The Meagre Tarmac Read Online Free Page A

eight and ten; after that their contours change, their centers of gravity, their strength.
    That’s Borya’s philosophy, and I endorse it. He also says a thirteen-year-old woman will never be more desirable. It’s a Russian thing, maybe. I’ve read Lolita. On a normal practice day, after skating, we drive to his place in Palo Alto and do it in his basement apartment, in the house of Madame Skojewska. Madame is the widow of Marius Skojewski, a Slavic Studies professor at Stanford. Borya says Polish ladies are “very tender, very sophisticated. Russian people very narrow, very brutal.” In order to explain my comings-and-goings in Palo Alto, I asked Daddy to pay for Russian lessons, which he was happy to do.
    Borya was surprised I wasn’t a virgin. No girl with a brother like The Beast can be a virgin. No one watching us at the rink, listening to Borya’s berating, his picking apart of my motivation, my technique, my discipline, would think us anything but bashful student and demanding teacher. With Tiffy Hu watching and waiting her turn, it’s only skate, skate, skate: leap and twist and turn and spin, work up a sweat and then take her home with me for dinner.
    The Beast is in. “Tiffy Hu!” he shouts, charming as always. “Hu’s on first?” Tiffy doesn’t get it. “Or should I be asking, who’s first on Hu?”
    â€œIgnore him,” I tell her. “How’s your Russian?” I ask. It’s a test. If he suspected anything about Borya and me, he’d ask, how’s yours?
    He’s got a Russian secret-girlfriend, a big golden Stanford sophomore goddess, too good for his sorry UC-Santa Cruz freshman ass. I’m starting at Stanford next year, skipping the entire, doubtless illuminating, American high-school experience. I’ll be the youngest they’ve ever admitted. I’ll be thirteen years, ten months.
    The Golden Goddess used to go with the big Stanford tennis player, Mike (that is, Mukesh) Mahulkar. The Beast used to be his lob-and-volley partner. The Beast was a decent high-school player — he even won the state finals. Golden Goddess would spread a towel on the grass and watch them slug it out. Those long, golden legs, those skimpy tops — I could see The Beast was a little distracted. Then suddenly Mike and GG were no longer a couple — Mike’s parents said she was just another practice-partner — and Mike was engaged to a proper caste-and-class appropriate Bombay cutie. The Beast, just a senior in high school, started hanging out with GG. Our parents would have nailed his door shut if they’d known. At least it left me free to explore other options.
    My father and The Beast think Mike Mahulkar is going to be the next Big Name in international tennis. No way, I say. I charted two of Mike’s games. He’s totally predictable. Backhand, forehand, lob, rush the net. So many balls to the net, so many deep volleys, side to side, in a sequence even Mike doesn’t know is mathematically predictable. You can lure him to the net and set him up for a passing shot. Of course The Beast can’t, and so far no one in the amateur and college ranks can, but some Swede or Russian will humiliate him. I showed The Beast my pages of calculations. “Even you can beat him,” I said. “Here’s the probabalistic algorithm for beating Mike Mahulkar,” and he said to me, “just go back to the ice.”
    The Beast thinks the only difference between him and Mike is Mike’s superior coaching and Stanford’s weight room and flexibility training. Since we didn’t have our own gym and staff of coaches, he doesn’t stand a chance against the famous Mike Mahulkar. So Mike is strong and determined, but just forget that his game is boring and he’ll meet someone out there who matches him in strength and sees into his game and sends him spinning back to country club status and an