Chapter 4
by Sean Hanlon

Judge Jolene Menschette gripped her gavel as if it was the strap of a purse stuffed with gold doubloons. She was an older woman in salt-and-pepper helmet hair fitted with an earhole on the right. Though he could not see her ear, Reid could see her earhole and was mesmerized by the silver star earring it displayed. She called the court to order with a bang and nodded at Reid, perhaps because neither he nor she was all lawyered up.

The same could not be said for Reid's squash mates. Cavanaugh's counselor could have been a boxer in another life while Henry and Stacy were themselves represented by attorneys of the opposite sex. Reid being a something of a music man, their histrionics gave him the impression he was attending the performance of a lesser Debussy's tune: Prelude to the Afternoon of an Ugly Divorce. His marriage to Elena was in trouble too and so he retreated from this discontent to a courtroom fantasy offering a happier state of play: Henry's lawyer was a bird and Stacy's was a hound dog with big ears and a nose for news. Reid sang about them to himself:

Harriett Chariot Seagull

And Elliot Yelliot Beagle

Tried to make it legal,

But this was not allowed

So

They lay down in the heather

And built a nest of feather

That did the Bird Dogs proud.

Judge Jolene paged through the civil complaint filed by Cavanaugh, who was not just a squash pro but also the scion of a kauri dynasty and the guy who was putting the woodie to Henry's wife. The pain and suffering he had incurred in a fracas at Reid's house, a dwelling Elena had since abandoned for the comforts of her mother's home. The complaint alleged that Henry had shoved Cavanaugh into the hot tub. Reid had gotten soaked pulling his matey from the soup, and now wondered whether the kauri might someday proffer recompense. Unique to New Zealand, the kauri secretes a resin that artisans employed by the Cavanaughs shape into jewelry that looks like translucent gold. Reid wondered whether his matey might someday reward him with the gift of a kauri star like unto the silver star twinkling about Judge Jolene's salt-and-pepper helmet hair. This was the least Cavanaugh could do, given the drudgery of the case he was bringing before her court.

Stacy was expected to testify as to her marriage, and perhaps to flaws in her husband's character. Reid was expected to testify as to the hot tub and some chest thumping and heavy drinking that preceded the dousing of Cavanaugh. These machinations were putting the squeeze on Reid as he was not just the squash mate of all concerned but also the financial advisor of Henry and Stacy in these days of conjugal woe. Stacy had changed her investment strategy around about the time she was first suspected of being Cavanaugh's squeeze, cashing in her Amazon chips and diverting her dividends to instruments beyond Reid's purview. She sent Reid a text message asking that her husband not be informed of her market moves and asked him to delete the text, all of which hinted of his being drafted into an unsavory league.

Judge Jolene set a trial date and adjourned the court with a tap rather than a bang. Reid and Stacy were adjourning to a squash appointment with two of Cavanaugh's young proteges, going their separate ways to the same locale: she in Cavanaugh's car and he by foot with questions on his mind: Why did Stacy have a legal beagle at her side? Were the court case and the prospect of an ugly divorce really about something else? Henry owned land abutting the selfie drone start up where Stacy was employed. Maybe she and her lover were conniving to get that land from her husband at the lowest possible price. Or maybe not. Reid took a deep breath at a crosswalk where the don't walk, don't walk, don't walk sign looked to him more like don't talk, don't talk, don't talk to yourself, and if you must try not to move your lips. He tried not to move his lips but closed his eyes and checked his heartbeat as he let that deep breath slip slowly, slowly away. The crosswalk sign said walk and so Reid walked and talked his way to the squash emporium.

Waiting there for him were Elena's mother and niece, the one with some serious shopping to do and the other with a glittering grill of braces on her teeth and hair of flaming ginger bundled in a ponytail. Gandmother and child parted with a kiss, leaving Reid in charge of a junior player who answered to the name of Winifred but preferred to be known as Fred the Red when playing the game. She watched with interest as Reid worked on the slice and the dice and the splice. This was a practice drill of his own devising that had much to do with his reputation as perhaps the best finesse player in the L.A. area. He dribbled the ball this way and that with glancing strokes of his racket: the slice for topspin, the dice for backspin and the splice for some caddywampus english he only deployed against guys who caught Elena's eye.

Reid had been working this drill for nigh on twenty years, or almost as long as he had been a loser in love. He had struck out with Stacy in high school and now Elena preferred the company of Red’s grandmother while Stacy was falling for a guy whose family was making a mint in tree sap. What was a schmoo to do?

He greeted Stacy and her son. Their arrival was attended by the familiar phenomenon of Reid's heart first rising and then sinking at the sight of his high school crush, though this time this tribulation was alleviated by another phenomenon: floating above Finn like a cloud near to bursting with artificial intelligence was the selfie drone that had become Stacy's other pride and joy. She informed Fred the Red that the shape and engineering of the GAL 9000 owed much to the beanie propeller hat designed in 1947 by Ray Faraday Nelson of Cadillac, Michigan. The name of the drone paid homage to the HAL 9000, a renegade computer featured in her favorite film: 2001 A Space Odyssey.

"I was born in 2006," Fred the Red said. Stacy responded with the 9000 calling card: "Open the pod bay door, GAL."

The selfie drone did not comply and so Reid did the honors in its stead, standing as straight and still as a footman as Stacy, the juniors and the GAL 9000 filed into a court not at all like the court where Judge Jolene held sway.

The GAL 9000 had audio and video capabilities and so sounded out pop tunes while taking in the sights and sounds of two squash seniors exposing two squash juniors to the joys and sorrows of a mixed doubles match. Stacy's son had jet-black hair in a springy flattop as tidy as a manicured lawn but a few inches lower than the  top of the flaming mop of Elena's niece. The seniors pretended not to notice that Finn resented the bonus inches achieved by his counterpart: squash is all about contending with adversity. The state of play did nothing to assuage Finn's ill will as Fred the Red made good use of her greater size. As was their wont, the seniors enabled the juniors by setting them up for doable strokes but on more than one occasion Finn tried to spank Fred the Red with his racket so as to avenge her longer reach and higher height. Reid averted these hostilities like a goalie going at it stick-to-stick in a game of lacrosse.

Stacy was amused but not surprised, as if all things were unfolding according to a script that the GAL 9000 was recording for posterity by buzzing over, under, around and through the action of the game to the sounds of Lenka singing The Show:

I'm just a little girl caught in the middle.

Life is a maze and love is a riddle.

The maze and the riddle were a wonder to behold. Stacy directed the GAL 9000 by means of a remote control in her left hand and set up Winifred with gentle strokes of the racket in her right. Being something of a music man, Reid observed that her multi-tasking combined the artistry of Twyla Tharp choreographing the Russian Saber Dance with the artistry of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.

Which is not to say that Reid really approved of this  commotion, and so he spliced a stroke that sent the ball careening into the selfie drone with a caddywampus spin that bent the beanie propellor and sent the beanie cap and its A.I. cargo crashing to the floor. Stacy, Finn and Fred the Red filled the court with peals and squeals of delight.

__________
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.