Love Game - Season 2012

by Gerard, M. B.

  Ted crossed her out and Monica and Agnes, too. It was just impossible that the two respected elder women would have tricked these players – some of them close friends. They also crossed out Martina, Antonia and Elise.

  1 2 Supervisors + 4 staff members (players’ service)

  2 Candice Crantz + 2 staff members (communications)

  3 2 Chair umpires (Stea, Sanchez)

  4 2 Physios (McManus, Reichelt)

  5 Marieke + 2 team members

  6 Morgana + 2 team members

  7 Carina + 3 team members

  8 Angela + 2 team members

  9 Ivana + 1 team member

  10 Monica/Agnes + 1 team member

  11 Bernadette

  12 (Martina/Antonia)

  13 (Elise)

  “This looks a lot better now,” Ted stated proudly. They really should have done that a long time ago instead of following Anastasia.

  “Bernadette?” Tom scratched his head. “I don’t really know anything about her. She is so inconspicuous.”

  “Exactly,” Ted mumbled. “Exactly.”

  ***

  “I have to apologize,” Polly said and frowned. She nervously picked on the overgrip tape of her racquet handle. It had already come loose a bit and soon she would have to regrip the racquet.

  “Why would you have to apologize?” Mint replied vehemently. “You did nothing wrong. Everybody would have flown home.”

  They were sitting on the chairs on the last practice court. There was Marieke and her hitting partner on court P2 preparing for the Dutch player’s match later, but the other practice courts were empty.

  “I know I did the right thing,” Polly explained. “But for Bernadette it was still shattering. It’s probably the last Olympics she’s played. Even if she plays in Rio in four years, she will be forty. This was her last chance.”

  She remembered the words the older player had told her when they were sitting in the restaurant in Sydney. You are my last chance. She also remembered her promise to do everything possible to win a medal. Even though she had a very good reason to fly home she had let Bernadette down.

  “Is she mad at you?” Mint asked.

  Polly shrugged. “I’m not sure. She didn’t ask me to play doubles here, you know? I had to ask her. She hasn’t been unfriendly since the Olympics, but a bit cool.”

  “She does understand that this was a matter of life and death, right?” Mint grunted.

  “Bernadette never really seemed to care about my mother, to be honest,” Polly answered. “She once told me very directly that she believes donating a heart is the dumbest thing to do. That you shouldn’t give your heart away. That it belongs to you and no one else.”

  “She did that?” Mint had turned around and looked Polly in the eyes.

  Polly nodded. “She actually made me cry that evening.”

  Mint still looked her in the eyes until Polly turned away. Then she felt how her new American friend put one arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. Mint didn’t say anything and Polly was glad she didn’t. A gesture was so much better than a thousand words. How often had she told people about her mother’s heart condition only to witness how they stammered and choked, unable to find honest words of consolation and hope? Most people got scared and nervous when they were confronted with sickness and death. Not Mint.

  “Did she ever apologize for that?”

  Polly laughed. “No. She only ever had a medal in her mind.”

  “And you want to apologize for not winning one with her?” Mint shook her head in disbelief.

  “I know it’s hard to understand but I am grateful,” Polly explained. “She pushed me so hard and I learned so much. I see the results in my singles and I know it has to do with playing doubles with her. And she is a fitness fanatic. I never worked out so much in my life.”

  “I can feel that,” Mint purred. “Nice deltoid.” She still had her arm around Polly and was now feeling up the shoulder muscle.

  “See, you too can be grateful to Bernadette,” Polly chuckled. “But the downside is she made me work out so hard that now I am used to going to bed very early. I fall asleep right away.”

  Polly’s comment was intended to further their flirtation, but Mint didn’t catch it. She had raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh, that’s why you never showed up,” she mumbled.

  Polly frowned. “Showed up where?”

  “When I invited you to come over and watch a movie,” Mint clarified.

  “You invited me over?” Polly frowned. “When?”

  But then she saw Bernadette coming out of the building and jumped up. Her doubles partner began to unpack her racquets and prepare court P4 for a practice.

  “Will you wait for me?” Polly asked Mint. The American had pursed her lips and looked over the practice courts at Bernadette, obviously thinking hard about something. She finally nodded.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Then Polly walked over to her doubles partner. She apologized for the withdrawal from the Olympics, offered to give her best in the U.S. Open and promised to get the team to the Year End Championships in Istanbul.

  It was little consolation for Bernadette and Polly knew it. She could promise to win twenty doubles Grand Slams with Bernadette and it would mean nothing. They would be all forgotten as doubles was only the ugly cousin of singles. An Olympic medal, however, would have been in a different category altogether.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore,” Bernadette eventually said.

  She looked tired and with a nod she dismissed Polly.

  ***

  Marieke’s shot went long and Gabriella had broken for a 4-3 lead. It was a tight match and the struggle clearly showed on the twin’s face when she walked back to her chair.

  Sasha turned the volume to mute when the advertising started and grabbed her phone. Since their ‘break-up’ she and Jaro hadn’t been able to see each other again – at least not in public. This was the only disadvantage of the story Candice had invented for them, as Jaro was her only friend and the only person who knew about Gabriella.

  It was almost midnight in England but, unlike tennis players, Jaro didn’t have such a tight schedule. After two rings he answered.

  “Hello, darling,” Jaro chimed. “How is Mission: Revenge going?”

  “Glad you’re still awake,” Sasha sighed. She had told him about her plan in a text that morning.

  “It’s going great. Gabriella is one set and one break up.”

  Sasha could almost hear Jaro’s brain rattling on the other end. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t understood a single tennis rule after two years of posing as her boyfriend and fiancé.

  “She only has to win two more games and she is into the next round,” Sasha explained further. “From then on she will have an easy-peasy way to the final. Marieke is the only player in her half who has ever given her trouble. But not today.”

  “So, she is playing great?”

  Sasha grunted in confirmation, then looked up at the TV screen. The players had taken the court again and the Galloway twin tossed up the ball to serve. It was a great serve – not too hard but well placed into the corner – and Marieke was only able to produce a short ball. Anticipating the weak return, Gabriella sped forward and dispatched the ball with a fine backhand volley into the open court.

  15-0.

  She loved watching Gabriella play. It was definitely more pleasing to the eye than watching Lulu play. For months she had followed the slumping sister’s matches believing it was her lover on court.

  Thank you very much, she thought angrily. Thinking about Lulu or who she believed had been Lulu wasn’t a good idea. Now she was back to wondering why the twins had played such an evil trick on her.

  “Hello?” Jaro was still on the line.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sasha answered. “I have a plan. That’s good.”

  “Yes, that sounds
fantastic, Sasha.” Was there a slight tone of sarcasm dripping through the phone?

  Jaro cleared his throat. “You always talk about break points and getting broken and so on. Let’s forget tennis for a moment. Let’s talk about this broken heart of yours,” he said carefully.

  Sasha closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply. Alright, she told herself. That’s what friends were for, right?

  “But I have a plan. I will beat her up in the final. I will get revenge,” she explained.

  “You think this will cure your broken heart?”

  Traitor, Sasha thought.

  “Yes!” she answered. “How is your grandmother?”

  It was a feeble attempt to redirect the conversation. Jaro chuckled.

  “She told me I’m an idiot to cheat on you,” he explained. “I had to promise that I will give my best to recapture your heart.”

  They both laughed. In preparation of the wedding, Sasha had spent time with the old lady and really had begun to like her. She hated the fact that they had to lie to her. On the other end of the line Jaro cleared his throat.

  “Back to the Galloways,” he said. “Don’t you want to find out why they did this?”

  “But I told you already,” Sasha sighed angrily. “They understood that I realized that they were switching matches. You remember how I followed them around. They found out about it and turned the tables on me. They needed something to keep me quiet, they found my weak spot, Lulu broke my nose, Gabriella lied to me – .” Sasha choked on her own words and began coughing.

  “Alright, alright, “ Jaro said hastily to slow her down.

  “I don’t need to know more about them, Jaro,” she added quietly. “Lulu is blunt and dumb and Gabriella is evil. She is plain evil.”

  In that moment, Gabriella threw her arms into the air. The muted TV showed her walking to the net to shake Marieke’s hand. The Galloway twin was beaming. Her dark eyes were sparkling into the camera and her smile was radiant.

  Sasha fell silent. The eyes, the smile, the hand now waving to the spectators – for many nights they had caressed her and guarded Sasha’s sleep.

  “I need to go now, Jaro,” she said quickly, her voice already shaky.

  She hung up on him without any further explanation, putting the phone on the nightstand. She turned off the TV, went to the bathroom and meticulously brushed her teeth. After changing into her pyjamas, she slipped under the covers and turned off the light. Then she was ready to let the tears fall.

  ***

  The keys on Morgana’s computer were almost overheating. The Frenchwoman leaned back and was actually surprised to see no smoke.

  “Du très bon boulot,” she said to herself, reading over the last two sentences. She had just finished a crucial chapter of her dissertation.

  It was time now to go over the previous writing again – eliminating spelling errors and rephrasing poor wording. But for the most part she was finished with the first section of her doctoral thesis.

  In over two-hundred pages she had elaborated her exposition on how the characters and storylines in Tennis Nurse were connected with the real players and their careers. It had been weeks of hard work, almost incompatible with her tennis schedule, but she had managed to achieve great results in both fields.

  She had fared well in the last couple of tournaments, probably because the excitement of making headway with her dissertation had fueled her with energy. Also, two-thirds of her thesis was finished. Now the hardest part began. She still needed to conduct an interview with the author. For this she had to find her first.

  Sometimes Morgana couldn’t believe her bad luck. She had almost pinned down the mysterious woman in Eastbourne but didn’t have the courage to follow her back up the hill. Morgana was sure that her visit to Brighton wasn’t considered a coincidence by the Secret 8. It had been very unfortunate that the author had noticed her, and in the future Morgana had to be more careful.

  By all means she had to prevent the Secret 8 from finding out what her dissertation was really about now. That her topic had developed from a straightforward literary analysis to unveiling the connection between the stories and real life. She also had to reconsider her new approach to lending books to the younger players. She was sure that the move was very inconvenient for the Tennis Nurse addicts, and that the players would talk about it. It had not been wise to inform some of them about her motives. No, Morgana thought. She had to start sharing with the others again in order to prevent more suspicion from the Secret 8.

  Perhaps she should approach the author directly. Sometimes an unexpected, candid move was the most promising because it looked ingenuous. Her interest in the novel series was well-known and by no means she would let the author in on the knowledge she had gathered through her new source about the Secret 8’s misdoings. It was worth a try and it was on her to-do list for the off-season.

  Morgana closed her computer and stretched her back. Then she called her coach and asked him to go out for dinner. There was a good restaurant just a couple of blocks down the street. And you couldn’t say that about every American city. It wasn’t only a way to treat herself for finishing an important part of her thesis, but also almost a necessity to eat in a fine restaurant after weeks of American cafeteria food. They planned to meet in the lobby in ten minutes.

  “C’est parti, mon Kiki!” she said into the phone and hung up to dress and get ready, when the cell phone rang again. It was an unknown American number.

  “Yes?”

  “Morgana Doré?” a female voice asked. The woman had to be around fifty perhaps, Morgana estimated.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “This is Larissa Perkins,” the caller revealed.

  “Oh my,” Morgana exclaimed. “What a wonderful surprise! I wanted to write to you later this evening to let you know that I’ve finished the lion’s share of my dissertation. Your help was invaluable.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then finally Larissa spoke again.

  “See, that’s why I’m calling you,” the woman said. “I have never spoken or written to you before.”

  Morgana frowned. “But of course you have,” she wondered. “We’ve been e-mailing for a couple of months now.”

  “I don’t know who you’ve been e-mailing with but it wasn’t me.”

  Morgana blinked. Was the woman perhaps confused after a long work day?

  “But you are Larissa Perkins and you live in Florida, n’est-ce pas? You worked on the WTA tour until a few years back and now you run an animal shelter,” she stammered.

  “Yes, all this is correct, but I’m not the one helping you with your PhD.”

  Morgana felt dizzy. This couldn’t be. Larissa had e-mailed her pictures of her cats and dogs. Once even a bird. In her e-mails she talked about her daily duties with the pets. Morgana had endured reading through all this, for the tidbits of information about Tennis Nurse or the Secret 8.

  Suddenly she understood.

  “Larissa,” she said, toning down her voice. “Is someone threatening you?”

  But Larissa chuckled. “No, no. Nobody is threatening me. But may I ask you something? How did you contact that other Larissa Perkins?”

  “Someone gave me your – I mean, someone gave me the e-mail address.”

  “Who was that?” Larissa Perkins asked. Suddenly her voice had a fierce tone.

  Bernadette, Morgana thought. She couldn’t give away her name. Who knew what they would do then? For a second she didn’t know what to do.

  “I was given the address anonymously,” she lied.

  “Is that so?” Larissa wondered and Morgana swallowed hard. It was better than nothing but Larissa Perkins didn’t seem to believe her.

  “Well, thanks for letting me know that there is something dodgy going on here,” Morgana quickly said. “I’ll look into this.”

  And with this she hung up. A dinner in a fine restaurant was waiting, but all Morgana could think about was herself lying dea
d on her bed after having eaten a poisonous blowfish.

  SERVES AND FOLLIES

  New York City, United States

  The trading was in full swing. At least in the middle of the room.

  Martina, Antonia, Elise and Chili had occupied a large table in the dining room of the restaurant and had piled it with stacks of Tennis Nurse novels. They brimmed over with excitement as there was a new novel out and Antonia had received it first.

  She was waving Tennis Nurse and the French Kiss Follies.

  “I have to finish it first. However, we can make a deal now,” Antonia declared. “But I want three good novels for it.”

  The others pondered over this proposition.

  “What is it about?” Chili asked.

  “Yes,” Elise wanted to know, too. “What’s French kiss follies supposed to mean?”

  “It’s the name of a band,” Antonia said condescendingly. “They get involved in a murder mystery at the French Open and Jane has to solve it.”

  The rest of the table was in a tizzy. Furiously they threw in the titles of Tennis Nurse novels they owned to convince Antonia to make a deal with them.

  Monica watched the young guns and smiled, but only for a moment. She, Agnes and Candice had taken a table in the corner of the room. On the other side, behind the loudly trading girls, sat Morgana Doré. It was the first time this year that she was attending the swap meet – now scheduled for a late breakfast.

  She was swapping books with Amanda who seemed to have become hooked on the novels again. Everything seemed normal.

  But nothing was. After Candice had found out through Alice Chevallier that Morgana’s source was named Larissa Perkins, they all couldn’t believe it.

  “I will call her,” Candice said and found out the number of the former employee. They all had a faint memory of the warm-hearted and somewhat chubby woman. Why should she talk about the old gang? How would she know details?

  She didn’t, as they found out. After explaining to Larissa the situation she insisted upon illuminating the situation herself. But when she called again later her answer was confusing.