Chapter Thirty-Seven
ADELE
Adele sat by the telephone and waited with trembling hands.
Her local operator had transferred her to a traffic operator, who was now in line for a circuit to reach her mother in France.
She’d been told to wait by the phone until a connection could be made, but it could be anytime that day.
She made herself a cup of chamomile tea.
She’d waited this long; she could wait a few more hours.
“Maman?” Adele said first.
“Adeline?” She sounded old and fragile.
Adele held back tears. “Hi, Maman,” she said, speaking French.
“I know it’s been a long time, but”—she hesitated, then forced herself to get out the words that she’d been practicing since the early hours of that morning; she didn’t know how long the line would stay connected—“I wanted to hear your voice.”
“Oh, Adeline, you don’t know how much I have longed to hear from you.”
“I’m sorry it’s taken me all this time.” Tears streaked Adele’s cheeks. She let them fall into her lap. “I didn’t think you could forgive me.”
“Forgive you? For what?”
“For Papa and his heart. It gave up after that day.”
“No, my girl.” Her mother let out a quivering sigh on the other end of the line, which shocked Adele, then she heard a younger woman’s voice telling her she was too tired for this conversation, that she needed her rest.
“Please,” Adele said. “Please let her speak.”
“Adeline, it was not your fault. He was a damaged man. He was too forceful, too aggressive, too much for a child, and he realized too late. I would hope that was his greatest regret. It was certainly mine. I thought you blamed me and hated me for what we forced you into. You didn’t tell us where you were.
And I thought you didn’t want to hear from me again. ”
“Oh, Maman,” Adele said, grasping for the first time that all those years they’d both been alone and apart were needless. They could have been each other’s comfort.
“I miss you,” Adele said.
“I miss you too.”
Adele heard the exhaustion and weariness in her mother’s voice. “Maman, please, can I visit you?”
Her mother gasped and sobbed a little. “Yes. Please, come Adeline, come soon. Nothing would make me happier.”
That afternoon Adele hastily rode her bike to the club and struggled to find a place to park it. Trucks had pulled up in front, and workers were in the process of dismantling the bleachers that had been set up for Saturday’s match.
“I’m late, I’m sorry,” she said as she rushed onto the court where Sylvia and Milly were sitting on the side bench in their tennis gear, looking miserable.
They might have been excited at the match on Saturday, but here they were, two days later, and their disappointment was too thick to be concealed.
“You haven’t missed much,” Milly said. “We’re not really in the mood to play.”
“Why?” Adele asked.
Sylvia rolled her eyes and motioned to the courts and the pool. “Well, for one thing, we’re losing the club. After today no more tennis, at least not here.” She sipped her coffee and sighed. “I’ve got to say, I’m really, really going to miss playing with you girls.”
“Yes,” Adele said. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“About tennis?” Sylvia asked.
“About the club. How much did you make from the event?” Adele asked. “There must have been at least seven or eight hundred tickets sold.”
“We had over a thousand people attend, so with the tickets and the advertising and the food and beverage sales and the merchandise, we did well, about twenty thousand in profit.” She shrugged.
“Not bad for our first and only big tennis event. But not enough to make a difference. We were several months behind on payments. Walter’s handing everything over to the bank this afternoon.
We’re probably not even supposed to be here, but I figured they could give us until the end of the day, at least, so we could stomp around this court one more time. ”
Adele nodded, but still no one stood up to play.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen after this,” Sylvia said. “If they’ll keep the club open, or if they’ll try and sell it off right away.” She shook her head. “It’s such a shame, and I feel terrible for all the people, friends, who have active memberships.” She looked to Milly. “Including you.”
“How much did you need?” Adele asked.
“A lot. Today was the last day to settle the payments. We would have had to take out a new loan, but no bank is going to lend us money after this mess.”
“Exactly how much did you need?” Adele pressed.
“What does it matter now?” Sylvia threw up her hands in exasperation, but Adele waited for her response. “Seventy thousand dollars,” she said, finally.
Milly gasped. “That’s a lot of money.”
“It sure is,” Sylvia said.
Milly stood and put on a forced enthusiastic smile. “So maybe we should just play? One last time?”
“Hold on,” Adele said. “You said you made twenty thousand from the event?”
“That’s right,” Sylvia said. “It’s not enough, Adele. I know you wanted this to work, but it’s just not even close to enough.”
“Well, the Lacoste people paid me to wear their attire, and Wilson paid me to use their racket. A little over ten thousand for sporting their gear on television, with a bonus of five more from each brand if more than ten million viewers tuned in. And I just found out from Rutherford that they did. I didn’t get the winner’s purse, but I got eight thousand in prize money just for playing. ”
“That’s twenty-eight thousand! You’re rich,” Milly said.
“Hardly,” Adele said. “But I live frugally.”
Milly had begun to pace, bouncing the ball on her racket. Suddenly she stopped.
“Lloyd just wrote me a check for eighteen thousand dollars,” she said. “It’s his signing-on bonus for a job he’s taking in New York. I need to save half to cover expenses and the mortgage, but if I had a job and a salary, I could invest the other half—”
“Bien,” Adele burst out. “Excellente!”
“Oh gosh,” Sylvia exclaimed. “I’m so grateful for what you two are suggesting here. But even if the three of us pooled our money together and had shares in the club, it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“You’re right,” Adele said. “We’re still thirteen thousand short, and we’d need a cushion for the operating costs, but I think there’s a way we could make it work.”
“How?” Sylvia said, searching the sky, as if afraid to hear an inevitable disappointment.
Adele tried to suppress the slightest smile forming on her lips. “I’ve found an investor.”
“Who?” Milly demanded.
Sylvia and Milly were holding their breath.
“Margery Horn,” Adele said at last and let it sink in for a minute.
“Margery Horn wants to invest with us?” Sylvia said.
“That’s right.” Adele said. “We talked things over yesterday and we’ve made contact with Wilson. They want to sponsor an annual televised Grudges Match here at The Island Club, hosted by Margery and me, where former champions get to settle longtime rivalries and face off in a final match.”
Milly clasped her hands together excitedly.
“Wait a second,” Sylvia cautioned. “Let’s think this through. Margery lives in London. Why would she want to invest in a club here?”
“She understands as I do that our competing days are behind us. This is a good opportunity to put some of our winnings to good use and hopefully give us decent returns. She’s a smart woman.
Just as she plays tennis, she’s thinking three steps ahead, and she knows a good opportunity when she sees it,” Adele said.
“And the weather is a lot better here than it is in London, so she’ll have a place in the sunshine to come and play. ”
Sylvia closed her eyes and shook her head as if trying to figure out if this was really happening.
“But there’s one caveat,” Adele said. “Walter would be part of the team, of course, director of operations, perhaps, but he would have to run all finances by the three of us.” She shrugged.
“No offense. But it’s a lot of money, the only money I’ve got, and I can’t risk losing it.
” She looked to Milly. “None of us can.”
“Understood,” Sylvia said. “He’d be relieved to not carry all the burden. That’s what did him in last time.”
“It sounds like we have a plan to be in business,” Milly said, beaming.
“Oh my God.” Sylvia put her hands to her mouth. “I can’t believe this. And you’re willing to put all that heartache and all those regrets from your past behind you?” Sylvia asked.
Adele picked up her racket and spun it in her hands, then she smiled. “I already have.”