The Singles Game
Page 39
So he was following her career. Interesting.
‘How are you feeling?’ Brian asked. He quickly added, ‘The injury, I mean. Are you all better?’
‘Yes, I think so. Physically it’s all rehabbed and everything checks out. Mentally it’s harder. I don’t want to hesitate ever to lunge or slide or turn at a sharp angle, so it’s learning to trust that it really is as good as new. The wrist is completely, totally better, but the foot still haunts me sometimes. Just in my head.’ She cleared her throat and was about to ask Brian what kind of job brought him back to LA, but he leaned forward in that active-listening way he’d always been so good at and asked, ‘What’s it really like being on tour? Is it as glamorous as it seems to us mortals?’
She’d been asked this same question no fewer than a thousand times by a thousand different people, and she always gave similar, canned responses: It’s tough but I love it; work hard, play hard; the travel gets taxing but getting to play a sport I love every day makes it all worthwhile. But something about the way Brian furrowed his brow in concentration and peered at her, obviously waiting for a real answer, made her pause.
‘It can be hard,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a different hotel every week. No place feels like home. I don’t really have a normal life, you know? Probably the hardest part is being away from … people I care about. I don’t see my dad as often as I’d like, and it’s not easy to keep in touch with friends. It can definitely be … well, thank god Jake travels with me a lot of the time now.’
Brian nodded. ‘I bet it takes a toll.’
‘I’m not complaining, I hope it doesn’t sound that way. It’s just tough sometimes to stay close to people because I’m not at all in charge of my own schedule. I could be at a tournament for two weeks if I’m winning or knocked out the first day – everything is last-minute and it makes it just impossible to plan anything in advance. But it’s all good right now. I’m starting to feel like it’s all coming together.’
The waiter brought their drinks. Brian held his up and said, ‘To reunions. It’s good to see you, Charlie.’
Charlie clinked his glass with her own. ‘You too!’ she said, a bit more cheerily than she’d intended. ‘I’ve been blathering on and on, and you still haven’t told me anything. You’re in Chicago now, right?’
‘Yeah, I moved there a couple of years ago. Winters aren’t so easy after LA, but I’m adjusting.’
‘Did you move there for work?’
‘Yep. I work for an environmental consulting group. We help companies go more green, and I’m actually in LA to do the first-round interviews of graduating seniors. We hire a handful of new grads every year. UCLA has such a great program that the company likes hiring here.’
‘Corporate America, Brian! The green version, yes, but still. Your pot-smoking, Phish-following, nineteen-year-old self would never have believed it.’
He laughed. ‘I’d be lying if I said the occasional joint didn’t get smoked, but not all that often anymore. My girlfriend doesn’t like it. Phish either. We mostly listen to tortured singer-songwriters and alt-country. We are walking cliches.’
‘It happens,’ Charlie said with a shrug. ‘So tell me about her. What’s her name?’
Brian lifted his gaze to check and make sure Charlie wasn’t being snarky or weird. Satisfied, he started right in, and as soon as he did, Charlie wished he would stop.
Almost instantly, Charlie tuned out as Brian described Finley, and how totally coincidental their meeting was, and how they hit it off almost instantly. The more animated Brian grew, the fewer words Charlie processed: registered nurse, stuck in an elevator, Santa Fe, big dog (small dog?) named something irritatingly cute, five brothers and sisters, marathons. It wasn’t tremendously nuanced, but it was far more than Charlie needed to create the image in her mind of a sporty Finley (Finley?) with her cute blond bob, keeping her cool while stuck in an elevator after coming home from a run with her Bernese mountain dog (dachshund?) to a brunch filled with look-alike siblings who all brought homemade oatmeal and French toast and other high-carb foods that Finley could eat ad infinitum and never gain weight. Oh, and she was a porn star in bed, but the private kind, of course, the girl who loved and craved sex constantly with her committed man but no one else, because he was the only one who’d ever made her feel comfortable enough to access her secret inner sex goddess. It was all right there, tied up with a neat little ribbon, suddenly making Charlie despise this girl she didn’t know.
‘She sounds really great,’ Charlie said with no inflection whatsoever. She wasn’t jealous, exactly – more bored, and tired, and wanting to escape.
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘That’s great,’ Charlie murmured.
They finished their drinks. Charlie felt like she did an adequate if not spectacular job of feigning interest in the rest of their conversation, which was basically an information download on both their families. When Brian politely asked if she’d like anything else, it was all Charlie could do not to bolt straight to her room without another word. Their good-bye hug was stilted, the kind where each person subtly pushes the other while half embracing, and it was only once the elevator doors shut, cocooning Charlie in a blissful embrace of silence, that she finally exhaled. Her anxiety returned for a brief minute when she found a plastic bag containing two DVDs hanging from her doorknob – Todd’s promised tape of some hyperaggressive Ivanov–Azarenka match she needed to memorize – but she tossed it aside and turned on the bath.
Ex-boyfriends are better on Instagram than in real life, she thought as she stripped down and lowered herself into the steaming hot tub.
Her phone pinged.
Great seeing you tonite.
He couldn’t possibly mean that, could he? Not with all the weird silences and oversharing and awkward hugs. Not to mention the inimitable Finley warming his bed and brightening his life.
You too! she pecked out.
Another ping. She reached back to the bathroom vanity to silence her phone, but it wasn’t Brian this time.
Hey gorgeous! What day r u going to miami? Want to make sure I am there waiting 4 u …
Grinning like an idiot, Charlie forced herself to power down the phone without responding. She could almost hear Todd telling her to act like a winner, not a beaten-down puppy dog. Fine, then. She would let Marco wonder what she was up to and get back to him in the morning. Juvenile? Yes. Effective? Undoubtedly.
‘How are you feeling?’ Brian asked. He quickly added, ‘The injury, I mean. Are you all better?’
‘Yes, I think so. Physically it’s all rehabbed and everything checks out. Mentally it’s harder. I don’t want to hesitate ever to lunge or slide or turn at a sharp angle, so it’s learning to trust that it really is as good as new. The wrist is completely, totally better, but the foot still haunts me sometimes. Just in my head.’ She cleared her throat and was about to ask Brian what kind of job brought him back to LA, but he leaned forward in that active-listening way he’d always been so good at and asked, ‘What’s it really like being on tour? Is it as glamorous as it seems to us mortals?’
She’d been asked this same question no fewer than a thousand times by a thousand different people, and she always gave similar, canned responses: It’s tough but I love it; work hard, play hard; the travel gets taxing but getting to play a sport I love every day makes it all worthwhile. But something about the way Brian furrowed his brow in concentration and peered at her, obviously waiting for a real answer, made her pause.
‘It can be hard,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a different hotel every week. No place feels like home. I don’t really have a normal life, you know? Probably the hardest part is being away from … people I care about. I don’t see my dad as often as I’d like, and it’s not easy to keep in touch with friends. It can definitely be … well, thank god Jake travels with me a lot of the time now.’
Brian nodded. ‘I bet it takes a toll.’
‘I’m not complaining, I hope it doesn’t sound that way. It’s just tough sometimes to stay close to people because I’m not at all in charge of my own schedule. I could be at a tournament for two weeks if I’m winning or knocked out the first day – everything is last-minute and it makes it just impossible to plan anything in advance. But it’s all good right now. I’m starting to feel like it’s all coming together.’
The waiter brought their drinks. Brian held his up and said, ‘To reunions. It’s good to see you, Charlie.’
Charlie clinked his glass with her own. ‘You too!’ she said, a bit more cheerily than she’d intended. ‘I’ve been blathering on and on, and you still haven’t told me anything. You’re in Chicago now, right?’
‘Yeah, I moved there a couple of years ago. Winters aren’t so easy after LA, but I’m adjusting.’
‘Did you move there for work?’
‘Yep. I work for an environmental consulting group. We help companies go more green, and I’m actually in LA to do the first-round interviews of graduating seniors. We hire a handful of new grads every year. UCLA has such a great program that the company likes hiring here.’
‘Corporate America, Brian! The green version, yes, but still. Your pot-smoking, Phish-following, nineteen-year-old self would never have believed it.’
He laughed. ‘I’d be lying if I said the occasional joint didn’t get smoked, but not all that often anymore. My girlfriend doesn’t like it. Phish either. We mostly listen to tortured singer-songwriters and alt-country. We are walking cliches.’
‘It happens,’ Charlie said with a shrug. ‘So tell me about her. What’s her name?’
Brian lifted his gaze to check and make sure Charlie wasn’t being snarky or weird. Satisfied, he started right in, and as soon as he did, Charlie wished he would stop.
Almost instantly, Charlie tuned out as Brian described Finley, and how totally coincidental their meeting was, and how they hit it off almost instantly. The more animated Brian grew, the fewer words Charlie processed: registered nurse, stuck in an elevator, Santa Fe, big dog (small dog?) named something irritatingly cute, five brothers and sisters, marathons. It wasn’t tremendously nuanced, but it was far more than Charlie needed to create the image in her mind of a sporty Finley (Finley?) with her cute blond bob, keeping her cool while stuck in an elevator after coming home from a run with her Bernese mountain dog (dachshund?) to a brunch filled with look-alike siblings who all brought homemade oatmeal and French toast and other high-carb foods that Finley could eat ad infinitum and never gain weight. Oh, and she was a porn star in bed, but the private kind, of course, the girl who loved and craved sex constantly with her committed man but no one else, because he was the only one who’d ever made her feel comfortable enough to access her secret inner sex goddess. It was all right there, tied up with a neat little ribbon, suddenly making Charlie despise this girl she didn’t know.
‘She sounds really great,’ Charlie said with no inflection whatsoever. She wasn’t jealous, exactly – more bored, and tired, and wanting to escape.
‘Yeah, she is.’
‘That’s great,’ Charlie murmured.
They finished their drinks. Charlie felt like she did an adequate if not spectacular job of feigning interest in the rest of their conversation, which was basically an information download on both their families. When Brian politely asked if she’d like anything else, it was all Charlie could do not to bolt straight to her room without another word. Their good-bye hug was stilted, the kind where each person subtly pushes the other while half embracing, and it was only once the elevator doors shut, cocooning Charlie in a blissful embrace of silence, that she finally exhaled. Her anxiety returned for a brief minute when she found a plastic bag containing two DVDs hanging from her doorknob – Todd’s promised tape of some hyperaggressive Ivanov–Azarenka match she needed to memorize – but she tossed it aside and turned on the bath.
Ex-boyfriends are better on Instagram than in real life, she thought as she stripped down and lowered herself into the steaming hot tub.
Her phone pinged.
Great seeing you tonite.
He couldn’t possibly mean that, could he? Not with all the weird silences and oversharing and awkward hugs. Not to mention the inimitable Finley warming his bed and brightening his life.
You too! she pecked out.
Another ping. She reached back to the bathroom vanity to silence her phone, but it wasn’t Brian this time.
Hey gorgeous! What day r u going to miami? Want to make sure I am there waiting 4 u …
Grinning like an idiot, Charlie forced herself to power down the phone without responding. She could almost hear Todd telling her to act like a winner, not a beaten-down puppy dog. Fine, then. She would let Marco wonder what she was up to and get back to him in the morning. Juvenile? Yes. Effective? Undoubtedly.
