Love Game - Season 2012 (7 page)

“How are you?” she asked. “Have you
processed the loss?”

Oh dear, Ted thought. Carina was quick at
cutting right to the chase. Ted held on to his soda for a little while, counted
five of the Twelve Apostles, then turned to the German.

“Sure did,” he said with a smile. “How
about you? Is your No. 1 ranking in danger?” Carina had lost in the fourth
round, just as Ted had.

She sighed very loudly. “It might be. I
only have two hundred points more than Mrachova, and I have about a thousand
points to defend in the next six weeks. Not a good start for me, I have to
admit.”

“Renard is closing in on you, ready to take
the spot as the best German player,” Ted teased her, glad that the conversation
was no longer focusing on his loss.

“Oh please,” Carina snorted. “She is just
having a nice little run here.”

“Quarterfinal, no less,” Ted said.
Apparently Carina didn’t like Elise. Ted raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say
anything. He didn’t have to either, as Carina was just gathering speed.

“I can’t see her reproducing this for very
long. She is surrounding herself with the wrong people.”

Looking down onto the ocean Carina nodded
to herself. Then she leaned over to Ted. “Homosexuals,” she said, lowering her
voice. The word alone dealt Ted a little blow, but it was Carina’s audible
aversion that made him clench his teeth. Like he would do on the court when he
got angry or faced a break point he breathed in and exhaled very slowly to get
his heart rate down.

“Well, that’s no surprise,” he eventually
said with a casual shrug and turned around to a frowning Carina. “I heard that
82.7 percent of the women players are lesbians. You cannot not hang out with
them.”

“82.7 percent!” Carina yelled, shocked and
confused by the precise figure. “No, that can’t be right, Ted. Most players are
straight. I know them.”

She began counting silently and Ted saw her
fingers twitch. One, two, three. Another one. Finally, Carina spread out her
pinky, then she stopped and looked up. Ted concluded she must have come to the
end of her list of friends.

“No,” she said again, albeit less
vehemently. “That can’t be right.”

“Well, perhaps I mixed up the digits,” Ted
said lightly. “Perhaps it was 87.2 percent.”

Carina gave him a suspicious look and Ted
feared she had seen through his mockery. But then the German reached out her
hand and stroked his arm.

“I can assure you of one thing,” Carina
murmured. “I like men, and I know someone who’s single again and might be in
need of a cheering up.” She winked at him.

Oh dear, Ted thought. He had successfully
kept Carina at arm’s length during the last season and Felicia had been a great
excuse. But he had since ended the little agreement he had with Felicia.
Fortunately for the Australian singer, she had found a substitute with the
speed of light.

“I’m trying celibacy,” he said, giving his
words a weighty and solemn emphasis.

“Oh.” Carina raised an eyebrow and withdrew
her hand. “I completely approve,” she then said. Ted rejoiced at hearing the
disappointment in her voice. “I’m all for celibacy until marriage.”

Marriage. Ted looked down again at the
rocks in the sea.

“I hear Sasha wants to get married,” Carina
said. “She is engaged to Jaro Bradka. She is so in love she even skipped
Brisbane.”

“And the sponsor party in Melbourne,” Ted
threw in, glad that they had found a new topic.

Carina snorted. “Didn’t keep her from
designing a huge brim visor for her own fashion line. Did you see it?”

Ted had.

“It looks absolutely ridiculous,” Carina
continued. “Inspired by elderly ladies in Florida, no doubt. Next thing she
will come up with is a walker with colors matching her skirt.”

For once Ted had to concede a point to
Carina. The visor was laughable.

“Miss Gnocchi!” One of the make-up artists
came running towards them.

“We need you in the makeup van,” the
flustered young man said, shooing Carina towards the transporter which served
as the ad hoc makeup room, and saving Ted from the obnoxious German. Thank god
for homos everywhere, he thought while looking on at the odd couple
disappearing into the camper.

***

On the screen Luella Galloway could be seen
getting ready to serve. She tossed the ball high into the air, brought the
racquet back behind her head, swung it – and hit an ace. Under the applause of
the spectators she went to the other side of the baseline. Another great serve,
followed by a hard-hit forehand crosscourt, winning her the game. It was now
5-2 for Luella in the third set.

Sitting on a bench in the locker room
Gabriella leaned back and watched her sister sit down on her chair. This match
would be over quickly, she knew it. Luella’s opponent was ranked in the Top 100
and had come through the qualifying draw. Even though she had played a fine
match on the whole, she had more or less given up half an hour ago.

A couple of minutes later Lulu stood in the
middle of the court, giving the cheering crowd a regal wave with her hand. She
hadn’t played a great match. Her serve was broken twice in the first set and
she had to fight back from one set down. But she had won the second set and
eventually the match, and at the end of the day this was all that mattered.

Gabriella grunted in disgust. As a Top 10
player Lulu was given a top seeding. She had the advantage of being drawn only
against low-seeded players in the first round, whereas Gabriella could
encounter a dangerous player early, in the third or fourth round. In fact, she
had to play against one today.

Yelena Kovalenko had been sidelined for a
couple of weeks in the fall, losing many points and slipping down the rankings.
But now that she was back at her old strength, her game was far better than her
current ranking suggested. Gabriella knew it would be a tough test, but she had
to stand her ground.

On TV, Luella was on her way to leaving the
court. Kids and even grown-up fans had gathered at the exit and held out big,
yellow tennis balls for Luella to sign. She wisely took the time to leave her
autograph on every single one of them. Before entering the exit tunnel, she
turned around again and waved for a last time to the cheering fans. Gabriella
jumped up and climbed onto the bench beneath the TV. Stretching to reach the
button she put an end to the Luella Show.

Who cared that Lulu won a match? Who cared
that she could do a freaking back somersault on a trampoline? Luella was
nothing but a show-off. She hadn’t won anything big yet. She only had her
name
on the Wimbledon trophy. What’s in a name? She hadn’t earned it. That was all
the difference. It was Gabriella who knew how to win big and tight matches.
That had always been her strength.

But nowadays every match was big, and
unfortunately, also tight. She had not only lost her opening match in Auckland,
but also her second round match in Sydney. Coming into the Australian Open she
had played three matches and had only won one of them. The worst start to the
year since she had begun playing professionally on the tour. But could she
really compare this year with the previous years? She and Lulu had had a huge
advantage, switching matches depending on their opponents’ playing styles. Now
she played every match herself.

Gabriella let her head hang down. She knew
better than to accept such a flimsy excuse. Her bad start had nothing to do
with the new circumstances. She had been playing for herself for half a year
now and she hadn’t had any problems in the latter half of last year.

“Stop comparing yourself with Luella,”
Fredrik had told her the other day. “Don’t follow her game, don’t look at her
ranking.”

He was a smart guy who clearly understood
Gabriella’s motivation behind having her own team, and her desire to rise in
the rankings as fast as possible. She appreciated him allowing her to find her
own way, her own game.

But he couldn’t understand why she couldn’t
stop comparing herself with Luella when she had copied her twin for years and
years. And how could she not follow Lulu’s career when, for both of them, the
goal had been a Top 10 ranking? How could she not look at Luella’s ranking,
knowing that this, in fact, should have been Gabriella’s Top 10 ranking? It was
impossible.

***

The gigantic mouth swallowed people one by
one and Polly was a bit surprised that, when the small group walked into the
gorge, the sun was still shining on the other side of the jaw.

For today Paola had ordered Gemma, Robyn,
Chili and Polly to go to Melbourne’s Luna Park, an amusement center located
near St. Kilda Beach and which you entered through a big, steepled gate made to
look like the open mouth of a clown’s face. Above the mouth entrance, two eyes
greeted the visitors. But they didn’t look friendly or smiley. They were quite
scary, Polly had to admit. She would have preferred to have stayed alone in her
hotel room and read her new
Tennis Nurse
novels, but when Paola had
approached her she hadn’t been quick enough to give a good excuse, and she
didn’t feel like letting the journalist in on her mother’s condition either.
Polly just hoped they didn’t have to engage in anything that involved lots of
chatter or silly activities.

“We will film you riding the roller
coasters,” Paola had explained on the way to St. Kilda. So, Polly only had to
smile and wave a bit. She looked at the darkening sky and hoped it wouldn’t
take too long, so that she would soon be back at the hotel to reward herself
with a whole evening engrossed in
Tennis Nurse and The Lotus Lily
.

They strolled along with the excited
families and followed Paola who led the way to the entrance of the biggest
roller coaster.

“Alright, girls,” Poala said, turning
around to the group. “Here’s the plan. First you go with Lars, who will be
sitting in front of you and filming you. Then you again and this time Lars will
film from the ground.”

Lars, Gemma and Robyn took the lead and as
soon as the train had stopped and the disheveled looking kids had tumbled out
of the cars, they jumped into the front row.

“Come on, hurry,” Chili said, tugging on
Polly’s sleeve. They sat in the car behind Gemma and Robyn and the train
started moving. Polly tried to relax. At least she didn’t have to feign having
fun, as long as Lars was still fumbling with the camera.

“Have you started reading
The Lotus Lily
yet?” Chili asked while they were slowly chugging up the railway tracks. Polly
remembered Chili’s look earlier that day when Mint had given her the novel.

“Yes, I started right away. I will be done
in no time,” she said with a smile. “Do you want to read it afterwards? I could
lend it to you.”

“Would you?” Chili seemed surprised by the
generous offer.

“Sure,” Polly nodded. “I’m always looking
for people to swap books with.”

Chili smiled but then opened her eyes wide
in panic. The train had reached the highest point of the tracks and was
steadily inching towards the first slope.

When they rattled into the abyss, Polly and
Chili screamed in delight and fear. She hadn’t planned on uttering any form of
joy, but after the train had coasted down and decelerated, Polly felt better.
All the worries that had crushed her chest in the last couple of days since the
bad news about her mother had reached her now seemed to have left her with one
loud scream.

Or perhaps it was the free-fall that gave
her the feeling she was still levitating.

“The second time will be even more fun,”
Chili giggled. “I won’t be scared then.”

Polly nodded as they began ascending again.
She was looking forward to the second dip, too.

“Sorry for being nasty this morning,” Chili
said suddenly. “It was way too early for me, and I hate it when Mint plays me
off against someone else. She always does that.”

“Perhaps she just wanted to read
The
Bagel Factory
that badly,” Polly suggested.

“No,” Chili shook her head. “She’s just
trying to keep me at arm’s length. She’s offended because I will be playing
doubles with Teresa for the next couple of months. We want to try and enter the
Olympic competition. I heard you will be playing with Bernadette.”

“Yes,” Polly replied with a smile. She couldn’t
fail to notice the impressed tone in Chili’s voice. Everyone knew how good a
doubles player Bernadette was, and together they were getting better and
better. “Perhaps Mint can find someone, too.”

“See, that’s the problem with Mint,” Chili
said with a shrug. “She always wants to boss you around, even on the doubles
court. But she is not a good doubles player, precisely because she won’t
listen.”

Polly leaned back as they approached the
dip again, and grabbed the handle, still listening to Chili who paused for a
moment, thinking about something. Before the little cars swerved down the
slope, Chili turned to Polly.