Chapter 30

June 2013

Back at my apartment after I leave the Wimbledon grounds, following my defeat, I prepare carefully for my dinner with Fred.

We'd made plans to meet at six, to give me time to shower and change and stretch and get in the right mind frame for whatever is about to happen.

I can't believe it. It feels like I'm caught in a fairy tale, one where the fairy godmother grants one wish, but a different one comes true. Those ten minutes in the hallway changed everything. Fred holding me, kissing my neck, telling me that this is what he wanted, this is what he planned for. In the moment, it felt wonderful, but now I have some questions.

But first, I reach into my jewelry box and pull out his bracelet. It's the one thing I always travel with, thinking, maybe, that I'll find something to add to it, to make it mine instead of ours. I've never managed to, though, so all I have on it are the charms Fred has given me: the tennis bracelet, the one from London, and our engagement ring. I touch the small stone, then catch myself in the mirror. My heart is skipping around, and I have trouble fastening the clasp. I manage it, then run a brush through my hair.

"You're going out?" Matt says when I leave the bathroom.

"Yes."

"With Fred."

"Yes, Dad."

He frowns. "I thought you weren't talking."

"We weren't."

"And now?"

"I'm going to drown my sorrows in a million drinks and a nice man."

"Not so nice."

"Matt." I put my arms around his neck. "You don't mean that."

"What about your training?"

"I can take one day off. One day to have something for me."

"Yes, all right."

"I wasn't asking." I drop my arms and kiss him on the cheek.

"Just … be careful, okay?"

"Are we having the talk? Because that ship sailed long ago."

"That's not what I meant. I just meant … be careful of your heart."

"I will be."

But I'm not being careful. And for once that's okay. I've spent too long living inside the lines, on a tennis court, in my life, in my family. I want to have fun goddammit. I want to live. And if that means making a mistake again, with Fred, so be it.

The doorbell rings, and I grab a light sweater and trip down the stairs. Fred's standing outside, next to a small town car with a driver. He's wearing a light summer suit with a white linen shirt. And when he smiles, he's so handsome I could cry.

"This is fancy," I say, touching the lapel.

"Only the best for you."

"Ha!"

He kisses me, his lips both new and familiar. He smells great, a light spicy aftershave I don't recognize, and that's okay too. If he smelled exactly like the Fred I remembered, like right after a swim on the beach, it would be too much. This Fred is recognizable enough that I feel comfortable with him and new enough that it feels safe.

"You look great," he says. "I've always liked you in white."

The dress I'm wearing is a variation of twenty dresses I've owned in my lifetime, some of which he's seen me in and some not. This one has a light pink overlay of vines and a scoop neck with a slight flare to the skirt. I feel pretty and feminine, two things I don't always feel in my sporty life. "Thank you."

He opens the door for me, and we slip inside the car. He gives the driver an address and reaches for my hand. He's sitting on my left, and his fingers reach up till they find the bracelet. He leans in closer to me and says, "I'm glad you wore this."

"Don't read too much into it."

"Okay."

I turn to him. His eyes are warm, inviting. "What did you mean earlier when you said you hoped for this?"

"I wondered if you were going to ask me that."

"Well?"

"Don't be mad."

"That's not a great beginning."

"But a happy ending, I promise."

I raise my finger to his lips. "Don't say that. Too risky."

"Right. Okay, well, I read that profile of you in Tennis Magazine."

"The one in January?"

"That's right. Where you said this was going to be your year and that your goal was to make it to Wimbledon qualifying and beyond."

"You read that?"

"I read everything about you, Olivia."

I want to melt into my seat. My cheeks are flaming. "I … I assumed no one read that."

"Well, I did. And then I did some research and talked to Mr. de Keurig."

"What does that mean?"

"I wanted you to achieve your goals. So, I suggested that the company sponsor the event in Miami. With a sponsorship of that size, we were allowed to suggest a couple of wild cards."

"A couple?"

"One."

"That's how I got invited to Miami?"

"Yes."

I'd wondered about it at the time. I'd applied, but my ranking wasn't quite where it should have been to get in. But then I did, and I did well, and that led to the next tournament and the next and eventually to Wimbledon. "What if I hadn't done well there?"

He clears his throat. "There was going to be a second sponsorship. But you made it to the semis so that wasn't necessary."

"Wow."

"Are you mad?"

"No, I … Why do you have so much sway over your boss? That must've been a lot of money he spent."

"The sponsorships made business sense. Miami is a shipping port."

"That can't be it, though. Did you hide a dead body for him or something?"

"No, I … his son was under my command. Between us, he was a fuck-up, but he turned his life around for a while when he worked for me. He died a few years ago, and Mr. de Keurig … he's kind of adopted me in his place."

"Oh, Fred."

"What?"

"You used up that for me? Why?"

"Come on, Olivia. You know." He reaches for my hand and brings it to his lips. "It's five years later. And I kept waiting for you to come back into my life, for our lives to line up on our own. But they never have. You're traveling all over the world, and even then, I was almost at one of your tournaments more times than I can count, but then something would always interfere. I was tired of leaving it in fate's hands."

"There were still so many things that could've gone wrong. If I didn't win, for one."

"But you did. You're playing great."

"And you got me invited to that event here."

"The party, yes. The qualifier, no. You earned that on your own."

I lean back, processing. Outside, London's old white buildings flash by. We've crossed over to the south bank. "Where are we going?"

"A little place I discovered a few years ago. You'll love it." The car stops. "In fact, we're here."

Fred hops out and comes around to open the door for me. He reaches out his hand, and I take it, though I'm not quite sure how I'm feeling about what he's just said.

He ushers us into the restaurant, and the hostess smiles at him and tells us our table is right this way. He comes here a lot, I can tell, and the hostess obviously likes him.

She leads us through the restaurant—vibrant Portuguese plates on the wall and wonderful smells of saffron in the air—and out to a small courtyard where there's one table with lights strung above it and vines growing all over the walls.

"It's beautiful," I say.

"I think so."

Fred says something to the hostess, and she smiles and leaves us. He holds out my chair for me, and I sit down.

"How did you find this place?"

"I was over here for business one night, and hungry, and I walked around a bit, and then I smelled something wonderful, and I walked in. I've been coming back ever since. Best Portuguese cooking that I've had outside of Portugal. You love paella, yes?"

"You remember that?"

"Of course. The seafood rice here will rival it, I promise." He opens his napkin and puts it on his lap. "I remember the first time I had it in Portugal, wishing you were there to try it."

"I've never been to Portugal."

"We'll have to remedy that."

"Sure," I say, but I'm feeling noncommittal. It feels too dangerous to be otherwise.

A waitress appears with a bottle of champagne and some menus.

"Is this okay?" Fred asks.

"Yes, looks lovely."

The waitress uncorks the bottle and explains the menu. Fred asks if they can bring us a selection of dishes, including the seafood rice. She nods encouragingly, pours us each a glass of wine, and then leaves.

Fred holds up his glass to me.

I raise mine. "What should we toast to?"

"Reunions?"

We clink glasses and I take a long drink. The wine is perfect, the setting too.

So, what's wrong with me?

"What's wrong, Olivia?"

"I was just asking myself that same thing."

"It's too much," Fred says. "I did too much."

"You could've called me."

He sips his wine, then puts the glass down. "Could I, though? I thought about it. A million times. Texting you. All of it. But each time I almost did I thought—what if she doesn't answer? What if she tells me to fuck off? The what-ifs always stopped me."

"I get it."

"Same for you?"

"Yes. I've thought about you often. Not that I wanted to, if I'm being honest. I was a … mess the last time. It took me a long time to recover."

"Me too."

Our eyes meet and hold. He has a look in his eyes that I don't recognize until I do. Regret.

"We really screwed that one up," I say.

"It was my fault. Being so stubborn. Giving you this." He reaches for the engagement charm. "I don't know why I was so stuck on being married. Everything was great the way it was. We could've made long distance work."

"We were so young. Maybe we would've held each other back. Not achieved all this."

"I've thought about that. It doesn't make up for being away from you, but I do have a good life."

I look around. "Seems like it."

"These are just things. I threw myself into school and then work. I was in a hurry to get it all finished. To arrive wherever I was going. And I got what I wanted, I thought. But something's always been missing. When I was really honest with myself, I knew what it was. You."

"Why me, though? The girl you haven't been able to make it work with?"

"I've asked myself that."

"And?"

"There's something about you. Us. I don't know how to explain it: I've tried with other people, but nobody fits like we do, you know?"

He says this with hope, wanting me to agree, and I do. I do agree that no one's felt like him and me, so no one's felt like us. That something's been missing from my life. And of course, it was him.

But he scares me too.

"I feel that way also, but Fred …"

"Yes?"

"We have to … I have to be cautious. I … I don't know how this is going to work, if it's going to work. And I need you to be okay with that."

"Take it down a notch, you're saying?"

"Maybe two or three."

"I can do that."

"Can you?"

"Of course. I can even pretend we're strangers on a first date."

"Ha!"

"I can. Watch me." He reaches for his glass. "So, tennis? That something you're serious about?"

My mouth twitches. "Little bit."

"And you live in hotels?"

"I have a small apartment in New York. But yes, mostly."

"Interesting, interesting. And what's that like? Do you like hotels?"

I start to laugh. "You should have a talk show."

"No one's said that to me before."

"You'd be very good at it. Like everything."

"I'm not good at everything." He's hinting at something, and it's then that I decide.

If we're going to get through this evening, we need to stop going over the past. Fred's joke about us acting like strangers was the right one.

"How about this," I say, raising my glass. "How about we have more of this champagne, and we stop talking in meaningful ways alluding to other things and we just have fun?"

"Fun?"

"Yeah, fun. Ever heard of it?"

"Maybe once or twice."

"So, what do you say?" I tilt my glass toward his. "Deal?"

"Deal."

Our deal works because we get very, very drunk. There's another bottle of champagne and then some Portuguese drink I never catch the name of, and plate after plate of food I shouldn't be eating, but I do not give a fuck.

I'm happy.

Happy without an undertow for once, and all it took was a million drinks and the best meal of my life to get there.

We talk and laugh, and laugh and talk. The restaurant empties out, and now the staff wants to go home, so we need to leave too.

We head out into the night and go for a stroll along the Thames. I'm amazed that I'm still awake, still coherent, enough not to freak out when Fred takes my hand and asks if he should call the car. I say yes, and then the night starts to take on an air of inevitability.

He doesn't let go of my hand in the car, just starts tracing circles on the flesh near my wrist. My whole body responds, a pulse beating between my legs. I turn my head toward him and I don't remember making a conscious decision to kiss him—I just do. He responds, our tongues meeting, his hands in my hair as we arch toward each other, feeling constrained by our clothes and the driver.

In a moment, we're at his apartment, and he leads me in, bashful, past the doorman, so British and polite he acts like we've met before, and then the elevator, where we resume our kiss, not able to keep away from each other, and then in his apartment with large, modern windows overlooking the Thames.

We strip items of clothing off each other, one by one, slowly but deliberately, stopping to taste each other, to enjoy this, not rushing. His thumbs repeat their circles on my breasts, then in between my legs, and then I am up in his arms, my chest to his bare chest and he's carrying me to the bedroom.

Everything is new and old at the same time. Our bodies remembering, but we've both learned a thing or two. I push away what this implies, that we've been with others since the last time this happened, and give into the sensation of us. It's never been like this, not with him, not with anyone, and I come so hard against his hand it almost hurts.

Then he's tasting me, telling me what he wants us to do together, and I nod as he reaches into a drawer and pulls out a condom. And then he's inside me, and I press into him as he slides in and out in a slow rhythm that brings me to the brink again.

Slow, then hard and deep, pulling in and out until we both release together, our cries mingling, our bodies slick with sweat.

He gathers me into his arms, and I feel totally at peace. No regrets, no questions, only the sure and comfortable feeling of being with Fred, the way we were always meant to be.

"I love you," he says into my ear as I start to drift away.

I love you too,I say, but maybe only in my dreams.