  She put her head down on his shoulder.   They finished the dance and she turned to go back to the table.  His hand still held hers.

“This way,” he said, and led her out of the ballroom.  He dragged her along a hallway without saying a word.  Then he stopped and looked around.  He pulled her behind a large potted plant.  “Abigail,” he said.  “I’m sorry if this offends you, but…”  And he took her face in both his hands and kissed her until she thought she’d faint.

“Why would you think I’d be offended?” she asked breathlessly, when he let her go.  And that’s when he did his song and dance about their relationship.  How he wanted more, but blah, blah, blah… He knew she’d think…yadda, yadda, yadda…  And the bottom line was that her friendship was too important to him to jeopardize it by injecting unwanted emotion, but that he was starting to care for her and that he really, really wanted to have sex with her.

It was all so open and honest.  He was so afraid of rejection.  And she, who had been afraid of rejection her entire life, fell for it…hook, line and sinker.

They went back into the Ball and danced the night away, but now they held hands when they left the dance floor.  He escorted her to her father’s car and waved goodbye as they drove off, but first, he gave her a small kiss on the cheek.  The next day they all met for brunch at the club and she slipped a note into his hand.  He left the brunch early, citing a headache.  When the Fremonts got home, Abby announced her intention to go for a walk.  She met Philip in the old chauffeur’s quarters above the garage and he made passionate love to her all afternoon.

No!  No!  No!  I’m not going there, she told herself sternly.  She got up off the bed and paced the hotel room floor.  Don’t think about that, she said.  Don’t think about his hands and his mouth and how he made you feel…valued…wanted…beautiful.  Don’t think about how you started going out in public and all of Chicago society considered you a couple and were just waiting for the announcement.  Don’t think about how you tested him, over and over again, driving him to the edge, trying to prove to yourself that it wasn’t real.  That it couldn’t be real.  Nobody could love Abigail Fremont.  Don’t think about the first time he said it to you.  Don’t think about what you were doing at the time, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Think about the day you found out.  The day you walked into your father’s study to get a pair of scissors.  Not knowing they were there.  Think about the words.  “…a deal is a deal, John, but honest to God, Abigail makes it so hard sometimes…”  A deal is a deal. 

A deal is a deal.

Abby backed out of the room.  A deal is a deal.  What did that mean?  She went to her rooms and sat on the edge of the bed for an hour, not moving.  A deal is a deal.  Finally, she picked up the phone and called the Renaissance.  She identified herself as Mavis Doherty, John Fremont’s assistant.  She was calling about the suite occupied by Mr. Philip Randall.

The desk clerk put her through to Accounts Receivable.  Was there a problem, Ms. Doherty?  No, no, she just wanted to reconcile her figures with theirs.  The Fremont Corporation had so many accounts, she just wanted to make sure this expenditure was coming out of the right one.  It was.  It was coming out of John Fremont’s personal account.

She sat at dinner that night, not saying a word.  She had to concentrate all her effort on breathing, on not shaking apart.

“Is there anything wrong, Abigail dear?” asked her mother.

Abigail shook her head.  “No.  No,” she said in a quiet voice.  “I was just wondering how much I was worth.”

The three of them looked at her.  How much you’re worth?  What an odd question, they thought.

“No,” she said, looking from one to the next.  “I guess I phrased that poorly.  I meant…” and she looked straight across the table at Philip, “…I wonder how much I cost.”

Her parents dropped their eyes to the table, but Philip held her gaze.  “I hope you invested it wisely,” she said to him, “because you aren’t getting any more.  I know that ‘a deal is a deal’…” she turned and glared at her father, “…but this deal is off.”  And she picked up her plate of tuna casserole and she threw it across the table at her intended.  Her tennis prowess paid off.  It was a direct hit.  The plate of food smacked him squarely in the face and slid down his chest.  Bits of macaroni and celery and tuna flew everywhere.

Her mother sat at the end of the table, frozen with horror.  So many breaches of etiquette had taken place that she didn’t know where to begin.  And of course, they were going to have to start all over again with Abigail…finding her a man…because this one wasn’t going to stay, even Sharon Fremont could see that.

“How could you, Daddy?” Abby turned pained eyes on her father.  John Fremont stared at his plate.  He would not meet his daughter’s eyes.

Philip Randall rose to his feet.  He picked up his linen napkin and wiped his face.  Then he used the napkin to wipe the worst of the mess from his jacket.  He never took his eyes off Abigail.  “You’re pathetic,” he said, finally.  “All of you.”  He looked at Abby’s mother and then her father.  “I tried.  I really tried.”  He raised his hand and pointed at Abby.  “But you know…you’re just too much work, Abigail.  You’re just too much effort.  I’d rather be poor.”  And he walked from the room.

And that left the three of them. 

“Pathetic,” said Abby, echoing Philip’s words.  She reached for her wine glass.  Her mother’s eyes widened.  How much more was going to be thrown about? 

“Here’s to us,” said Abby, raising her glass in a toast.  “The pathetic Fremonts.  And you thought it was only me.”  Her father would not meet her eyes.  “I hate you, Daddy,” she said, rising to her feet.  “I hate you.  I hate you.”  And she hurled the wine glass at the wall behind his head.  The shattering glass made him jump, but still he did not look up.

“Look at me,” she screamed.  He raised his eyes.  There were tears at the corners of them.  Abby tilted up her chin.  Her anguish made her face truly ugly at this moment.  She pointed her finger at him and enunciated very carefully.  “I…will…never…forgive…you.”

She left the room and went upstairs to kill herself.  She went into her closet and pulled out her secret stash.  Her friends.  She had decided long ago, after reading a biography of  Virginia Woolf, that her fate was probably to kill herself one day.  So after each heartbreak, after each faithless suitor, she had added to her “friends” collection.  She had gone to a different clinic in a different part of the Chicago suburbs.  She had used a false name and paid cash.  She had told her story of sleepless nights.  The doctors weren’t stupid.  They had given her a prescription for three or four pills only.  She had gone back to each one of them exactly twice…to garner a few more pills.  And now her “friends” collection held five full bottles of pills. 

The doctors weren’t stupid, but they obviously weren’t readers either.  She had prescriptions in the names of Ginny Woolf, Erma Hemingway, Sylvia Plath (she hadn’t even had to try and prevaricate on that one) and Nancy Sidney (it was the best take she could come up with on Sid Vicious and his ill-fated love) and Courtney Cobain.

She held the bottles in her hands.  Now was the time.  It did not get worse than this.  But no, she could not do this here.  Not in this place.  If she were going to set her soul free, it could not be from here.  Her soul would be trapped forever in these confining, smothering walls.  She just knew that, somehow.  So she would go someplace to set her soul free.  She would go someplace where she had once been happy.  She would go to Brookhaven Lodge.  She would kill herself at Brookhaven Lodge.

And here she was at Brookhaven Lodge.  And she had discovered some things.  One, it was harder to kill yourself than she realized. Two, taking a lot of pills on an empty stomach made you throw up.  It did not kill you.  Thank God, she had only taken Ginny and Erma.  She still had the others in reserve.  Three.  People just wouldn’t mind their own business.  Nick.  Bloody Nick.  Bloody interfering, heartbroken, wouldn’t-go-away-Nick.  And fourth and finally, what she discovered was that the ultimate betrayal…it wasn’t Philip…he’d only been doing what he did best…the ultimate betrayal was her father.  Daddy…her protector…the one who was there for her…the buffer against her mother and all her machinations…Daddy…how could you do this to me?

And then she really wept.  I can not do this.  I can not do this.  I can not do this. 

Suck it up and go on.

Fuck you, she shouted at the walls and at Nick and at the world in general.  It was something she had never said out loud.  It felt good.  Fuck you!  She reared back her head and howled it.  But good breeding is good breeding and she felt immediately ashamed.  She fell onto the bed and smothered her face in the pillow.  Fuck you, she whimpered.  Fuck you.  Over and over again until she fell asleep.