Daisy unscrewed the wooden press from her racquet and laced her fingers between the strings, pulling on the gut. It was eleven in the morning and the sun was already burning her bare shoulders, the dust from the clay court creating a haze around her.
She set the press on the spectators’ bench near the post and looked up at the tennis club’s big, cool porch, where her mother sat chatting with Mrs. Coolridge. She was nodding her head slightly at something the director was saying. Unlike her father, who had given her a good-luck kiss earlier that morning, Daisy’s mother looked fresh, as if the party had never happened. She saw Mr. Montgomery whispering into Peaches’s ear. Daisy turned back to the court.
She scraped her Keds against the clay and then used the top of her racquet to knock them clean. Peaches came down the steps, her ponytail catching the sun. Daisy pushed her headband higher up on her head, and used the back of her wrist to wipe the gathering sweat off her top lip.
She pretended not to watch as Peaches sat on the bench, pulled a chammy out of her bag and began polishing the already gleaming frame of her racquet.
She’s cold, I’m hot. She’s cold, I’m hot.
Daisy looked up at the porch again. Her mother’s eyes were on her, a small line creasing the smooth skin between her eyebrows. Mrs. Coolridge was now shaking Mr. Montgomery’s hand, smiling at something he was saying. The voices were just a murmur and they made her feel like the hot square of clay was a world away. Her head ached from the glare and she could hear a faint ringing in her ears.
Hot enough to roast an ox.
There was a small stirring on the porch. Daisy saw Mrs. Coolridge turn her head and squint toward the dark interior of the clubhouse.
Ed stepped out, his eyes flicking momentarily over the program director, before taking a few easy strides toward her mother. Daisy breathed out. She hadn’t seen him since the night before and, although she couldn’t say why, exactly, she was glad he was there. Her mother looked up and smiled at Ed, who pulled one of the wooden deck chairs closer and sat down. Daisy fingered the arrowhead in the pocket of her dress. It was rough, like a small piece of coral, against her thumb and forefinger.
Mrs. Coolridge descended.
“All right, girls, you know the rules. First to win two sets,” she said.
Daisy made a small crescent in the clay with the rubber tip of her shoe.
Mrs. Coolridge dug in her pocket and pulled out a quarter. “Daisy Derringer, you will call the toss.”
She looked up at the sky, wide and blue and bright.
Mrs. Coolridge spun the coin up. It glinted in the sun.
“Heads.” Heads I win, tails you lose.
Mrs. Coolridge caught the quarter in her palm, and slapped it on the back of her hand. “Heads.”
Daisy thought she could hear her mother say something, but she wasn’t sure.
“Daisy?” Mrs. Coolridge eyed her impassively.
“I’ll take first serve.”
“Peaches?”
Peaches jerked her head toward the far side of the court and Daisy watched as she made her way around the post. Daisy picked up two tennis balls and stuck one in her pocket before walking across the clay to the center mark.
Standing at the baseline, she watched Peaches spread her feet wide and drop her body low, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. It was as if the whole world had gone quiet, except for crickets rubbing their wings together in the heat. She stared at Peaches’s feet and the angle of her right hip, which was jutting a little toward the alley.
Daisy tossed high and dropped her racquet behind her right shoulder. She could see the ball was straight, even though it hurt her eyes to look up at the sun. Bringing her racquet up, she hit a can opener, slicing into Peaches’s body on her backhand side, feeling her right foot come down with a hard thud as her weight moved forward.
Peaches was late stretching for the backhand, and the ball didn’t make it back over the net.
Someone clapped from the porch.
Daisy moved to serve to the ad court.
“Fifteen-love.” Her voice sounded small in the open space.
On the second point, she hit her serve slightly wide and the spin on the ball brought it straight into Peaches’s body. She squinted to make sure Peaches had missed it before turning her back on her opponent and repositioning herself.
“Thirty-love.”
She sliced her serve again, but this time Peaches was ready for her, hitting a low ball that forced her to the net. Daisy slid up and tried to volley into no-man’s-land, but Peaches was already there. She returned with a slightly weak forehand, and Daisy skittered backwards, her racquet already dropped low at her left thigh. She hit a backhand straight down Peaches’s alley. Her heart pounded as she watched Peaches stretch for the ball. Stretch and miss.
Daisy knew the game was hers, she could taste it now, feel it vibrating in her muscles like the thrumming in the brush behind her. She pulled out the collar of her dress and blew down it, feeling the sweat running down her stomach cool under her breath.
Peaches positioned herself close to the alley, already protecting her backhand. It was a mistake and Daisy knew it.
Always punish a weakness.
Daisy felt her feet move instinctively toward the center, the ball go up, the racquet drop back, arc and then slam a cannonball, flat and hard, down the T. It was in. Too late, Peaches shifted her weight, reaching for the forehand. Her wrist turned slightly as she made contact with the ball. It caught the top of the net and dropped back into her own service box.
Daisy’s fingers reached for the arrowhead in her pocket. She looked up at the porch and saw Ed, a small smile curling his lips. Her mother was gripping his arm tightly, even though the game was over. Daisy passed her hand over her face, which was feverish and smooth to the touch, the sweat so thin it slid right off.
They switched sides. Peaches gave almost as good as she had gotten, winning the game, although Daisy managed a couple of points. They continued like that, back and forth, tit for tat, each winning on her own serve. At times Daisy felt like they were dancing together, tight and uncomfortable, like when she danced with the boys from the Park School at Mrs. Brown’s class, their faces in frozen concentration as they tried not to step on her toes. The soles of her feet ached when she stopped running, but as she slid and skimmed across the court, her arm muscles straining to give power to her shot, her thighs extending, she felt no pain.
She watched Peaches move, watched the ball move, but her mind had almost disengaged. Images of the dead girl, of Peaches and Tyler under the Japanese lantern and of Ed’s white knuckles as they listened at the dining room door, spooled through her head. And Daisy played to make them disappear. If she hit harder, reached farther, moved quicker, they would fall like ducks in a row.
So she hit harder and moved faster, hit and ran and hit and ran, until she broke Peaches’s serve. She took the set. Then she took her next game, and the next and the next after that, until there was only one last game for her to win. And she was going to win, and once she did, she would never be hurt again; she would be armored for life.
At 30-40, Daisy watched Peaches getting ready to serve. As she made contact, the ball looked sluggish, and Daisy was already on the move. She chipped the return to Peaches’s backhand, moving quickly through the shot to set up for a volley. Peaches’s expression changed as she saw Daisy charging the net. As the return came back, Daisy delivered the final blow—a hot, sharp volley to Peaches’s forehand. It might as well have been Timbuktu. It was over.
Daisy let her racquet drop to the clay, with a soft thud. She stood on the hot court looking at Peaches. Her ponytail was in disarray and her round face was bright pink, as if she had been slapped. For a moment, Daisy felt sorry for her, and somehow sorry for herself, too. But then her mother was there, taking Daisy into her embrace, and she was panting into her mother’s cotton blouse. She felt Ed standing close by.
She knew she had to go shake Peaches’s hand. But she just wanted to enjoy the cool shade of her mother’s body and the blankness in her mind.
The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.