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contributed to his looking his age, though if Willy didn't miss her guess the faculty faintly depressed him.
      But Willy knew the difference. Since May a formality had invaded their sessions. Briskness prevailed, though the tightening of the interval between drills may have only been a matter of fifteen seconds. Max no longer tucked strands into her bandanna but ordered gruffly, "Get that hair out of your face." He was hard on her—always had been—but now his criticism was knifed with genuine derision. He seemed glad for her mistakes, and Willy submitted to his abuse with uncharacteristic meekness.
      They were working on corner-to-corner backhand drives, and as Willy spotted a peaked hairline sifting across the field to their court she bent her knees lower, drew her backswing more quickly, and forced the whole of her weight onto her right foot. The ball skimmed an inch over the net, and scooted from underspin.
      "That's more like it," Max commended, though he sounded annoyed.
      She put something special on the next one. It kissed the corner and skipped at a cockeyed angle beyond Max's racket. By the gate, the gangly Jew whistled, and Willy realized that she was showing off.
      "I'm afraid we'll be another hour!" she cried.
      Willy had orchestrated this exhibition, suggesting Eric take a train that would get him into Sweetspot before her afternoon's drills were done. Now she felt obvious, demonstrating what a real pro hits like with a real pro coach . The ensuing hour was painful, as her visitor bounced his back against the adjacent court's fence. Rather than gawk in slack-jawed awe, he looked put out. She could as well have been a little girl oppressing a houseguest with her piano études. Moreover, while she'd intended Eric's visit to accustom Max to her new admirer, the ploy abruptly appeared tactless. From the age of five Willy had learned to control a tennis ball, and had virtually abandoned the more challenging project of managing people with the same aplomb.
      Between drills, Willy bent and grasped her calves, bringing her forehead to her knees. The tension of the antagonism she'd contrived was tightening her tendons. Max rolled his eyes and flicked his finger, commanding her to the net post. Pulled hamstrings could put you out of the game for weeks; Max took no chances.
      As she braced against the net post, Max kneeled at her feet and cradled an ankle on his shoulder. Gradually he stood nearly upright, which brought his groin level with her open crotch. Willy grunted at the ache in her thigh. As Max lowered her leg and prepared to lift the next, she glanced over at Eric, who was intently rewrapping his grip.
      When the recital was mercifully over, she abbreviated introductions. "Max Upchurch, Eric Underwood."
      Eric's mouth twitched.
      Max skipped the so-you're-a-friend-of-Willy's-are-you and howdo-you-two-know-each-other and went straight to all he cared about in regard to anyone. Nodding at Eric's racket, he squinted. "You play?"
      "No, I use this to catch butterflies." Deadpan.
      Max sprang his palm against his strings. "How about a game?"
    The casual inflection was a lie. He had never challenged anyone to a match casually in his life.
      In reply, Eric began whisking practice balls to the next backcourt, implying that Willy was to pick them up.
      Willy hated watching other people play tennis. It consumed her with jealousy. Though she'd flagged minutes earlier, now she summoned a second wind, and how dare anyone abscond with her partner while she still had a stroke left in her?
      Thus as the two men warmed up—Eric insolently relaxed, Max inscrutably impassive—Willy could not tell for which player she was rooting. She detested them both. This sucked: sulking crosslegged on the sidelines, the court hard and hot. As the match commenced, Willy gazed at banking seagulls overhead. However, it was impossible to screen out the familiar grunts that were Max's version of