The beautiful park offered a multitude of possibilities within a minuscule footprint: grassy green areas shaded by historic trees, tennis courts, a baseball diamond, a children's playground, and a swimming pool. Lucky, lucky kids attended the elementary school that faced one side of the park. Lucky, lucky people lived in the beautiful old Victorians that lined the other three sides.
Despite the early hour and the thick tule fog—more typical of the Central Valley than of Alameda, a long, leafy island stretched out in the San Francisco Bay—one of those lucky people was already out pounding tennis balls on a cool Wednesday in spring. The fog was so dense that Shari had to listen for the sound of each ball's bounce to assess her success. A hard thud said, “Good job, Shari.” A sluggish clunk implied she had not achieved her full potential. A round, full clap confirmed a perfect, gold-medal spin off her racket. Today, one satisfying clap after another lifted her spirits. Stopping to shake her serving arm, she took a moment to congratulate herself. Not just for her excellent serves. For everything! Her pretty Queen Anne house was just across from the courts where she played and taught tennis. Her two lovely daughters. Her hard-working, still youngish-looking, though middle-aged, husband. Of course she was happy! Who wouldn't be?
Pleased at her spontaneous outpouring of gratitude, so important to happiness and personal growth, Shari picked up her racket, tossed a ball into the air, and swung her arm. She felt her serve go wrong even before contact and winced when she saw the ball hit the net and bounce with a sad thump on her side of the court. A terrible serve. Humiliating. Her arm dropped to her side, and her flood of optimism dissipated into the fog. All right, her life wasn't perfect. But it was totally fine! So what if Gary worked too much, the girls defaulted to snotty, and her job as a Recreation and Parks tennis coach was a far cry from the professional life she'd envisioned decades ago as a promising young player. Somehow, her life had taken some unwelcome turns.
But then, was anything perfect? Take this beautiful park for example. The citizens of her town would be shocked to observe, as Shari had, the chemicals needed to keep the lawns green. Even the trees, so towering and gorgeous, were periodically the subject of intense inspection by serious-looking experts. Probably a few of the older specimens were at death's door and needed removal. But no arborist would come out and recommend such an extreme measure in a city where trees were practically worshipped. In the park, as in Shari's life, shiny surfaces could mask unhappy shortcomings.
Shari shook these unpleasant thoughts away. Vowing to focus on the positive, she marched toward the net, tapped the errant ball into her free hand with a deft swat of her racket, and trotted back to serve again. An unexpected shout followed her resounding thwack. “Ouch!”
“Sorry!” called Shari, running up to the net. “I'm so sorry. It's this fog. I didn't see you.”
The figure who appeared through the thick mist, rubbing their head, turned into a long tan man graced with dark sun-kissed hair, a solid yet slender build, and a face that was drop-dead gorgeous, like that kid with the eyelashes in High School Musical, a movie her girls had watched several hundred times. An involuntary shiver raced through Shari before settling into the usual low spot—a spot much neglected lately.
“Hey, Coach Parker. No harm done. I shouldn't have cut across the court.”
With these words, Shari's dreamy heartthrob transformed into Phil, a boy from down the street. One of her former tennis students! When had he morphed from that string-bean neighbor kid, a so-so player she had never much noticed, into this hunk? Shari felt her face go hot. Like some sad-sack cougar, she was lusting over a neighborhood kid. A child! Unnerved, she started babbling.
“What do you know! Phil! What a surprise! My goodness, how long has it been? How's college?” Her words flew out too quickly and bubbly. She grabbed a ball from the pocket of her jacket and started bouncing it madly.
“Good to see you too.” He stuck a long arm, probably toned under that hoodie, over the net. Shari stopped bouncing and walked over. When their hands touched, the shiver started all over again. She was a disgrace. They would ban her from teaching children. Run her out of town.
“I'm done with college, actually. So it's back home to good old Alameda.” He gave a quick smile, one returned by Shari—the secret handshake of the some 75,000 people residing in Alameda, a silent acknowledgement of how fortunate they were to make their homes in the island city. “I've been looking for a job, but you know.” He shrugged. “It's, like, the economy.”
Now she remembered. She'd encountered Phil's parents on a walk last week. They had complained bitterly about Phil's lackadaisical outlook and his preference for video games over the more mature activities of job hunting and résumé-building. He might be hot, but he's a lazy slacker, Shari told herself.
“Oh, that's right. Your mom told me you were home. So.” Shari cast about for a safe topic, not wanting to dwell on his mother's irritated report. “Playing any tennis these days?”
“Uh, no.” Phil looked embarrassed. “I haven't really played since high school. I mean, you were a great coach, but I wasn't any good.”
“You have to practice to get good. Everyone has to practice.”
“Yeah, I remember you saying that.”
Good. He still thought of her as a coach. Shari would act like a coach, an upright citizen. “Well, I'm sure you're busy job hunting. I hope you find something you really like. Like I did.”
“Everyone could always tell how much you loved teaching tennis. That's why we loved coming.” He smiled again and then shrugged. “Anyway, I should get going.”
Suddenly, Shari couldn't let him walk away. Ignoring the inner screams of her better self (Do not do this) and her tennis self (Get a grip—he can't play), she said, “I'm here early most mornings. Come on down sometime if you want to join me for practice.”
“Sure,” said Phil. “I mean, maybe. I'm not usually awake at this hour.”
After watching Phil melt back into the fog, Shari picked up her bucket and collected tennis balls. When she was done, she made up her mind to call Gary after her morning cup of coffee. They needed a date night. A romantic dinner. Something to put the spark back. That's all that was missing, Shari thought, storing the balls in the tennis shack and locking the door behind her. Just a little spark.
Meanwhile, back at their large and comfortable home overlooking the park, Gary was suffering from a nasty shock. Turning his head back and forth while shaving, he had momentarily glimpsed his father's face superimposed over his own. The grim, wrinkled horror came and went in a flash, leaving in its place Gary's own steely grey eyes, symmetrical features, and retreating but respectable hairline. But the seed was planted: one day, he would resemble his dad. He shuddered.
The episode reinforced his already lousy attitude, which had begun as soon as he realized that, as usual, Shari had left their bed before he'd even hit the snooze button. He was accustomed to Shari's early-morning negligence of him, but he didn't like it. For a few moments during one of his snooze sessions, he had drifted into a half-dream of Shari in the kitchen, cooking up a hot breakfast for him and the girls. He'd even dreamt the hearty smell of bacon snaking up the stairs.
The fantasy vaporized with the next buzz of the alarm. Resigning himself to yet another breakfast of coffee and pastries from the café on the ground floor of his office building, Gary made a forced exit from the bed and lumbered toward the shower, cursing as he recovered from a trip on one of the throw pillows that Shari had insisted they needed. For what, he couldn't say. A few days ago, Shari had said the entire room was out of date and ready for a refresh. Everything—from the damask gray bedspread that matched the damn pillows and the dark gray walls to the heavy drapes—would go. Fine, thought Gary, throw it all away and start over. He pictured a thundercloud of dollar bills fluttering down into dumpsters.
To soothe himself, Gary took extra care dressing, selecting expensive jeans, a white silk T-shirt, and a sky-blue linen jacket. Next came the understated sneakers that cost more than Italian leather loafers. The entire look—like the other clothes in his closet—had been chosen by his stylist, a stout older woman with a genius for fashion. The woman had told him the financial-advisor look was out, unless you had no choice because you actually were a financial advisor. Nowadays, the smart men dressed like tech guys. But not your average tech guys. Rather, tech guys who relied on stylists.
As an executive in supply-chain logistics (read, freight-handling), Gary didn't have to dress that great. But he figured, why not look as successful as he actually was? Plus, the ladies loved it. He stopped to smooth the rolled-up cuffs of his jacket in front of the full-length mirror by the bedroom door, reassured by the image beaming back at him. Thankfully, his father had disappeared, and the mirror showed a guy who exuded confidence, good taste, and, despite being squarely middle-aged, youth.
Before heading downstairs, he paused in the hallway by the girls' bedroom doors, but heard nothing. His shoulders dropped. Such was life nowadays. He left too early to see his daughters, and his wife left too early to see him. Even though she knew he would appreciate a hot breakfast every now and then. As would the girls. He grabbed a pop-tart before heading out to his shiny red convertible, wondering if Shari loved him as much as he loved this car.
Gunning past slowpoke drivers on the overpass to the bay bridge, he told Alexis to ring Shari. Maybe if he paid more attention to her, all that he was missing most in life would return. Such as something to eat in the morning, but also a sex life in the comfort of his own home, so he wouldn't have to look elsewhere. Granted, he would look anyway, but certainly not as often. When she didn't pick up, he considered calling Eva. Maybe, maybe not. Eva brought her own issues. Downshifting to join the crowd of cars approaching the toll plaza, Gary shook his head over how complicated his life had become. Then, out of nowhere, he wondered if life was complex because he was old, or if he was old because life was complex.
