"This is your Mickey Mantle?" Harrison asked with a laugh. His friend looked as if his face was made of putty and someone had stamped a smile on it.
"Brooke, my cousin Harrison," Lisa said.
"Hi," he said. "This is Brody Taylor. You know my cousin Lisa."
"Yes, I do," Brody said.
"Are you as good at tennis as you are at softball?" Harrison asked me.
"No. I just got my first lesson."
"From Lisa?" He laughed. "That's like the blind teaching the blind."
"Really?" Lisa looked at me and smiled. "Why don't we start with boys against girls?"
"It won't even be a contest," Harrison bragged. "We'll chance it."
"What's the bet?"
"What do you want to bet?"
"Virginity?" he quipped.
Lisa turned beet red, and Brody laughed, a sort of sniffle laugh with the air being pushed out of his nose and his body shaking.
"You're still a virgin?" I countered. It was as if we were playing tennis with words.
This time, Harrison turned crimson. "Okay, let's bet twenty dollars," he suggested.
"Fine," Lisa replied.
"Twenty dollars! I don't have any money with me," I cried.
"Don't worry about it," Lisa said. "You could always pay me back in school if we should lose."
"What do you mean, if you should lose? You mean when you lose," Harrison said. Brody laughed again.
"I don't even know the rules," I whispered to Lisa.
"Just keep the ball within the inside lines," she advised. She turned to Harrison. "Why don't you two warm up, then?"
"We don't need a warmup, do we, Brody?"
He shrugged. Harrison removed his racquet from his case, and Brody did the same. They took their positions on the other side of the net.
"I'll serve first," Lisa told me.
My heart was thumping. Twenty dollars! They talked about it as if it were small change.
We began to play. Harrison was good, but Brody was slow. I saw the way he positioned himself and discovered quickly that he was usually off balance. There were things that were common to all sports: posture, poise, conditioning, and timing. All I had to do was return the ball at Brody with some speed, and he usually hit it out of bounds or into the net. As we won set after set, Harrison's temper flared. He directed his fury at Brody, which only made him play worse. When Lisa and I won, Harrison threw his racquet across the lawn.
"You lied," he said, pointing at Lisa.
"What?"
"You didn't just teach her how to play. No one just learns and hits the ball like that."
"I didn't lie!" Lisa screamed, her hands on her hips. "That's what she told me. Right, Brooke?"