Thock . . . Claude’s backhand sizzled across the net.
Thock . . . I smacked it back.
Thock . . . He hit an arcing topspin to my backhand.
Thock . . . I chopped it low and crosscourt and came to the net.
Thock . . . He blasted the ball right at my chest.
Thock . . . I jumped aside and managed to block it. The ball hit the top of the net, skittered along the tape for a moment, and then rolled over onto Claude’s side.
“Oh, come on!” shouted Claude, running for it, and then giving up.
After the set, we sat side by side on the bench. He toweled off his face. “You know you could still get on the team,” Claude said to me. “Coach Kemp would love to have you.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“I wish you would,” said Claude. “We got nobody this year. I’ll have to carry the team.”
“You’ve always carried the team,” I said.
Claude didn’t respond. He reversed the towel and wiped down the grip of his racquet. He’d been doing that since we were doubles partners in the twelve and unders.
“Krista made girls varsity,” he said.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“She good?”
“For someone who hasn’t played much,” I said. “She’s a natural athlete.”
“So I hear,” said Claude, smiling for a moment.
We gathered our stuff. “How’s Petra?” I asked.
“She’s okay.”
“What’s it like? Getting back together with an old girlfriend?”
“It’s all right. I mean, we’ve known each other so long.”
“Is that good or bad?”
He shrugged. “Both.”
We got our tennis bags and headed off the court.
“The thing about ex-girlfriends,” he said as we walked toward our cars, “you miss them. You have all these great memories. But it’s the good parts you’re remembering. When you get back together, those parts are already over. You’re starting in the middle.”
I nodded. I always listened closely to Claude about girl stuff. He generally knew what he was talking about.
“What about Hanna?” I finally said. “Would you get back with her?”
Claude made a noncommittal sound under his breath.
“Why did you guys even break up?” I said.
Claude had not talked to me about this. He hadn’t talked to anyone about this. “That I cannot tell you,” he said in a low voice.
“You can’t tell me or you won’t tell me?” I said.
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “Because I don’t know.”
“Wait. So you guys didn’t talk? When you broke up?” I couldn’t imagine this. Hanna breaking up with someone without long discussions and drama? It was unthinkable. “Is she okay?” I asked. “Hanna, I mean?”
Claude became deathly silent.
“Jesus,” I said.
He opened the trunk of his car and threw his stuff inside.
“Like I said, we could use you on the tennis team,” he said. He slammed the trunk down. He was trying to be casual and smooth, the old Claude, but I could see the tension in his face.
“Seriously, Claude, is Hanna okay?” I asked.
He stared across the parking lot for a moment, then shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”
• • •
It was my mother who told me to go see Mrs. Fogarty, the college counselor at my school. She must have talked more to Henry Oswald about me going to art school. Whatever it was, if my mother was taking the idea seriously, that meant I could too.
“I think I want to go to art school,” I told Mrs. Fogarty, sitting in her small office. She was older, about fifty. She looked like a librarian. I had met with her a couple of times over the years. She knew me as a tennis player and a B-minus student with a rich lawyer dad. I’m sure in her mind I was University of Oregon material all the way.
“Art school?” she said with surprise. “That’s not something we’ve discussed before. When did you become interested in art?”
“Recently,” I said.
“What sort of art are you interested in?”
“Photography.”
“Oh,” she said. “Did you join the photography club?”
Our school had this lame photography club. Three girls had started it the year before to beef up their college applications.
“No,” I said. “I started helping a guy who’s a professional photographer.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Fogarty. “Well, that’s good. He can write you a recommendation.”
“Well, actually, he thinks that art school is sort of . . .”
When I didn’t finish my sentence, she looked at me over her glasses.
“. . . masturbatory,” I said.
“Oh.”
“He’s more about being super professional. And not getting all intellectual about things.”
“I see.”
“Sorry if I’m not allowed to say that word. The other word.”
“That’s all right,” said Mrs. Fogarty, turning to her computer. “If that’s what he said . . .”
“Yeah, but he would probably do it though. Write me a recommendation. He just likes to complain about things.”
“Let’s hope he chooses his words wisely.”
She typed my name into her computer and pulled up my file.
“Do you think I could do it?” I asked. “Go to art school? Is it hard to get into them?”
“It’s hard to get into the good ones.”
“How do they judge you?”
“Well, I’m sure your grades and your test scores count somewhat. But I would imagine your art would be the most important.”
She looked at my grades and my test scores. “Hmmmm,” she said. “Do you know where you want to go?”
“Cal Arts.”
“Okay. We can look at that. Is there anywhere else you were thinking?”
“I was wondering if you knew some places.”
“I know the Rhode Island School of Design. That’s a very famous art school.”
“Okay. That sounds good. And that’s back East?”
“Yes, Rhode Island is back East.”
I could imagine my father’s smug smile if I asked to go to such a place. But the truth was I didn’t care what he thought. I wasn’t going to screw myself over to avoid his approval.
“Okay,” I said. I wrote it down on the front of my notebook: RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN. “Yeah, I’ll do some research.”
“As will I,” said Mrs. Fogarty, who actually smiled at me for once.