Double Fault. Lionel Shriver

was the most gutless demonstration I’ve ever seen,” he announced.

      “Oh, men always make excuses,” said Willy. “Beaten by a girl.”

      “I didn’t mean he was gutless. I meant you.”

      She flushed. “Pardon?”

      “Your playing that meatball is like a pit bull taking on a Chihuahua. Is that how you get your rocks off?”

      “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have rocks.”

      The lanky man clucked. “I think you do.”

      While Randy looked sexy from a court away and disillusioning face to face, this interloper appeared gawky and ungainly at a distance, his nose lumpy and outsized, his brow overhung, his figure stringy. But close up the drastic outlines gave way to a subtler, teasing smile, and elusive, restless eyes. Though his torso narrowed to a spindly waist, his calves and forearms widened with veiny muscle.

      “Somebody’s got to put loudmouths in their place,” she snapped.

      “Other loudmouths. You tired?”

      Willy glanced at her dry tank top. “If I were, I wouldn’t admit it.”

      “Then how about a real game?” He spun his racket, a solid make. He was cocky, but Willy Novinsky hadn’t turned down the offer of a tennis game for eighteen years.

      At the first crack of the ball, Willy realized how lazily she’d been playing with Randy. She botched the first three warm-up rallies before reaching into her head and twisting a dial. Once it was adjusted up a notch, threads of the bedraggled net sharpened; scuffled paint at her feet flushed to a more vivid green. White demarcations lifted and seemed to hover. Fissures went blacker and more treacherous, and as it hurtled toward her the ball loomed larger and came from a more particular place.

      She played guardedly at first, taking the measure of her opponent. His strokes were unorthodox; some replies came across as dumb luck. His form was in shambles; he scooped up one last-minute ball with what she could swear was a golf swing. But he lunged for everything. When she passed him his racket was always stabbing nearby, and though many a down-the-line drive was too much for him, she never caught him flat-footed on his T just glooming at it.

      And there were no Ran-dee!’s. He never apologized or swore. He didn’t mutter Get it together, Jack! or, for that matter, Good shot. When her serve was long he raised his finger; at an ace he flattened his palm. In fact, he didn’t say one word for the whole match.

      The game was over too soon at 6–0, 6–2. Willy strolled regretfully to the net, promising herself not to hand him excuses, but also not to gloat. Despite the lopsided score, they’d had some long, lovely points, and she hoped he would play her again. Before she’d formulated a remark striking just the right gracious yet unrepentant note, he reached across the tape, grasped Willy’s waist, and lifted her to the sky.

      “You’re so light!” he extolled, lowering her gently to the court. “And unbelievably fucking powerful.” He wiped his palm on his sopping T-shirt, and formally extended his hand. “Eric Oberdorf.”

      They shook. “Willy Novinsky.”

      She’d been braced for the usual grumpy terseness, or an affected breeziness as if the contest were mere bagatelle, expressed in an overwillingness to discuss other matters. But grinning ear to ear, he talked only of tennis.

      “So your father dangled a Dunlop-5 over your crib, right? Dragged you from the Junior Open to the Orange Bowl while the rest of us were reading ‘Spot is on TV.’ And don’t tell me—Dad’s on his way here. Since even now you’re nineteen, he still tucks you in at ten sharp. His little gold mine needs her rest.”

      That she was already twenty-three was such a sore point that she couldn’t bear correcting him. “Don’t hold your breath. Daddy’s in New Jersey, waiting for me to put away childish things. Like my tennis racket.”

      Which was just what she was doing, when Eric stayed her arm. “Unwind with a few rallies?”

      Willy glanced at the sky, the light waning. She’d been playing a good four hours, the limit on an ordinary day. But the air as it eased from rose to gray evoked afterwork games with her father, when he’d announce that Mommy would have supper ready and Willy would plead for a few points more. On occasion, he’d relented. She was not about to become the grown-up who insists it’s time to quit. “A few minutes,” she supposed.

      Eric volleyed. Tentatively she suggested, “Your backswing —take it no farther than your right shoulder.”

      In five minutes, Eric had trimmed his backswing by three inches. She eyed him appreciatively. Unlike the average amateur, whose quantity of how-to books and costly half-hour sessions with burned-out pros was inversely related to his capacity to apply their advice, Eric had promptly installed her passing observation like new software. She felt cautious about coaching if it manifested itself in minutes, for turning words into motion was a rare knack. With such a trusting, able student she could sabotage him if she liked, feeding him bad habits like poisoned steak to a dog.

      Zipping his cover, Eric directed, “Time we had Randy’s beer. Flor De Mayo. I’m starving.”

      “I may have missed it—was that asking me out?”

      “It was telling you where we’re having dinner.”

      “How do you know I don’t have plans with a friend?”

      “You don’t,” he said simply. “I doubt you have a lot of friends.”

      “I seem that likable?” she asked sardonically.

      “No one with your tennis game is likable. And no one with your tennis game spends much time holding hands in bars.”

      “You’re going to change all that?” she jeered.

      “As for loitering in gin mills, no. But a hand to hold wouldn’t do you a speck of harm.” Eric grabbed Willy’s athletic bag as well as his own, and strode in the twilight with both carryalls toward court three with a self-satisfied jaunt. He had correctly intuited that wherever her rackets went, Willy was sure to follow.

      “So where’d ‘Willy’ come from?”

      Her imprecations to consider the West Side Cafe’s pleasant outdoor tables having been resolutely ignored, they were seated snugly inside Flor De Mayo. Willy was recovering from a petty sulk that she’d been co-opted into a Cuban-Chinese greasefest. At least the restaurant was clean and not too frenetic; the white wine was drinkable.

      “Would you go by ‘Wilhemena’?”

      “Yikes. What were your parents trying to do to you?”

      “Let’s just say it’s not a name you expect to see in lights. My older sister fared even worse— ‘Gertrude,’ can you believe it? Which they hacked barbarously down to ‘Gert.’”

      “They have something against your sister?”

      Willy screwed up her eyes. He was just making conversation, but she had so few opportunities to talk about anything but open-versus closed-stance ground strokes that she indulged herself. “They have something against the whole world, in which we’re generously included. But my parents bear Gert no special ill-will. Their feelings for my sister are moderate. Moderation is what she invites. In high school, she made B’s on purpose. Now she’s studying to become a CPA. The sum of this calculated sensibleness is supposed to make my father happy. It doesn’t. In my book, they both deserve what they’ve got … I’m sorry, you have no reason to be faintly interested in any of this.”

      “Oh, but I am.”

      Afraid he was going to add something flirty and odious, she went on quickly, “I think they scrounged ‘Wilhemena’ and ‘Gertrude’ from the nursing home where my mother works. Even as kids, we sounded like spinsters.”

      Eric