“No tricks today,” Sally Ann said softly. “No parlor routines. But Sammy and Angela will make it come out just right. Victory by a narrow margin for Wilma.”
The players were sweaty. Tennis, Kat thought, like ballet, needs a little distance. Their tennis shoes slapped the asphalt. Their gasps of effort were audible. Carol Killian’s long smooth golden thighs, exposed by her very short shorts, looked splendid when she stood still. When she lurched into her strange half-gallop, the thighs rippled into an unpleasant looseness, her breasts and buttocks bounced, and she made a squeaking sound as she bit her lip and swung the racket.
“Goddammit, stop poaching!” Wilma snarled at Sammy.
“Add here,” Angela said, and crossed to the service court.
“What the hell did you do to Burt last night?” Sally Ann demanded. “He was very upset.”
“Jackie Halley gave him a bad time.”
“Burt said she was disgustingly drunk.”
“He’s wrong, Sally Ann. She was a little high. Mostly she was just angry about Dial Sinnat.”
“Why should she think Burt had anything to do with that?”
“I guess because he has a lot to do with Palmland Development.”
“So do a lot of people. Do you know how many miles of roads there’ll be in the Isles?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’ll be a very substantial contract for somebody. Burt told me last night that he can’t help it if people get so anxious to see it go through they... do unpleasant things to anybody opposing it. He wishes you’d get out of it, dear. He told me so.”
“I couldn’t let Tom down now, even if I wanted to.”
“But he’s such a dreary, solemn type. All those retired Army, they just can’t stop organizing things. And fighting against the fill is really terribly unrealistic this time. Everybody is in favor of it. You know, dear, I sold some very happy little securities so I could put money into this, and I wouldn’t have done that if there was the slightest chance of it falling through. I’m not a gambler. I’m much too stingy. Burt acts worried, but then he always does. Leroy and Martin are supremely confident. Burt was as fidgety as a bride this morning, getting ready to go down and talk to those dreary little commissioners. If you really want the truth of the matter, dear, Dial Sinnat probably spread some tale of persecution so he could ease out and save his face. He’s a shrewd man, you know, and why should he make himself look silly by thrashing around for a lost cause?”
“But I happen to know that somebody...”
“Oh, I wouldn’t deny that some idiot probably called him up and woofed at him. And that’s precisely the sort of thing Di would ignore, unless he was looking for an out. You’re too naive about these things, Kat, darling. It’s a precious quality and I adore it, but it really isn’t very realistic. Di will come back after it’s all died down, and by then you’ll forgive him, because by then it will be perfectly obvious that if he had stayed around, he couldn’t have changed the outcome in the slightest degree.”
“Sally Ann, sometimes you make me so darn mad I want to hit you!”
“People trying to live in a dream world always resent hard facts,” Sally Ann Lesser said patronizingly.
“Set point!” Wilma Deegan yelled. She served to Carol. Carol patted the ball back to her. Wilma drove it into the far corner, past Angela. It hit a good eight inches past the base line.
“Beautiful!” Angela called. Carol Killian looked dubiously at her partner.
“We whupped ’em, pal!” Wilma said to Sammy. She gave him a sweaty hug and they all came off the court, breathing hard, picking up towels, wiping their shining faces.
Angela, the permanent house guest, smiled at her sister-in-law and said, “Willy, you’re putting a lot of top spin on that ball. It comes over real heavy.” Angela was a graceful blonde with sturdy legs and ingratiating manners.
“But she wants to powder everything on our side of the net,” Sammy said, and laughed.
Wilma stopped smiling. “I want to what?”
Sammy stopped laughing. “I meant you got an aggressive spirit, Willy.”
“You’re the one wants to cover the whole damn court.”
“Just half of it, pet. Just half of it.”
“So let me see you cover all of it for a while, darling. You and your sweet sister get on out there and show us some fast singles.”
“Honey,” Sammy said patiently, “it’s almost too brutal a day for doubles. I’m dragging, and I’m sure Angie...”
“But I’d learn so much just watching you and your sister,” Wilma said in a grave tone.
Angela finished her drink, stood up and picked up her racket. “Come on, Sam,” she said and walked out onto the court.
Sammy Deegan hesitated, then followed her. Kat glanced at Sally Ann, and looked away quickly when she saw Sally Ann smirk and wink.
Carol Killian, with her customary lack of contact with the world around her, said, “Golly, I don’t see how they can want to play again so soon. I’m so positively pooped I feel faint almost. They must be in wonderful condition.”
“They’re natural athletes, dear,” Wilma said.
“I’ve never been good at games,” Carol said sadly.
“You’ve never had to be,” Sally Ann said.
Carol looked at her blankly. “Have Sammy and Angie had to be good at games?”
“It’s been a big help to them,” Sally Ann said.
“Get off my back,” Wilma said gently to Sally Ann. She turned and smiled at Kat. “I don’t see you for weeks on end. I hear there’s a big broohah about Grassy Bay. Just don’t propagandize me, dearie. I’ve had to shut Sally Ann up about it. It’s too hot in the summer to get agitated about anything.”
Kat stood up. “I wasn’t going to mention it, Willy. I just dropped off for a drink on my way home.”
Carol stood up quickly and collected her gear. “I’ll walk with you, Kat. I’m so hot and tired I could die. All I want is a bath and a nice nap.” She called goodbye to Sammy and Angela. They waved rackets at her. Kat and Carol walked down the road.
“I didn’t want to play tennis but everybody else wanted to. Mostly Wilma,” Carol said. “What I am mostly is thirsty, and there isn’t anything except that rum stuff Sally Ann makes. I had two cups of it, and honest, I’ve got such a buzz my mouth feels numb.”
Carol stopped to fix her shoe. Kat looked back. Sammy and Angela were agile figures in white, bounding and racing dutifully in the afternoon sun. Wilma and Sally Ann sat on the bench in the shade of the umbrella, two brown women with gray curls, looking like sisters, one stocky and the other scrawny, two monied women who had ordered their world to their own liking, and seemed to spend most of their time wondering if they really liked what they had wrought.
Carol straightened up and began walking. “I should do more things like that to get tightened up. I’d like to be like Angela. She’s hard as a rock. She’s got dumpy legs, but she’s in wonderful shape. Do you think if I swam more it would help?”
“Swimming is good exercise.”
“You’re real trim, Kat. But I guess you’re naturally slender, aren’t you? I mean you don’t have to work at it. I weigh just the same as I did when I was nineteen, and my measurements are almost the same, but if I don’t watch it every minute, my hips blow up like a balloon.”
“I gain and then I take it off.”
“Gee, Kat, I don’t know about my spending so much time with them. There always seems to be some kind of a fight going on that I don’t understand. But who else is there to be with this time of year? And Sammy is real odd, you know? I never know if he’s making a pass at me, the way he kids around.”