hopelessly complicated, and Marty, being the director, was as busy as the mother of a bride. Kathy was a shoo-in for the Ladies’ Singles Championship, as she had won it easily the year before. This year Marty and Kathy would team up and try to take the ladies’ doubles from Mrs. Rice and Mrs. Rosino, who had won it twelve years in a row. They were two ladies in their sixties who played a lovely old-fashioned game with the precision of a dancing couple on a Black Forest music box. The tournament counted for nothing, so Kathy’s parents did not attend, but they did insist Jody earn twenty-five dollars as a ball girl, an amount Jody said she’d be glad to make pulling stumps out of their neighbors’ garden instead.
Kathy had never played better than she had at the Quincy tournament, and so she had won the whole thing. This under her belt and school done, Kathy felt an excellent lightness of mind, connected too with the golden July days that spun themselves out like a reward and the gradual warming of the flinty blue North Atlantic. The thorn in her side was Mrs. Diggins.
Mrs. Diggins had seemed more saddened than appalled when she’d caught Kathy staring at the answers on Julia’s conveniently slanted paper during the algebra final. She had been too kind to punish Julia as a coconspirator. With the air of a wise old nun who has seen and forgiven all kinds of wickedness, Mrs. Diggins tutored Kathy in algebra three nights a week. Three nights a week Kathy sat on Mrs. Diggins’s nubbly brown sofa behind a card table, sweating over equations, trying to ignore the children in the neighborhood who shouted and laughed chasing their Frisbees and baseballs over the grass. This was impossible. Her mind would fly to the most insignificant fragment of conversation between unseen children outside the window and stay there until the speakers wandered away. Mrs. Diggins turned the air conditioner on loud and high to block the voices. It was an old machine and rattled away like a trash masher. Kathy counted in her head to the beat of a loose piece of metal inside it and confused herself further.
In Mrs. Diggins’s opinion Kathy was obviously not stupid. She wasn’t lazy either because as anyone could see, she really did perspire and gnash her teeth, chewing her pencil to splinters over the simplest problems. She had only to overcome her unreasonable hatred of mathematics and all would come clear, like the sunshine after a thunderstorm. Despite help from Oliver, Julia, and Mrs. Diggins, Kathy did poorly, since her hatred of math was as much a part of her as the color of her eyes. “If you would only apply yourself, Kathy,” Mrs. Diggins told her forlornly, “with a fraction of the attention you give your tennis, you would at least pass the exam—at least have some basic comprehension of the course.” But Kathy always lowered her eyes in real shame and promised to do better. Then a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday evening would roll around, and Kathy found herself opening Mrs. Diggins’s front door with the apprehension she usually saved for the dentist. One evening, when Kathy appeared, sunburned and flushed from four straight victories in the round robin, Mrs. Diggins asked her to sit in the wing chair instead of on the sofa. She offered her an anemic-looking glass of iced tea, which Kathy was too afraid to refuse, and then sat in an opposite wing chair. The fallow evening light suffused even the plastic ottoman on which Mrs. Diggins propped her feet with a delicate richness. “Kathy, do you know what growing up is all about?” she asked.
Kathy recalled a pamphlet, entitled Growing Up and Liking It, handed out at the beginning of freshman year. The pamphlet dealt with eggs and Fallopian tubes. To her dismay she also recalled that two nights before she had noticed a trace of blood on the sofa pillow when her lesson was finished. She’d done the only possible thing, and that was to turn over the pillow quickly when Mrs. Diggins
Kathy had never played better than she had at the Quincy tournament, and so she had won the whole thing. This under her belt and school done, Kathy felt an excellent lightness of mind, connected too with the golden July days that spun themselves out like a reward and the gradual warming of the flinty blue North Atlantic. The thorn in her side was Mrs. Diggins.
Mrs. Diggins had seemed more saddened than appalled when she’d caught Kathy staring at the answers on Julia’s conveniently slanted paper during the algebra final. She had been too kind to punish Julia as a coconspirator. With the air of a wise old nun who has seen and forgiven all kinds of wickedness, Mrs. Diggins tutored Kathy in algebra three nights a week. Three nights a week Kathy sat on Mrs. Diggins’s nubbly brown sofa behind a card table, sweating over equations, trying to ignore the children in the neighborhood who shouted and laughed chasing their Frisbees and baseballs over the grass. This was impossible. Her mind would fly to the most insignificant fragment of conversation between unseen children outside the window and stay there until the speakers wandered away. Mrs. Diggins turned the air conditioner on loud and high to block the voices. It was an old machine and rattled away like a trash masher. Kathy counted in her head to the beat of a loose piece of metal inside it and confused herself further.
In Mrs. Diggins’s opinion Kathy was obviously not stupid. She wasn’t lazy either because as anyone could see, she really did perspire and gnash her teeth, chewing her pencil to splinters over the simplest problems. She had only to overcome her unreasonable hatred of mathematics and all would come clear, like the sunshine after a thunderstorm. Despite help from Oliver, Julia, and Mrs. Diggins, Kathy did poorly, since her hatred of math was as much a part of her as the color of her eyes. “If you would only apply yourself, Kathy,” Mrs. Diggins told her forlornly, “with a fraction of the attention you give your tennis, you would at least pass the exam—at least have some basic comprehension of the course.” But Kathy always lowered her eyes in real shame and promised to do better. Then a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday evening would roll around, and Kathy found herself opening Mrs. Diggins’s front door with the apprehension she usually saved for the dentist. One evening, when Kathy appeared, sunburned and flushed from four straight victories in the round robin, Mrs. Diggins asked her to sit in the wing chair instead of on the sofa. She offered her an anemic-looking glass of iced tea, which Kathy was too afraid to refuse, and then sat in an opposite wing chair. The fallow evening light suffused even the plastic ottoman on which Mrs. Diggins propped her feet with a delicate richness. “Kathy, do you know what growing up is all about?” she asked.
Kathy recalled a pamphlet, entitled Growing Up and Liking It, handed out at the beginning of freshman year. The pamphlet dealt with eggs and Fallopian tubes. To her dismay she also recalled that two nights before she had noticed a trace of blood on the sofa pillow when her lesson was finished. She’d done the only possible thing, and that was to turn over the pillow quickly when Mrs. Diggins
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