“Twenty minutes. Fine.”
Sun finished her sandwich and stood up.
“It’s a date.” She spun on her toes and trotted off.
What did she mean by that? Did she mean date as in a man and a woman having fun with a later possibility of sex? Or date as in a scheduled event on a calender?
Fifteen minutes later he was dressed in some blue shorts and a sweatshirt, walking down the Purple Arm. The Secret Service had forwarded his gym shoes, but no gym socks, so he was forced to wear none. None were preferable to argyle, especially around pretty women.
Sun was waiting for him, squatting on the floor with her right leg extended in a stretch. She wore bike pants and a sports bra top, both black.
Did she have any idea of how good she looked? She must have.
So this was a real date.
Right?
On the floor next to her were two racquets. They resembled their tennis counterparts, except their handles were less than half the length. A blue rubber racquetball was in her hand, the manufacturer's label stamped on it in gold.
Mixed signals and potential embarrassment be damned, Andy willed himself to relax and have fun.
“I see you mean to distract me by playing on my weakness.”
“What's that?”
“Spandex.”
“Nice socks,” Sun said. “You'll get blisters.”
“I don't plan on doing much running.”
“Maybe, since we both seem to be confident in our abilities, we should make a little bet on this game.”
“Fine.” Andy took a deep breath. “If I win, I get to kiss you.”
Sun's cheeks colored.
“I don’t think so.”
What little ego Andy had left shriveled up. But confidence isn’t about how you feel. It’s about what you project.
“Why not? Afraid you’ll lose on purpose?”
Sun smiled, projecting quite a bit of confidence.
“I’m not going to lose.”
“So you have nothing to worry about then.”
“Fine. So what do I get when I win?
“You get to kiss me.”
“How about a thousand bucks?”
“A thousand bucks? Can we afford it?”
“We're government employees,” Sun bounced to her feet and handed him a racquet. “Of course we can afford it.”
She gave him a heart-melting grin and trotted into Purple 5.
“You're not really serious, are you?” Andy called after her. “A thousand bucks?”
He walked into the room. It was a standard racquetball court, forty feet long by twenty feet wide. The walls were matte white, marred by several dozen chips and marks. Six florescent lights were set into the twenty foot high ceiling, making it as bright as an operating theater. The floor was wood, with red painted markings for the service area and the fault line.
Andy closed the heavy door behind him. The door had no knob on the inside; there were no protrusions anywhere in the room. The handle was shaped like a half moon and attached to a hinge, and when it wasn't in use it recessed into a depression. Andy likened the court to being inside of a large white box.
“Game is fifteen points, turn over the serve at fourteen, have to win by two. Do you want to stretch?”
“I'll be fine.”
Andy grinned but Sun was all business.
“Zero serving zero, for one thousand dollars. Ready?”
Andy bent his knees and held his racquet up. The pose was familiar to him. He'd played racquetball a hundred times, and though the last time he'd played was several years ago, he'd been pretty good.
Sun was better.
Within two minutes she was four points up. Racquetball didn't have bizarre scoring like tennis. It was actually more like Ping-Pong. The goal was to return the ball to your opponent by bouncing it off of the front wall, and you had to do this before it bounced on the floor twice.
By the time Sun was up six to zero, Andy realized she wasn’t intending to lose on purpose. So much for wanting to be kissed.
But even though he was behind, he’d gotten a good feel for her game. She was faster than he was, and her ball control was better. On easy volleys she was able to hit the front wall only inches above the floor, making it impossible for him to return.
Andy, however, had the strength advantage, and could hit the ball harder than she could. It wasn't unusual for a racquetball to exceed speeds of ninety miles per hour, and when it was bouncing off four walls that didn't make for an easy return. Andy was also several inches taller than Sun, so he hit the ball high whenever he had a chance, and often the bounce would sail over her head out of reach.
After twenty minutes Andy was able to cut Sun's lead down to one point. His sweatshirt was soaked enough to wring-out, and it was becoming harder to catch his breath between volleys.
Sun didn't appear to be sweating at all.
“You can take a break if you need one,” she told him. Her smirk was barely concealed.
He pursed his lips and didn't answer. She served and scored.
“Twelve to ten, are you sure you don't want to get some water?”
Water did sound good.
“After the game. Serve.”
It only took four more serves for Sun to win.
She shook his hand with vigor, her smile wide and genuine. Andy handled the loss easily. He just wanted something to drink.
A few minutes later they were in the Mess Hall, each with a large glass of water. Andy was on his third.
“You're better than I thought,” Sun said. “You actually gave me a little trouble.”
“You could play professionally.”
“Well, I did, kind of. American Racquetball Association. Won a few tournaments. No big deal, really. Racquetball stars don't get too many product endorsements.”
“You might have shared that info with me before we bet a thousand bucks.”
“We’ve still got an hour before Bub is ready for his next lesson. Want to play again? Double or nothing?”
Andy could feel his muscles starting to cramp up. He knew he wouldn’t get through another game. But she was so earnest, so cute. Her eyes were wide and bright and her cheeks had a lovely flush to them. Such a change from the dour, strict women he’d met yesterday.
“Race said something about a pool table. Do you play?”
“I haven’t for a while.”
“How about a game of nine ball, double or nothing?”
Sun grinned. “You’re on. I need to shower and change first. See you in Purple 5 in twenty minutes?”
“It’s a date,” Andy said.
And as she trotted off, he sincerely hoped it was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rabbi Menachem Shotzen ended his nightly kaddish by asking G-d to help his friend, Father Thrist, with his crisis of faith.
He took off his braided kippah—a skull cap he received at bar mitzvah, and put it in his tallis bag on top of his tzitzit and his tefillin, both of which were worn only for morning prayer.
The Rabbi glanced at his nightstand. He knew what it contained. And he knew that only minutes prior, he had pleaded with G-d to give him the strength to avoid it.
Shotzen turned away from the temptation and instead seated himself at a small desk to proofread the latest pages of his memoirs.
He hefted the manuscript, now over fifteen hundred hand written pages, and its weight pleased him. Not too bad, especially considering one day and two nights of the week, Shabbes, he was forbidden by Jewish law to write. The first line still made him proud, and he said it softly to himself.
“Blessings and curses, I have had many of both.”
He glanced at the nightstand again. One of the curses, for sure. Bub may indeed be demonic, though Shotzen doubted it, but in that drawer was something even worse. Yetzir ha- ra. A denial of G-d.
He approached it just the same.
The liquor was where he had left it, awaiting his return. Shotzen picked up the bottle—half-full of overproof peppermint schnapps—then put it back down. It was a familiar ritual, with a familiar ending. Once the nightstand was opened, the bottle won.