Pickleballers

Chapter Seventeen

Seventeen

@Edmonds2.0

Checking in on my old Bainbridge crew.

Also, Bella found this rock on the beach.

The selfie showed a beaming Michael Edmonds, locked in a kiss with an exuberant brunette. The woman held her hand close to the camera to display the meteor-of-a-diamond glittering on her finger. The stone shimmered like a billion suns.

Meg stared, slack-jawed, at the phone. For a split second she hoped that this was one of those AI images that jumbled reality. But no. It looked too human, too authentic with emotion.

Annie shook her head, disbelieving. “How?” she asked. “How did this happen?”

Meg’s brain was still connecting the inconceivable dots. “Wait. Michael Edmonds is…engaged?”

“I kissed him.” She dissolved again. “I just kissed him, and he didn’t say anything!” she cried. “What about passionate abandon ?” she said, imitating his awed tone, but her raw hurt turned it into a mockery. “I thought…I thought he liked me. Why didn’t he tell me? Oh! I am so stupid! For as long as I live, I am never kissing anyone again.”

“First of all, you are by far the smartest person I know, and second, I really doubt you’re never going to kiss anyone again.”

“How do you know?” She sobbed, releasing a trail of phlegm from her nostrils and forming a spit bubble between her lips. It was not a good look. Meg, as only a best friend would, held out her arms for another hug and accepted the fact that her shirt would need to be washed immediately.

“All this time. All this time I wished and wished. Yeah, I know. He was my pickleball partner, and in my mind, I made it into this big thing. This thing that was apparently all one-sided,” Annie admitted, her muffled voice buried somewhere near Meg’s armpit. “But then…” She gasped for air. “But then—I took a chance. I did it and…he kissed me back. Right? He did, didn’t he?” Meg nodded. “And I thought: At last! Finally! It’s going to be easy now that it’s out in the open. It’s not just in my head. But I didn’t know anything about him. I’m so embarrassed. Can you imagine what he must think about me? How can I partner with him now? How humiliating. Ugh! I’m so dumb.”

Meg did not say what she suspected—that Michael wouldn’t be partnering with her anyway. That all signs indicated he planned to skip out on Annie to bring in a win for Bainbridge. Instead, she said, “You are not dumb. Just a hopeful romantic.”

Annie brooded, glaring tragically into the darkness toward the sound of the lapping waves. “You remember when you asked me what I saw in Michael?” she asked. “I just realized, that guy I’d been crushing on all this time? He was just some fantasy I invented. How could I be such a fool? Seeing that—that picture of him with another woman…engaged! I didn’t know anything about him, did I? We never really talked. He doesn’t talk much.”

“Except to yell ‘Michael Edmonds!’?” Meg raised her arms in victory.

With effort, Annie raised a small smile. “He has such a nice face. So warm and open. And he spent time with me. On the courts, of course. Which, I realize now, was like, normal practice time. But then—after I got Coach Chad to cough up that grape—he said I had passionate abandon. Me! Passionate abandon. I really thought that was a sign.”

Her gaze wandered sideways. “All this time I sat around and pined for him without telling him how I felt, and I wasn’t sure if he even, you know, saw me. And all of a sudden, yesterday, he did. Nobody’s…I guess nobody’s ever recognized me like that. Seen how much I care. That’s important to me. To be noticed.”

“I notice you. I appreciate you.”

“Yeah. But no offense, you’re not my type.” Stretching her neck, Annie stood and groaned from stiffness.

Meg slung her arm around her friend and squeezed. “C’mon. Let’s get you upstairs.”

In the room’s entryway, they paused in front of the full-length mirror. “Ugh, I’m a mess,” Annie said, wiping at her face. Then, catching Meg’s eye in the reflection, she narrowed her gaze. “Um. And you don’t look so hot yourself. How did it go with Ethan?”

Meg did not know how to answer. She shook her head. The best she could come up with to explain his spontaneous detachment was, “Weird.”

“Weird like Fifty Shades of Weird, or weird like uh-oh weird?”

“Uh-oh weird. Like, suddenly-gave-me-the-cold-shoulder-for-no-reason weird.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

Meg shrugged. Maybe he’d arrived at the same conclusion that Vance had come to—that she was not a worthy match. That her game was not at his level.

Annie shook her head. “Nuh-uh. Whatever bullshit you are telling yourself right now, cut it.” Annie’s face was firm with her rebuke. “I mean it. These boys do not know who we are. They have no idea what we are capable of. We are awesome, self-aware women, and they are missing out.” Meg’s eyes widened. The self-pity and helplessness her friend had expressed moments earlier had left the building, replaced by righteous indignation. Meg’s hurt had eclipsed it all.

Holding up her hand for a high five, Annie insisted, “Give it to me.”

Meg groaned, wary. She was not in the mood to play along. Besides, she did not feel self-aware right now. And far from awesome.

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

Grudgingly, Meg conceded with a weak slap on the hand.

“Not like that. Give it to me.”

“Fine.” Meg smacked Annie’s hand.

“Ow.” Annie wiggled some sensation back into her fingers. “That’s more like it.”

They lay on their beds, and despite the high fives, Meg retreated to ceiling-staring. The air cooled and, through the open window, Meg listened to the coins-in-a-pocket jingle of the water pulling against the rocky shoreline.

When the idea came to her, Meg popped up onto her elbows. “Let’s do something different. Get out of here for a bit.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“We’re not far from the Olympic Mountains. There are tons of trails.”

Annie’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead and threatened to leap off the ledge, but Meg pressed on. “Just a little hike. A day trip. I promise it won’t be Everest.”

Meg could already picture the rocky crags and dense pines that rose to form the Olympic Mountains. Who wouldn’t find inspiration amid the trees and open skies? Getting out into nature would spark her creative juices, not to mention the hike was bound to distract her from her Ethan woes.

But for Annie, she used a different tack. “Think of it as cross-training for pickleball.” Mentioning pickleball was usually the ticket to convincing Annie of anything.

A wince passed over Annie’s face. “Ugh. Pickleball.” Her gaze fled to the downy comforter, and she talked to the stitching. “What am I gonna do now? Picklesmash is three weeks away. How can I practice with Michael Edmonds if I can’t look him in the eye?”

“You’re not supposed to look him in the eye. You’re supposed to keep your eye on the ball.” Meg mimed an exaggerated rim shot.

Annie snorted. “You are so annoying. That’s not even a little funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“A very little. Like, I’d need a microscope to find the funny. That funny is so distant I’d have to rent the Hubble telescope for a whole month to find the funny.” Annie sighed through her nose. “Fine. Let’s go on your stupid hike.”