Prodigals by Greg Jackson Page B

naturally it seemed unremarkable. Vicky said this herself.
    â€œIt doesn’t feel to me like I’m great at tennis,” she said. “It feels like I’m good, and like most of the time other people are worse. Sometimes I play someone and I’m worse, and I feel in awe of what they can do. But you rarely feel in awe of what you can do yourself.” I asked whether this came as a disappointment. She thought about it and shrugged. “If I was someone who was going to feel awe all the time, I’d probably be going to div school, not playing tennis.”
    When I told people our meeting story, I would tell them it was this down-to-earth quality that drew me to Vicky, this mature wisdom about the limits of genius and her levelheaded rejection of the romanticism people tried to attach to her talent. But although this is what I told people and what I was telling Léo now, it wasn’t true. I had already known Vicky when I interviewed her, not well but casually, and I had conceived the piece at least in part to get closer to her. I was attracted to her, and although I am ashamed to say it, I was attracted to her excellence.
    I was rambling a bit by the time Léo turned up the drive. He stopped before we came in sight of the house and turned to me.
    â€œWhat if I told you I slept with Victoria, years ago?”
    I tensed and fingered the pebbled leather on the Rover’s door. “Are you telling me that?”
    Léo looked bored, or tired. “Maybe,” he said. “If yes, what do you say?”
    I tried to follow the eddy of my feelings, to still and look at them, but all I could see was Léo, handsome and lean, looking out through the windshield, awaiting my reply. We wore the same collared tennis shirt, mine white, his red, and it felt ridiculous, the two of us sitting there, discussing this like a hypothetical. And yet that was how it seemed—hypothetical—because I could sense a gulf between what I should feel and what I did. Because how could I begrudge Vicky this handsome man, his athlete’s body, his perfect way of moving, all those years ago? Maybe she should have told me, but I couldn’t be angry with her. What I honestly felt, when Léo smiled at me, was that this brought us closer, Léo and me.
    â€œI don’t care,” I said. “I fucked Marion last night.”
    Léo looked at me. Then he laughed. Then we both laughed and drove the rest of the way to the house.
    *   *   *
    At lunch Fabien told an interminable story in French that I couldn’t understand. No one translated. The air around the table was preoccupied. I was anxious to ask Vicky about her and Léo, so when lunch ended I insisted that we do the washing-up. Only then and gently, because I wasn’t mad—I wasn’t—did I ask why she hadn’t told me about her and Léo.
    â€œWhat about us?” she said, plopping a grape in her mouth.
    â€œThat you had a thing.”
    Vicky laughed and set down the dish she was drying. “Me and Léo? A thing?” Her mouth twisted in genuine amusement. “I think I’d know.”
    My relief was followed closely by annoyance and then, maybe, something like regret. I thought for a crazy moment of asking Vicky whether she would have, had Léo wanted to, but I could hardly ask her that. It wasn’t jealousy I felt, after all, but the opposite. I felt—well, spurned.
    Vicky and Marion went into the city that afternoon to play tennis at Marion’s club, and I was once more left alone with my books and notepads on the back lawn. I tried to think about Rome, but all I could think about was Léo. What had happened to him? Was he crazy? Just as I was thinking, Screw Rome, this is what I should write about: the madness of Léon Descoteaux, his son Antoine appeared at my side. He announced his presence by putting his hand on my shoulder and looking down at my notes.
    â€œHello