by M. B. Gerard
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are 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.
by M.B. Gerard
Copyright © 2012, M.B. Gerard
For R.L.
Shout-outs
to Dory Turner for everything,
to Catherine Prendergast,
to Stevo, Sian-Marie and Ariane,
to S&S.
Love is a game
that two can play
and both win.
– Eva Gabor
Prologue
Ready? Play!
Mother’s Finest
Eavesdropping On The Heart
Revelations
A Change Is Gonna Come
Keeping Up With The Januses
Ad Ventures And Break Points
When In Rome...
De Point En Point
Serving A Love Game
On A Secret Mission
Dog & Fox
Let’s Have A Ball
Double Trouble
Beneath The Moon And Under The Stars
Between The Lines
Break, Make And Hold
Have Your Body Serve And Eat It, Too
Walking A Fine Line
Blood, Punch And Tears
The Tampa airport looked magnified in its clean emptiness. As always at 4 A.M., Elise Renard thought. Nothing to worry about. She knew it was only the silent terminal and its covered-up restlessness that triggered her own concealed agitation. She wished to push it away like she pushed the trolley in front of her but she couldn’t help feeling the undeniable inanity of her doings. Again she set out for another season on the tennis tour. Again she set out for another attempt to get back where she used to be when she made a splash in the tennis world two years ago.
Get back to where you belong. Rick Salieri, her mentor, had tried to drum the words into her during the off-season weeks she had spent at his tennis academy, but Elise wasn’t so sure anymore if she could make it back, let alone to the very top. During the time she was away nursing her knee all her peers had been making huge steps up the ranking, while she had to witness her ranking tumbling down week after week. But she hadn’t given up when the doctors had told her the bad news. Instead she had worked meticulously to get her body in shape again, and as soon as the doctors gave her the word she had begun training with the same burning ambition and focus as she had before her injury. Of course, she could get back to the top. She hadn’t lost any of her skills or her drive. She only had to win some matches along the way to get back where she belonged and this had proven to be rather difficult since she had started on the tour again in October.
As often as she had repeated Rick’s words over the last months like an old mantra something else had begun to occupy her mind. A tiny fact which – apparently and strangely enough – seemed invisible to everyone else. However, she herself was well aware of it. Slowed down by her knee injury she had enough time during long hours of physiotherapy and involuntary idleness to get a clearer picture of herself. The injury time-out had triggered a new self-awareness, and yet she didn’t know what to do with this new-found clarity, nor the following turmoil of emotions that now lurked around every corner of her soul.
This odd feeling of belonging nowhere, her inability to win more than two matches in a row as well as the nagging thought that she might get injured again had driven a small, yet painful thorn into her optimism. After witnessing her ranking drop below the Top 100 and finding herself in the chasms of challenger tournaments, she dreaded the thought that another injury might end her tennis ambitions for good.
She also thought about her parents who had given up so much so she could pursue her dreams and who both worked hard for her success. She gave the trolley another angry push. No, she wouldn’t let her doubts get the better of her. Instead she would get back where she belonged and she would prove to herself that she could make it. Not just on the tennis court – but in life. Because her tennis career could be over in a second and there was a part of her soul that was craving for new experiences which had nothing to do with fuzzy, yellow balls. She had to be open to adventure. And why shouldn’t she give it a go, if a chance ever came along? Suddenly she felt excited about the new year. She turned around to her parents who walked behind her pushing an additional trolley with several huge bags piled on top of it. They had stopped in front of the security gate.
“Don’t get pouched by a kangaroo,” Elise’s mother said, when she hugged her daughter tightly, and Elise began to miss her already. Her mother would stay at home in Florida and would join them later when the tour hit American soil again in Indian Wells.
“No,” Elise mumbled, fighting back tears. Then she broke free of the embrace and quickly turned to the waiting security officer. Behind the security gate she turned around to look at her parents. They were saying good-bye to each other outside the gate. Elise had nobody to smile at like that, and at this moment when she realized she wanted someone to smile at with all her heart.
***
The sun was shining, sliding along the court to embrace the lines and the net in the peculiar way Lynn Pebblestone had grown to love over the years.
The umpire made her way down the stairs and entering through the gate at the bottom, she stepped onto the court and took a look around. On the other side of the court two players and their teams were packing their bags having just finished a practice session. She waved to them and they waved back with smiles on their faces, before Lynn turned to the high chair that would be her work place for the next week. She enjoyed the respectful, friendly relationship between the umpires and the players. However, they usually stuck to their respective groups.
The beginning of the season had a special flair to it which Lynn cherished and which reminded her of her own beginnings on the tour back in the 1980s. The excitement of the players getting out on the court again was palpable. After weeks of grinding practice and fitness exercise the girls displayed the skittishness of racing horses. Lynn enjoyed seeing them flocking in one by one. It felt like they were hitting the road to a summer camp. It was in fact a ten-month summer camp moving all around the world and all of the players – some more than others – had a moment when they let loose and misbehaved exactly like the young folks they were. Behind the scenes of the players’ parties, where the cameras were not allowed to roll, was the place where the good stories originated.
It was these stories that kept the summer camp alive and buzzing. Moreover, they were the natural resource for the Love Game, as it was called. Lynn and some other umpires played it every year. They would pick several players and guessed who they would end up with. Every umpire had four guesses, the Grand Slams of the Love Game. Over the years Lynn had made it to her very own No. 1 ranking having won the title thirteen times. She was the queen of the Love Game.
This year she had already placed her bets for the 2011 season and even though she had chosen a combination of players that were highly unlikely to ever make it she would chance it. If she was right and no other umpire had made the same pick it could be another successful year for her. No risk, no fun, Lynn thought and closing the little gate of the court she'd just inspected she headed to the next one on her survey tour.
***
Looking outside the airplane window Elise watched the sun rise over the airport field. While other passengers were edging through to their seats, her father stuffed the last item of luggage into the overhead compartment and sitting down next to her he squeezed her right shoulder. She gave him a quick smile but then turned back to the window. The plane began to roll on the tarmac and for a while Elise tri
ed to listen to the flight attendant’s safety instructions. But knowing them by heart she fell back into brooding.
She needed distraction from her wandering thoughts. As soon as the plane was airborne Elise got up and pulled out her trolley case from the baggage compartment. But the moment she opened her suitcase she felt her heart skip a beat. Elise was looking at two carefully packed heaps of training shorts and tops. Apparently she had mixed up her bags at the counter and had checked-in the trolley case with her hand luggage.
What had she been thinking? Well, she didn’t know anymore what she’d been thinking. She sighed. She couldn’t even tell what went wrong and why. How could she expect to win any matches if she was distracted so easily by – well, by what exactly? She didn’t know.
Now her hand luggage with her laptop, her books and clothes to change into were buried in the airplane belly. Sheepishly she closed the lid again, about to haul the bag up to the luggage compartment when she felt something bulky in the front pocket. She opened the zipper and pulled out a copy of Tennis Nurse.
Agnes, her friend from France, had lent her the cheesy novel two months ago at the end of her last tournament. Elise had begun reading it around Christmas time and had found the writing awfully over the top and the characters unbearably corny. After five pages she had given up, left it underneath the bed and had forgotten about it. This morning, just when she was about to switch off the lights in her bedroom, leaving it tidy and quiescent for the next month, she remembered the book Agnes had gone into raptures about. Her friend would decapitate her with a furious swing of her racquet, if she didn’t get her book back. In a hurry Elise had grabbed it from under the bed and had stuffed it into the next best suitcase.
Now she had nothing else to do during a fifteen hour journey to Australia. She took a look at the front cover again. Tennis Nurse and The Girl Who Preferred The Grass. This was ridiculous. Who would write such nonsense? The author’s name was clearly a pseudonym and it was probably the best two words this woman had ever come up with. Elise chuckled. She opened the first page and began to read.
Perth, Australia
The sun, the earth, the water disappearing in the sink – everything on this continent moved in the wrong direction.
Standing over the sink and watching the water run, Robyn Lawrence quite literally saw her prospects of having a grand Hopman Cup going down the drain. He had brought his girlfriend. Since when did he have a girlfriend? And why was she so beautiful and sweet? And funny. And nice. At least, she looked like that from a distance when Robyn had witnessed Ted and his new girl giving an interview. Robyn looked at herself in the mirror frowning. And why must there be a terribly red pimple on her nose? And not to mention the horrible dress she had to wear for the party a day ago. To make things worse there was not one Top Shop to be seen in miles to save the day. This really was the outback. She had no idea how to endure a whole press conference next to Teddy.
In October she had received the invitation for the prestigious mixed doubles tournament and she had been terribly excited. Moreover, she was delighted to hear it was Teddy whom she would partner with. Not only was he the No. 8 player of the ATP tour, more important for Robyn was the fact that he possessed masterful dancing skills as he had demonstrated at last year’s Winners Ball at Wimbledon, when she was the Junior Champion and was granted a dance with the dashing British runner-up. Their lucky pairing at the Hopman Cup promised a replay at one of the special events in the evening.
But most of all she had really looked forward to the time spent with him away from the tennis events. Ted Curry had quite a reputation and Australia seemed to bring out the worst in him – which promised a really good time in Robyn's book. She had hoped he would take her along and introduce her to the Aussie night life. But now he seemed constantly preoccupied with his new girlfriend.
With a loud bang the door opened and Amy, one of the cheerful Australian volunteers peeped inside.
“Are you coming?” she asked. Apparently this twenty-something was getting paid by the ITF to ruin the rare moments of quietude Robyn tried to squeeze in, while constantly sporting a big, sunny smile. How Robyn hated sunny, smiling twenty-something girls from Australia! Ted’s new girl was from Melbourne. She had found out by talking to one of the journalists after Ted's interview. So she’d probably be around for the whole Australian Open which started in two weeks. Great. Fantastic. Nothing she could do about it, Robyn concluded. There was just one way to live through the pain, as her good friend Gemma Heffington once wisely said: Keep calm and party on. Reluctantly, Robyn followed Amy through the hallway into the media center. With a big grin the Australian girl pushed her into one of the press conference rooms. It was already filling with reporters and photographers, and in the far end she could make out the dashing figure of Ted Curry.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Robyn muttered. She took a deep breath and walked to the table in the front.
***
“Time,” Lynn said.
Sitting high above the court the chair umpire pressed the button of the microphone. Yelena Kovalenko from the Ukraine and Sasha Mrachova of the Czech Republic headed to the baselines.
Yelena was a hard hitting lefty who was able and willing to come to the net to finish the points in magnificent fashion. She also had a sense of drama, amusing the audience with ridiculous challenges, when she believed a call had gone against her. Not only the audience enjoyed the entertainment, Lynn had to admit, even though her face would never reveal her delight when Yelena threw one of her tantrums over a bad challenge.
On the other side Sasha gave the ball boy her towel and accepted the balls he handed her. The Czech was only twenty-five years of age but considered already a veteran player as she had won two Grand Slams so far. However, it was four years now since she had won her last major title. After nagging shoulder injuries her serve was past its prime and most experts would have said, so was she.
Waiting for the server to choose the right balls Lynn allowed herself a look at the stands and noticed a familiar player with flaming red hair sitting down quickly in a chair in the upper stands – Amanda Auster, a Top 10 player from Australia. Playing in two different groups in the group stage of the tournament the Australians would have to play the Czechs until the final. If they made it to the final. And if they made it there, there was only small hope that the Australian team could take home this title. As if Amanda’s struggle to play in front of the home crowd wasn’t distressing enough she had a terrible record against Sasha. The Australian had never even won a set against the tall brunette from the Czech Republic.
More than once Lynn had chosen the Australian redhead as one of her girls in the Love Game and it had proven costly. Whenever Lynn had given Amanda another chance in the Love Game she had lost the title. Amanda never ended up with the girls the umpire had predicted. Mostly she stayed alone or was really good at keeping her relationships private. There had never been players’ party stories about Amanda and most of Lynn's colleagues considered her boring and had never chosen her for the Love Game, nevertheless Lynn liked Amanda. The Australian was one of the nicest players on tour. She was also a pleasure to watch on the court with her strong serve and impeccable forehand. She had entered the Top 10 two years ago and if it wasn't for the Australian season she'd even have a Top 3 ranking, the umpire concluded.
Lynn turned her concentration back to the match. Sasha had taken the first set from the older Ukrainian, but now Yelena was fighting back in formidable fashion. With her volleys she forced Sasha to move to the net, where the Czech never looked too good and if Sasha reached the ball the Ukrainian would lob her. Whenever she could Sasha tried to dominate the game with her groundstrokes. She hit them hard and flat and close to the lines. It was a battle between two very different players, which made the match even more breathtaking. After over an hour the players had leveled the score at 6 all.
“Tiebreak,” Lynn announced.
Even if Sasha seemed like the better player throughout the
match, in the second set her first serve was deserting her more and more. Her weak second serve was attackable, and there was a good chance for Yelena to take the match into a third and deciding set.
For the tiebreak the players were granted an extra challenge, and in Yelena’s case this was much needed. Her previous attempts had turned out to be unsuccessful. She had to start the tiebreak with only two challenges left, including the extra challenge the players received after twelve games. During the tiebreak Yelena used one of her challenges at the score of 3-2 when she had hit a forehand cross-court. A lines person had called the ball out and Lynn had confirmed it after Yelena had asked. However, the Ukrainian had challenged the call nevertheless. It had been the wrong decision. Even though she had lost the point, she had fought back and Sasha’s double fault at 5 all had handed Yelena a set point. After another lengthy exchange of shots Sasha’s shot seemed to be wide but there was no call. Yelena played the ball but raised her hand immediately afterwards and nodded at Lynn to indicate she would challenge the shot which she thought the line umpire had incorrectly seen as in. After fighting so hard in the second set, after coming through such tight games, the Ukrainian was not willing to give this tiebreak and the match to Sasha. With the crowd joining the excitement when the video screen showed a slow-motion replay of the ball, challenges set off a wave of adrenalin in the crowd as well as the players. It was 6-5 for Yelena and if she challenged correctly Lynn would have had the ball replayed.
But the ball was in. It had caught the line by a tiny margin. The crowd roared in excitement and Lynn called the score at 6 all. In frustration Yelena swung her racquet and smashed it onto the ground. It bounced back right into her hand. It was a motion the Ukrainian used so often on court it had become her trademark move whenever things went against her. She definitely was feeling the pressure mounting on her shoulders now. In silence she headed to her chair. Lynn was sure that, more than any bad shot, it was this bad challenge that would decide the match in the end, and she was right. Two points later the tiebreak was over. Sasha Mrachova decided her first match of the season with two brilliant forehand winners. With the voice that never gave away her feelings, Lynn called the final score and began thinking of the match ahead of her.
