Inez booked court three at Eastbank for ninety minutes on Friday morning. She arrived carrying her own bag and a paper sack with a banana sticking out of it. Mara had expected a representative. Or a car so expensive it would look absurd beside Denise's van. Inez drove an unwashed gray rental and had to pull the key out of her pocket to remember which one it was when she went back for her water.
“I keep trying the wrong cars,” she said. “There are eight of these.”
Mara had seen her up close often enough, at nets and in corridors and with a towel over her face after a loss. Without a tournament around her she looked smaller. Twenty-eight, with strong brown arms and a sun-faded shirt advertising a tournament that no longer existed. There was a loose thread at the seam beneath one sleeve.
“You didn't need to come here,” Mara said. “I could have met you—”
“I had to see my racket guy outside D.C. anyway. This is fine.” Inez looked up at the lights. “Do these work?”
“They work.”
“Good. You're billing for the full session, right? Even if we hate it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
She sat to change her shoes. Mara had watched her take Tess apart at an event in California the year before, hitting backhand winners with the affronted air of a woman correcting an invoice. Tess had beaten her twice since. Their last handshake had been short enough for the commentators to make something of it. In fact Tess had needed the bathroom. Mara had enjoyed knowing this.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
Inez stood and pressed each heel down into her shoe. “A coach.”
“I mean, what do you want to change?”
“Can we hit?”
Mara took her racket out. They began from the service line. Inez kept the ball low and soft, no unnecessary pace. The ball came back exactly where Mara could reach it. The consideration surprised her, then embarrassed her. Her knees worked perfectly well.
At the baseline Inez opened her arm and the ball changed. There was a weight to it Mara had forgotten, a pull through the strings. She could manage ten or twelve shots before she had to lift one and ask Inez to wait.
“You've seen me,” Inez said. “What do you see?”
“You get impatient.”
“With what?”
“A ball you can't hit through. You make the chance and then you try to finish it from too far back.”
Inez looked at her for a second. “Okay. Show me.”
Mara brought the basket to the middle. “Let's start with the approach. Forehand inside the court. Play it deep, don't force the angle. Come through.”
She fed a short ball to Inez's forehand. Inez came forward and drove it deep. Mara blocked it back; Inez finished the volley. Again. Again. The clean sound went up into the empty seats along the clubhouse wall.
On the eighth feed, Inez caught the ball with her hand.
“I can do that,” she said.
“I know you can. I want to make it boring.”
“It is.”
Mara straightened. Inez walked toward the net, holding the ball against her hip.
“I get one like that, I'll come in. I'm not scared of the net. The one I mean is shorter than I think. I've already got there, then I'm doing this.” She made a cramped swing with the racket tucked near her ribs. “Or I stop. Then the next one's past me. You know the point?”
Mara thought of Tess floating a slice halfway up the court, Inez pounding it into the tape. It had happened three times in their last match. Mara had told Tess to keep doing it.
“A low slice,” she said.
“Sometimes. Or a shitty forehand. Just—can you play back there?” Inez pointed to the baseline. “Let me get a few.”
Mara put the basket aside. She rallied down the middle with less pace than Inez wanted and, when she could, chipped a ball short. Twice Inez reached it comfortably and put it away. On the third she took her last step too early, leaving herself reaching from a planted front foot. The ball fell into the net.
“That one,” Inez said.
Mara was watching the place her feet had been. “Again.”
“Don't make it the same every time.”
“I won't.”
Mara hit too deep. They kept playing. Her own backhand had begun to fray; she needed somebody younger at the other end if this was going to work. Inez drove her wide, and she scraped a late ball crosscourt. Inez rushed forward, got herself stuck again, and poked at it.
“Stop,” Mara said.
Inez stopped, breathing through her mouth.
“Don't go back. Stay there.” Mara came around the net. “Show me where you started that last step.”
“Here, I think.”
“You're reaching before you need to. You've got another step in there.”
Inez looked at the distance. She moved through it without a ball, making a small extra adjustment with her feet. Then she did it again.
“Like that?”
“We'll see.”
Mara wanted to feed the exact ball, but Inez was right. Given the exact ball she would solve it and learn nothing. They went back to the baseline. By the fourth rally Mara's shirt was sticking to her spine. She took pace off the ball, drove it long once, apologized. Inez shook her head, already bouncing a replacement.
When the chance came, Inez took two quick steps instead of striding. Her forehand wasn't a winner. It went deep toward Mara's body; Mara got the racket in front of it, and Inez was there for the next ball.
“Yes,” Mara said.
“Again.”
They missed it twice. On the third Inez overdid the small steps and laughed at herself, flapping her feet. Then she made it, and this time finished with a short backhand volley that Mara could only look at.
“There,” Inez said. “There. I didn't have to do anything to that.”
She turned toward the empty other courts, grinning, and Mara laughed too. She wanted another ball. She wanted someone at the far baseline who could keep the rally going until the precise troublesome thing happened again. Already she was arranging the session in her head: a hitting partner, a score, a rule about how Inez earned the chance to come in. Her own pulse was too fast. She hadn't played that hard in years.
At the end they sat on opposite ends of the bench. Mara's forearm trembled when she unscrewed her water. Inez saw it.
“I nearly killed you.”
“You hit everything at my backhand.”
“I know. It's bad.”
“It used to be good.”
Inez laughed and pulled the banana out of her bag. It had split along the side.
“I want somebody watching when I do that in a match,” she said. “Because I won't think it's my feet. I'll think I'm an idiot.”
“You may do both.”
“Sure. But fix the feet first.”
Mara drank. Through the clubhouse window she could see Phil waiting for his lesson, a new red racket lying across his lap.
“You have other coaches to see?” she asked.
“I saw one. He talked for two hours. I hit eleven balls.”
Mara looked down at the damp handle of her racket.
“I'd like to try it,” Inez said. “On tour. Practice, matches. See if we can do something.”
“You know what people will say.”
Inez chewed the end of the banana. “Mm-hm.”
“About Tess.”
“I know who you mean.”
Mara twisted the cap onto her water, past the point where it was tight.
“I'm not going to pretend that doesn't interest me,” Inez said. “I'd like to beat her. But I play other people.”
“I know that.”
Inez looked toward the basket. Mara had left a dozen balls scattered around the service line. “Well, we did her slice pretty fast.”
Mara's face grew hot. “You asked for the ball you couldn't handle.”
“Yeah.” Inez folded the banana skin into itself. “We found it.”
She named a weekly figure and expenses. Mara had to ask her to repeat the figure. It was more than twice what the club paid, before expenses. Not unthinkable tour money. Unthinkable for Mara, who had spent twenty years making decisions about paying herself as if the person submitting the invoice were difficult and optional.
“Six weeks,” Inez said. “A trial. Both ways. I don't know you.”
“You know quite a bit.”
“From over there.” She pointed across the net.
Mara looked where she pointed. The court from this side was just a court. Phil had come out and was squinting at his racket strings. In an hour Mara could be teaching Claudia to hit through the ball, then go home, then perhaps go over to Tess's for dinner. The shelves would have books in them. They might find a chair that didn't have screws on it.
“When do you need an answer?”
“Tomorrow.” Inez tugged at the loose thread under her arm. It came free in a long piece. “I need to stop looking.”
Mara stood to gather the balls. Inez got up too and began flicking them into the air with her racket, catching them in her free hand. She was quicker at it than Mara. They worked toward each other from opposite sides.
“I need to be able to say no to something,” Inez said.
Mara glanced up. “You just did.”
“Okay. Good.”
She put three balls into the basket and went back for a fourth. Mara had the feeling there might be more, and waited. Inez said nothing else. The woman on the other end of the court was the person offering her the money, and also a player whose ball had come off the strings better after an hour than it had before. Mara could remember the exact sound of the last volley.
At the gate Inez stopped for Phil, who wanted to know how fast she could serve. She told him she didn't know today. He looked disappointed, so she took his new racket when he offered it and bounced a ball on the strings, testing the weight.
“Nice,” she said, handing it back.
He was delighted. Mara went inside to write the invoice.