Mara had promised to tell me before she signed in. On Wednesday morning I arrived at the Vale with twenty minutes until my appointment and found her at the entry desk, a pen in her hand and Jules Armitage beside the door.
The desk had been moved into the corridor for the invitational. A woman ahead of Mara was asking about practice-court times. I could have gone upstairs without being seen. Mara looked up while I was deciding and saw me in the dark glass of the reception window.
She set the pen down.
“You have an appointment,” she said when she reached me.
“In twenty minutes. I wasn’t going to interrupt your sign-in.”
“I haven’t done it yet.”
“I can see that.”
Jules gave us a brief nod from the far end of the corridor, then went out to take a call. I had watched her play. She made…
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