Page 8

8

ADAM

L ater that day, a text appears on my phone:

So, we’re dating now?

I laugh. I like Anna. We live in very different worlds, and I thought we wouldn’t have a lot in common, but it’s scary how much everything she said last night resonated with me. And who wouldn’t be flattered? She’s clearly amazing.

Apparently.

Is all this okay? Some guys don’t like the scrutiny.

Some guys, huh? Interesting .

Something about being confronted with Anna’s drive and determination last night forced me to do more work on my spreadsheet, despite how late I got back. Once I dove into more of the detail, I could see that things were even worse than I thought. There is no stringing it out: If I can’t make the figures improve, I’ll have to give the business up. Ten years of my life down the drain. My mind keeps shying away from the reality of that, and the sheer effort of pretending everything is fine is making me nauseous. I look down at my phone again and tap out a reply to Anna:

I’ve had a few calls from journalists wanting to interview me about my company, so it’s all positive from my end.

That’s great!

Thanks, Anna. I really appreciate the invite and I had a wonderful night.

A picture drops into the chat, followed by another message:

Thank you for my beautiful flowers.

My pleasure.

I’m happy to go to some more events together if it’s useful for you. It was useful for me, too. Sponsors like the publicity and that’s less pressure for me.

Huh, that’s an amazing offer. The dots are still appearing though, so she’s still typing:

If I’m seen out and about, the speculation about my tennis reduces and there’s fewer questions about my game, if you can believe that. God that sounds terrible.

No, no it doesn’t. I totally get that.

I don’t want to think too long about this. This could help the both of us. Where’s the harm if we’re both on board? All Susie’s efforts with the new account and posting a reel seem positive—surely the extra publicity would be good for the business? At least I’d be going out to things with someone whose company I enjoy, and that’s been a rarity over the last … well … I don’t want to think about how many years it’s been. It’ll have the added bonus of keeping Janus off my back, too.

I’d love to meet up again, Anna.

Then I type:

My marketing manager, Susie, is talking to your marketing people about social media. She’s clearing content with them that we might want to post to my personal account.

I saw your video! It was great.

If there’s anything you don’t like or want to take down, let me know.

I think you’re a TikTok ninja.

I’m not sure how to respond to that apart from with hysterical laughter. I start typing again:

I’ll tell Susie to send you a picture of me in my normal nerd gear.

Nerd gear? Is that code for some dubious accessories?

*Code* for something?

Oh God, I’m making bad tech jokes without even realizing it.

I’m nerdy enough to think that was an awesome joke.

Stop buttering up us poor technophobes. How about a coffee tomorrow to chat?

You’re on.

As I’m about to leave the office for the evening, my phone lights up with a call and I pick it up, then raise my eyes to the heavens.

“Adam!” my mom says. “How are you?”

In my mind’s eye, she’s standing in the hall of the bungalow I grew up in, landline receiver pressed to her ear, the same swirly patterned carpets and embossed wallpaper that have been there all my life. Sometimes I think that, when my parents die, we’ll discover they are closet millionaires from all the money they’ve stashed away. If it was left up to Dad, they’d still be watching a black-and-white television. I settle back in my chair. Has she called to persuade me to come home for Thanksgiving? With the state of the business, I just don’t see how that’s possible. I’ll be working here every weekend.

“Hey, Mom, I’m doing okay.”

“I’m calling to find out when you’re coming home,” she says.

Before I can answer, I’m momentarily distracted when Susie shouts goodbye as she leaves.

My mother adds, “Are you still in the office?” My dad is as quiet as the grave, but my mom is like a restless ferret. She worries all the time and then asks pointed questions.

I glance at my watch: 9 p.m. “Yes, I’m still here.” I don’t want to tell her how bad things are with the business. “I’m not sure. It’s a very busy time for us fulfilling orders.” Although God knows what the runup to Christmas will be like this year. “I’ve got some jujitsu stuff going on, too.”

“Oh! That silly fighting thing! And really, Adam! How can some website take precedence over coming home to see your parents?”

It’s a familiar conversation. I always struggle to get home at this time of year, and she always refers to my business as a website. If what I do interferes with some idea of hers, it’s a useless endeavor. But, surprisingly, she doesn’t pause for an answer but launches instead into an update on all the people we know locally and what their children are doing. I place the phone on my desk and sink back down in my seat, pulling up the PCB I was designing.

“I’ve got some news for you, Adam!” she says eventually.

“Mmm,” I say as I trace out a connection on the board.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Jennifer is getting married. Her parents have kindly invited us to the wedding, despite everything.”

Despite everything? And Jennifer . A girl I went out with in my final year of school, over thirteen years ago. Nonetheless, my chest warms. She’s the quietest person on the planet, and I never thought we had a long-term future together, but she was lovely and we loved each other in the way you do when you’re seventeen. Jennifer wasn’t even upset when I left for NYU and told her gently that it wasn’t going to work anymore. She just nodded and gave me a hug.

“I’ll reach out and congratulate her,” I say.

“Now, Adam, you don’t need to go upsetting that apple cart again,” my mom says, and my jaw drops.

“What apple cart?” I say, but she tuts at me.

Over the years, it’s become clear my parents expected me to come home after college and settle down in the small town I grew up in, and I never know whether to be amused or exasperated by this. I couldn’t wait to leave the endless gossip, the lack of career opportunities, and how everybody knew everyone else. The anonymity of New York—where so many different people live so many different lives and make things happen—makes me happy. For all I envy Janus, I love his go-getting attitude and the business he’s created from scratch.

“You could have been married by now, too,” my mom says.

My gut roils. “Who to? ”

My mother tuts again. “To Jennifer, of course! That girl was head over heels for you and she’s lovely. It was a real mistake to let her slip through your fingers.”

She’s almost humming with suppressed energy on the other end of the line, and too late I realize this was the reason she called. She’s been stewing on some nonsense of it should have been Adam ever since she found out that Jennifer was engaged.

Heat creeps up my neck. “She wasn’t the right girl for me, Mom,” I say as firmly as I can.

But there’s no stopping her. “Honestly, young people today, what do they expect marriage to be? It’s all some big romantic ideal …”

Can Dad hear this conversation?

“… spending all this money on weddings. They don’t realize that it’s a lifelong commitment and you need to be with someone solid, not be swept up in some romantic nonsense …”

And suddenly, just like that, laughter starts to bubble up in my throat. “What about Dad?” I say, grinning at the wall in my office. “Was he ever swept up in some romantic nonsense?”

“Of course, he wasn’t,” my mom snaps. “We married each other because it was the most sensible option available.”

“And here I was thinking you two loved one another,” I mutter, trying to stop the enormous grin that’s threatening to take over my face. “You married him because he was the most sensible man available?” I repeat.

“Of course I did, as he did me,” my mom says breezily. “That’s what you should be doing, Adam. I don’t know why you’re in New York City. You should be back here building a solid career and married to that girl, not messing around in New York.”

My dad’s take on this would be amazing, but getting him on the phone will never happen. But then I hear a cough followed by a noise in the background.

“You should marry for love like I clearly did,” says a voice coming from somewhere in the distance behind my mom, and my heart clenches as a sharp thrill runs through me. It’s times like this, when his dry sense of humor comes out, that I love Dad so intensely it’s difficult to breathe. He’s so quiet. Does he approve of what I’m doing? Probably not. But he notices everything and has always been this dependable, solid presence in my life. Even if he doesn’t agree with most of my decisions, I could always go to him for advice and he’d help me.

I grin. I’m not even annoyed at my mom’s reference to my business as messing around . “Tell Dad I’ll let him know when I’ve found someone as wonderful as you, Mom,” I say, almost giddy with this whole conversation.

“Oh, you two!” my mom says. “Call me when you know what you’re doing, Adam.” And she hangs up.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not stupid enough to think it’s gone away; my mom is like a dog with a bone, but I’ve dodged the Thanksgiving problem for now.

When I meet Anna two days later at the entrance to Central Park, her gloved hands are clutching two coffees, breath white in the cold November air. She looks like any other person on the streets of Manhattan, long dark hair flowing out from beneath a wool cap. She holds out a coffee, and I lean in and kiss her cheek.

“In case anyone’s taking photographs,” I wink at her.

She laughs as Pepper jumps up at my legs.

“She’s your number-one fan.”

“What kind of dog is she?”

“A Papillon. Big ears, big attitude.”

“She’s a sweetheart,” I say, but Anna wrinkles her nose.

“She pooped on a very expensive rug this morning.”

This makes me laugh. Even high-powered famous athletes have to clean up their pet’s poop. I bend down and give Pepper a full-body rub, and she wriggles and tries to lick my face.

“Were you a naughty girl this morning, hmmm?” I ask.

I glance up to find Anna watching me. She bites her lip as her eyes flutter away and she gestures toward the entrance to the park with her cup.

“Thanks for meeting up and doing this. After I won my first Grand Slam title, photographs of me cropped up everywhere and I got paranoid for a while. I stopped going out at all.”

The sadness I felt after I left her white face in the car two days ago settles into my chest. You think these people have amazing lives and then you realize that they’re on a treadmill just like the rest of us, albeit a bit more of a glamorous one. Or maybe it just appears glamorous because they win competitions and fly around the world. But I’ll bet that hours of hard tennis practice a day and endless flight delays aren’t exciting at all.

“So now I try and make sure I go out and do normal, everyday things with someone else as a buffer,” Anna adds, then pauses and swallows. “Oh God, that sounds terrible, I don’t mean that …”

I laugh. “I’m more than happy to be described as a buffer.”

Her cheeks pink up. “I’m so sorry! I’m such an awkward nerd sometimes! That came out all wrong.”

I shake my head, laughing. Surely, I’m the awkward nerd here?

“The pressure around tennis is pretty intense. Who’s beating who, rankings, rivalries. I like to concentrate on the game, but the press always asks me all these stupid-ass questions. Was Parakova favoring her right side after her injury earlier this year? Last time you met, Mila beat you in three straight sets—is she going to do that this time? The same things over and over, things you can’t answer.”

God yes, I would be so annoyed if someone watched me write code and critiqued it all the time. Jesus, that would be terrible .

“Anyway, if they take pictures of me with a man, and quiz me about him, somehow that is so much easier.”

I laugh at this. “I always thought people hated speculation about their personal lives. I remember Janus went through hell with Jo because she loathed the media attention.”

She shakes her head. “Not me. It’s part and parcel of being a successful athlete, I think. I have a short career window, and I have to make the most of it. Sponsorship is about how I perform, but it’s also about having a high profile, too. I’ve made my peace with it to a certain extent. They’re going to print stories, whether you like it or not, and I fought for this life.” She shrugs. “It’s also so easy to answer those kinds of questions.”

“I presume you don’t want me to be your real boyfriend?” I blurt out without thinking. Fuck, now why did I say that? There’s no way she’d be interested in me.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t get that vibe from you.”

Heat creeps up my neck. She’s an amazing woman. Am I really standoffish like that? Yeah, okay, but the very idea I’m behaving like that with someone like Anna Talanova … I’m cautious, I get that. Memories of Celine are never far from my mind, even though it’s been over ten years. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can see her earnest face imploring me to do something. Half the time I can’t remember what it was. I shake my head.

Anna waves a hand, misinterpreting my silence. “I understand, Adam. Don’t sweat it. I’m not here for ten months of the year, and I’m off to the Australian Open in seven weeks. I’m also coming out of a bad breakup, so something easy and platonic was exactly what I was thinking.”

“I’m down with that.” But unease winds through my gut again, as though I’ve misstepped somehow.

The sun sparkles through the avenue of trees, orange leaves providing a soft carpet underfoot as Pepper sniffs at anything she can find.

“Is this breakup something I should know about if we’re going to attend some more events together?” There was speculation in the press about a man named Arty Maroz, and I remember that name from the red carpet, too.

She rolls her lips together. “Arty Maroz. Olympic athlete, downhill skier. He’s turned out to be quite the asshole. And before that I was with a guy …” She trails off, and her small, neat teeth work their way over her bottom lip. “He insisted I did everything the way he wanted, down to the last detail. My outfits, my hair. Lots of gaslighting. Praise if I did the right thing. I was young and didn’t realize how bad that was. He was good to me for big chunks of time and su pported my career … at least initially.” She shakes her head.

Now I’m all sorts of curious. “Wow, that sounds like a nightmare.” But God, do I get it. For the last ten years, I’ve tortured myself with what-ifs and felt that gullible was my middle name. I can never tell Anna that, though.

“It was.” Her breath shudders out. “I’m glad I’m out of it. The control got worse and worse the more successful I got. He would turn up unexpectedly, raging, and message me over and over again if I was anywhere without him. Arty was supposed to be my attempt to have a more normal relationship, whatever that means. Now all I’m thinking is I’m done with men forever.”

A slight tremor runs through her hand as she lifts her coffee cup to her lips and takes a sip. “I don’t believe in love anymore,” she adds, then laughs. “If I ever did. I think I’m destined to be on my own.”

That’s a crime for a woman as lovely as Anna. But, God, how does this whole conversation mirror my own experience in the scariest ways? “Don’t beat yourself up or think you were gullible. People can be so convincing.”

She eyes me for a second, then says, “Somehow I need to get …” She hesitates. “… Back to my normal self. Does that make sense?”

“Absolutely. I dated a woman at college who was very difficult. Demanding.” I stare off down the path snaking through the trees, the noise of the city distant and buried. “I don’t think I’ve ever sorted out what was real and what wasn’t from that relationship.”

Anna smiles up at me. “Sounds complicated.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.” God, I don’t want to talk to Anna about how fooled I was. “I’ve got a company that’s struggling, so I am totally down with uncomplicated.”

I’ve kept my head down and focused on my business for the last ten years. I wouldn’t say I was lonely exactly. I have great friends and an amazing team, but I’m aware I’m on my own, in every sense of that phrase.

She gives me a big, genuine smile and holds out her hand. “Friends?”

She doesn’t seem to mind that I haven’t explained more, and the warmth of the space she’s giving me to breathe percolates through my body.

I take her small warm fingers in my hand. “Definitely.”