Page 33 of Hell Bent
Jennifer said, “It’s the silly season, I guess, because that’s how I expect to look. I’m only playing because I’m always the first one out, so nobody else has to feel bad.” At which she took off her heels and looked determined. “I’m telling myself that everybody else here is an athletic genius, and that doesn’t have to be my skill set.”
“You’re telling yourself,” Kristiansen said, “that you’ve got about the best personality in the world, and you care more about whether everybody else is happy than about whether you are. Which is why it’s my job to make up the difference.”
Jennifer turned pink and said, “That’s—” Then didn’tseem to know how to go on, until she said, “Oh! I guess that was my cue to show off what Harlan gave me for Christmas.”
“Well, no,” he said, giving her a one-armed cuddle and kissing her head, “it wasn’t, but feel free.”
“This,” she said, touching her necklace and earrings as her color rose some more. They didn’t look the way I’d have expected from her kindergarten-teacher appearance. Almost industrial, is the word. Modern, I guess. The earrings were these two big rectangular links, like,big,the top one, attached to the ear, encrusted with diamonds. The necklace was a smaller chain with the same two big links entwined at the bottom, one of them with the diamonds. That one looked like a lariat, at least to me.
“They’re so striking,” Alix said. “The silver looks great with your hair.”
“Bite your tongue,” Kristiansen said. “Those are white gold. I don’t do my jewelry halfway.”
Dyma said, “One thing about football players, Alix, is that they like rules. Like, Harlan always gives my mom Tiffany, especially HardWear, and Owen usually gives me Cartier. Probably because I can’t wear Tiffany HardWear. I’m too goth already, and I’m too small. It works on Mom because of the contrast. Like, unexpected.” She eyed Alix. “I’m trying to think what you’d look good in, but I don’t know you well enough. You seem like it would have to be something very classy.”
Alix laughed. “That’s funny, because trust me, I’m nothing like that.”
“Really?” Dyma said. “Huh. You look like a …” Some more studying. “Like a princess. An old-time European princess. Russian, maybe. Wasn’t the last Tsarina named Alix? There you go, Sebastian. There’s your hint.”
Alix glanced at me, startled, and I put up my hands and said, “Not me.”
Alix said, “Sebastian and I barely know each other. He’s not buying me any jewelry.” Which hadn’t been what I’d meant at all. I’d meant the princess thing, but I didn’t know how to clarify.
“So are you going to play this game,” Oscar said, “or what? I’m too old to wait for things. Can’t even buy a magazine subscription anymore, and I look at the date on the meat package real hard, too.”
“We’re going to play,” Harlan said. “Who’s in?” Which was when Alix kicked off the black suede heels and said, “Bring it on. I’m going to beat you like a drum, Sebastian. Get ready to cry.”
14
PLAYING GAMES
Alix
It was about the silliest thing I’d done since childhood. Running full-tilt around the table in my bare feet, knowing that Sebastian was right behind me and so determined not to let him catch up, then seeing the ball streaking over the net—these guys hithard—and doing my best to smack it back in mid-flight. Somebody missing, and a mad scramble to find the ball and put it back in motion again. Feet flying, laughing so hard it was difficult to focus. Sebastian nearly running into me when I screeched to a stop to return a tricky ball smacked to the edge of the table, grabbing my waist with both hands even as I hit the ball, then spinning in a complete circle, lifting me straight off the ground, saying “sorry” as he let go of me to take the paddle and hit his own ball, and I was running again.
That ball had been hit by Harlan, whowasa devious and weirdly competitive ping-pong player, unless he was hitting the ball to Jennifer. Jennifer was out first, though, as she’d predicted, and went to grab a glass of water and sit next to hergrandfather, fanning her flushed face. I barely caught a glimpse of that, though, because I was still running.
Owen was the opposite. Unless he was sending the ball to Harlan or Sebastian, he lobbed it over easy until Dyma said breathlessly, “Quit being polite andhitthe thing, Owen!” To which he answered, “You want it hard? OK, then. You asked for it.”
Dyma gasped, “Oh, nice,” even as Harlan said, “I did not need to hear that.” Owen’s neck turned red, but all he did was, yes, send the ball across to Dyma the next time with so much spin on it, her return shot flipped it straight up into the air. “That’s three on you,” he said. “And you’re out. Go sit down, little girl.”
“You’re such an evil winner,” she said, and went over to join her mom. “I’m rooting for the women now. Come on, Annabelle. Come on, Alix. Show them!”
We didn’t, of course. The fewer players out there, the faster we were running and the harder it got, until first I and then Annabelle were out, and it was three NFL players who seemed to have forgotten that there was no Super Bowl for ping-pong, battling it out like there’d be no tomorrow. Faster and faster, Owen’s huge chest heaving like a bellows, until he couldn’t make it around the table in time to return Harlan’s cracking shot to the far corner, just over the net. He lunged over the table, fell on top of it, went for the ball, and …
The table collapsed under his three hundred-plus pounds, and Owen went down with it to the accompaniment of shouts and shrieks and a deafening crash.Owen was still sprawled across the remains, Harlan was laughing his head off, and Sebastian was saying, “You all right, man?” and offering his hand, but unable to suppress his own smile.
“What the hell,” Harlan said as Owen stood up, wincing. “You don’t lead with your groin.”
“Maybeyoudon’t,” Owen said, and grinned. “Ouch.” He surveyed the table. “Looks like I owe you a new one of these.”
“Totally worth it,” Dyma said. “That was awesome.”
“Hey,” Owen said.
“No,” she said. “See, you showed how determined you are. How nothing can stop you. It was actually really hot.”
He said, “I’m unconvinced,” and everybody laughed some more.
