Love Game - Season 2012 (25 page)

She caught her breath. “But I suggest we
shop for a shiny, new pecker as soon as we get rid of that stupid, old wood
thing.”

They looked at each other and grinned. In
this moment, Elise was more than ready to part with Natsumi’s wooden phallus.
But half an hour later they were still waiting for the mysterious person.

“Perhaps Natsumi confused the time?” Elise
said with a shrug.

“Confusion is definitely part of all this,”
Amanda sighed. “This woman is almost forty-five minutes late and we have a
practice session in one hour.”

They really had to get back to Eastbourne.
After waiting for another ten minutes they finally took the bag with the
mara
and left.

***

For a moment longer Sasha stayed in the
embrace. Not because she knew that they were being observed and that Kurt would
appreciate a public display of affection, but because she felt like it.

“Hello boyfriend,” she whispered into
Jaro’s ear. Her Czech fiancé grinned.

“Been a while,” he stated.

They hadn’t seen each other in months,
except for a short visit by Jaro in Rome when Kurt and Jaro’s management had
insisted on a public appearance. As if the upcoming wedding wasn’t enough.

Like a true fiancé Jaro put his arm around
Sasha’s shoulder and together they slowly crossed the hotel lobby. Outside on
the terrace, Kurt had arranged a meeting with the Happy Ever After Wedding
planners.

“Do you want to tell me more about your new
love interest?” Jaro asked.

Sasha grinned. A few days ago, when they
had arranged the meeting with the wedding planners, Sasha and Jaro had talked
on the phone. Jaro had opened up about a guy he had been seeing for a couple of
weeks and Sasha had realized that not once since she had begun sleeping with
Lulu had she been able to talk about it. She simply couldn’t trust anybody. Not
even Kurt. Especially not Kurt. He would have tried to stop her from seeing
Lulu as it jeopardized the wedding masquerade. After Jaro had told her about
his new guy, Sasha poured out her heart. The words bubbled out of her until
Jaro stopped her because it was long past midnight.

“I’ll meet her later,” Sasha smiled and put
her arm around Jaro’s lower back. “Will you be here for dinner? I’m sure you’d
like her.”

Jaro shook his head. “Sorry, I have to be
back in training early tomorrow. I can’t stay.”

They went outside and looked for the table
where Kurt and the wedding planners were seated.

“So, are you together now?” Jaro asked.

Sasha blinked. “Oh, no,” she said quickly.
“We are just having fun.”

Jaro gave her a side glance. “Are you sure?
You sounded so enthusiastic on the phone.”

Sasha stopped and frowned. At the other end
of the terrace Kurt stood up and waved. How unfortunate that Kurt was looking
over at them at this very moment but she had to clear this up. Apparently there
had been a misunderstanding.

“I was enthusiastic because the sex is
good,” she snapped. “And don’t call her my ‘love interest’. I’m not in love!
I’m settling an old score.”

Of course, Jaro didn’t understand that she deserved
a little attention from Lulu for her broken nose. Thank god, she hadn’t told
him who she was seeing. He really didn’t get it.

“Come on, our wedding planners are
waiting,” she grumbled. “And it is your duty to choose the colors for whatever
they suggest, you understand?”

At least this time he did.

They sat down and Sasha gulped at the sight
of Mr. Clutterbuck and Ms. Hardwood. How on earth could Kurt trust them with
such a big event? But after five minutes she listened with astonishment at the
conversation between Jaro and the wedding planners. Her fake fiancé had given
the big day a lot of thought, it seemed. He had chosen the chair covers,
planned the table decorations and every other detail. Neither Mr. Clutterbuck
nor Ms. Hardwood pestered her with questions she couldn’t answer.

Sasha leaned back in the rattan chair and
relaxed. Beneath the terrace, Sasha saw a couple of fellow tennis players cross
the lawn of the hotel garden. Then, all of a sudden, she noticed something
black in the corner of her eye. Dark curls that edged into her field of vision.
She couldn’t do anything about it. Sasha smiled at her luck. Jaro was taking
care of the stupid wedding, and she was blessed with a dose of Lulu.

The Galloway didn’t look around, she made a
beeline across the lawn to a table where she spread some papers and began
writing down some notes. Once in a while she leaned back and touched her lips
with the end of the pen. God, how she wanted to be that pen right now, Sasha
thought. Was she staring? A quick glance behind her revealed that nobody was
looking at her. She could stare all day, she realized with a smile and turned
back to the garden.

The way Lulu was concentrating was
strangely attractive. Perhaps it was the Galloway sitting upright and working
silently and intently. Lulu had forgotten everything around her. It was such a
pleasing sight to see someone focused, Sasha thought. She would ask her later
what she was working on.

“Sasha?” a voice interrupted her train of
thoughts.

She turned back to the table, surprised to
find that the wedding planners and Kurt had vanished.

“Are they gone already?” she asked Jaro.

“You didn’t even say good-bye!” Jaro
smirked. “You were so lost in some brown curls.”

Sasha knew she had been caught red-handed.
“Did anyone notice?”

“I don’t think so.” Jaro shook his head.
Then he looked at Sasha for a while. “Are you sure you’re not in love?”

“Hundred percent certain,” Sasha said
matter-of-factly.

She closed her eyes for a short moment. She
didn’t know where to look. If she looked at Jaro now he would have known that
she was lying. If she looked back at Lulu, sitting at the table, she would have
to fight the urge to run to her.

“Love means nothing to a tennis player,
right?” Jaro remarked with a smile.

Love. She didn’t like falling in love. It
hurt less to fall from a bridge. Love stabbed you from behind. But there she
was. Falling.

She finally turned to Jaro and looked him
in the eye.

“That’s correct,” she answered. “Love means
nothing.”

***

Finding a private place outside her hotel
room seemed almost impossible. Gabriella squeezed through the guests and even
though she noticed that several people recognized her nobody stopped her and
asked for an autograph or a picture. Probably because she seemed so determined
in her manner.

Gabriella stepped down the stairs and
entered the little pathway that led to the hotel garden. In the middle of the
lawn, she saw a table where she could spread her papers without arousing the
other players’ curiosity. She had thirty minutes before Monica would pick her
up to go over to the practice courts for a doubles session before their match.

When was the last time she had done this?
Perhaps together with Lulu? That was likely. The twins used to do this all the
time. But now it seemed a lifetime away.

Gabriella spread two sheets of paper on the
table, one showed a list of the actual Top 30 players with their ranking
points, the other was a list of the points each of these players had gathered
in the previous season in Eastbourne and Wimbledon.

In the last three months Gabriella had
risen up the rankings. From the Top 30 to the Top 20, it never looked like a
big leap, but Gabriella knew better then to let herself be fooled by that. A
player had to win a lot of matches to make the Top 20. And in the last few
months she had. She continually gathered ranking points and had reached her
highest ranking ever – she was No. 14 in the world now.

Gabriella remembered when Lulu had reached
that magic territory. Her sister had become all squirrelly, looking at ranking points
all the time. Now she understood why.

You were not quite there yet, but you could
smell the Top 10. It was in the air constantly, like the scent of a woman you
craved.

Gabriella looked around but nobody was
watching her. She took out a pen from her racquet bag and began scribbling down
the ranking points of those players ahead of her. Then she wrote down next to
each player the ranking points they had to defend in the next couple of weeks.
Finally, she wrote down her own ranking points.

After calculating the points she looked at
the result. If she made the semifinal in Eastbourne she would rise by one
ranking spot, and if Ivana Katina went out in the second round Gabriella would
rise by two ranking spots to No. 12. A quick look at the tournament schedule
gave her hope. Ivana had to play against Polly Duke in the second round. The
Canadian had had a good run in each of the past few tournaments and she liked
the grass. If everything went well for Gabriella, Polly would take out Ivana,
she would make the semifinal and then she would enter the Wimbledon
Championships as the No. 12 in the world.

Gabriella breathed in deeply. In the
previous year, she had lost in the third round of Wimbledon. Rather Luella had
lost playing for her. Meaning, she didn’t have that many points to defend.
Meaning, she could – .

Gabriella let out the air she had held in
her lungs. She shouldn’t be doing this, she scolded herself. She shouldn’t
think ahead. That was the worst thing a player could do. It put too much
pressure on yourself and distracted you from what you should be doing – hitting
balls.

But she couldn’t help it. She needed to
know.

Again, she leaned forward and followed the
same proceedings, this time assuming she was No. 12 in the world, using the
ranking points all the players around her in the rankings had to defend in
Wimbledon.

After five minutes Gabriella leaned back
and looked at the numbers she had calculated. If she made the semifinal of
Wimbledon and Marieke Bender lost before the quarterfinal, Gabriella would be
No. 10 in the world. If she played in the final and lost, she would be No. 9.

Gabriella grinned. Yes, there was a chance
that she could make the Top 10, however unlikely.

But if she won Wimbledon – with Marieke,
Luella and Tamara losing before the quarterfinals – Gabriella would be No. 6 in
the world.

No. 6, that wasn’t just Top 10. That was
almost Top 5. Gabriella wondered what scent the No. 6 player had. Perhaps
coconut? Also, she probably wouldn’t feel the need to run after a magic scent
anymore – as the world No. 6 and as a Grand Slam Champion. Instead, everyone
behind her would have her scent in their nostrils. Luella would be behind her.

“Scheming for world domination?” a voice
behind her suddenly whispered.

Gabriella spun around. Monica Jordan grinned
at her, snatched Gabriella’s calculations and looked them over.

“I’m just dreaming a little bit,” Gabriella
said defensively.

“We all do,” Monica nodded, still looking
at the paper. “Ambitious,” she eventually said. “But possible.”

Monica gave Gabriella back the paper and
waited for the younger player to pack her bag. When they headed out to the
practice courts, Gabriella turned to Monica.

“If there was a scent for the No. 1, what
would it be?”

Monica raised her eyebrows. Walking down
the middle path between the courts she thought about the odd question that had
come out of nowhere.

“Depends on the player,” she finally said.
“Some are No. 1 only a short time. Their scent is cold sweat. They are afraid
of losing what they have achieved. They are easy prey. Easy to sniff out and
easy to kill. If you want to stay at the top for a long time don’t let them
pick up your scent. Do you know how to do that?”

She looked at Gabriella, waiting for an
answer. Gabriella shrugged.

“Simple,” Monica finally revealed. “No
sweat!” She gave Gabriella a wink.

Gabriella understood. It was back to the
basics, back to hitting balls. She followed Monica through the little gate and
stepped onto the perfect grass.

She hadn’t missed the tone in Monica’s
voice though. Inside this loyal, easy-going doubles player was still the
predator who had dominated the tour for several years and had sniffed out and
killed her rivals easily and ruthlessly.

A SNAKE

IN THE GARDEN
                                      

Wimbledon, Great Britain

A mild evening breeze stroked Gabriella’s
arms while she was wandering up the winding road from the Wimbledon site to the
house she had rented with her team. The guys would go out tonight, they both
had warned her not to wait for them – as if she would. She had plans for
tonight. Great plans.

From behind a hedge she could hear loud
chatter and giggles. All over Wimbledon Village and the houses surrounding the
Wimbledon tournament site garden parties were being held on the middle
Saturday.

She herself had been invited to three
different parties, one held by her clothes sponsor, the others being private
parties.

“Gabriella!” The loud yell woke her from
her daydreaming. She turned around.

Out of the players’ exit a black tournament
car had come and now stopped on the street. The window was rolled down and Lulu
stuck her head out.

They hadn’t talked since – Gabriella
couldn’t exactly remember. Madrid? During the sand tower task? Yes, that had to
be the last time she had exchanged words with Lulu.

“Where are you going?” Lulu demanded to
know. She opened the car door and stepped outside.

“Home,” Gabriella stated. She made a step
backwards.

“What are you doing tonight?” Lulu asked.

Gabriella frowned. She didn’t want to let
her twin in on her plans.

“Why?”

Lulu rolled her eyes. “Because I’m invited
to the best party and I thought you might want to join me.”

Join Lulu? That was typical of her sister.
It wouldn’t even enter her head to ask Gabriella if she had a party to attend
and if Lulu could join her. Why should she? She was convinced that she had a
pass key to the best event of the middle Saturday.

By asking Gabriella to join her Lulu
managed to make it look like an act of charity. But Gabriella wouldn’t have any
of that tonight.

“Well, then we will very likely see each
other as, I myself, am invited to the best party in town,” she replied. “That
is, if we are talking about the same party,  which I doubt.”

Now Lulu frowned. “What party are you
talking about? Who is hosting?”

“See, the fact that you don’t know what I’m
talking about tells me we are not going to the same party. My party is a secret
party.”

She turned around and began walking up the
hill, feeling Luella’s stare on her back. She heard the car door being slammed
and the car driving off and had to grin. Luella would be wondering all evening
what wonderful party Gabriella was attending. Rightly so. Gabriella’s party was
indeed a secret party and she was certain it would exceed every other festivity
tonight.

It consisted of two people only, who would
happily splash about in a big backyard pool and then relax under the stars.
Perhaps working out a little before they relaxed, Gabriella corrected herself
with an even wider grin on her face. They were still in the middle of a Grand
Slam and you had to be on your toes.

It was also the first time that Sasha had
invited her. Perhaps she was reading too much into it, Gabriella wondered, but
she couldn’t help feeling that their relationship had taken on a different
quality since Paris.

She also knew what that meant. Gabriella
clenched her teeth. She really had to tell Sasha the truth.

***

A loud scream came through the open window.
Morgana gasped. The noise had caused her to make a typo.

“
Zut alors!
” she hissed, then got up
to look outside.

In the neighboring garden a group of
players, team members and tennis officials had already gathered around a long
buffet table and was happily digging in.

Interesting, Morgana thought. Monica
Jordan, Agnes Lion and her partner Candice were talking to the newly-returned
Michelle van der Boom. The Dutch player was getting ready for the Olympic Games
and so far had had good results with compatriot Marieke Bender. But off the
court Michelle didn’t hang out with Marieke. Of course, the reason for this
could have been that Marieke was a Top 10 player who was concentrating on the
singles competition and had a lot of off court duties. But perhaps Michelle was
the eighth player Morgana was looking for.

Morgana closed the window and sat down at
her desk again.

Quickly, she wrote a reminder note to write
an e-mail to her new source – Larissa – and ask her about Michelle. Larissa
Perkins, Bernadette’s contact, had turned out to be a treasure trove of
information. As far as Morgana had found out, Larissa was a former WTA
employee, now living in Florida and running an animal shelter. She had worked
on the tour for almost ten years until 2004. A look at an old almanac had
confirmed this.

With Larissa’s help Morgana was filling the
blanks that were holding back the advancement of her doctoral thesis. The most
pleasing fact was that Larissa had given her permission to quote from her
e-mails. It was brilliant. In the last few weeks she had filled page after
page. Whenever there was a moment away from the tennis courts she retreated to
her hotel room and worked on her thesis. Admittedly, her ranking had suffered a
bit. Since she was concentrating so hard on revealing the
Tennis Nurse
mystery she had lost more matches than won.

The grass however suited her game and on
the Wimbledon turf she had cruised through the first three matches. She well
deserved to spend a whole evening working on her PhD instead of sweating in the
gym or wasting time at a garden party.

After another productive half an hour she
stretched her back and got up again. It was getting dark outside and the garden
next door was lit up with colorful lights. The French woman opened the window
and let the cool evening air in. Distant snippets of conversation were audible
from the party but everybody seemed to have gathered on the other side of the
garden, behind the house, as the dining area was empty. They had raided the
buffet table as if there was no tomorrow, Morgana thought.

The sudden ring of the doorbell made her
jump.

“
Oh non
,” she grunted. “Who can that
be?”

She hurried down the stairs and opened the
door.

“Alice, what a nice surprise. Aren’t you at
a party?”

Alice Chevallier greeted Morgana and
stepped inside.

“Yes, I was at the party next door,” she
replied. “Everyone was wondering where you were. They were counting on you.”

Morgana shrugged, and they sat down in the
living room. “I don’t care about these parties. Besides, I’m busy writing.”

“I know,” Alice winked. “That’s what I told
them. That’s why I brought you some food from the buffet.”

She presented a paper plate with a handful
of
hors d’oeuvres
. Morgana frowned.

“Did you tell them what I was writing
about?”

She observed Alice. Perhaps it had been a
bad idea to let Alice in on her research. She shouldn’t forget that Alice
worked for Candice, who was in a relationship with Agnes who in turn was best
friends with Monica. And more and more, it seemed that Monica was the one
pulling the strings, not only as Jordana Munk in
Tennis Nurse
but also
in the real tennis universe. Bernadette had mentioned this and Larissa had
confirmed it.

“Oh, but everyone knows you are writing
your thesis,” Alice said, a bit bewildered. Morgana relaxed. As long as she
could keep the fact that she had access to a top-notch source a secret from the
old gang around Monica, all was well.

***

The scent of being Number One.

Monica had poured herself another glass of
the very delicious, home-made Pimm’s, took a seat on the terrace and overlooked
the crowded garden.

The question had seemed quite random when
Gabriella had asked her in Eastbourne, but Monica knew better. That particular
scent was in the air constantly. Every player dreamed of reaching the top spot
in the rankings, at least they all did in the beginning of their careers, when
they were young. It was a place in the clouds, and during their quest to get
there they traveled around the world, from east to west and back again, they
faced giants and snakes, suffered pain and overcame injuries. However, after a
couple of years most of them were forced to realize that they were only Top 50
material, or even stuck in the Top 100. What then?

Did they content themselves with what they
had – even as a Top 100 player you could earn a decent living – or would they
rebuild and try and try again to climb the rankings to get to their Shangri-La?
When did you stop being hungry? When did you get tired and cease to sniff the
air for that special scent?

“There you are.” Candice’s head popped up
from under the terrace balustrade. She stepped up the stairs, followed by Agnes
and fellow Frenchwoman Alice Chevallier.

“What have you found out?” Monica asked Alice.
She moved her chair so the others could sit down next to her at the table.

“Nothing, I’m afraid,” the young Parisian
said. “Morgana received me in the living room, and she didn’t talk about her
source.”

They all let out a collective sigh. There wasn’t
much they could do but wait that Morgana revealed the name of her new source.
Alice seemed to be a good double agent in this game as Morgana herself had
engaged her to take care of different research assignments.

“Keep sharp,” Agnes said, patting Alice on
the back. “One day perhaps you can take a look at her notes or even get a
glance at her e-mails. We need this name.”

Alice nodded dutifully. Candice’s young
assistant had no idea why the older women were trying to find out what Morgana
was up to but she hadn’t asked either, Monica realized. Either she wasn’t
curious or she was just playing along hoping to find out what was going on
while working on the task.

A loud bang made them look up. At the end
of the buffet table that was visible from the terrace they could make out a
minor entanglement involving several bodies and cutlery. Someone had pulled
down the silverware and was now lying on the ground. When the three people got
up Monica had to giggle.

“Lulu,” she snorted. “With the Spanish
poodle.”

Rafael scurried around, helping the other
woman up – it was Tamara Parova – and then Lulu. Tamara dusted off her dress,
then approached the terrace, while her team members had gathered around her.

“What happened?” Monica could hear Tamara’s
coach ask, while they ascended the stairs.

“She’s drunk!” Tamara fumed, wildly
gesticulating with her arms. “I wanted to snag the last crab salad when
suddenly Lulu elbowed her way to the buffet table and pushed me aside. I fell
over and she fell, too. All the crabs landed in the flower bed.”

The Russian almost cried. She wasn’t
exactly sober herself, but one look at the buffet confirmed that ‘drunk’ was
quite an understatement for Lulu’s condition. The young American had shaken off
Rafael and was now dancing across the lawn, swinging her arms and singing more
loudly than the music.

“She will fall into the bar table,” Agnes
mumbled with a frown. They all watched Luella pirouetting her way to the other
side of the garden, flabbergasted at her loss of control. Before Lulu barged
into the Pimm’s bowl, Rafael was there to catch her.

“Leave me alone,” Lulu yelled at the
Spaniard. “I want to have fun.”

With a surprisingly deft movement, she
grabbed three glasses and walked into the middle of the garden. By then
everyone had retreated to the edges.

As a tennis player, a big part of your
off-court training focused on hand-eye-coordination, and even in her groggy
state Luella’s abilities were stunning. With shaky knees but amazingly
controlled hands, she juggled the glasses high into the air.

The colorful lights in the sky made the
tomfoolery perfect.

***

Loud clamor was spilling over the high
hedge. Something was going on at one of the garden parties, perhaps a couple of
houses down the street. The screaming turned into feverish commands, a door was
slammed.

Inside the wall of hedges there was
silence. The sun still peeked over the western side of the bushes, throwing
orange diamonds onto the pool water. Gabriella rolled onto her right side and
moved one hand over Sasha’s stomach. Her skin was warm and Gabriella slowly let
her finger circle around Sasha’s navel. Soon they would have to get up from the
teak divan and go inside, as the nights could get quite chilly in Wimbledon.
But for the moment they could lie here and let the last rays of sunshine tickle
their toes.