"Suit yourself," said Coach Pemberton, and wrote it down.
It didn't matter now; they'd change ends every odd game the whole afternoon. But she wanted him to be the first one to look up that hill. She wanted to know, early, what his face did when he did.
Whit walked to the east baseline and bounced the ball twice and looked across the net at her.
"Ready?" he said.
"Ready," she said, and the match began.
* * *
He won the first game without her touching the ball.
Four serves. The first one went by her on the forehand side so fast she only knew it had happened because the line kicked up a puff of green dust. The second hit her frame and flew into the bleachers, and a man in a madras jacket caught it and held it up, and everyone cheered. The third she got back, a weak floater, and Whit was already at the net and put it away into the open court like he was swatting a fly. The fourth was an ace.
"Game, Mr. Langford," said Coach Pemberton, and the bleachers clapped, and from the top of them Mr. Langford whooped like a man at a football game.
It went on like that. She held her serve once, in the fourth game, by keeping the ball deep and praying, and the people on the far fence made a low sound, not quite a cheer. Otherwise Whit came in and came in and came in. When she lobbed, the lobs were short and nervous and he crushed them. When she tried to pass him, she went for too much and the ball sailed long. She was doing everything Mr. Grant had told her not to do. She knew she was doing it. She couldn't stop. It was like trying to stop shivering.
At the changeover at 2-5, she sat on the bench with a towel over her head and her mother's church dress stuck to her back, and she couldn't breathe right.
"You can still quit, honey," somebody called from the bleachers. A woman's voice, kind, which was worse. "Nobody'd blame you."
She took the towel off her head.
Mr. Grant was standing at the far fence.