Doubles
After I’d gotten those Polaroids of Forrest and Brenda together—and the tape—I figured Regina would be satisfied that we had enough evidence for her case against Forrest. But she still wanted more.
Now even as summer drew to a close, with Prudence already packing up boxes of the family’s possessions for their return to Boston, she wanted me to keep tabs on Forrest’s every move—even the times (and there were plenty of these) when he really was just out playing golf with his foursome or running errands, most of which had to do with picking things up for Regina.
She was relentless in the way she kept wanting me to locate new evidence for her. She wouldn’t leave it alone. When all I wanted now was to hit tennis balls and forget everything else.
So I had come to despise my assignment of collecting information for Regina. More than this, I had come to despise Regina. That night I wrote in my journal.
If I never see her again after this summer, I won’t miss her. She’s always talking about killing herself. Sometimes I wish she’d do it.
Forrest was scheduled to play a tennis match down at the club.
Regina insisted that I go down to the court to keep an eye on him.
By this time, I was a regular there, from all the hours I spent watching the children’s lessons as well as taking my own.
But as much time as I’d devoted to sitting by some court or another that summer, it was harder to justify why I’d be sitting on one of those benches again that afternoon, watching Forrest play—assuming anyone would notice. As it turned out, no one did.
Forrest wasn’t a good tennis player. He would have been lost without his doubles partner, Evan.
Unlike most of the men who played at the club, who each grew up at some tennis club, Forrest hadn’t taken up the sport until he got together with Regina, and never had lessons.
I guessed the men included him for the simple reason that he was just so likable.
Though he’d probably had sex with a few of their wives.
Forrest was the athletic type for sure, but his form was all wrong. After working with Jonathan as much as I had that summer, I could have given him some pointers myself. Still, I derived a surprising pleasure watching him play. Just watching him live.
Following Forrest’s match that day—with his ungainly method of reaching a ball and his odd, graceless forehand, totally lacking follow-through, as if he were swatting more than swinging—there was no way to view him as a god anymore.
He was just an uninitiated and secretly insecure outsider, trying hard to fit in to a world he didn’t really belong to.
In some ways, who Forrest reminded me of, as I sat watching him, was myself.
Over the course of his time with Brenda, he had appeared so distracted that he barely noticed me anymore.
But I wanted to believe that was over now.
Partway through his match, on the crossover, he spotted me sitting on the sidelines.
At one point he looked up from the service line and shot me a grin.
“Let me show you how it’s done, Frances,” he said, grinning, as he launched into another messy serve. I pretended to be impressed.
After the match was over, Forrest and his friends headed to the snack bar while I rode home on Buttercup. One of my last bike rides of the summer, it occurred to me.
“So, don’t tell me my husband was actually playing tennis,” Regina said to me when I got back to the house.
He was. “No sign of Brenda,” I said. No sign of her ever anymore. Brenda was history.
Regina just shook her head. She wasn’t buying it.