Brooke Read online

  "Yes," I said.

  "So?"

  "I just never played."

  "Why wouldn't you play if you had a court?" she countered, stepping forward to put her face right up to mine.

  "What's the difference?" Lisa demanded. "She'll learn now with a good teacher, me."

  The girls laughed, but Heather just stared at me with those small, beady eyes. Helen Baldwin pushed in front of her to ask me something about our social studies homework, and then Helen started to talk about Lisa's cousin Harrison.

  "He's a sex maniac," she declared. Everyone paid attention after she blurted that. "Right, Lisa?"

  "It's on his mind more than it is on other boys' minds, I guess. When we were both seven and eight, he only wanted to play doctor whenever he came over."

  "Did you play?" Eva asked.

  "No, but once he chased me all around the property trying to get me to take off my panties?'

  "I wouldn't mind him taking off mine," Rosemary said. The girls giggled.

  "Yes, you would," Heather charged. "Stop trying to sound like a big shot."

  "He's good-looking. You said so yourself, Heather. You said you wished he would look at you," Lisa told her.

  "I did not. Liar."

  "What did you say, then?" Lisa questioned.

  Heather looked at the rest of us. "I said he was wasting his time with that Paula Dworkins, that's all," Heather insisted.

  "I bet he'll like Brooke," Rosemary said. The girls turned to me.

  "Why should he like me?" I asked.

  "He likes anyone new for a day or so," she replied. "But once he sees you swing your bat, he'll fall head over heels in love," she added.

  "Yeah, and with all that makeup you're wearing, you'll be an easy target," Heather sniped at me.

  The girls cackled, Heather the loudest.

  "She's joking," Lisa said, "but he does like girls who are into sports. I know. He told me." They grew quiet. "That's why you want to learn tennis quickly," she said. "I imagine it won't take you long."

  "It seems very strange that your father would never teach you?' Heather insisted. "Don't you get along with him?"

  "Mind your own business," Helen said.

  "Of course we get along," I said. "He's just very busy." I was glad to turn the conversation away from the awful makeup Pamela had made me wear that morning.

  Heather smirked. "That's exactly what my father says every time I ask him to do something with me?' she remarked.

  "The only difference is that Brooke's father's not lying," Eva said, and the girls laughed hard again. I had to smile. Heather gazed at me. If her eyes could throw darts, I'd have been full of holes.

  The rest of the week went smoothly. Everyone was more excited than ever at softball practice. I did well on two tests, and my teachers gave me

  compliments on my efforts. Mrs. Harper actually stopped me in the hall to tell me I was making a very good transition.

  "Just stay on course," she told me. Her eyes were so fierce, it sounded like a warning. I thanked her and quickly moved on.

  At home, I performed my piano lessons with an attitude of resignation. I had come to the conclusion it was something I had to do, like going to the bathroom. Professor Wertzman didn't think any better of my playing, but he didn't criticize and complain as much as he usually did.

  Peter was away most of the week on a big case that took him to New York City. The conversations about school and other interesting things that were happening in the world disappeared from dinner. Pamela continued to use the meal as a classroom, developing my education in proper mealtime manners. She was impressed that I had been invited to Lisa Donald's house for lunch and tennis. On her own, she had found out that Lisa's father was one of the Donalds who owned the local department store.

  "I just knew you would make friends with people of quality," she said.

  What did that mean, people of quality? What gave one person higher quality than another? Was it just money? I hadn't found the girls at Agnes Fodor to be any nicer than the girls I knew at my public school. They had the same hangups, problems, worries, and complaints.

  Despite Mrs. Harper's resounding flattery and compliments, I discovered that her girls, her perfect girls, were not so perfect after all. They were just more subtle, more sneaky about the things they did. When the teacher left the room, they cheated. They passed notes, and they smoked in the girls' room, but they did it by the window so they could blow the smoke outside. Afterward, they always flushed the butts down the toilet. As far as graffiti went, someone wrote "Brooke wears a jock strap" on my gym locker, and Coach Grossbard had to get the janitor to find some strong detergent to wash it off. No one told Mrs. Harper. It was As if she had to be protected from any news of wrongdoing so she could continue to believe her girls were perfect.

  Peter returned from New York on Friday night, and Pamela had me do the runway walk for him. She made him sit in the high-back antique chair in the hallway and watch like a judge at a beauty contest. I half expected him to burst out laughing when I began, but the look that came over him was different--I'd never seen him look at me so intently before.

  "Well?" Pamela asked as soon as I made my last turn.

  "Amazing. You've done amazing work, Pamela. She looks . . . older."

  "Of course she does. She's more mature, more sophisticated and confident. She's been invited to the Donalds' for lunch tomorrow," she told him

  I didn't think it was a very big deal, but she made me describe the invitation, Lisa's offer to teach me tennis, and the rich boys who were joining us for lunch and tennis. Peter wore this serious look on his face, but he gazed at me with amusement in his eyes.

  "You don't have a game this Saturday?" he asked.

  "It wouldn't matter if she did. She would still go to the Donalds'," Pamela interjected.

  Of course I wouldn't, but I let her believe what she wanted.

  "No. Our next game is at home the following Saturday," I told him "Will you come?"

  "I'll try," he said, withholding a promise. "The way this Jacobi matter is playing out, I don't know when I'll have free time this month. We thought they'd settle, but they've decided to play their hand, it seems."

  Pamela didn't ask him to explain more. I realized that all the time I had been living with them, she never asked him about his work or showed any interest in any of his cases unless there was a client who interested her, and then she was more curious about the person than the case, anyway.

  "What's the matter with Jacobi?" I asked.

  "It's not what's the matter with him," he explained "It's his matter, the case."

  "Oh," I said, feeling stupid.

  To make me feel better, he started to talk about the case, but Pamela interrupted to ask if he had gotten me the sponsor.

  "What does that mean? Why do I need a sponsor?" I asked.

  "For the beauty pageant. Each girl has to be sponsored, and not by her own family," Pamela said. "The company will pay all your expenses, not that we need them to. It's just the way it's done."

  "Who would sponsor me?" I wondered aloud.

  "A number of companies," she declared irritably. "Peter?"

  "I'll talk to Gerry Lawson tomorrow. He already gave me a preliminary approval. Don't worry," he urged her, and she relaxed.

  Was this really going to happen? Was I really going to participate in a beauty contest? Me? I felt as if something was in my chest tickling my heart with a feather, but I was afraid to utter the least bit of reluctance, as it would put Pamela into a horribly mean mood.

  Saturday, Peter drove me to Lisa's home. Pamela stood over me at my vanity table to make sure I did my makeup right.

  "Who knows who you'll meet?" she said.

  Pamela came along with Peter and me so she could see the Donalds' house. It turned out to be even larger than ours, which I didn't think possible. They had more grounds, a bigger pool, a guest house, and two clay tennis courts. Pamela said the house was a Greek Revival, and she was envious of th
e recessed front door.

  "I wanted that," she moaned. "We should redo our front."

  "There's nothing wrong with our entrance, Pamela," Peter insisted. She pouted, but when I stepped out, she brightened up to warn me to behave myself and remember all the manners she had taught me.

  "Especially when you eat," she called. I waved and hurried to the front door.

  Lisa answered the bell herself. She was already in a tennis outfit.

  "Good, you're a little early. Come on," she said before I could say hello. She took my hand and pulled me through the large house. I could only get glimpses of the large rooms, the expensive-looking furnishings and paintings. I did realize the decor was different from ours, more antique-looking.

  We burst out a side door and headed for the tennis court. There was a machine set up on one side. "What's that?"

  "Daddy bought that for us to practice returning serves. You'll see," she said.

  She gave me a racquet and told me it was one of the best. Then she showed me how to hold it and went through the motions of how to swing. She was so excited about teaching me.

  "I never met anyone who had never even held a tennis racquet before," she declared, but she didn't cross- examine me as Heather would.

  Despite practically growing up with a tennis racquet in her hand, Lisa wasn't very good. It didn't take me long to master the basic motion, and after a dozen or so practice swings, I began to develop a passable serve. I didn't think I was hitting the ball that hard, but she had difficulty returning my serve. I quickly discovered that all I had to do was hit the ball to one side and then return it to the other a little harder to defeat her. I held back, because I saw she was getting annoyed.

  "You're so damn athletic," she complained. Then she stopped and looked at me suspiciously. "Were you lying? Have you played tennis before?"

  "No," I said, shaking my head. "I really never have."

  "It does seem strange, especially now that I see how you play."

  I realized that she wasn't going to believe me. "I really haven't played," I said. "Honest."

  She accepted that, and anyway, there wasn't time to talk about it anymore. Harrison and his friend shouted to us from the front of the house and started down the lawn toward the tennis courts.

  The girls at school had been right: Harrison was a very good-looking dark-haired boy. He was tall, with long, slender legs jutting out of a pair of milk white tennis shorts. He wore a white polo shirt with black trim on the sleeves and collar. As they drew closer, I saw Harrison had thick, dark eyebrows. His eyes were almost black and set in a narrow face with sharp cheekbones and a strong mouth. He wore an impish smile on those firm lips and carried himself with an arrogant air, just the way a boy who knew he was good-looking and rich would.

  His partner was shorter, stout, and light-haired, with a round face and blue eyes. His bottom lip looked thicker than the top, and there was a softness in his cheeks and chin that made him look more childish than handsome.

  "This is your Mickey Mantle?" Harrison asked with a laugh. His friend looked as if his face was made of putty and someone had stamped a smile on it.

  "Brooke, my cousin Harrison," Lisa said.

  "Hi," he said. "This is Brody Taylor. You know my cousin Lisa."

  "Yes, I do," Brody said.

  "Are you as good at tennis as you are at softball?" Harrison asked me.

  "No. I just got my first lesson."

  "From Lisa?" He laughed. "That's like the blind teaching the blind."

  "Really?" Lisa looked at me and smiled. "Why don't we start with boys against girls?"

  "It won't even be a contest," Harrison bragged. "We'll chance it."

  "What's the bet?"

  "What do you want to bet?"

  "Virginity?" he quipped.

  Lisa turned beet red, and Brody laughed, a sort of sniffle laugh with the air being pushed out of his nose and his body shaking.

  "You're still a virgin?" I countered. It was as if we were playing tennis with words.

  This time, Harrison turned crimson. "Okay, let's bet twenty dollars," he suggested.

  "Fine," Lisa replied.

  "Twenty dollars! I don't have any money with me," I cried.

  "Don't worry about it," Lisa said. "You could always pay me back in school if we should lose."

  "What do you mean, if you should lose? You mean when you lose," Harrison said. Brody laughed again.

  "I don't even know the rules," I whispered to Lisa.

  "Just keep the ball within the inside lines," she advised. She turned to Harrison. "Why don't you two warm up, then?"

  "We don't need a warmup, do we, Brody?"

  He shrugged. Harrison removed his racquet from his case, and Brody did the same. They took their positions on the other side of the net.

  "I'll serve first," Lisa told me.

  My heart was thumping. Twenty dollars! They talked about it as if it were small change.

  We began to play. Harrison was good, but Brody was slow. I saw the way he positioned himself and discovered quickly that he was usually off balance. There were things that were common to all sports: posture, poise, conditioning, and timing. All I had to do was return the ball at Brody with some speed, and he usually hit it out of bounds or into the net. As we won set after set, Harrison's temper flared. He directed his fury at Brody, which only made him play worse. When Lisa and I won, Harrison threw his racquet across the lawn.

  "You lied," he said, pointing at Lisa.

  "What?"

  "You didn't just teach her how to play. No one just learns and hits the ball like that."

  "I didn't lie!" Lisa screamed, her hands on her hips. "That's what she told me. Right, Brooke?"

  "It's true," I said, but he didn't look any more satisfied. "Let's forget the money," I added.

  "Who cares about the money?" he muttered.

  "Brody, give them twenty bucks," he ordered.

  "All twenty? Why do I have to give them all of it?" he whined.

  "Because you let a couple of girls from Agnes Fodor make us look like fools, that's why."

  Brody dug into his pocket and came up with a wad of bills. He peeled off two tens and handed them to Lisa, who took the money with a fat smile on her face. She handed me a ten.

  "I don't want it," I said.

  "Because you lied, right?" Harrison shot at me.

  "No, because I don't need money and because I played because I wanted to play for the fun of it."

  "Right," he said. "Let's get something to eat," he told Lisa.

  She couldn't stop smiling. Harrison retrieved his racquet, and we all went up to the house where a lunch had been set up for us. It looked lavish enough to be a wedding reception to me, but to them it was just another meal. There were so many choices-- meats, breads, salads, and different potatoes.

  "Where are your parents?" Harrison asked Lisa. We sat at a patio table that had a tablecloth on it. Servants moved inconspicuously around us, cleaning up dishes, arranging foods.

  "Golf club," she said between bites.

  The food was delicious. I tried to remember my mealtime etiquette, but I was too hungry and started to eat too fast.

  "Starving or something?" Harrison asked me.

  "I forgot to eat breakfast," I said, even though I hadn't. It was something Lisa or one of the other girls would say. He accepted it.

  "What took you so long to get here?" he inquired.

  "Pardon?" I looked at Lisa.

  "He means attending Agnes Fodor."

  "Oh. I don't know. I just . . my parents just decided I belonged there," I said.

  He stared at me and then smiled. "Those real?" he asked.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Those boobs, they real?"

  "Harrison!" Lisa squealed.

  "Just asking. Nothing wrong with asking, is there, Brody?"

  Brody, who had his face buried in the lobster salad, looked up and shook his head. His cheeks bulged with food.

  "Well?" Harrison pursue
d.

  "It's none of your business," I said.

  He laughed. "That usually means, no, right, Brody?" Brody nodded emphatically.

  "What is he, your puppet?" I shot at him.

  Harrison laughed. "She's all right, Lisa. Better than those other snot noses you call your friends," he said. He leaned over the table toward me. "Maybe invite you to my house for a little one-on-one."

  "What?"

  "Tennis." He sat back, smiling "Or did you want to do something else?"

  "I don't want to do anything with you," I said. "What's the matter, worried about your virginity?" he quipped. Brody started to laugh.

  "No," I said. "My reputation."

  Brody paused and then laughed harder.

  "Shut up," Harrison snapped at him.

  Harrison turned and glared at me. "I don't ask every girl to my house," he said.

  "That surprises me," I replied.

  Brody had to bite down on his lip to stop another laugh. Harrison caught it out of the corner of his eyes.

  "Want to go listen to some music?" Lisa asked, growing nervous. "Harrison?"

  He turned to her, a look of annoyance on his face. "What for?" he asked. "I'm not interested in wasting any more of my time." He stood up. "Maybe come watch you play your next ball game," he said to me.

  "Fine."

  "Don't strike out," he said with a self-satisfied smile, "or I'll have my puppet here laugh:'

  "I can't think of a better reason not to," I said, and looked at Brody, who wiped his mouth, thanked Lisa for the lunch, and ran off to catch up with Harrison.

  We watched them in silence, and then Lisa turned to me.

  "Wow," she said. "No one's ever put Harrison down like that. Most of my other girlfriends swoon over him." She tilted her head and looked at me curiously.

  "What?" I asked.

  "You're different," she said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, my heart knocking like a tiny hammer in my chest.

  "I don't know. You're full of surprises, like when you hit that home run. But," she said, jumping up, "that's what I like about you. Come on. Let's go listen to music and talk."

  I followed her into the house, feeling deceitful, feeling as if I really didn't belong, but I wasn't upset so much about lying to my new friends as I was about lying to myself.