Twenty-Seven
Two Michael Edmondses? WTF? They were twins ?
“Annie! What a surprise.” The skilled Michael Edmonds smiled placidly. Like he was greeting her with a cup of tea. As an afterthought, he added, “Oh. Hey, Meg.”
For Meg’s part, no response was forthcoming.
The other Michael Edmonds, the wounded one, prodded his chest and winced. When he lifted his head, his gaze lit on Annie. Their eyes met, and a palpable charge exploded between them. Overhead, clouds drifted apart, leaving a sliver of space from which a dramatic beam of light cast a ray of golden splendor over their gaping expressions. The air rang with a celestial chord.
Injured Michael spoke. “It’s you,” he uttered reverently. “Passionate…abandon.”
“You’re hurt!” Annie sprang toward him. “Let me…” She helped him raise his shirt.
There, at the center of Michael 2.0’s chest, a round bruise was forming, the center of it a gaping space left by one of the pickleball’s holes. As Annie’s fingers traced the red mark, he stared at her dreamily. “I was hoping I’d see you again,” he said.
“Holy crap,” Michael Edmonds the First interjected. “ Annie is the doctor you’ve been going on about. The one who Heimliched the grape eater. The angel who kissed you out of the blue. Annie Yoon. You’re kidding me.”
Lakeview’s A-team player turned to Meg. “I don’t believe this. He’s been talking about her nonstop, like she was some angel sent from heaven. And all along it was Annie ?”
Meg’s voice box unlocked. “What the hell is going on, Michael?”
“Michael?” said the wounded man. Only now did injured Michael break his gaze-meld with Annie. “You told them your name was Michael? I’m Michael.” His face turned toward his twin. His brow furrowed in frustration. “What the hell— Do we have to share everything?”
“Whoa. Hey. Cool it, bro.”
“You cool it, bro.” A long, tense pause ensued. Then, both Michaels broke into laughter.
“Hey!” Meg fumed, indignant. “What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?”
She turned her fury toward First Michael: Mr. Pickleskills. He who’d abandoned Annie weeks before an important tournament to rush off to an island and propose to some woman who Meg had never known existed. Why Meg felt abused by this betrayal, she did not fully understand. But on Annie’s behalf, she warned, “You better tell us what is happening right now.”
Hands up in surrender, Lakeview Michael apologized. “Okay. All right. I see that the jig is up.” He pressed a palm to his T-shirt and adopted a conciliatory tone. “Annie. Let me reintroduce myself. I am your partner in pickleball: Dave Edmonds.”
“What?” Annie cried. “Dave?!”
“I hope you can forgive me. The Lakeview league just has too many Daves. I didn’t want to be another one.”
He turned to his twin and explained, “They can be cruel. You have no idea. I had no choice.” He appealed to Meg. “Look at poor Reflux Dave. What if they zeroed in on my pointed incisors? Dracula Dave? No. I couldn’t take that chance. So when I first started playing, I borrowed my twin’s name. You can imagine how hard it was to remember to answer to Michael. I had to keep reminding myself that I was him.”
“And that’s why you kept yelling ‘Michael Edmonds’ every time you scored a point,” Meg realized.
He nodded.
“So,” Annie cooed, tilting her head to soak up the goo-goo eyes of the man delighting in her nearness, “ you’re Michael Edmonds.”
“All along,” the real Michael replied.
“All along,” Annie repeated numbly, as if the obviousness of this truth had been set in motion a lifetime ago.
Meg narrowed her eyes, the whole scenario unspooling before her. So it was Dave Edmonds who’d gotten engaged out of the blue. Dave Edmonds who still planned to play for Lakeview in the advanced pickleball slot with Annie. And it was Michael Edmonds whom Annie had kissed. The one Annie believed she’d had a connection with. Because, it turned out, she had.
But the real kicker was the revelation that Michael Edmonds 1.0 actually was Bainbridge’s secret weapon, the newbie player they’d pinned their hopes on to partner with Ethan…if they could only bring Michael’s play up to a beginner’s competition level.
“Oh no.” Blinking with the realization, Meg glanced at Annie. “Ethan,” she moaned.
She had lost her temper and marched out on him, ignored his attempts to get in touch, and built a case of onerous despisal against him. And now the real basis of all that venom—Ethan’s duplicitous support of a faux beginner—was the true lie. Her brain wrestled with the overabundance of oxymorons. But more pressingly, she wondered how to take back her unkind words, the snubbed texts, and the cucumber in a blender.
Her stomach did a regretful little flip. Love had appeared on her doorstep, all cuddly and sweet. She had taken it in and given it spoonfuls of warm milk. Then, for no good reason, she had locked love out in the rain and called it a lying, deceitful dream-crusher.
She hoped with 110 percent of her mathematically challenged heart that Ethan could forgive her.