“I can tell. Keep this up and you’ll become a most formidable opponent.” The vet lowered her voice. “Is everything all right with your husband? He looks upset.”
“Tex doesn’t like to lose,” said Marge as she grabbed a towel and draped it across her neck. “Even though by now he should be used to it.” It was true that they hadn’t won a single game since they’d arrived at the house.
“Maybe we have to let him win a couple of times?” Vena suggested.
“Oh, no. He has to win fair and square.”
“Just to improve his mood?”
“Out of the question.”
“Though admittedly Glenn would rather die than throw a game. He’s such a mild-mannered man, always sweet-tempered, but put a tennis racket in his hands and he turns into some kind of psycho maniac. Has to win at all cost.”
“Same thing with Tex. Once he’s on the court he thinks he’s Novak Djokovic.”
And as the two ladies discussed their husbands’ strange quirks, Glenn invited Tex for a drink. And even though the two men had just been ready to drink each other’s blood, now that the game had been decided, they mysteriously morphed back into their customary amiable selves, and soon were chatting pleasantly.
CHAPTER 2
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Relieved from her task as umpire, Michele Droba returned to the conversation she’d been engaged in with her boyfriend Christopher Bonarowski. She still felt odd about calling him her boyfriend, even though of course he was. At some point they might have to make things official, but she wasn’t sure how her kids would respond. It was seven years now since she lost her husband Dean, but Michael and Drew still missed their dad. They liked Chris, but didn’t exactly adore him. Then again, she wasn’t absolutely sureshe adored him. She was fond of him, of course, as he was such a wonderful man—erudite and knowledgeable and oh, so very affectionate, never stinting on compliments and little attentions. It was nice to be adored by such an important man—respected as a publisher and very, very successful. But love? She wasn’t even sure what the word meant. She had once loved her husband, or at least she thought she had. But that was a long time ago.
“So have you seen the manuscript?” she asked, picking up their conversation where they left off. “Has Isobel even shown it to you yet?”
“Not yet,” said Chris as he quickly checked something on his phone. “She says it’s not ready yet, and she wants the thing to be ready before she shows it to anyone—even me, her publisher.”
“Can’t you talk her out of it? I mean, there must be something you can do.”
Chris put his phone down and gave her a quizzical look.“We discussed this, Michele. You know your sister-in-law. Once she has her mind set on something, there’s no talking her out of it. In that sense she’s just like you.”
She bridled to some extent.“I hope I’m not as unreasonable as Isobel. In fact I know I’m not. And I would never humiliate my friends the way she’s doing.”
“I’m sure that’s not her intention. And whatever she writes will have to be vetted by me before it’s even published. So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Easy for you to say. You won’t be in the book.”
“How do you know? Maybe she’s devoting an entire chapter to me.”
“I very much doubt it,” said Michele as she smoothed her pristinely white tennis shirt, then tucked her long blond tresses behind her ears. In her mid-forties, she had retained the figure of her teenage years, and even her face was still relatively wrinkle-free, much to the envy of her female friends, who often wondered how she did it. “Otherwise she would have told you. Like she told me, and the rest of our circle of friends.”
“Look, I can assure you that by the time Isobel’s autobiography goes out, there won’t be anything controversial left in the text. You have my word on that.” He patted her knee affectionately. “There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Nothing at all.” He gave her a reassuring smile.He might be a full decade older than she was, but he still looked youthful enough to pass as her contemporary. But then he spent much of his leisure time playing tennis, and not on long drawn-out lunches or games of golf as a lot of his colleagues did.
“Mh.”
In spite of Chris’s reassurances, Michele was still worried. She knew Isobel, and what she had told her had given her great cause for concern. When Isobel’s husband Gavin had disappeared seven years ago, it had led to a complete meltdown and had precipitated the most dreadful episode in Isobel’s life. It had taken years and countless sessions of counseling before Michele’s sister-in-law had managed to extricate herself from the claws of the alcohol demon and take control of her life again. She still attended regular AA meetings, which is where she’d picked up the idea to write a book about her life,detailing her own descent into madness, and revealing the truth about what happened to her.