The Underdogs

by Sara Hammel

  When Will stepped onto the court with me unobtrusively in tow, Goran raised his eyebrows and held up his hand to Evie, who had become red and out of breath. She nodded and let her racket fall by her side.

  “I’ll be right back! Don’t go anywhere,” he yelled to her, pointing his racket at her. Pointing at her. I suspected Evie didn’t care what Goran was up to. His paying attention to her was heaven, I knew. Let it end how it would. For now, she was a princess. Evie stayed put. I casually followed Goran, hanging back far enough so he wouldn’t notice (I hoped).

  “Did you see that forehand?” he said to Will in a very loud whisper. “I don’t think the girl’s ever had a lesson and she’s already got topspin like that.”

  Will nodded. He was gazing at Evie under his eyelashes.

  “We need to evaluate her properly,” Goran went on, putting his hands on his hips, racket pressed against his thigh. “If she really has had no training, this could be … But I wonder … She must have had lessons at some point. I mean, with Lucky as her father, right?”

  “I’m not so sure,” Will said. “Didn’t you say she’s here every day? I’ve never seen her do anything. Set foot on a court. Show an interest.”

  “That’s not really true,” Goran pointed out. “She does show an interest—we just never paid attention. She’s been watching us all play for the past year or two. Remember when Wimbledon was on? She was always in front of that TV. Right, Chelsea?” He and Will both turned to me. “Your friend’s been practicing, hasn’t she?” Goran added. I guess I was caught, and I knew it was a rhetorical question.

  Will said nothing.

  “If we can get her footwork going,” Goran said, shaking his head. “If this is her having never had a lesson, it’s—”

  “I know,” Will said. He couldn’t take his eyes off Evie, who was bouncing a ball on the ground, catching it, throwing it down. “I know. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Her feel with the ball reminds me of—”

  “I know,” Will said one final time, turning to walk toward the net. He whipped around one last time to stop Goran, who was about to disappear under Court 1’s back curtain.

  “Hey,” Will said. “Keep this under your hat, okay? In case we’re wrong, we don’t want to put any pressure on this kid. Make her feel bad. You know.”

  Goran nodded and headed inside, but not before throwing a shout and a wave to Evie, who looked as if she were going to pee her pants as she waved back. I stuck by Will, who beckoned to Evie. She scurried over to us. I could only guess she was too tired to be intimidated by the head elite coach standing in front of her.

  “Hey, Evie,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said. I realized then she wasn’t asking questions about what the heck this was all about, and she was doing as commanded, because she thought she was in trouble for something. I could see it on her face.

  “Evie,” Will said, “I’m going to throw you a few balls. I want you to aim for the baseline with every shot. Long and deep. Like the elites do. You understand?”

  She nodded and returned to the baseline. She got into the ready position, sticking her butt out and swaying her lower body the way she’d seen the elites do on this very court. Will tossed a ball to her forehand and she nailed it down the line, but it sprayed way wide. She got ready for the next ball.

  “Shake it off,” Will shouted from across the net. “Go again.”

  He fed her five quick ones in a row, and she nailed them, some deep, some in, some out. “Okay, that’s enough,” he said after about ten balls, and beckoned her over to the net. Evie stood there dutifully, racket at her side.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her. “Have you ever had a tennis lesson, Evie?”

  She shook her head. “Um … no?”

  “You must have hit the ball around with your dad. Even if it wasn’t a real lesson, you’ve played with him at the park or something, right?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Never?”

  “No,” she said, starting to catch her breath. “Lucky says I’m not an athlete.”

  Will looked surprised, and then sorry for her. “Do you like tennis, Evie?”

  She paused to think about that one. “I guess so,” she said after a few seconds. “I’ve never really played. I only hit on my own … because I get bored. Actually … yes.” She studied her racket, then looked back at Will. “I do like it.”

  He nodded, eyeing her and, I think, gauging his gut feeling. This girl had come out of nowhere—and for all three of us standing out there at that moment, this was happening pretty fast. I could see it in his posture, feel it breathing from his skin: Will was going to go big or go home with my friend.

  “What would you say,” he said, “if I offered to train you? To see if we can turn your raw talent into something?”

  I think Evie and I were only somewhat clear on what “something” meant. I could tell she was stuck on the “raw talent” part. No one had ever told Evie she was talented at anything. She looked over at me, and I smiled back. Of course she should go for it.

  “Evie, before you say yes, I want you to think about what this means,” Will said. “From what I’ve seen today, you have some real potential, but it’s going to take work to see it through. You’ll need to get up to train early in the morning, you’ll need to work out in addition to your tennis practice, and you’ll need to show up when I tell you to. When summer’s over, you’ll have to get up early and practice before school.”

  He stood back and examined her. She met his eyes head-on, racket firmly in her hand and pointing toward the ground. She was taking him seriously and, I suspected, going over in her mind what his offer would mean to her life.

  “Not everyone has the commitment it takes to become a champion. Can you stick with this, Evie? Will you do what I tell you, even if it’s hard, and you’re tired, and you want to stay in bed?”

  Evie nodded. “I can do it,” she said. And in that moment, I thought, she believed she could. Will seemed to see it, too.

  “We’re going to need to teach you a few basics, get you in shape before you train with other kids,” he said. “Then we’ll enroll you in the camp. We’ll figure that out with your father and Gene when the time comes.”

  “Um…”

  “What?”

  “My dad.”

  Will sighed. I think he was finally seeing what he was up against. He was used to pushy tennis parents. Lucky was the anti–tennis parent.

  “We’ll cross that bridge with Lucky when we come to it,” Will said firmly. “You make sure you show up for me tomorrow and we’ll go from there. Deal?”

  A giant, genuine grin of joy crossed my friend’s face then. “Okay.”

  “We’ll begin tomorrow, before camp starts. Seven thirty.”

  “I’ll be there,” she said. I saw something in her eyes I’d never seen before.

  Will nodded. “Tomorrow.” He directed his chin toward her racket before turning to walk away. “Keep hitting against the wall. Another half hour tonight.”

  Evie nodded and went straight for the ball hopper. I stayed with her and watched her hit for the next half hour, and I thought Will Temple was definitely on to something.

  After

  “You two are strange,” my mom said to Evie and me, and headed back to her swivel stool behind the reception desk. “But hey. Whatever floats your boat.”

  She flipped through her out-of-date People magazine. Phew. Evie’s weak explanation as to why we were sitting on the floor leaning on the wall outside the coaches’ office—because we wanted a change of scenery—had passed muster. The real reason was that Detective Ashlock was back, and he’d grimly summoned Lucky and Patrick for a private discussion in their office.

  Evie and I stayed still. We heard some mumbling from within, and then, clearly: “This is your last chance, Patrick. What happened in the women’s locker room the night of the summer kickoff party? Tell me now, or tell me at the police station.�
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  Patrick responded nice and loud. “Oh, for God’s sake. It wasn’t me, Detective. It wasn’t me who was weird and violent that night.”

  Pause.

  “It was Annabel.”

  After Patrick dropped that bomb, we heard only: Mmmhmm, mumble mumble.

  Then we heard this semi-crisp exchange:

  Ashlock: So you grabbed her arm?

  Patrick: I had to—she was going to mumble mumble.

  Ashlock: But you physically touched her.

  Patrick: To stop her from beating me up!

  Lucky: Yes, mmmhmm, mumble mumble.

  Patrick: That’s the thing. She flipped out. She seemed so upset—I could hear it, and I was kind of freaked out. She started screaming all this weird stuff, like, “He’s not like the rest of them. He’s not! I wish mumble mumble leave me alone!”

  For the next few minutes we strained to hear what we could and were able to piece a story together. After Annabel had been spotted peeking out of the locker room, watching the pool party that night when Patrick saw her and went after her, she’d locked herself in a bathroom stall. She was crying, and Patrick heard it and went in. This is where it gets a little foggy for us eavesdroppers, but I gathered he called out to her. She ignored him, but he tried again, and finally he’d slipped under the stall because he was so worried about her.

  According to Patrick, Annabel got physical and started screaming about how you can never trust anyone, that people are never what they seem. He’d grabbed her arm to calm her down, he said. Harmony had come in and been utterly confused; then Lucky arrived and told Patrick to let her go. Annabel had run out crying, and no one had seen her the rest of the night. Ashlock, I could tell, was only partly on board with their story. But Lucky’s corroboration that Annabel was the flailer and Patrick the flailee didn’t hurt.

  For a second, there was total silence—we heard not a whisper or a movement. Then Ashlock hit our pal with a whole new bombshell. “Let’s say I believe you,” he said. “I want to know about the note you left for Annabel. Why did you do it? And how did you get into her locker?”

  Evie leaned even closer to the door and almost had her ear to the metal. That’s when my mom put down her People and shook her head. “Wait a minute. I should’ve known.”

  We played innocent and ignored her. “You’re not hanging out,” Mom said, getting a tone. “You’re eavesdropping.” She hopped off her stool. We kept our ears to the door. She stood over us and whispered, “Scootch over.”

  She didn’t bother to sit down. She boldly leaned over and put her ear to the door. So Evie and I got up and did the same. Anyone walking by would have thought we were three lunatics leaning on that door. Then we learned a few things about how obsessed Patrick had been with Annabel.

  Before

  Man, Evie was bad at tennis. I cringed and shut my eyes. Maybe we’d been wrong about her. Dead wrong. She’d just thwapped another sinker in the bottom of the net while attempting a forehand during her very first tennis lesson ever. Will fed her a backhand, which she proceeded to shank into the wild yonder. The ball ricocheted off her racket frame and flew clear over two courts.

  It was a beautiful morning, steamy but not too hot yet at seven thirty. There was the slightest chill left over from the night, but the thick air let you know you wouldn’t be spared the gloopy, hot New England summer soup later on. Evie had been at the club since six a.m. Harmony was her only chance of getting here on time in the mornings, and he’d agreed to pick her up on the way to open the pool bright and early on those days he worked the morning shift. Lucky, of course, was out of the question. For starters, he could barely make it here for nine a.m. on his best day. So Evie had told her father she was coming here early to get a head start on helping with the camp lunch.

  “I can’t hit and I can’t run,” Evie cried after sending another ball shooting into outer space. “I stink at this stupid game. I’m too heavy. This isn’t going to work. I’m. Too. Fat.”

  She stomped to the baseline and faced the netting. I could see her heaving, either crying or trying not to. I couldn’t quite tell from the sidelines. I wanted to run to her, but I thought better of it. Maybe I’d give old Will a chance to show if he got Evie. Will seemed to pick up on my desire to go comfort her. He crossed his arms on his chest, showing off those big biceps again, and pointed at me with his racket. The tennis dudes love doing that.

  “Stay where you are, Chelsea,” he said. “This is part of the training. She needs to learn how to take the bad with the good.” Lucky for him, I’d already decided to let these two work it out without me.

  Then he boomed to Evie, “Come here.”

  I thought she was going to stay put, but his tone must have jarred her and she slowly turned and walked back to the net with her head down.

  “Evie,” he said, “you’re not fat.” This was said so matter-of-factly as to make even me believe it. “But you are losing your focus. You can’t expect instant results. It takes work. Even great champions were beginners once. Serena Williams. Caroline Wozniacki. They’re going to be legends, but they had to start out making mistakes just like you will. You’re not so special that you get to skip the training part. You’re going to have to toughen up. What if Steffi Graf had given up during her first lesson?”

  He regarded her for a moment. She was still huffing and puffing a bit and red-faced from the exertion of this gentle lesson. “You need to forget about skinny or fat. We need to turn you into an athlete, and that’s the only thing I want you to be thinking about.” He paused. “And there can’t be any more talk of giving up.”

  He walked around the net to Evie’s side of the court, his own racket tucked under his arm. “Let me see your grip,” he said, putting his hand around Evie’s on her racket.

  He’d been talking about grip all morning, and how it was why she couldn’t hit the ball in the right spot, and I could see now that this seemed to be the root of Evie’s problems. Will was having her hold her racket a totally different way than she was used to, in a weird upside-down-wrist position that made her look like a circus contortionist with every shot. Nothing natural about it, if you asked me.

  “The Western grip is going to feel weird for a while,” Will told her.

  So that’s what this weird grip was. It sure was odd looking.

  This was Will’s life, teaching and studying the game and trying new things to create champions. He was one of the club’s top players back when he was a teen, but he was a rare elite who’d avoided the pro circuit. He’d decided early on he wanted to teach, to be around tennis the rest of his life. Will had gone straight from playing for his college team to teaching, and never looked back.

  Now he was adjusting Evie’s hand, still wrapped tightly around the leather handle, so the racket face was hovering over the ground, not directed at the net, which looked ridiculous. He held the grip with her and brought her through the motion: racket back, wrist twists downward, elbow up, wrist twists the other way so the racket gets under the ball, and then a quick upward motion to whip the ball with both power and extreme topspin.

  Evie nodded and said, “I think I’ve got it.”

  She was calmer, focused, and determined. I smiled. I’d known it all along, that she had it in her.

  “Good,” Will said, and went back to his side. He winked at me, then grabbed a handful of balls from his basket. “Get to the baseline. Let’s go.”

  Evie continued to suck for the next thirty minutes, but I figured Will knew what he was doing. Maybe things had to get worse before they could get better when it came to tennis, too.

  Before

  “What the heck is that?” Will Temple squinted at Evie across the net. It was their third lesson, and this issue was only now coming up. I had no idea what Evie was going to do about it.

  “What’s what?” she replied with just the slightest tinge of attitude.

  I had to chuckle to myself. Talking back! A week ago she wouldn’t have said boo to a goose; the girl had
been apt to burst into tears at one stern word from someone like Will Temple. He beckoned Evie over, and when she reached him on the other side, he took her racket in his hand like a hammer.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s from the bin at the front desk.” She brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

  “It” was, in fact, a banged-up old Slazenger from the nineties, with an unfashionably small head, that happened to be the best one left in the loaner pile that morning. Evie had had the choice of that or a warped Wilson with a broken string. Will pressed two fingers hard into the racket’s sweet spot and the strings succumbed like a tiny trampoline.

  “These are way too loose, and the grip is the wrong size for you. How long have you been a six-foot-four man?” He squeezed the handle, getting the feel of the thing, barely wrapping his own hand around the shabby leather. He handed it back to her.

  “You need to get your own racket,” he said, squinting some more. Will wasn’t wearing his glasses today. He looked pretty dashing in his spectacles, but if it was too humid or he was playing a practice match, or maybe if he was in a certain mood, he didn’t wear them. I guess his contacts were the wrong prescription because whenever he had to rely on them, frequent squinting ensued. “Tell your father I said so. With his connections, he’ll be able to get a decent one for a good price.”