ON THE THIRD OF MAY, 1977, LaGrande McGruder drove out onto the Huey P. Long Bridge, dropped two Davis Classics and a gut-strung PDP tournament racket into the Mississippi River, and quit playing tennis forever.
“That was it,” she said. “That was the last goddamn straw.” She heaved a sigh, thinking this must be what it feels like to die, to be through with something that was more trouble than it was worth.
As long as she could remember LaGrande had been playing tennis four or five hours a day whenever it wasn’t raining or she didn’t have a funeral to attend. In her father’s law office was a whole cabinet full of her trophies.
After the rackets sank LaGrande dumped a can of brand-new Slazenger tennis balls into the river and stood for a long time watching the cheerful, little, yellow constellation form and re-form in the muddy current.
“Jesus Fucking A Christ,” she said to herself. “Oh, well,” she added, “maybe now I can get my arms to be the same size for the first time in my life.”
LaGrande leaned into the bridge railing, staring past the white circles on her wrists, souvenirs of twenty years of wearing sweat-bands in the fierce New Orleans sunlight, and on down to the river where the little yellow constellation was overtaking a barge.
“That goddamn little new-rich Yankee bitch,” she said, kicking the bridge with her leather Tretorns.
There was no denying it. There was no undoing it. At ten o’clock that morning LaGrande McGruder, whose grandfather had been president of the United States Lawn Tennis Association, had cheated a crippled girl out of a tennis match, had deliberately and without hesitation made a bad call in the last point of a crucial game, had defended the call against loud protests, taken a big drink of her Gatorade, and proceeded to win the next twelve games while her opponent reeled with disbelief at being done out of her victory.
At exactly three minutes after ten that morning she had looked across the net at the impassive face of the interloper who was about to humiliate her at her own tennis club and she had changed her mind about honor quicker than the speed of light. “Out,” she had said, not giving a damn whether the serve was in or out. “Nice try.”
“It couldn’t be out,” the crippled girl said. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” LaGrande said. “I wouldn’t have called it unless I was sure.”
“Are you positive?” the crippled girl said.
“For God’s sake,” LaGrande said, “look, if you don’t mind, let’s hurry up and get this over with. I have to be at the country club for lunch.” That ought to get her, LaGrande thought. At least they don’t let Jews into the country club yet. At least that’s still sacred.
“Serving,” the crippled girl said, trying to control her rage.
LaGrande took her position at the back of the court, reached up to adjust her visor, and caught the eye of old Claiborne Redding, who was sitting on the second-floor balcony watching the match. He smiled and waved. How long has he been standing there, LaGrande wondered. How long has that old fart been watching me? But she was too busy to worry about Claiborne now. She had a tennis match to save, and she was going to save it if it was the last thing she ever did in her life.
The crippled girl set her mouth into a tight line and prepared to serve into the forehand court. Her name was Roxanne Miller, and she had traveled a long way to this morning’s fury. She had spent thousands of dollars on private tennis lessons, hundreds of dollars on equipment, and untold time and energy giving cocktail parties and dinner parties for the entrenched players who one by one she had courted and blackmailed and finagled into giving her matches and return matches until finally one day she would catch them at a weak moment and defeat them. She kept a mental list of such victories. Sometimes when she went to bed at night she would pull the pillows over her head and lie there imagining herself as a sort of Greek figure of justice, sitting on a marble chair in the clouds, holding a scroll, a little parable of conquest and revenge.
It had taken Roxanne five years to fight and claw and worm her way into the ranks of respected Lawn Tennis Club Ladies. For five years she had dragged her bad foot around the carefully manicured courts of the oldest and snottiest tennis club in the United States of America.
For months now her ambitions had centered around LaGrande. A victory over LaGrande would mean she had arrived in the top echelons of the Lawn Tennis Club Ladies.
A victory over LaGrande would surely be followed by invitations to play in the top doubles games, perhaps even in the famous Thursday foursome that played on Rena Clark’s private tennis court. Who knows, Roxanne dreamed, LaGrande might even ask her to be her doubles partner. LaGrande’s old doubles partners were always retiring to have babies. At any moment she might need a new one. Roxanne would be there waiting, the indefatigable handicapped wonder of the New Orleans tennis world.
She had envisioned this morning’s victory a thousand times, had seen herself walking up to the net to shake LaGrande’s hand, had planned her little speech of condolence, after which the two of them would go into the snack bar for lunch and have a heart-to-heart talk about rackets and balls and backhands and forehands and volleys and lobs.
Roxanne basked in her dreams. It did not bother her that LaGrande never returned her phone calls, avoided her at the club, made vacant replies to her requests for matches. Roxanne had plenty of time. She could wait. Sooner or later she would catch LaGrande in a weak moment.
That moment came at the club’s 100th Anniversary Celebration. Everyone was drunk and full of camaraderie. The old members were all on their best behavior, trying to be extra nice to the new members and pretend like the new members were just as good as they were even if they didn’t belong to the Boston Club or the Southern Yacht Club or Comus or Momus or Proteus.
Roxanne cornered LaGrande while she was talking to a famous psychiatrist-player from Washington, a bachelor who was much adored in tennis circles for his wit and political connections.
LaGrande was trying to impress him with how sane she was and hated to let him see her irritation when Roxanne moved in on them.
“When are you going to give me that match you promised me?” Roxanne asked, looking wistful, as if this were something the two of them had been discussing for years.
“I don’t know,” LaGrande said. “I guess I just stay so busy. This is Semmes Talbot, from Washington. This is Roxanne, Semmes. I’m sorry. I can’t remember your last name. You’ll have to help me.”
“Miller,” Roxanne said. “My name is Miller. Really now, when will you play with me?”
“Well, how about Monday?” LaGrande heard herself saying. “I guess I could do it Monday. My doubles game was canceled.” She looked up at the doctor to see if he appreciated how charming she was to everyone, no matter who they were.
“Fine,” Roxanne said. “Monday’s fine. I’ll be here at nine. I’ll be counting on it so don’t let me down.” She laughed. “I thought you’d never say yes. I was beginning to think you were afraid I’d beat you.”
“Oh, my goodness,” LaGrande said, “anyone can beat me, I don’t take tennis very seriously anymore, you know. I just play enough to keep my hand in.”
“Who was that?” Semmes asked when Roxanne left them. “She certainly has her nerve!”
“She’s one of the new members,” LaGrande said. “I really try so hard not to be snotty about them. I really do believe that every human being is just as valuable as everyone else, don’t you? And it doesn’t matter a bit to me what anyone’s background is, but some of the new people are sort of hard to take. They’re so, oh, well, so eager.”
Semmes looked down the front of her silk blouse and laughed happily into her aristocratic eyes. “Well, watch out for that one,” he said. “There’s no reason for anyone as pretty as you to let people make you uncomfortable.”
Across the room Roxanne collected Willie and got ready to leave the party. She was on her way home to begin training for the match.
Willie was glad to leave. He didn’t like hanging around places where he wasn’t wanted. He couldn’t imagine why Roxanne wanted to spend all her time playing tennis with a bunch of snotty people.
Roxanne and Willie were new members. Willie’s brand-new 15 million dollars and the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club’s brand-new $700,000-dollar mortgage had met at a point in history, and Willie’s application for membership had been approved by the board and railroaded past the watchful noses of old Claiborne Redding and his buddies. Until then the only Jewish member of the club had been a globe-trotting Jewish bachelor who knew his wines, entertained lavishly at Antoine’s, and had the courtesy to stay in Europe most of the time.
Willie and Roxanne were something else again. “What in the hell are we going to do with a guy who sells ties and a crippled woman who runs around Audubon Park all day in a pair of tennis shorts,” Claiborne said, pulling on a pair of the thick white Australian wool socks he wore to play in. The committee had cornered him in the locker room.
“The membership’s not for him,” they said. “He doesn’t even play. You’ll never see him. And she really isn’t a cripple. One leg is a little bit shorter than the other one, that’s all.”
“I don’t know,” Claiborne said. “Not just Jews, for God’s sake, but Yankee Jews to boot.”
“The company’s listed on the American Stock Exchange, Claiborne. It is selling at 16½ this morning, up from 5. And he buys his insurance from me. Come on, you’ll never see them. All she’s going to do is play a little tennis with the ladies.”
Old Claiborne rued the day he had let himself be talked into Roxanne and Willie. The club had been forced to take in thirty new families to pay for its new building and some of them were Jews, but, as Claiborne was fond of saying, at least the rest of them tried to act like white people.
Roxanne was something else. It seemed to him that she lived at the club. The only person who hung around the club more than Roxanne was old Claiborne himself. Pretty soon she was running the place. She wrote The Lawn Tennis Newsletter. She circulated petitions to change the all-white dress rule. She campaigned for more court privileges for women. She dashed in and out of the bar and the dining room making plans with the waiters and chefs for Mixed Doubles Nights, Round Robin Galas, Benefit Children’s Jamborees, Saturday Night Luaus.
Claiborne felt like his club was being turned into a cruise ship.
On top of everything else Roxanne was always trying to get in good with Claiborne. Every time he settled down on the balcony to watch a match she came around trying to talk to him, talking while the match was going on, remembering the names of his grandchildren, complimenting him on their serves and backhands and footwork, taking every conceivable liberty, as if at any moment she might start showing up at their weddings and debuts.
Claiborne thought about Roxanne a lot. He was thinking about her this morning when he arrived at the club and saw her cream-colored Rolls-Royce blocking his view of the Garth Humphries Memorial Plaque. He was thinking about her as he got a cup of coffee from a stand the ladies had taken to setting up by the sign-in board. This was some more of her meddling, he thought, percolated coffee in Styrofoam cups with plastic spoons and some kind of powder instead of cream.
At the old clubhouse waiters had brought steaming cups of thick chicory-flavored café au lait out onto the balcony with cream and sugar in silver servers.
Claiborne heaved a sigh, pulled his pants out of his crotch, and went up to the balcony to see what the morning would bring.
He had hardly reached the top of the stairs when he saw Roxanne leading LaGrande to a deserted court at the end of the property. My God in Heaven, he thought, how did she pull that off ? How in the name of God did she get hold of Leland’s daughter.
Leland McGruder had been Claiborne’s doubles partner in their youth. Together they had known victory and defeat in New Orleans and Jackson and Monroe and Shreveport and Mobile and Atlanta and as far away as Forest Hills during one never to be forgotten year when they had thrown their rackets into a red Ford and gone off together on the tour.
Down on the court LaGrande was so aggravated she could barely be civil. How did I end up here, she thought, playing second-class tennis against anyone who corners me at a party.
LaGrande was in a bad mood all around. The psychiatrist had squired her around all weekend, fucked her dispassionately in someone’s garçonnière, and gone back to Washington without making further plans to see her.
She bounced a ball up and down a few times with her racket, thinking about a line of poetry that kept occurring to her lately whenever she played tennis. “Their only monument the asphalt road, and a thousand lost golf balls.”
“Are you coming to Ladies Day on Wednesday?” Roxanne was saying. “We’re going to have a great time. You really ought to come. We’ve got a real clown coming to give out helium balloons, and we’re going to photograph the winners sitting on his lap for the newsletter. Isn’t that a cute idea?”
“I’m afraid I’m busy Wednesday,” LaGrande said, imagining balloons flying all over the courts when the serious players arrived for their noon games. “Look,” she said, “let’s go on and get started. I can’t stay too long.”
They set down their pitchers of Gatorade, put on their visors and sweatbands, sprayed a little powdered resin on their hands, and walked out to their respective sides of the court.
Before they hit the ball four times LaGrande knew something was wrong. The woman wasn’t going to warm her up! LaGrande had hit her three nice long smooth balls and each time Roxanne moved up to the net and put the ball away on the sidelines.
“How about hitting me some forehands,” LaGrande said. “I haven’t played in a week. I need to warm up.”
“I’ll try,” Roxanne said. “I have to play most of my game at the net, you know, because of my leg.”
“Well, stay back there and hit me some to warm up with,” LaGrande said, but Roxanne went right on putting her shots away with an assortment of tricks that looked more like a circus act than a tennis game.
“Are you ready to play yet?” she asked. “I’d like to get started before I get too tired.”
“Sure,” LaGrande said. “Go ahead, you serve first. There’s no reason to spin a racket over a fun match.” Oh, well, she thought, I’ll just go ahead and slaughter her. Of course, I won’t lob over her head, I don’t suppose anyone does that to her.
Roxanne pulled the first ball out of her pants. She had a disconcerting habit of sticking the extra ball up the leg of her tights instead of keeping it in a pocket. She pulled the ball out of her pants, tossed it expertly up into the air, and served an ace to LaGrande’s extreme backhand service corner.
“Nice serve,” LaGrande said. Oh, well, she thought, everyone gets one off occasionally. Let her go on and get overconfident. Then I can get this over in a hurry.
They changed courts for the second serve. Roxanne hit short into the backhand court. LaGrande raced up and hit a forehand right into Roxanne’s waiting racket. The ball dropped neatly into a corner and the score was 30-love.
How in the shit did she get to the net so fast, LaGrande thought. Well, I’ll have to watch out for that. I thought she was supposed to be crippled.
Roxanne served again, winning the point with a short spinning forehand. Before LaGrande could gather her wits about her she had lost the first game.
Things went badly with her serve and she lost the second game. While she was still recovering from that she lost the third game. Calm down, she told herself. Get hold of yourself. Keep your eye on the ball. Anticipate her moves. It’s only because I didn’t have a chance to warm up. I’ll get going in a minute.
Old Claiborne stood watching the match from a secluded spot near the door to the dining room, watching it with his heart in his throat, not daring to move any farther out onto the balcony for fear he might distract LaGrande and make things worse.
Why doesn’t she lob, Claiborne thought. Why in the name of God doesn’t she lob? Maybe she thinks she shouldn’t do it just because one of that woman’s legs is a little bit shorter than the other.
He stood squeezing the Styrofoam cup in his hand. A small hole had developed in the side, and drops of coffee were making a little track down the side of his Fred Perry flannels, but he was oblivious to everything but the action on the court.
He didn’t even notice when Nailor came up behind him. Nailor was a haughty old black man who had been with the club since he was a young boy and now was the chief groundskeeper and arbiter of manners among the hired help.
Nailor had spent his life tending Rubico tennis courts without once having the desire to pick up a racket. But he had watched thousands of tennis matches and he knew more about tennis than most players did.
He knew how the little fields of energy that surround men and women move and coalesce and strike and fend off and retreat and attack and conquer. That was what he looked for when he watched tennis. He wasn’t interested in the details.
If it was up to Nailor no one but a few select players would ever be allowed to set foot on his Rubico courts. The only time of day when he was really at peace was the half hour from when he finished the courts around 7:15 each morning until they opened the iron gates at 7:45 and the members started arriving.
Nailor had known LaGrande since she came to her father’s matches in a perambulator. He had lusted after her ass ever since she got her first white tennis skirt and her first Wilson autograph racket. He had been the first black man to wax her first baby-blue convertible, and he had been taking care of her cars ever since.
Nailor moonlighted at the club polishing cars with a special wax he had invented.
Nailor hated the new members worse than Claiborne did. Ever since the club had moved to its new quarters and they had come crowding in bringing their children and leaving their paper cups all over the courts he had been thinking of retiring.
Now he was watching one of them taking his favorite little missy to the cleaners. She’s getting her little booty whipped for sure this morning, he thought. She can’t find a place to turn and make a stand. She don’t know where to start to stop it. She’s got hind teat today whether she likes it or not and I’m glad her daddy’s not here to watch it.
Claiborne was oblivious to Nailor. He was trying to decide who would benefit most if he made a show of walking out to the balcony and taking a seat.
He took a chance. He waited until LaGrande’s back was to him, then walked out just as Roxanne was receiving serve.
LaGrande made a small rally and won her service, but Roxanne took the next three games for the set. “I don’t need to rest between sets unless you do,” she said, walking up to the net. “We really haven’t been playing that long. I really don’t know why I’m playing so well. I guess I’m just lucky today.”
“I just guess you are,” LaGrande said. “Sure, let’s go right on. I’ve got a date for lunch.” Now I’ll take her, she thought. Now I’m tired of being polite. Now I’m going to beat the shit out of her.
Roxanne picked up a ball, tossed it into the air, and served another ace into the backhand corner of the forehand court.
Jesus Fucking A Christ, LaGrande thought. She did it again. Where in the name of God did that little Jewish housewife learn that shot.
LaGrande returned the next serve with a lob. Roxanne ran back, caught it on the edge of her racket and dribbled it over the net.
Now LaGrande lost all powers of reason. She began trying to kill the ball on every shot. Before she could get hold of herself she had lost three games, then four, then five, then she was only one game away from losing the match, then only one point.
This is it, LaGrande thought. Armageddon.
Roxanne picked up the balls and served the first one out. She slowed herself down, took a deep breath, tossed up the second ball and shot a clean forehand into the service box.
“Out,” LaGrande said. “Nice try.”
“It couldn’t be out,” Roxanne said. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” LaGrande said. “I wouldn’t have called it unless I was sure.”
Up on the balcony Old Claiborne’s heart was opening and closing like a geisha’s fan. He caught LaGrande’s eye, smiled and waved, and, turning around, realized that Nailor was standing behind him.
“Morning, Mr. Claiborne,” Nailor said, leaning politely across him to pick up the cup. “Looks like Mr. Leland’s baby’s having herself a hard time this morning. Let me bring you something nice to drink while you watch.”
Claiborne sent him for coffee and settled back in the chair to watch LaGrande finish her off, thinking, as he often did lately, that he had outlived his time and his place. “I’m not suited for a holding action,” he told himself, imagining the entire culture of the white Christian world to be stretched out on some sort of endless Maginot Line besieged by the children of the poor carrying portable radios and boxes of fried chicken.
Here Claiborne sat, on a beautiful spring morning, in good spirits, still breathing normally, his blood coursing through his veins on its admirable and accustomed journeys, and only a few minutes before he had been party to a violation of a code he had lived by all his life.
He sat there, sipping his tasteless coffee, listening to the Saturday lawn mowers starting up on the lawn of the Poydras Retirement Home, which took up the other half of the square block of prime New Orleans real estate on which the new clubhouse was built. It was a very exclusive old folks’ home, with real antiques and Persian rugs and a board of directors made up of members of the New Orleans Junior League. Some of the nicest old people in New Orleans went there to die.
Claiborne had suffered through a series of terrible luncheons at the Poydras Home in an effort to get them to allow the tennis club to unlock one of the gates that separated the two properties. But no matter how the board of directors of the Lawn Tennis Club pleaded and bargained and implored, the board of directors of the Poydras Home stoutly refused to allow the tennis-club members to set foot on their lawn to retrieve the balls that flew over the fence. A ball lost to the Poydras Home was a ball gone forever.
The old-fashioned steel girders of the Huey P. Long Bridge hung languidly in the moist air. The sun beat down on the river. The low-hanging clouds pushed against each other in fat cosmic orgasms.
LaGrande stood on the bridge until the constellation of yellow balls was out of sight around a bend in the river. Then she drove to her house on Philip Street, changed clothes, got in the car, and began to drive aimlessly up and down Saint Charles Avenue, thinking of things to do with the rest of her life.
She decided to cheer herself up. She turned onto Carrollton Avenue and drove down to Gus Mayer.
She went in, found a saleslady, took up a large dressing room, and bought some cocktail dresses and some sun dresses and some summer skirts and blouses and some pink linen pants and a beige silk Calvin Klein evening jacket.
Then she went downstairs and bought some hose and some makeup and some perfume and some brassieres and some panties and a blue satin Christian Dior gown and robe.
She went into the shoe department and bought some Capezio sandals and some Bass loafers and some handmade espadrilles. She bought a red umbrella and a navy blue canvas handbag.
When she had bought one each of every single thing she could possibly imagine needing she felt better and went on out to the Country Club to see if anyone she liked to fuck was hanging around the pool.