Pickleballers

Chapter Twenty-Four

Twenty-Four

At a gas station outside of Port Angeles, Meg retrieved the keys to the blue hatchback. “I only put a couple of dents in the rear, but you can hardly see them,” Annie joked before jogging off to the restroom. Meg tried a weak smile, but her heart was not in it.

Rooster used his good hand to chuck Meg on the shoulder. “Buck up,” he said. “It ain’t over for you. You’re a pickleball powerhouse.”

He raised the plastered finger and thumb and said, “They did an all right job, don’t ya think? And on the plus side, I can do this,” he said, lifting his L-shaped cast to his forehead. “Loser! That’s the sign I’m gonna make for the other team when you find another partner and kick their butts.”

Her deflated heart pushed out an appreciative smile. Later, Meg promised herself, she would tell Rooster choice parts of the story that had led to her discovery that Ethan and Michael were both behind cheating in the tournament. But now, all of them were hungry and tired and a long way from Bainbridge. And she owed it to Annie to tell her the truth, privately, first.

Besides, a nagging voice in her mind warned that her gullibility with Ethan spoke of a deeper defeat. If she couldn’t trust herself to know whom she could trust and whom to distrust, how could she trust herself? Her circular self-deprecation was giving her a headache.

“You can get a better teammate than this old coot, anyhow,” Rooster was saying.

“Actually,” she mumbled, “I think I’m going to take a break from pickleball. Maybe it’s not for me.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Rooster kept his eyes pegged on hers and nodded solemnly. “Maybe you should just quit.”

A silence followed. In that instant, her private suspicion was confirmed. She did suck at pickleball. How long had she been fooling herself?

Rooster snorted. “I was messing with you, kid! For cryin’ out loud, what are you thinking? You lost your partner. So what? You have one lousy obstacle thrown in your way and boom! ” He snapped his fingers. “You quit? You think success is easy? Did Einstein give up when he wanted to find the theory of relativity? Did Michael Phelps stop swimming after one gold medal? Did Marie Curie stop working on radiation when…Well, maybe she should have, but that’s beside the point. No. The best ones never stop. They keep trying. All those little pebbles of failure along the way…they make stepping-stones to success. Because there’s one thing all the greats have in common: they’ve got nerve, all of them. Right?”

Meg nodded, only half-convinced.

“Right?”

“All right. All right. I’ll keep it in mind. Like I need advice from you. You look like you’re about to rob a bank.” She smirked and mirrored his bandaged hand. “Stick ’em up.”

“You think that’s funny, huh?” Rooster countered.

Meg pointed her finger gun at herself. “Who? Me?”

“Watch out, lady,” Rooster said, and flashed two fingers and a thumb. “I’d flip you the bird, but my fingers are having technical difficulties.”

“We’re gonna grab a bite before we return to the Outlook,” Annie said to Rooster as she marched back toward them. “You sure you won’t join us?”

“Let me just check.” As he tapped in his wife’s phone number at a glacial pace, he told the ladies, “Vernie and I have plans for an all-night Scrabble tournament with Lulu.”

Laverne’s greeting echoed over the speaker. “How’s our Lulu doing?” Rooster asked in a voice that could be heard in Oregon.

“We’ve been having some excitement.” Laverne matched his volume. “She had a contraction.” Rooster sucked on his teeth, and the group exchanged glances. Lulu was still two months before her due date. “Cool your rocket blasters, sweets,” Laverne continued, “Probably a false alarm. She’s at the clinic getting a check, just in case.”

The instant he hung up the phone, Rooster squeezed them both into a quick hug and hopped in his Buick. “I’ll let you know when I get another hall pass, ladies.” Smiling, Meg rolled her eyes. Rooster pointed his bandaged fingers out the window. “Kapow, kiddos. See you soon.”

By the time Annie and Meg rolled into Bainbridge an hour and a half later, the last golden rays of sunset glowed against the facade of the Greens Grill. Annie, hangry and determined, followed the hostess at a clip to an out-of-the-way table on the outside deck. In distracted silence, they glanced at the menu and sipped at their waters. Annie scrolled through her phone and researched Bainbridge hospitals with facilities for preemies. Meanwhile, Meg racked her brain, considering how to tell Annie that Michael had turned out to be a double-crossing tournament thief.

So she stalled. When they reached for the last of the breadsticks, Annie caught Meg’s eye and glanced away quickly. If Meg hadn’t known better, she would have thought that Annie was keeping an uncomfortable secret from her as well.

“We need a drink,” Annie urged.

Meg narrowed her eyes. Annie rarely drank anything stronger than mint in her lemonade. “Okay,” she said, suspicion lacing her response.

Annie waved over their waiter. “Two margaritas, please.” As he moved to leave, she tapped his arm. “And two tequila chasers.” Now Meg’s curiosity shifted into overdrive. Something was definitely up.

Annie waited until the drinks were in front of them. She took a sip, steadied her gaze, and said, “Reflux Dave texted me…I’m so sorry, Meg,” she sighed. “They gave the beginners’ slot to Vance and édith.”

The effect was more like a dull headache than a stab to the gut. Not sharp, not unexpected, just disorienting. She understood it. She did. Without Rooster, she couldn’t compete anyway. Even so, she felt the sting of her old league’s decision. They hadn’t even given her a shot at challenging her competitors. More than anything, she felt as if Vance had robbed her—stolen away something that should have been hers.

Meg tapped her forehead on the tabletop, not hard, but enough for theatrical effect. This morning, the guy she’d crushed on had crushed her. Now her pickle peeps had kicked her to the curb as well. All that remained was an ex-partner with a finger gun and the hammock indentations on her left buttock.

And knowing that the bad-news dump had only just begun, Meg exhaled through her nose. She wished she could protect Annie from the truth, but it was time to open up a bag of jerky.

“I saw Michael Edmonds,” she started.

Without preamble, Meg shared the sorry saga of Michael’s betrayal: from trying to pry the scoop from Marilyn, to seeing him with paddle in hand creeping into the enemy camp. “Michael Edmonds plans to skip out on you to play for Bainbridge. Worse, he’s playing down and pretending to be a beginner. I’m sorry, Annie. But I saw him with my own eyes.”

At first, Annie said nothing, and Meg wished her empathy were a magic trick that could make Annie’s hurt vanish. “I can’t believe it,” Annie whispered, her voice warbling with emotion. “I can’t believe he would do that to Lakeview. I just can’t believe—he would do that to me!”

“I know. I am so sorry.”

“Wait.” Annie gripped Meg’s wrist. “You saw him playing? Who was he playing with?”

“Well, that’s the other thing,” Meg confessed, her heart rate accelerating. “Michael’s partner in crime?” It hurt so much she could hardly say it. “Ethan Fine.”

“No.”

Meg nodded soberly.

“Your Ethan? Shirtless Wonder Ethan?”

“Yep.”

“Ethan?” Annie shook her head, as if her disbelief could make it un-so. “Close-down-our-courts-and-totally-screw-us Ethan?” She side-eyed the tequila shot. “Aw, Meg. Shit. Excuse me,” she said, automatically apologizing for her language. She clinked the glass against Meg’s and threw it back. Then she snatched Meg’s shot glass and downed that as well. “Shit,” she repeated.

“There is something very wrong in the world,” Annie continued, “when your Shirtless Wonder is a conniving asshole and my Michael Edmonds is a”—she looked over her shoulder for the bad-word police—“a fucking teabagger.”

“I’m pretty sure you mean sandbagger.”

“Teabagger,” Annie said, downing the rest of her margarita.

·····

Two margaritas in, Annie suggested they move indoors to sit at the bar. “I need to cut out the middleman,” she explained, and scooted into one of the captain’s barstools. Her mood over the last hour had gone from fury to self-pity to vengeful indignation. Annie gritted her teeth. “I can’t believe those guys. It is just not right. We need to do something about this.” She threw as much force behind her squeaky voice as she could. “I’d like to pickle their balls.”

“Now, that would be something.”

But Annie was already nixing the idea with a shake of her head. “On second thought,” she amended, “testicular pickling is not a long-term solution. Because…Scrotox.”

“Say what?”

“Scrotox. You know. Botox for the scrotum.”

“That is not a thing.”

“It is totally a thing. Scrotox,” she repeated, enjoying the sound of it way too much. “I heard about it from one of the nurses. Smooths while it plumps. It’s real. I’m gonna look it up.” Annie jabbed at her phone for proof and shared the screen. “See?”

“Ack! Make it stop!” Meg buried her eyes in her palms.

Snatching the phone back, Annie whisked away the website. “Blech. You can’t unsee that kind of thing.”

Annie tipped back the last of her margarita. Before long, she started to swipe at her cell again, and Meg began to wonder at the sober change on her friend’s face. “What are you doing?”

Annie’s sigh dropped so heavily she could have broken a toe. “I hate that I’m doing this. But I can’t stop.”

Over her friend’s shoulder, Meg glimpsed images as they swept past. Michael Edmonds kayaking with his fiancée. Michael Edmonds laughing over a latte. Michael Edmonds counting out change. By the umpteenth image, Meg pulled the phone away from her.

“Gimme that. That can’t be healthy,” Meg said. She glanced down and gawked at the last image on Annie’s cell. Michael Edmonds on Marilyn’s asphalt pickleball court. With Ethan. How dare those bullshit artists blaspheme the original courts with their sandbagging presence? She tossed the phone back to Annie. “That pisses me off.”

“Better to be pissed off than pissed on,” Annie declared much louder than necessary.

The bartender appeared. Swishing her bar rag across the surface, she lifted their empty glasses. “How ’bout I get you two some soda or juice for the next round?”

Annie said, “I think we’re being cut off.” Resigned, she nodded toward the side, where fruits and veggies were piled in a bowl beside a blender. “We’ll have a couple of smoothies. And some water.”

The bartender filled two glasses with ice water. Annie sipped at it and chewed on the ice. She leaned into Meg, her eyes glinting with mischief. “I have an idea. If Michael can post all of the wonderful and fun things he’s doing with his stupid fiancée and his stupid pickleball paddle, why can’t we?”

Meg had drunk just enough to believe that this was a very good idea. “We should make them jealous and sorry that they messed with us, show those boys what a good time we’re having,” she said, aiming her cell at the bartender, who was blending up a healthy-looking veggie shake. She hit record. “Blend it up. Vroom!” Meg cheered before hitting the post button. “See? We are fun and wonderful. Right?”

“We are. We are won and funderful.” Annie cocked her head. “That is not right.”

“Okay. One more of us.” Meg snapped a selfie of their cheeks pressed together. Annie’s lopsided grin was cut halfway out of the shot. “What should we caption it?”

“I dunno. Say: We’re having so much fun. We are…eating caviar and drinking champagne. And tomorrow we’re going out to the beach and we’re getting on a cruise.”

“First of all, that is way too much to type. And second of all…” She forgot the second of all. “Say something short. And true. Everybody knows there aren’t any cruises from Bainbridge,” she clarified, impressed that her brain was functioning in such a rational manner.

“No cruises? They should have cruises. Maybe we could find a big ship…” Annie countered hopefully. Grabbing Meg’s phone, she voice texted. “ Today drinking ’ritas. Tomorrow taking a big ship on the beach. Ta-da! Captioned and posted. Now Michael will be very jealous that we are having so much fun while he is teabagging in a pickleball tournament and marrying some stupid…other…person—” The end of Annie’s sentence was lost to the sob.

Meg took a sip of the foaming, chunky green liquid. It tasted as unpleasant as chewing tinfoil, or finding out the guy you opened your heart to was a duplicitous, backstabbing weasel.