"Why'd you put the ball in the window?"
He shrugged. He didn't look at her. "You looked like you needed one. That thing you're playing with is about bald."
"It's from 1979," she said. "I found it in a ditch."
"Well. Now you've got one from 1984." He pushed off the net post. "Where'd you get the racket? For real."
"I told you. Rummage sale. St. Helena parish hall."
"When?"
"Spring of '82. April."
Whit stood very still at the net post. The sodium lamps buzzed. A car went by on Washington Street with its windows down, playing "When Doves Cry" loud enough to rattle the fence, and faded off toward the river.
"Okay," he said finally, in a voice with nothing in it at all. "Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Nothing." He went back out through the broken gate. At the car—a red Jeep CJ7 with the top off—he turned around. "You're going to lose, you know. Saturday. I'm not going to let you win."
"I don't want you to let me."
"Good." He got in the Jeep. "Toss it higher," he said, and started the engine, and drove off.
She tossed it higher. It went in the can.