I’ve completely lost my appetite, but I sip the drink, hoping it will calm me down. When I feel able to speak without the heat of anger, I start making calls, beginning with the fringe of people who might be involved in Rich Hanson’s schemes and working my way toward the epicenter of the deception. I know from experience that it pays to be thorough. I didn’t make it to where I am now because I’m more talented than others but because I consistently outwork the competition.
My fury builds as I realize how deftly Hanson has outmaneuvered me. I drain the last of the drink I’ve been nursing and glance down at my Apple Watch, which is telling me to breathe and suggesting I stand up. It also tells me it’s 6:25 p.m. Shit. Chastain Park isn’t far, but there’s no way I could get there in five minutes even if it weren’t rush hour.
I fire off a text to Maya that I’m on my way, but by the time I pay the tab and the valet hands over my car, it’s 6:40. When I screech to a halt in the tennis complex parking lot, the temperature has dropped. My daughter and her instructor stand beneath a streetlight, bathed in its glow. It’s 7:05.
Maya, who just turned thirteen and is already closing in on six feet, doesn’t even try to hide her irritation. One size 11 tennis shoe taps impatiently. Her high cheekbones, honey skin tone, and wide-set brown eyes are duplicates of mine, but at the moment those eyes are angry. The wide, mobile mouth, a near replica of her father’s, twists into a frown. With a flip of a box braid over one broad shoulder, she glares at me. If looks could kill, I’d be a chalk outline on the concrete right now.
Kyle Anderson, with whom Maya has been working for close to a year, appears more resigned than angry. This is not the first time I’ve been late, and no matter how often or sincerely I promise to do better, we all know it’s unlikely to be the last.
I’m out of the car and striding toward them before the engine comes to a full stop. “I’m so sorry. I had a work emergency.”
Anderson, tall and lanky with sun-streaked blond hair, a perennial tan, and the requisite zinc oxide–covered nose, nods a greeting.
“It’s sports, Mom, not brain surgery,” Maya snaps. “Your clients are always having emergencies.” She air quotes the last word. “You’d think they’d be old enough to take care of themselves.”
If only. “I get paid to take care of those emergencies. It’s what I do. And you know it’s never been a nine-to-five job.” And certainly not a career path I ever planned on.
I’d been nearing the end of my senior year at Georgia Tech, where I’d gone on a tennis scholarship, only months away from graduation, the sports media already referring to me as the “next Serena Williams” even though Serena Williams was still very much a force. I was poised to join the women’s pro tour and madly in love with Xavier Wright, point guard for the Atlanta Hawks. My entire life, everything I’d dreamed of and worked so hard for was within my grasp.
All of it was blown to pieces when a rusted-out Mustang spun out of control and slammed into us.
When I awoke in the hospital with a career-ending crushed pelvis and a broken kneecap, Xavier was dead. The blood test I’d been given before treatment could commence revealed a pregnancy so early I hadn’t even been aware of it.
“I’m really sorry,” I say to the instructor. “Thank you so much for waiting.”
“Couldn’t leave her standing here on her own in the dark, now could I?” He looks so all-American that the British accent always takes me by surprise. He’s smiling, and his voice betrays no disrespect, but the set of his jaw telegraphs his disapproval.
But then Anderson is single and, as far as I know, has no children. It’s easy to disapprove of others when the only person you have to look out for is yourself. And how stressful could teaching tennis be? I shake my head. God, what I wouldn’t give to smack the hell out of a tennis ball right now, ace a serve at ninety-five miles an hour, drop a shot over the net that my opponent can’t get to. What I’d really like to do is wipe the court with this guy. But although I can still hit a tennis ball pretty much wherever I aim it, I can’t move fast or well enough to play the game.
“As I said, I am truly sorry. It won’t happen again.”
If he notices how tight my voice is or how much I wish I could show him up on the court, he gives no indication. “See you next time, Maya. Don’t forget to work on those drills.” He turns and heads for the only other car in the lot, a low, sporty, penis-shaped convertible.
“You promised you were going to do better,” Maya says as she slams the passenger door of my more practical and less phallic BMW. “It’s humiliating to always be the last one standing here. Poppy is never late.”
“Your grandfather is retired. He has all the time in the world. And thank God for that.” It’s my father who first took me out on the public courts near our house when I was five. He did the same for his granddaughter.
“I hate how everything else is always more important to you than me.”
“That’s not true. And it isn’t fair.”
“Ha! Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that life isn’t fair and that I’d better get used to it?” My daughter unerringly chooses to hurl at me the one thing that I should never have said.
I take a deep breath, searching for the calm adult tone I know the situation calls for. But I’ve been jangling since Tyrone Browning dropped that damned SI on the table. My heart’s still pounding from the race to get here. So is my head.
Maya shoots off a text—no doubt a complaint about me—then turns to stare out the passenger window.
Fine. Even without a reminder from my Apple Watch, I breathe for a full minute, both hands gripping the wheel, my eyes straight ahead. As my thoughts begin to clear, it comes to me that this moment calls not only for deep breathing but for acknowledging the positive.
Traffic has thinned, so I take Wieuca over to Peachtree. Ignoring Maya’s huff of impatience when I fail to make the light, I acknowledge the top three in my head. One—I have a healthy, and clearly uncowed, daughter. Two—I have a successful, if stressful, career. All working mothers, especially the single ones, have to juggle way too many balls for comfort. Three—My parents. Having them nearby and a part of our lives is about as positive as it gets.
At Peachtree I head north to Dresden, then sneak a peek at Maya, who’s staring out her window as if she’s never seen the Brookhaven MARTA station before.
“I hope you’re hungry,” I say to the back of her head. “I’ve got a whole bunch of appetizers from the InterContinental for dinner.”
There’s no response. And no sign of thawing.
I’m about to reprimand her for ignoring me when I realize that my daughter’s silence is a great big positive at the moment. So is the fact that I’m not going to have to make dinner. There. How’s that for determined, positive thinking?