Page 15 of Playing to Win

She clears her throat. Good, this is awkward for us both, then. “Hi, Brooks. How are you?”

I shrug, not that she can see me. “I’m fine. You?”

“Mmm-hmm, good.” Cue uncomfortable pause. Hey, I didn’t make the call—it’s not on me. “Well, I mean, I’m good generally. You, ah, I guess Cady told you I’m pregnant?”

“Right, yeah, she mentioned it. Congratulations…by the way.”

Did she just snort? “Thanks. So, that’s not actually… I’m calling about Cady.”

“Of course, right.”

“Brooks, I don’t know what to do with her. I’m going out of my mind. She’s got this older boyfriend, a college guy. She didn’t come home on Saturday night. She called and said she was staying with a friend but I saw her friend’s mom yesterday and she said they didn’t stay there. Cady stank like a brewery when she finally did come home.”

I take a breath. Part of me thinks Cady’s just being an eighteen-year-old kid. The other half of me wants to wrap her up in cotton, so I get where Alice is coming from. “I’ll talk with her. I spoke to her on Saturday but I’ll try again.”

Alice sighs. “Brooks…I… How would you feel about her coming to stay with you full-time? Just for a while. I can’t. I mean, I’m pregnant and…”

I feel my brow scrunch. She wants to kick out my daughter? “Are you kidding me?”

“I just think she’d be better off—”

I scoff, feeling my blood boil in my veins. “She’s a kid, Alice. She might give it the tough eighteen-year-old routine but she’s just a kid.”

“She’s your goddamn kid too, Brooks.”

“Hey, calm down. You know I’d have her with me twenty-four/seven if I thought it was the best thing for her, so drop the attitude. Maybe ask yourself why she’s acting out now, of all times. She feels pushed out. You’re pregnant. She needs to know she’s still your girl, Alice.”

The line goes silent and I know she’ll have her fingertips pressed to her soft lips, her eyes closed. “I just don’t want her to…”

“Make the same mistakes as you did. I know.” What she doesn’t know is that those words hit me like bullets to my chest, blazing through me, breaking bones, burning a hole in my heart, piercing my lungs, and making it hard to breathe.

She blows out slowly but heavily, as if through pursed lips. “You always could read people, couldn’t you?”

Nostalgia Lane? Really? That’s not my address.

Suddenly uncomfortable in my seat, I stand and move to the window, looking out over the city. “I’ll talk to her. Just try to include her. Maybe set up a girls’ day. I’m sure she could use a woman to talk to. You set something up and I’ll pay for Cady. Don’t push her out, okay? Don’t make her feel like she isn’t welcome in your home.”

“You know she is. Of course she is.”

“I know that. Just make sure she knows it.”

“Okay. Thanks, Brooks. It’s good to talk to you about her. You know, when I try to talk to Richard he—”

Richard. We’re going to talk about the latest husband? “I’ve got to go, Alice. If you need me for anything to do with Cady, you know how to find me. Anything at all.”

“Oh, yeah, ’course.”

“’Bye, Alice.”

“Good-bye, Brooks.”

I end the call and lean into the sides of my fists, pressing them against the cool glass of the window. I fill my lungs with one steady, calming breath, reminding myself that she’s not my Alice. She’s not the Alice I was in love with eighteen years ago. And I will never have her again.

My melancholy is replaced when I see the bright Lycra of the British diva, heading back toward the gym. So, she did go for a run. Her hair swishes as she runs. Her arms move parallel to each other, drawing perfectly straight rotations. Her style is good, efficient. Her thighs look strong. Her stride is set at a solid pace. She moves effortlessly, but I know she’s working her body hard.

When she stops outside the gym, she presses the phone holder that’s strapped around her bicep, presumably to turn off or change her music; then she starts to stretch. Her top rides up as she takes her arms above her head and leans to one side, stretching the sides of her torso from the hip. Her stomach is perfectly flat. Her skin inviting.

It is such a shame she’s an obnoxious—

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