6
“Luna Aldridge Seen Smiling with Friends Despite the Looming Pressure of Her First Match Back”
—Malibu Reporter
AT EIGHT YEARS old, I started playing tennis on a public court in Newport, Rhode Island, with my father. Baby fat clung to my thighs, and teeth collided in opposite directions. My father said it would be the perfect way to get outside and spend time together.
My mother always insisted that we prioritize our time together as a family the same way we treated our jobs and homework.
“If people could spend their whole lives working, then we can spend our time outside of work doing anything but.” Those sentiments always came while she was preparing focaccia bread for the restaurant.
Ironic for someone who married an accountant working at one of the Big Four.
My father worked every day like it was a competition, despite being on the highest step of the ladder.
A baker and an accountant. They couldn’t be more different, and yet their marriage was storybook-worthy.
We used to do small things at the end of the day, when work concluded, and Walt and I were home from school.
Walt’s favorite activity was going for hikes on the Cliff Walk and visiting the craft store to buy materials to create knickknacks on our carpet, cross-legged.
Mom’s favorite was going to the beach to collect smooth stones and white seashells to glue to picture frames and add to the glass bowl centered on the kitchen island.
Dad’s favorite was watching her jump in the sand when she found a sea dollar.
Mine was walking through the shops downtown and picking out mementos to line up on my bookcases and windowsills like soldiers.
Watching the ocean breeze run through the items on the window felt like a reward.
When the beaches and shops were inundated with tourists, we’d go to the tennis court.
Dad, Walt, and I would play for hours. Or at least until Walt’s arms went limp, and his posture slumped.
Mom would take him back to the house while Dad and I kept playing.
As sore as the muscles in my ankles and wrists felt, my skin would vibrate with energy and go go go.
I imagined this was how artists felt when they realized they could paint. My heart pattered with excitement and my face was as tired as my feet because I didn’t realize I was smiling the entire time.
To be good at something was thrilling. But I was good at lots of things as a kid: science class, braiding hair, making French toast—the key was to add extra cinnamon sugar to the egg mixture—but I didn’t really enjoy any of those things.
This, though? The satisfaction of stopping a ball moving at seventy miles an hour before it flew by you? The pleasure of throwing it in the air and trying to hit it harder every time so you could beat your previous speed? It was like experiencing a sunset on a flight during takeoff.
It was invigorating. Addicting. Obsessive. I was simply in love.
The longer we played, the more I learned.
Foot positioning. The grip of your hand on the racket.
Serves. Groundstrokes. Volleys. By the time I was fourteen, Dad got me a coach he knew in college, and my focus became playing professionally.
I was allowed to play tennis whenever I wanted.
It was even encouraged. I could get up early in the morning before school, go down to the court when the neighbors weren’t awake yet, and practice my forehands before breakfast. Then I’d wait all day at school to go back and do it again.
Sometimes, Mom would come to the court with a pitcher of iced tea to watch me practice, often smacking Dad on the shoulder whenever he shouted out a correction on my foot placement too aggressively.
His strict verbiage and tense grip loosened when Mom died.
It was like his outlook on life had been spilled over a sifter, catching the soft stones Mom pulled from the beach, and letting the sand fall through.
Everything rough about him had slipped away.
He retired early and started taking on hobbies in the form of investments and traveling.
Right as I was becoming competitively committed to the sport, he had softened to see it as just that—a sport. No more shouting as I missed a ball, or hard knocks on my door for sleeping through the five A.M. runs. He had adapted to the lifestyle Mom lived.
For someone whose hobby became their job—purpose—that was difficult to do. I liked it that way, though. I had worked for it to be that way.
But I thought of her on nights like these, when work would fall to the edges of my mind, and food, candlelight, and friends became life’s true source of happiness.
My father would say I was cheating the lifestyle by letting my publicists, coordinators, and management become my friends. We had a strict No Work Talk Rule that kept us together during off hours. We had no problem with pushing work discussions off until Monday morning.
Did any job in this industry operate Monday through Friday, nine to five?
God, no. They’d die laughing if anyone said so.
But was it easier when your client (me) and said client’s life (mine) wasn’t causing any problems that required their immediate attention?
I think so. Or at least that’s what Serena’s face told me every month when she downed her fourth glass of wine at my dining room table.
The poor woman had two sets of twins; you couldn’t blame her.
My doorbell rang and the front door clicked, Deidra and Emma walking in. Deidra’s braids were pulled back, and Emma’s curly hair was tucked under a paper crown, outlined in plastic sticker jewels.
“Paper crowns!” I cheered.
“I put sparkles on yours this time!” she revealed.
“You’re kidding!” I gasped.
She shook her head, swinging her curls back and forth.
I knelt down to meet her height as she placed it on my head.
“You look just like a princess.” She smiled, taking a step back to admire her work. I struggled not to flinch at that word.
“Well, that’s funny because I think I’m looking at one right now,” I said, booping my finger on the tip of her nose.
“Princess Emma, can Luna and I talk for a sec?” Deidra asked.
Emma nodded and took what looked like banana bread out of her mother’s hands, carrying it into the kitchen down the chestnut hall.
“You good?” she asked once her daughter was out of sight.
“Dee, no work talk,” I said pointedly, before spinning on my foot and walking into the dining room to make sure we had enough chairs. Blake had a date tonight, so I wouldn’t need a chair for her. And Lisa said she was busy with—
“Luna, I mean it. Are you okay? Management swept you away after the meeting, so we didn’t get a chance to talk. Are you going to be all right handling this?” Her tone was soft, as malleable as focaccia dough. I continued to adjust the tablecloth.
“We can talk about this Monday,” I replied.
“I mean it,” she said with more vigor.
“Do you think I can’t handle it?”
She exhaled. “I know you can. I wouldn’t have set this up with his team if I didn’t think so. But when I saw the two of you in that room, I felt… I don’t know… it was tense. I just want to make sure you’re going to be okay.”
I ran my hand across my forehead. She was one of my best friends, and I loved her for caring. But I couldn’t have this conversation so soon without a twinge of annoyance.
So I squeezed her hand, and said, “No work talk,” walking out of the room.
The dining room table was decorated with homemade breads, pastas, sauteed vegetables, dips for chips, and soy candles made by Amir, who needed something to do while he watched The Bachelor.
Arms stretched, reaching for dishes, similar to the way kids’ hands fought for goodie bags at a birthday party. But this was so much better than a birthday party because there were carbs, gossip, and the smell of perfume.
Serena—thirty-seven, mom of the two sets of twins, focused on appearances and event scheduling—was on her third glass of wine, telling us about the most recent PTA meeting. Apparently, there was a parent trying to ban stickers this week.
“Stickers—can you believe that? She already has a petition with thirty signatures. I thought we lived in a civil society,” she huffed with such force that her paper crown shifted on her blond head.
“That’s all Jack has an interest in right now!
He covers every surface in stickers the same way Luna covers every wall in here with wallpaper. ”
“Leave my wallpaper out of this!”
Everyone erupted in laughter; even Julia’s shoulders had loosened. We were literally surrounded by wallpaper.
Amir—twenty-eight, lover of romance, and professional nutritionist—spoke up from beside me. “I think you should tell that mom to stick that petition right up her—”
“—Butt!” Deidra shouted, enveloping Emma’s head with her hands, crushing her crown.
“If I only had one child to worry about, I think I would.” Serena tipped her glass to Amir in agreement.
“Amir, how did your date go?” I asked.
“On a scale of one to ten…” He thought for a moment, narrowing his eyes. “Greek god.”
“I don’t think that scale made sense?” I questioned.
Amir didn’t reply, continuing on. “But I don’t know if I can be with a man that attractive. I’ll have to start going to the gym more, and that is not what I signed up for.”
“If we’re going to talk about attractive men, then can we please talk about he-who-we-shall-not-name?
” Willow—twenty-eight, enthusiast of gossip, and the social media manager behind Luna Aldridge the brand—asked, her dark hair braided behind her back.
She was the gossip of the group, but not in a fearful, high school way.
She just always knew what was going on, from dating rumors to office supplies theft to upcoming celebrity tabloids to ex-boyfriends’ allergies.
“I think if we can’t even say his name, then probably not,” Deidra replied with a death stare.
“Who?” Emma piped in, drinking chocolate milk from a straw.
“Oh, yes, please! I wasn’t in today!” Mary—thirty-one, enjoyed a variety of British dramas, and handled crisis management—urged, her bob waving.
“Who are we talking about?” I laughed.
“Kieran Alexander!” Willow stated, obviously excited to say it.
My wine sloshed in its glass. “You guys must be joking…”
Serena cut in. “Well… he’s just so handsome; can’t the past be in the past?” She shrugged her shoulders without much confidence.
I stood from my seat so abruptly that it screeched against the wood. “I can’t believe you’d even admit to him having a single redeemable quality. Do you all think this?” I swiveled my glance around, greeted by apologetic smiles, before sitting down in defeat.
“Guys, he’s kind of a pig, regardless of the charm.
He takes advantage of his good looks to date women without the responsibility of a relationship,” Cecilia—twenty-six, loved to share that she minored in philosophy, worked as my wonderful assistant, and dealt with me as a best friend—commented, taking a sip of her vibrant cocktail.
I pointed to Cecilia. “Yes, that.”
“Come on, Luna! You’ve seen his movies!” Mary defended herself.
I have most definitely not seen his movies (since the Incident, at least).
I looked at her pointedly. “His ability to act like a romantic in a film does not make him any less of a raging asshole in real life. If anything, it makes him more of an asshole, because he can’t bother to act like a civilized human when he obviously has the skills to.”
Willow eyed me for a moment before speaking. “So you do know he can act…” One of the girls laughed so hard she snorted; I couldn’t help but laugh too.
“You people are evil.” I threw a grape at Willow’s chest.
I turned my head in surprise when Mary spoke up. “Luna, I know that when you met him, you guys didn’t start off on the right foot.” Excuse for a tennis player. “But what if he turns out to be a nice guy?”