Nobody Else’s Story
Nobody Else’s Story
The Fourth of July celebration at the club had turned out to be almost as boring as one of Jilly’s American Girl tea parties—basically just a bunch of people standing around with drinks in their hands, dipping shrimp in cocktail sauce and admiring each other’s outfits.
Regina had on one of her floaty dresses.
Forrest wore a white linen suit with a navy blue T-shirt underneath, like Don Johnson on Miami Vice.
I told nobody about my tennis lesson with Jonathan that afternoon. It wasn’t much of a story, but for once the story was mine, not somebody else’s or made up. I got to be the star of it.
“You’re a natural, Frances,” Jonathan had told me.
For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I might actually be good at something.
For fourteen years I’d seen myself as a loser. I had caught a glimpse of a world—just a glimpse—in which I might actually be able to win.
The next day, at the club, when Jilly and Hayward went off for their lessons, I made my way to the court where Jonathan had hit with me.
“Do you have time for me?” I asked him.
He handed me a racquet.
That night I took my journal out from its place in the bottom drawer of my dresser, under my T-shirts. Jonathan says I’ve got an instinctive understanding of how to connect with a ball, I wrote.
No fantasies. Just the truth.
This was how I fell in love with the game of tennis.
Three mornings a week now—sometimes four—I’d meet up with Jonathan during the Emerson children’s lessons.
For fifty-five minutes, right up to the time we had to pick up the balls, he put me through the paces of ball drills and serving practice.
Nights in my bed I went back over what he’d taught me and wrote it down.
I’d used up Olivia’s credit now. But Jonathan hadn’t brought this up.
Sometimes I actually dreamed I was playing. Finally, I had something interesting to share in my nightly writing that had actually happened. And it had nothing to do with Forrest Emerson or my parents or Regina or the children. This was all mine.
I needed to find a better place to hide my journal. Writing as I did now, nobody must ever see what I’d set down on these pages. I studied my little room, searching for a hiding place.
Not many options. Only one, actually. I lifted the edge of my mattress off the bed frame and set the journal on top of the slats.
Before replacing the mattress, I added another element of security—a row of BBs from Hayward’s BB gun that he was always leaving around.
I laid these out in a row alongside my journal.
Twelve of them. If anyone ever disturbed my hiding spot, I’d know.