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“Your mother was so concerned about you that she gave no thought to her job or her car. All she wanted was to make sure you were all right.”
“How do you know so much about my mother?” Sabrina asked, her tone and expression vibrating with hostility.
“It’d be obvious to a blind person how much she cares about you. And as for the rest, the fact that she’s single, yet manages to send you to a good school, pay for your car and tennis expenses means she must be sacrificing like mad on your behalf. The least she deserves is some consideration, and a hot meal.”
An awkward silence ensued. It occurred to Tamara that Bronson had hit the nail on the head. Sabrina was spoiled. She had been given everything at great cost to Tamara, and because her daughter had kept up her grades and worked so hard at tennis, Tamara had tried to make everything else easier for her.
She had ended up making it too easy.
“I’ll follow you in my car, Christopher,” Bronson told his son.
After a slight hesitation, Christopher let go of Sabrina’s hand. “Will you be all right, Bree?”
Tamara could not contain herself. “What do you think I plan on doing to her, Christopher? Beating her up? Kidnapping her? Keeping her out of school like you did?”
“Christopher had nothing to do with my decision to skip school, Mother,” Sabrina said quickly, coming to the boy’s defense. “It was totally my idea to come here today and help him warm up. The coach was delayed at a clinic he was giving, but he left word he’ll still take a look at Christopher this afternoon.”
“Which means I won’t be having any lunch, Dad,” Christopher said pointedly. “You know I can’t eat this close to playing. And I don’t want to keep the recruiter waiting. He’s going to be at the national tournament in Florida next month, but he was interested enough in me that he said he’d approve an early admission if he liked what he saw of me indoors.”
“Which means Christopher has to be back here in ninety minutes, Mother.”
Bronson and Tamara looked at each other. The teenagers’ united front and fearless defiance signaled open warfare. This was going to be even harder than they’d anticipated.
Without another word, Bronson and Tamara went their separate ways, Bronson to his car, waiting to follow Christopher’s Celica, and Tamara joining her daughter in the Mustang.
Tamara buckled herself in on the passenger side of her daughter’s car. It was truly humiliating to have had the Continental towed, today of all days, and after all the lectures she’d given Sabrina on being responsible for her car.
She would call the university from the restaurant and arrange to get her car later. Right now she wanted to have a little talk with her daughter, the stranger.
* * *
Bronson watched Tamara get into her daughter’s car and admired anew the luscious curves and long legs that were elegantly folded into the Mustang. With her blond hair, gray eyes and youthful complexion, she looked more like Sabrina’s sister than her mother.
Except when one got close enough to look into that steady gaze. He had read knowledge and experience there, which could only have been acquired through the bruising wringer of responsibility, bills, and single parenthood.
The pain visible in those luminous gray eyes was enough to make Bronson want to choke his own son—and her daughter. Instead of being grateful for all they’d been given, they had gone ahead with their own selfish agenda and had not even had the guts to confront either him or Tamara.
Bronson had just met the woman, and knew he had not made a great first impression. He planned on changing that. He understood what she was going through—hell, he felt as if he’d been branded with a hot iron that reached deep into his soul—and her only crime, like his, was loving so much she had put her kid’s welfare and happiness before her own. Like him, she had sacrificed, tried to make up for a missing parent, and been betrayed by the person who had been the very center of her life.
Christopher and Sabrina might well be at the mercy of their hormones, and all the turbulence of adolescence in a world that made it increasingly harder to grow up. But they had been shown love, self-sacrifice, devotion. They were smart enough to know right from wrong, and nothing—not their raging hormones, nor the pressures from the outside world—excused their lack of honesty and, yes, downright betrayal.
* * *
“Why didn’t you tell me about Christopher, Sabrina?” Tamara asked her daughter quietly as soon as they pulled out of the Eck Tennis Pavilion parking lot.
“I tried to, Mother,” Sabrina said, smoothly maneuvering the car as she headed toward Angela Boulevard. “But you were always too busy.”
“Oh, come on,” Tamara said, shifting in her seat to look at Sabrina’s expression. Her chest constricted. Her daughter might think she was an adult, but the baby roundness of her face, the innocent look in those green eyes...they spoke of a child protected against the harshest realities of the world, with its cruelties, unfair rules, and gaping jaw waiting to devour the unprepared.
Had she overprotected Sabrina?
Sabrina shot her a quick glance, and the hostility and coldness Tamara read there froze the blood in her veins.
“You know you were always too busy. The only things you cared about were that I got good grades and practiced hard.”
Mystified, Tamara shook her head.
“And what is wrong with that, may I ask? You know you need good grades to get into a good university. And in order to have any chance at turning pro, you need a high national ranking—which would also allow you to get into top schools like Stanford, Northwestern, or Notre Dame—”
“What about my social life, Mother? Why should I have to give up everything?”
Anger shot through Tamara, and she had to contain herself to keep from raising her voice. “You know that the reason you don’t have a higher ranking is that I didn’t send you to more tennis camps, and gave you the choice to attend concerts and dances instead of participating in important tennis events—”
“It’s all about tennis, isn’t it, Mother?”
“What do you mean—all? You made a choice not to attend one of the tennis camps in Florida, or California. As a matter of fact, I was quite willing to move to either coast so you could play year-round and have more access to competition and world-class pros—”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Mother!” Sabrina practically shouted. Shocked, Tamara looked at her daughter. Only in the past few months had she even dared raise her voice at Tamara.
“Sabrina, calm down. You’re driving, remember?” Tamara reminded her as they approached an intersection. As the light turned yellow, Sabrina slammed on the brakes and swore.
Tamara paled and watched, speechless, as both Bronson and Christopher, who had made the light, pulled over to the side of the road to wait for them.
Another admirable trait of her daughter’s was her self-control. When her opponents were cursing up a blue streak on court, she had always maintained a calm, reserved demeanor. A tournament director in Kentucky who had seen Chris Evert play as a junior had compared Sabrina’s sportsmanlike behavior during matches to the legendary champion’s.
But this out-of-control teenager was nothing like the daughter she had raised.
As the light turned green, Sabrina leaned on the accelerator and took the turn with a squeal of tires.
“Sabrina, take it easy!” a horrified Tamara yelled as they almost hit a car in the next lane.
Sabrina slowed down and swore again.
“Stupid jerk!”
“I’m sorry to say, Sabrina, but the jerk in this case is you. What’s happened to you, anyway?”
As her daughter turned a wounded, confused look on her, Tamara regretted her outburst.
“That’s what I mean, Mother. The only time you’re ever with me, or have anything nice to say to me, is when I get A’s or win a match—or preferably the damned tournament.”
Expertly passing, Sabrina caught up to Christopher’s Celica, which was the lead car, and motioned for him to open his window. When he did, Sabrina said, “Chris, let’s skip the restaurant altogether. Let’s just go over to the room and get this over with.”
Christopher looked from Sabrina to Tamara, accusation plain in his gaze, and nodded. “You go ahead. I’ll tell Dad, and I’ll meet you there.”
* * *
Bronson swore fluently, as he saw Sabrina head toward the highway. He was glad he was alone in the car, because he really felt like throttling the two kids.
Obviously, things had not gone too well with mother and daughter, since Sabrina had changed their plans and had indicated to Christopher that she did not even want to keep them company while they had some lunch.
Fear joined anger as Bronson followed his son to the motel. Had they lost before they had even begun?
Five
Tamara’s throat constricted as Sabrina parked in front of Room 401. The door had a non-smoking symbol, and Tamara tried to swallow. At least Sabrina’s rebellion had not extended to smoking.
Christopher and Bronson parked in adjacent spaces, and Christopher left the Celica as if shot by a cannon. Reaching the driver’s side of Sabrina’s car, he opened the door for her.
“Are you okay?” he asked Sabrina, his dark blue eyes drilling holes into Tamara.
Bronson left his car and opened the door for Tamara.
“Are you all right?” Bronson asked, his stern gaze drilling holes into Christopher.
If she hadn’t been so exhausted from so many shocks in one day, Tamara would have laughed.
It was almost funny. Almost.
Mother and daughter answered simultaneously.
“I’m all right.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
An awkward moment ensued as both Sabrina and Christopher searched for the hotel key.
Bronson and Tamara looked at each other, and Tamara saw the fear and disappointment she knew must be visible in her own eyes reflected in Bronson’s gaze.
“I got it,” Sabrina said, waving the brown plastic key chain.
Sabrina walked to the door, Christopher glued to her side. She opened the room and walked in, Christopher at her heels.
Tamara swallowed again and looked up at Bronson. Though his eyes were shadowed with worry, he gave her a crooked smile and put a supportive hand at her back as they walked into the Knight’s Inn.
* * *
“Christopher has the best chance for a scholarship, Mom,” Sabrina insisted. “And I want to be with him.”
Tamara took a deep breath, and wrapped her hands around the knee of her crossed leg.
They’d been at this for the past twenty minutes. Both she and Bronson had been shocked beyond what they believed possible: both kids were putting their relationship above their futures and were refusing to listen to reason.
Tamara and Bronson were sitting on one double bed, facing Sabrina and Christopher, who occupied the other one.
While Tamara had been glad they’d not been confronted with a single, queen-size bed, she was not sure whether that was by design, or because they only had a room with double beds left when the children checked in.
At least, to her they were children. And to Bronson, too, she suspected. And they would be even when they got to be fifty, and had their own kids, and maybe grandchildren.
What was really eating at Tamara was that Bronson seemed distanced from her, now that he’d realized Christopher was still seriously considering attending college.
“Sabrina, you have one semester in which you can play a lot of tournaments and get your rankings up. And, if necessary, you can go to one university freshman year, and then transfer to one of the powerhouses in your sophomore year.”
“Or turn pro then, right?”
“If you wish,” Tamara conceded, frowning at Sabrina’s disdainful tone.
“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Mother? I told you, I don’t care about tennis right now. I want to be with Christopher.”
“So apply to the same school,” Tamara said. “If you don’t get in, you can always try again next year.”
“Next year is too late!” Sabrina yelled, leaping off the bed.
Tamara paled. “Are you—are you pregnant?” she got out, feeling as if all the oxygen had suddenly been vacuumed from the motel room.
“That’s just like you, isn’t it, Mother, jumping to conclusions.”
“I think your mother has every right to ask that question,” Bronson said quietly. “Otherwise, why would you be eloping?”
“We had planned on eloping because Sabrina and I want to be together. Haven’t you two listened to anything we’ve had to say?”
“We’ve been listening, but nothing that either of you has been saying has made any sense,” Tamara said.
Sabrina looked at Tamara with an expression bordering on hate. Tamara shivered and clasped her hands tightly together.
“Who told you where we were, Mother? Was it Meghan? I’ll never speak to her again. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have found out.”
“I thought you just told us that you had changed your minds about eloping,” Bronson interjected.
“Yes, we did,” Christopher said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not planning on getting married soon. We’ll wait until Sabrina graduates this January. She’ll work during spring semester, while I finish high school, and I’ll work too, during the summer. Then we’ll both live on campus—Notre Dame has accommodations for married students.”
Tamara jumped off the bed as Christopher was talking. She let him finish, and then went to stand in front of her daughter.
“Sabrina! What do you mean, you’ll be working? What about all your plans for turning pro? And especially for an education?”
“Things change, Mother,” Sabrina said, retreating from Tamara’s wrath and snuggling closer to Christopher, as if for protection.
More than anything, that little gesture destroyed Tamara. She stumbled backward and felt for the bed, encountering instead Bronson’s hand, which helped her sit down.
Normally Tamara would have been furious at seeing pity and sympathy in Bronson’s eyes, but right now she felt totally numb. Sabrina had acted as if her own mother were a monster, someone she needed to be defended against.
Sabrina had until very recently looked up to her, and imitated her in many things. They’d been mother and daughter. They’d been close friends. For her whole life Tamara had put her daughter first, and now Sabrina had withdrawn from her. Totally.
Tamara felt like withdrawing herself. The pain was horrifying, worse than when she’d fallen from a tree and broken her leg and her wrist; worse than when she’d given birth to Sabrina in a natural labor that seemed to stretch into an infinity of endless agony.
As if from far away, Tamara heard Bronson talking. “—and you know how strongly I feel about your continuing your education, Christopher. But why should Sabrina have to give up hers?”
“Because if I plan on turning pro, Dad, someone has to help me type the term papers, do the homework, and practice. Sabrina can take a couple of lessons a week to stay sharp, so that I’ll be able to hit with her. She’s the best warm-up partner I’ve had yet.”
The egotism of the statement would ordinarily have had Tamara attacking it and its issuer vigorously. But she was still reeling from Sabrina’s uncharacteristic, cruel behavior.
It was again Bronson who stepped in. “I think Tamara had a point about wasting Sabrina’s talent. And her education. Have you thought about her welfare?”
“Since when have you cared about anything other than my turning pro, and having everything you never had, Dad? Do you have the hots for Tamara?”
Bronson stood slowly, removing his hand from Tamara’s, clasped tightly in her lap. He had seen red before when it came to his son—what parent of a teenager hadn’t?—but this was too much.
“It’s Ms. Hayward to you, boy. And you will apologize to her immediately.”
Christopher tried to look defiant, but apparently the sight of his father’s rigidly held body and the sound of his low growl reached him.
“Sorry, Ms. Hayward,” he mumbled, drawing closer to Sabrina.
Tamara shook her head. If he was really sorry, he would think of Sabrina’s future first. Of her well-being. His apology, forced as it was, didn’t signify anything. And Christopher’s was not the apology she wanted.
“Why, Brina?” she asked, unconsciously using the nickname. Her throat was arid, and she swallowed so that the words could come out more coherently. “Why do you want to throw your future away? If you don’t want to turn pro, fine. If you don’t want a tennis scholarship, that’s fine by me, also. I’ll try to come up with the money to pay for all four years of school. I’d hoped you’d attend Yale or Northwestern, but any school would do.” Her hands extended in unconscious supplication. “Only don’t just quit on everything—particularly yourself. You’re too bright, too talented, to let these precious years pass you by.”
“Are you any happier, Mom? You don’t have a love in your life. Can you tell me that having a career has fulfilled you?”
“I can tell you that when your father and I divorced, it was hard at first. But you were always my priority. And a career has satisfied, me, yes. College and a career are not for everyone—men or women. But I know you, Sabrina. You will be sorry—maybe not now, or next month, or even next year, while you’re living this fantasy. But you will be sorry—and then it will be too late to do anything about it—especially about your tennis. Don’t let life pass you by.”
“Life will pass me by if I can’t be with Christopher. I’m choosing love over career, Mother.”
Tamara let her hands fall to her sides. She could not take everything in at once. She would have to regroup, because she could not reconcile this hostile, changed young woman with the child that she had worshiped, adored, and put above all else.
“Being with Christopher doesn’t mean you have to give up tennis, Sabrina,” Bronson said, kneeling in front of her so as not to intimidate the girl. “You can still pursue your dreams, and especially your education.”
“My only dream is to be with Christopher,” Sabrina said stubbornly. She looked up at the boy, who returned her adoring look.
Tamara tried to throw off the lethargy of shock from her body. This was her baby, for heaven’s sake!
“What made you change your mind about eloping, Sabrina?”
“I didn’t want to go through all the hassle of you forbidding me to marry Christopher. I figured that someone would snitch. I didn’t think it would be Meghan!”
“Yeah, Dad. Who told you? One of my ‘friends’? Jonathan, maybe?”
“As a matter of fact, it was my cousin, Christopher,” Bronson said.
“Brandy?” Christopher said, his tone horrified. “I thought she was cool, that she’d be on my side.”
“That’s why you went to her, and told her all about Sabrina, the girl you planned to marry, right?” Bronson said sarcastically. “Why did she have to find out through the grapevine? Or is it that you were afraid, and ashamed of acting like less than a man?”
Bronson’s harsh words brought a crimson tide to his son’s cheeks. “I am
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