Alice felt the tiny hairs on her arms and legs begin to rise. She was creeping herself out with this morbid thinking. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe a little sunshine and exercise would do her some good. She couldn’t find the box she’d packed her workout clothes in, so she just threw on a Radiohead T-shirt, a pair of Charlie’s short shorts—the only kind Charlie owned—and laced up her Converse. After smearing half a bottle of sunblock on her face, she headed outside.

Chapter Seven

Chapter

• SEVEN •

The clinic for intermediate players didn’t start until one thirty. Charlie had already gone to the club shop, charged a hot-pink sweatband, hot-pink boyshort underwear with little tennis ball–holding pockets—fancy pants was the term the sales lady had used, which, ooookay—ankle socks with the pom-pom things on the back, a sports bra, two tennis dresses, and a bikini to Richard’s account. Now even if she sucked at the game, at least she’d look cute playing it. She’d caged a Band-Aid off the guy behind the concierge desk, too, covered her angel’s wing with it, telling herself it was to prevent chafing. (The tag from the skirt she was wearing rubbed slightly against the tattoo, irritating it.) She’d been hoping to run into Cybill, or better yet, Jude, her real reason for accompanying her mom and Richard to the club and ditching her sister. She’d cased the grounds pretty thoroughly, though, and had seen no sign of either one. It was probably still a little early for those two. Not everybody, she knew, was blessed with her immunity to hangovers.

She headed to the café, figuring she’d kill the next couple of hours nursing an iced tea, getting a start on Tess of the d’Urbervilles. She opened the door and stepped inside. The café was doing moderate to heavy business. Most of the tables were occupied by post-doubles-match groups of four: women with well-preserved faces, trim bodies—the seriously defined arm and leg muscles, coupled with the perfect makeup jobs and minimal perspiration stains led Charlie to believe that tennis was not their primary form of exercise—hair that was blond-streaked rather than blond, and large but somehow tasteful diamonds dripping from their hands, wrists, and necks. They gossiped as they sipped skim lattes, plucked berries off fruit plates.

Charlie found an empty table near the back by the kitchen door, cracked open her book.

She’d just read the first paragraph—read it twice, though she was going to have to read it a third time if she wanted a chance at actually understanding it—when a voice said, “Guess you found your way home all right.”