Page 21 of Bad Summer People
“Jason, how’s your game coming along? I’ve seen Lauren out on the courts, but not you so much.”
Micah handed Jason his martini. He wiped the condensation from the sides of the glass. Jason was in a blue-and-white-striped button-down, and his eyes looked even darker than usual.
“I was supposed to play today with Sam, actually, but something came up at work,” he said. “But I’m definitely going to get out there next week. Maybe you can give me a lesson?”
How had Robert not known that was coming? “Yes, sounds great. I’m busy, but I’m sure I could squeeze you in one morning.”
Jen shifted in her stool, and Robert saw this was his moment to escape. “Thanks for the drink, Jen,” he said, standing up. “I’m going to go say hi to a few other players.”
He left the two of them there, Jason standing and Jen sitting, and walked toward the back room. He took his drink out the back door near the tennis courts and headed into his little hut. It was wooden and compact, maybe five by eight feet, and held his buckets of practice balls, a small restringing machine, and some extra rackets for those who’d forgotten or broken theirs. It was where he hung out during the day in between lessons to cool off. He had a little chair and makeshift desk on which he kept his lesson paperwork and daily schedule. Luckily, there was also a door, which he closed to prevent clients from trying to discuss the ins and outs of their game during off-hours. He closed it now, too, and sat down at his desk, enjoying the silence. He drained his whiskey. He knew he should get back to the party, show his face and market his talents, but he felt anxious. He both wanted to see Lauren and didn’t.
But it wasn’t up to him. There was a quick knock on the door, and there Lauren was—she stepped in. She was holding a glass of white wine, and her eyes looked a little wild.
“What are you doing here? Someone will miss us,” said Robert.
His heart was beating faster than he wanted it to. She put her wineglass down on his desk, sloshing it as she did, and pushed him against the restringing machine. Robert’s back pressed uncomfortably against a piece of cold metal. Lauren kissed him hard and slid one of her warm hands down his shorts.
“I followed you,” she said. “No one saw me.”
“Lauren, Jason is right there, someone could find us,” he whispered.
“I don’t care,” she said, pressing into him.
Her navy dress was riding up her legs, and Robert helped push it up above her waist. He turned her around and pulled her underwear down. His shorts fell to his ankles; he bent her over his desk and fucked her quickly from behind until they both came, fast and easy.
In an instant, she’d pulled her dress down and smoothed her hair. She kissed him lightly on the mouth and grabbed her glass of wine, slipping out the door and shutting it behind her. Robert pulled up his shorts and sat down. The whole thing had lasted maybe six minutes.
He knew he should be happy, but he felt sour and used. He decided not to go back to the party—he didn’t think he’d be able to hold a conversation after that. Instead, he flipped through his little lesson book, looking at the lineup for tomorrow.
July 5—Lesson Schedule
Susan Steinhagen—9:00 a.m.–10:00 a.m.
Lisa Metzner—10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m.
Claire Laurell—11:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Doubles clinic—11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Lunch
Larry Higgins—2:00–3:00 p.m.
Lauren Parker—3:30–4:30 p.m.
He’d see Lauren again soon enough. It was stuffy in his hut, and it now smelled like a combo of sex and the metallic scent of tennis ball cans. The little garbage can next to him was filled with power bar wrappers and empty water bottles. He thought of Dave, the poor old pro, and his botched attempt to skim off the top from the lesson pool. He must have been desperate. But how could he have been so careless?
It occurred to Robert, as it sometimes did, that Robert was much brighter than the average tennis pro. He’d been around enough of them to know that. At $200 a pop, all Dave had to do was siphon off one or two lessons a day to another account of his choosing. He’d have made an extra $20,000 on top of his salary. Twenty thousand dollars, tax-free, would be enough to pay Robert’s rent for months while he looked for a better job in the city.
Robert stood up and started to fiddle with the restringing machine. Seth Laurell, Claire’s husband, had left his Wilson racket this afternoon to be restrung, blaming his loss to Tom Schiller on his loose strings (he lost because he wasn’t very good; the strings had nothing to do with it). Robert had agreed to restring it for him, for $50. He picked it up now and started to snap the strings off with scissors, one by one.
Each snap made Robert angrier and angrier. What did Lauren want, anyway? A boy toy she could discard once the summer was over?
He thought about his dad and how he’d always hoped for more for Robert than to be a tennis pro. He thought about Julie and her glitzy life without him. He thought about all the opportunities that had passed him by. Then he threw Seth’s racket against the wooden wall; it bouncedoff and nearly hit him in the face, landing on his desk and sending papers flying.
Robert sighed and picked up his lesson ledger. He sat down and looked at it again. If Dave couldn’t steal correctly, maybe Robert could. No one would suspect him, particularly because no one would think he’d be dumb enough to try the same thing that Dave the alcoholic did the year before. He’d justrearrangethe money. At the end of each week, he charged members’ cards for their lessons; on Labor Day, the club would pay him 20 percent of that total pile. He sent copies of the receipts to the Salcombe Yacht Club Tennis Committee for records and tax purposes. So, going forward, he’d just leave off one or two lessons a day from his ledger. He’d stillgivethose lessons, but instead he’d charge those cards to a different account, which he’d create tonight. Whyshouldn’the get 100 percent of what people paid for his talents? He looked at the lineup for tomorrow again.
July 5—Lesson Schedule
