Love Game - Season 2012
Read Love Game - Season 2012 Online
Authors: M.B. Gerard
LOVE
GAME
Season
2012
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.
LOVE
GAME
Season
2012
by M.B. Gerard
Copyright © 2013,
M.B. Gerard
For Dory and
Stevo
Shout-outs to Eva
and Flo
Love means
nothing
to a tennis
player.
–
Tennis wisdom
PROLOGUE
Peeking through the foam that covered the
bathwater Gabriella Galloway’s toe didn’t look like a part of her body. It
looked like a wizened gnome who had popped out from a blanket of white moss. If
she had reached out for it and tried to catch it, it would have disappeared
again, mocking her. She wagged it a little bit until it almost annoyed her,
then let her foot sink back into the water and stood up. She needed to get
going, pack and make a few phone calls.
Wrapped in a bathrobe she began arranging
training clothes, match outfits, jeans and shirts in piles on her bed. After
half an hour her bed looked like the New York City skyline, however a wobbly
one. But there was no other space in her apartment for organizing her clothes.
Her bed in the bedroom, and a table and chair in the living room were the only
existing furniture. On the ceiling a single bulb diffused a bright, cold light.
In what looked to her parents and her
sister Luella like an incomprehensible overreaction she had bought the small
apartment in central St. Petersburg and had moved out of the apartment she had
shared with her sister. Her parents had begged her to at least get a
condominium in a protected neighborhood. But she refused to listen to them
anymore. In the last three months she had trained harder than ever before and
she had gotten used to being on her own without her twin sister, who was being
treated like a star, as everyone believed she had won her first Grand Slam in
Wimbledon. After the season had ended in October, the twins had visited their
parents’ home, but their old friends and most of the family were only
interested in Luella. Lulu received invitations to parties and spent almost
every evening out with important people while Gabriella tried to catch up with
the few friends who still knew who she was.
However, in the supermarket, in the cinema
and on the street she was mistaken for Luella. It had been terribly wearisome
to explain every single time that she was
only
the little twin sister,
and not the Grand Slam winner. What was even harder to swallow was the fact
that Lulu was boasting about the win. It was a provocation, and every time
Gabriella witnessed somebody on the street who congratulated Luella and had
their picture taken with her smiling sister, she wanted to shout out that is
wasn’t Luella who had won the final match. That it had been Gabriella who had
stood on the Wimbledon Centre Court and held the Venus Rosewater dish up
towards the blue sky.
But she hadn’t said a word. Nobody was ever
to know that the sisters had switched matches. Besides that, Gabriella had
refused to keep on playing for her sister after Wimbledon. Now she was being
punished for her decision by Luella, who was scooping the praise and applause
for Gabriella’s effort.
The day she moved out, Luella had stood in
the doorway of their shared apartment with her arms crossed. Gabriella knew
what her sister had been thinking. That Gabriella was weak and running away
from the challenge Lulu’s popularity had imposed on the sisters’ relationship.
But Lulu was wrong. Gabriella just wanted
to be prepared and come back better and stronger, and for that she needed to be
on her own. She closed the lid of one of her huge trolley suitcases, stretched
and stepped to the window. Admittedly, the high-rise building she now called
her home wasn’t pretty, but if she stood at the far end of her window and
looked outside, she was able to catch a glimpse of Tampa Bay. She rarely spent
time indoors anyway. The water of the bay was sparkling in the orange evening light.
For a moment she wondered what Luella was doing right now but then quickly
pushed the thought away. She didn’t want to ponder over her sister. Not
anymore. That was over.
Elise’s dad, Robert Renard, had helped to
gather a new team around her, with Fredrik Nordström as her new coach and a
fitness instructor who traveled with her to most of the tournaments. Now she
felt ready. Not only to wipe Luella’s smirk off her face when Gabriella would
surpass her in the rankings and beat her on the court. She also felt ready to
get a Grand Slam of her own. She knew how to do it, so she was able to do it
again, Gabriella told herself while looking outside the window at the bay. For
the first time in her life she was truly independent.
Yet the thought unsettled her. It was a
different independence from the one she had shared with Lulu and which she had
cherished for so long. The twins had never listened to their many coaches when
they had given them instructions or elaborated a game plan for the upcoming
match. They were only pretenses for the sisters’ secret pact. Instead they had
decided for themselves who was to play the match and how. Especially Gabriella
had become extremely adept at working out the opponents’ strengths and
weaknesses and developing a game plan that suited the sisters’ scheme.
Gabriella squared her shoulders and went to
the kitchenette. All this could only help her now, she thought. But she
couldn’t shake off nor really put her finger on the underlying tension that
accompanied her. She picked up the phone and dialed the number of Kiara, a
physio she had met in November, whom she had dated a couple of times and
eventually inaugurated the new bed with. They weren’t in love but saying
good-bye seemed appropriate nonetheless. They chatted for a while and Kiara
wished her good luck for the season.
After hanging up Gabriella began emptying
the refrigerator before turning it off in preparation for the next several
weeks. Sitting down at the table with a variety of yoghurts and fruits, and a
huge bowl of fried rice, she grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and wrote down a
list of goals she had come up with while lying in the bathtub.
1. Win my own Grand Slam
2. Enter Top 10
3. Find a girl who loves me back
She didn’t need luck, Gabriella thought.
She was determined to work for it.
***
Amanda parked the car next to the blue
tiled water basin that surrounded the entrance of the building like a shallow
moat. A couple of fish crossed under the little bridge when she entered the
high archway, which gave the house a Hispanic touch. The place where Elise and
her parents lived was on the outskirts of the city, close to the training
courts of Rick Salieri, but not too far away from the beach. During the
off-season she had become a frequent visitor, as Elise’s parents had made it a
habit of inviting her over to dinner after their afternoon practices. With all
of her relatives living in Australia Amanda suddenly had a new home with the
Renards. She jumped up the staircase, taking two steps at a time, and rang the
doorbell on the second floor.
Robert Renard, Elise’s dad and coach opened
the door with a huge grin.
“Punctual as always,” he observed, checking
his watch. “Only Elise is far from ready.” He winked at Amanda and pointed his
thumb to the room at the end of the hallway. The door was open and Amanda could
hear Elise curse. When she approached the room she saw Elise kneeled over a
large linen bin with clothes scattered all around her. She didn’t notice the
Aussie. Amanda raised an eyebrow, overlooking the scene, but was somewhat
relieved to see that most of Elise’s suitcases seemed already packed. They had
to leave for the airport in half an hour.
“I can’t find the yellow top,” Elise
shouted loudly, so her parents could hear her.
“Check the laundry chest,” her mother shouted
back from somewhere in the apartment. Amanda leaned against the door frame and
suppressed a chuckle. Pink, blue and green training tops and pants came flying
over Elise’s shoulder at her, but no yellow shirt.
“It’s not there,” Elise yelled. She had
reached the bottom of the bin, turned around and yelped in surprise when she
saw Amanda. “Good, you’re here,” she said after steadying herself. “You must
help me find my yellow top. You know, the one with the little red stars on the
shoulder.”
“I know it well,” Amanda grinned. Elise
wore the shirt whenever possible. In fact she had two of them, Amanda
remembered. “You are missing both of them?”
“Well,” Elise hesitated. “Yes, both,” she
continued quickly. “But I might have forgotten one in the locker room the other
day. Too bad. That’s why I must find the other one.”
“I see,” Amanda said. “Let me take a look
in your room again, and you check your racquet bags and the dirty laundry.”
Elise nodded and stepped to the door when
all of a sudden she stopped and turned around. Quickly, she walked back to
Amanda, grabbed her hips and pulled her close.
“Hello,” Elise whispered. She gave Amanda a
smile, then a kiss on the lips.
“Check the dirty laundry,” Amanda laughed
but didn’t let go of Elise either for another few seconds before rushing Elise
out of the door.
With a little sigh she reached down and
started picking up Elise’s clothes, folding them and piling them up in the
laundry chest. The yellow top was not amongst them and after closing it she
looked around. The room was tidy again. Perhaps it had flown under the bed
without Elise noticing it, Amanda thought. She kneeled down, and crawling
through the jungle of suitcases, she looked under the bed. There was nothing
but two
Tennis Nurse
novels bashfully hidden behind the bedpost. Amanda
grabbed them and checked the titles.
Tennis Nurse and The Magician of Miami
was a pretty good thriller, Amanda remembered. She had read it perhaps five
years ago when it had first come out. The other one was
Tennis Nurse and The
Case of the Lotus Lily
. This one was new. Amanda hesitated for a moment,
then opened it to the first page. Apparently, the story was set in Japan and
the main character was running through a bamboo forest chased by villains.
Amanda giggled. Most
Tennis Nurse
novels started like a James Bond
movie. It was always the same pattern and it always worked. She turned the
page. Jane, the nurse, had come to a cliff high above a waterfall and the
villains were closing in. What would she do? Would she jump? Would she fight?
Amanda closed the book quickly. No time for
Tennis Nurse
now. But she had enjoyed the short indulgence and there
would certainly be an evening when she had time to read more. She opened one of
Elise’s bags to stuff the novel inside and gasped.
“Oh, come on,” Amanda mumbled and rolled
her eyes. She looked at a pile of shirts, neatly packed. Under a blue top she
saw the edge of a bright yellow shirt. Half a red star was visible. Elise had
already packed it. They would have searched for the shirt forever and in the
end would have had to rush to the airport. She reached to pull it out and show
it to Elise, but stopped. The fabric felt bulky. Something was wrapped inside
the shirt. More
Tennis Nurse
novels? Amanda wouldn’t have been
surprised. It was Elise’s guilty pleasure and she traded the books with
Gabriella and Morgana Doré.
Amanda pulled out the shirt but what was
hidden inside was no book. It was much heavier, and when Amanda carefully
unwrapped it she looked at a framed picture of herself and Elise looking at
each other on a gorgeous morning in Wimbledon half a year ago.
Amanda knew that for Elise the mysterious
journey, which the picture had taken until it finally landed in Elise’s hands,
had given it an even bigger meaning. Tom had taken the picture, Ted had stolen
it with the help of Amanda and had lost it. Then somebody had found it, made a
print and slipped it under Elise’s hotel room door in Luxembourg. The intention
of the anonymous person was still unclear, especially as nothing else had
happened since.
Slowly, Amanda stroked the glass of the
frame. Elise loved the picture so much, she had put it on her nightstand. It
was reckless to take it along on the tour. Anybody could steal it from the
hotel room, and they had decided along with Elise’s parents that they had to
make an extra effort to keep the relationship private as long as possible.
“Found it!” Elise yelled from somewhere in
the apartment. Amanda could hear her footsteps coming back to the bed room. She
took a look at the picture again, then quickly wrapped it in the yellow top and
put it back between the other shirts. When Elise came into the room, Amanda was
still sitting on the floor. She waved with the
Tennis Nurse
novel.
“Can we take this one?”
***
Overnight a white cover of snow had wrapped
up Prague, and now – in the early morning hours of the first of January – held
it siege in a cold grip. The perfectly white surface revealed nothing of the
war that had been going on the previous night. It had drowned out the sound of
the thousand cannons and firecrackers and nothing about this bleak, icy morning
promised a good day, let alone a good year.
