Open Court (3 page)

I place my tennis shoes an inch from the baseline. Holding a ball and racquet, my hands are side by side. Slowly I separate them. As the ball floats upward, I move my racquet back. In one seamless motion my feet leave the ground and I force the strings to make contact with the yellow ball. My entire body, every cell in my body, hits the ball and brings it to life as it crosses the net.

…
thump
…

I open my eyes to see if it was positioned in the service court the way I intended. It was.

That's my typical practice: focused, intense, exhilarating.

But today as I unloaded my gear, the court looked amiss, as if it'd doubled in size. I wasn't sure why, but I felt different, too, like I'd shrunk a few inches. No matter. All I had to do was step to the baseline and invite the excellence in. I'd done it a million times. Racquet in my grip, I let the calm pour over me like water. Squeezing a
Penn ball in my left hand, I made my muscles contract in sync with my heartbeat. I waited for Trent's voice to bubble up from my guts and into my head to guide my shots.

Hmmm … I couldn't hear him for some reason. I stopped squeezing the ball. And waited. I quieted my breathing. And waited. Still, my guts weren't bubbling. Hmmm. I closed my eyes, bowed my head slightly, listening … listening … I felt a light rumble, mumble, in my belly. It was Coach's voice, finally, but the volume was so low I couldn't decipher his commands. Hmmm.

I bounced up and down, waking my feet. Quickly I tossed the ball and slammed my racquet into it. Out. Anyone can mishit. No big deal.

Again. Toss. Slam the ball. Out.

Come on, Hall,
I told myself.
If s a serve to no one. Get it right!

Again. Toss. Racquet back. Extend racquet. Hit it lightly. Nice and easy. Can't miss this one.

But I did.

Trent's voice is a part of my game. Makes me win. My guts churned, writhed, twisted. I felt light-headed.

“Trent?” I said weakly.

Fear exploded in my belly. The court spun around and around. Bile backed up in my throat. Dropping to
the court, I put my palms on the green surface, hoping to regain balance. Suddenly the thought of Bickford Tennis Academy seized my brain and scared the bejesus out of me.

I tried shaking it off. Maybe I was sick. Maybe I had the flu or food poisoning. Damn ham sandwich.

“Trent?” I said softly. The small mumble of his voice ceased altogether, choked by my fear.

I shoved my gear into my bag, sat with my back against the fence, and waited for Michael and Brad. I knew I couldn't tell anyone about this. If I did, it'd probably freak them out big-time.

E
ve Jensen's house is two blocks away, an easy jog downhill. It's a redbrick house landscaped with an aspen tree and barrels of spring flowers, identical to the rest of the houses along Wynkoop Drive.

Eve's parents are divorced, and with just her and her mom living there, her house
is
filled with lace curtains, flowery comforters, and rose potpourri. Void of sports equipment, dirty socks, and ESPN, it's nothing like my house. Her mom works, so we have the house to ourselves five days a week.

Eve Jensen has been my best friend since our first day of kindergarten. We just hit it off. We're complete opposites, though. With her sturdy frame, blond hair,
and eyes the color of the sky, she looks like an export from Norway. Aside from her light coloring, her face is largely about her nose and its four freckles, which she detests. My hair is the color of mud, as are my eyes. I'm tall but thin. My mom calls me a wisp of a girl.

Melissa opened the screen door. “Hey, Hall, what took you so long? Eve's making cookies.”

“I got here as soon as I—oh no …”

Melissa took a handful of cookie dough and smeared it down my bare arm, slightly petrified of the retaliation she'd face.

“Want some?” she taunted innocently.

Sometimes we made cookies the normal way—with an oven—and sometimes we didn't. The batter was inexplicably better than the baked cookie. I scraped dough from my arm, kneading it, deciding who to ambush. Inside, doubled over with laughter, Eve was an easy target.

“Think it's funny, do you?” I lunged toward her.

“No, no, nooo …” She tried to run.

“Ha!” I slapped a generous helping on the back of her sunburned neck. “Got you!”

But Eve quickly held her hand out, knowing I'd back into it, and coated my leg with mush. “Agg!”

Eve got hysterical with laughter. Hyena screeches echoed through the kitchen.

I nodded to Melissa. I started chanting, “Attack, attack, attack!”

“Attack, attack, attack!” Melissa joined in.

I emptied the bowl of cookie dough. Grinning, with two handfuls of ammunition, I took revenge. Eve backed up, cornered by the couch.

“No, no!” she wailed. “Stop!”

Her cries were in vain. Melissa fell to the floor, face purple with laughter, grateful it wasn't her. Eve responded as if tortured. “I'm gonna pee, I'm gonna pee!”

It was a popular phrase for Eve whenever things got tense. I considered it an accomplishment any time I managed to squeeze those three words out of her.

“I'm gonna pee …
I'm gonna pee!”
she screeched.

I wished for the moment she would lose control and spontaneously pee. That'd be a riot. She hadn't yet, but there was always hope.

I was both sucking some cookie batter from my thumb and dislodging a chocolate chip from my thigh when Polly bounded through Eve's screen door.

“You made cookies without me?” she said, surveying the damage. “No fair. Chocolate chip is my favorite.”

“Sorry,” Melissa said. “Maybe next time.”

Polly nodded. “That's what I get for being late. Oh, guess who rode past me on their bikes.”

“Who?” Eve asked.

“That guy you all love, Luke Kimberlin, and his friend, urn, that Bruce Weissman guy.”

Luke Kimberlin was the Greek god our thirteen-year-old existence revolved around. Polly had been sufficiently filled in on the saga.

“They did not,” I said.

“Oh yes they did,” Polly sang. “I saw them.”

“Did Luke talk to you?” I asked.

“No,” Polly said, “but he almost looked my way.”

“Almost doesn't count,” Eve said, touching the end of her nose, covering three out of four freckles.

“Where does he go to school again?” Polly asked.

“Westland Prep. It's a fancy private school,” I said. “So Luke is gorgeous, smart,
and
rich.”

“He got suspended from Westland last month for spraying cans of whipped cream onto the vice principal's new car. It stained the paint,” Eve said.

Polly fluffed up her bangs and pushed them out of the way. “He
did not.
“

“Yes he did,” I said.

“Now I'm hungry for an ice cream sundae,” Melissa announced. “With whipped cream.”

We burst out laughing.

Polly looked enviously at the cookie dough I ate. “Really, you should've waited for me,” she moaned, still upset.

Melissa scraped some spare dough from the bowl and smeared it on Polly's arm. “There you go,” she said.

As we gathered in Eve's kitchen, Polly turned to me and asked the question that everyone eventually asks. “What's your real name?”

“Hall is my real name,” I sighed. “Actually, Holloway.”

“Holloway
Louise
Braxton,” Eve helped.

“Everybody calls me Hall.”

“Hall,” Polly said, like I was a thing, not a person.

“You know, kitchen … living room … hall.”

“It's a family name,” Eve said in my defense.

Polly winced lightly. “I like it,” she lied.

“You don't have to like it. Sometimes it even gives me a headache, and it's my name,” I said, yawning.

“Her name should be Foghorn, she snores so loud,” Eve said.

Polly laughed. “Maren snores so loud her boyfriend has nightmares of a train running him over. He's got sensitive ears. Last week my brother, Teddy, and I had the TV on so low we practically had to read David Letter-man's lips and it still woke him.”

“Who is Maren?” I asked.

“My mom,” Polly said. “Somehow ‘Mom’ doesn't fit her.”

“How long has your mom been dating the guy?” Eve asked.

“Since New Year's. Maren was at a party, and Pete— that's his name—Pete spilled punch on her shoes. When midnight came around he said the least he could do was kiss her. Isn't that romantic?” Polly gushed.

“Enough chitchat,” Eve said. “Are we bike riding or what?”

It was no surprise that while I still had hunks of dough on me, Eve looked freshly scrubbed. She did everything fast: walking, eating, sucking cookie dough from her elbow. She liked being first.

“It's two o'clock,” Polly said. “Gotta go to math camp. Sorry.”

“We'll walk you,” I said.

Eve groaned.

We escorted Polly three blocks to the decrepit bus stop. Eve kept our pace brisk, walking a half step ahead while attempting to rub the freckles off her nose.

Polly offered us a weak smile as she scaled the bus steps, as if it was OK she had to spend her summer doing math problems while we remained free. Could
anything be worse? She was a good actress; I had to admit it. She tapped the window, saying goodbye.

Once the bus pulled away the dissection began. Polly was our newest friend; her peculiarities were fair game.

“She calls her mom Maren?” Eve said, wiping sweat from her brow. “What is she, thirty-five?”

“That's nothing,” Melissa said. “I was at her house yesterday. Her mom said the f-word, like, five times.”

“Her mom?” I asked.

“Her mom,” Melissa said, “said that and a whole lot more.” We'd reached Melissa's driveway. She stopped. “I can't ride bikes, either. Got a piano lesson.”

“See you later, then,” Eve said.

“Bye,” Melissa called, and cut across her lawn.

I felt I was in a race—one I hadn't agreed to participate in. This was often my feeling with Eve and bikes. If she walked a half step ahead, she biked a full wheel ahead. She liked speed. Still, riding bikes was my favorite part of our friendship. We didn't have to talk all the time.

We rode in sweeping circles, spiraling under the sun. “We've got to find some shade—I'm cooking on this asphalt. How about the horse stables? That whole street has tree shade,” she said.

She'd taken horseback-riding lessons there last summer and liked biking there ever since.

“Go for it,” I said.

Eve sprinted out in front, face against the hot breeze. I let her lead the way; I didn't have a choice. If I led, she pedaled so fast her front tire continually bumped my rear wheel, causing her to apologize for twenty blocks.

Despite her natural agression, Eve disliked any kind of organized sports. A bike ride was one thing, but actual games with rules and regulations bored her immensely. That, more than anything else, was the reason she was my best friend. She cared nothing about my tennis game. Because she never asked about it, I was able to get away from it completely when I was with her. She was my one respite, oasis, haven from the sport.

I wondered if my former doubles partner, Janie, would've kept her sanity if she had a friend like Eve.

We rode for nearly two miles. She stopped under the first oak tree in a row of twenty, near the dirt entrance of the stables. I raised my hair off the back of my neck, fanned my face.

“So,” Eve said, “now that Melissa isn't here … What do you really think of Polly?”

“I like her. Don't you?”

She shrugged. “She's OK, I guess. Nothing special.”

I was struck. “Nothing special? That's it?”

Eve rested her foot on her pedal. “Well, she's not you. And she's not me. It could be worse—her clothes match, so at least she's not Melissa.”

“That's true. She's lucky, though, seeing Luke like that. I wish I could accidentally stumble upon him that easily.”

“Yeah, that's really not fair. We had dibs on Luke first. Even Melissa would have dibs on Luke before Polly!” Eve said sarcastically. “Hey, want to swing by my house and get a drink? Even this shade is hot.”

“Sure.”

Eve turned her bike and pedaled, with me right behind.

It was dinnertime when I finally headed back up Wynkoop Drive to get home. As I crossed the street I saw Luke Kimberlin and Bruce pedaling their bikes toward me. Luke's wheels slowed. His shirt clung to his chest. He looked me straight in the eye. I was sure of it. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but only air came out.

“That was the one,” he said to Bruce as they passed. “What do you think?”

He was talking about me! I was the one. I had to be the one; no one else was on the street. What was I the one of? The ugly one? Stupid one? I wasn't sure. My heart was in my throat. Sailing down the street, their bikes, like magic carpets, safely transported them from my view.