47
Jesse woke up feeling so refreshed that he texted Harry after his shower and told him he’d found a doubles partner. Harry replied enthusiastically with a time and location.
Jesse didn’t want to think too much about why he’d done it or whether he should’ve. He shoved a change of clothes into a bag and drove over to Hart’s without even stopping for coffee.
The guy at the front desk in Hart’s swanky building glanced at his ID and said that he was on “Mr. Wilder’s list” of approved guests, which meant he could go right up without waiting for permission from the occupants.
It was Liesl who let him in. “Eve is still asleep, and Clara’s swimming,” she informed him. “You’re welcome to join her. Hart probably has a dozen suits.”
“No, thanks,” he said, refusing to consider the prospect of Clara in swimwear. “I’d rather have coffee.”
“Oh, then come right this way,” she invited. “We can talk about your intentions for my niece.”
He reflected ruefully that he should have expected as much. Clara’s sweet little aunt was another “total softie” like the Colonel.
“So what are your intentions?” she asked, as he took a seat at the bar.
“Tennis.”
She gave him a disbelieving look as she poured his coffee. “That’s it?”
“In this universe? That’s it.”
“What about in other universes?” she asked, unfazed.
“I can’t speak for those guys.” He glanced through the sliding doors to the covered courtyard, where there was indeed a pool, and he was shocked to see movement in the water. “Is she actually swimming laps? Has the apocalypse started?”
“I said she was swimming. Didn’t you believe me?”
“I assumed that meant she was laying out next to the pool, texting Birdie. Not actually getting her hair wet.”
“Now do you want a swimsuit of Hart’s?”
“No, jeez,” he said, recoiling from the suggestion.
She smiled. “Perish the thought?”
“Perish the thought,” he echoed absently, because now he was watching Clara climb out of the pool in a polka-dot bathing suit. She leaned over the water and wrung out her long hair, and then she wrapped herself in a bath sheet and went through the other sliding door into a back hallway.
He looked at Liesl, feeling more than a little of his depression returning.
“Clara likes tennis,” she remarked. “I think it has a lot to do with the cute little outfits.”
“Regular gym clothes are fine,” he said weakly.
She gave him a sympathetic look, and he knew it would be a waste of breath to suggest as much to Clara. It’d be a lot smarter not to mention it to her at all, and tell Harry something had come up at work.
He had made up his mind to do this by the time Clara came into the room around ten minutes later. She was wearing a gray sweatsuit, no makeup, and her hair was combed but still wet. It was the least glamorous he had ever seen her, and all he wanted to do was pull her into his lap and sniff her neck. Intellectually, he knew that was weird, but in every other way it seemed like a genius idea.
“Hey, good morning,” she greeted him, pulling out the stool beside his.
He was elbow-deep in chicken and waffles, and he ignored her. Just eat and get out , he told himself.
“I’m going to go shower,” Liesl volunteered on her way out of the room. “Jesse needs a partner for tennis.”
He sighed.
“You are not going to believe this,” Clara said with feeling, “but I brought a tennis dress just in case .”
Of course she did.
“How many different possible scenarios did you pack for?” he could not resist asking.
“Never you mind. Where are you playing? I didn’t know you were into tennis.”
“I’m not. My doctor invited me to play with him and his wife at their club.”
“Your doctor? How old is he?”
“My age.”
“Oh, you mean your friend? Are you going to ask me to play with you?”
“Thinking about it,” he grumbled.
“Well, if it helps you decide, my tennis dress is all black, and Hart says I’m halfway decent on the court,” she informed him cheerfully. “We used to play sometimes in New York.”
“Why would the color of your outfit help me decide?” he asked, irritated.
“So you’d know if it would clash with your outfit,” she said reasonably.
“I don’t have an outfit. I’m just going to wear gym clothes.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly flummoxed by the concept. “What color?”
“Navy and gray.”
She considered a moment. Then she brightened. “Hart has black tennis clothes. Duh! You can borrow them. I doubt he took them to Aruba.”
“I don’t want to borrow them.”
“Jesse, we’re going to look good,” she promised him, with an ambitious gleam in her eye that told him she would be difficult to dissuade. “And we’re going to have fun, and we’re probably going to win.”
He rolled a piece of fried chicken in half a waffle, dipped it in syrup, and put the whole thing in his mouth. “Okay.”
Clara grabbed his shoulder (not the recently sprained one, luckily) in both hands and jerked him around a little to convey her excitement and approval, and then she settled down and started cutting up her waffles.