Tess could not get the trophy into its box.
She had watched the tournament man do it the night before. Handles crosswise, lid on, two pieces of foam, nothing complicated. Now one handle poked through the cutout and the other caught on the edge. Her phone kept lighting beside her on the bed. Three unread messages from Hana Seo, one of which would be the terms of a job Tess actually wanted to offer her, and seventy-four from everybody else.
She lifted the cup out and put it on the desk. Her left foot hurt where the shoe rubbed the split blister. The rest of her felt remarkably good. She had won Merritt. There was no hour of the morning at which that stopped being true. She tried the box again, this time moving the foam instead of the trophy. It settled into place.
Her mother's room was down the hall. Tess could ask her to help carry things to the car, or she could make two trips. She put the backpack on top of the racket bag and made two trips. On the second she met her mother waiting for the elevator with a cup of coffee.
“You've got everything?” Mara asked.
“I think so.”
“Trophy?”
“First trip.”
Mara nodded. She had worn the wrong shoes for driving, the old white ones she said looked all right if you didn't look down. Tess saw the little place where the sole had come away at the toe.
“You want me to take a bag?” Tess asked.
“No, I've got it.”
They stood in the elevator. They had driven down separately because Tess had come from home and Mara from a coaching clinic farther south. It had seemed a convenience when they made the plan.
In the lobby Mara stopped at the desk. Tess went out through the glass doors into air that smelled of wet mulch. In her car, the trophy lay on the backseat like a passenger whose feelings she had to take into account. She buckled the belt around the box. Ridiculous. She unbuckled it and put the whole thing on the floor instead.
Before she pulled out she called Hana.
“You got my messages?” Hana asked.
“I did. Well, I saw them.”
“Read the second one before you say yes to anything. The first attachment's wrong.”
“Okay.”
“I'm sorry. I sent you somebody's grocery receipt.”
Tess laughed. She opened the message. It was an actual grocery receipt, photographed on a counter, with a thumb in one corner.
“That's an expensive apple.”
“They're all expensive apples. Don't look at that one. Read the other one.”
Tess opened the second file and made herself read it sitting in the parking lot. Hana had availability for a trial through Riverton and a practical plan for the days before it. There would be no dramatic announcement, no promise that Tess was about to become a different player. Tess had asked for help taking the court farther forward. Hana wanted first to see what happened to her balance when she did.
“That works,” Tess said. “For me. If it still works for you.”
“It does. Wednesday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
Hana gave her a court address in Richmond and asked whether she had a hitting partner she liked. Tess named two. Her mother usually handled those calls. She found herself waiting for Hana to offer.
“Text them,” Hana said. “See who's around.”
“Right.”
“We'll keep the first day short. Your foot okay?”
“Just the skin.”
“Bring shoes that don't rub it.”
They finished. Tess sat for a moment with her hands in her lap. No thunder. She hadn't even had to explain the press conference. Hana had congratulated her in the first message, before the receipt. Tess was grateful for the ordinary mistake.
She texted the two players and put the phone in the holder. Four hours home, with traffic. She chose music her mother disliked and set it too loud, then turned it down as she reached the highway. Her head hurt.
At a rest stop she checked the messages. A former junior rival had written, So proud of you for choosing yourself. They had last spoken at sixteen, when the other girl borrowed a charger and failed to give it back. Tess typed Thanks, erased it, then typed it again. She didn't send it. The sentence seemed to require her to agree to more than one thing.
She called her father. He answered from a loud place, asked her to wait, and moved somewhere quieter.
“I'm driving home,” she said. “Actually I'm stopped. Before you ask.”
“Didn't ask.”
“You were going to.”
“That's why you called.”
She smiled. A truck was backing into a space across the parking lot, beeping with unreasonable persistence.
“How's your knee?”
“Terrible. I've invoiced you.”
“Great. Send it to my new accountant.”
“Who's that?”
“Nobody. Me.”
“Then I'll wait.”
He had watched the whole final before his shift. He wanted to know whether Kremer's serve felt as high as it looked, and Tess told him about trying to see it from closer in, the way it gave her less time but a better ball. She used her hand to show him, though he was on the phone. He asked whether her mother had been all right afterward.
“I don't know,” Tess said.
“Okay.”
She had expected advice and had prepared to resist it. He asked whether she needed anything carried into the house. She told him about the trophy and he wanted a picture of it belted into the car. She admitted she had taken the belt off.
“Careless,” he said.
After the call she bought a bag of chips, ate most of them standing beside the car, and drove the rest of the way with salt at the corners of her mouth.
April, her closest friend from school, was in her driveway when she got home. She was leaning on the open back of a borrowed pickup, staring at a tall flat box as though she hoped it would do something on its own.
“You said six,” Tess called through the window.
“It's nearly six.”
“It's four-ten.”
“I needed the truck before five.”
Tess got out and they stood together looking at the box.
“Shelves,” April said. “Did you forget?”
“No. I thought you were bringing a tape measure.”
“I bought it. It was cheaper on display and they put it back in the box.”
“Was it straight on display?”
“Straight enough for your house.”
They lifted. The cardboard slid in Tess's sweaty hands. Her blister pressed against the inside of the shoe and she made a sound, but April had already taken most of the weight, backing up the front steps. Tess caught the screen door with her hip. They got the box inside and left it on the rug, where it blocked the television.
“I can't do it today,” April said. “I'm already late.”
“You said six.”
“I know. I'll come Wednesday.”
Tess sat on the box. It made a noise that suggested she shouldn't. She stood again.
April looked at her. “You won a thing.”
“I did.”
“Where is it?”
They went back to the car. April carried the trophy inside with both hands and set it on the kitchen counter beneath the cabinets. There wasn't room for the handles. They tried the little table, then the floor beside the hearth.
“It looks weird there,” Tess said.
“It looks weird everywhere. That's the point.”
April's phone rang. She silenced it, then took Tess's head between her hands and kissed the top of it. “Well done. I've got to go.”
“Thanks for the shelves.”
“You're welcome. Don't open the little bag of screws. I'll lose them if it's open.”
Tess watched her back out of the driveway. Inside, the house smelled faintly of the lemon cleaner she had used before she left. There were books in piles against the wall, a new table waiting to be delivered the next morning, a peach on the counter that had gone soft on one side. She ate around the soft part, over the sink.
Her mother called at seven. Tess answered with the peach stone still in her hand.
“You home?” Mara asked.
“Yes.”
“Good drive?”
“Fine. I stopped once.”
“I hit traffic outside Petersburg. Sat there forty minutes.”
Tess was tempted to tell her she had taken the other route. It was one of the things they did, awarding themselves a win for a traffic decision. She said she was sorry, and the conversation lurched into quiet.
“I spoke to Hana,” she said. “We're going to try it. Starting Wednesday.”
“Right.”
“She's coming here.”
“Does she need a place to stay?”
“She's got something.”
“Because the apartment downstairs from mine is still—”
“She's got something, Mom.”
“Okay.”
Tess rubbed the stone between her thumb and forefinger. The fibers were beginning to dry. She wanted to tell her mother that the attachment had been a grocery receipt. Mara would have laughed. She might laugh now. Then she would ask what was in the right attachment.
“April brought the shelves,” Tess said.
“That's nice.”
“They're in a box.”
“You need help?”
“We're doing them Wednesday. You can come over if you want.”
“What time?”
“After lunch. I have practice later.”
“All right. I'll come.”
They hung up. Tess put the peach stone in the trash and washed her hand. On the counter the trophy was too tall beneath the cupboards, but she had moved it back there anyway. The kitchen light made a white bar along one handle. She took a picture and sent it to her mother. A second later a heart appeared beneath it.
Tess turned the cup slightly so she could open the cabinet next to it. She took down a bowl and began to make dinner.