Open Court (5 page)

“This is fun for you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

I gulped water. Luke drank most of my Diet Coke. A pattern of his teeth marks covered the paper rim.

“I usually practice earlier, but Coach had a meeting. It's nice to have an audience.” I had no idea what to say, so I kept stating the obvious.

We sat in silence, Luke and I: the Greek God and the sweaty girl with the dirty T-shirt. With his feet resting on the bottom bleacher, he strummed my racquet as if it was a guitar. Abruptly he stopped, cocked his head my way, stared at my nose, and finally gazed back across the empty court. I happen to have a well-shaped nose, so it didn't rattle me.

I couldn't think of a thing to say. I knew what to do with a tennis ball—slam the sucker across the court. But
Luke Kimberlin wasn't a tennis ball. Tennis balls were afraid of me. Luke clearly wasn't. His confidence felt dangerous: the way he drank my Diet Coke, the way he sat watching me, unafraid of Coach's bellows. I liked his attitude. I wished it was mine.

“We can go for a swim after, if you want,” he said.

“Oh … I can't, my ride will be here.”

“My sister could give you a ride home.”

I glanced at my watch. “It's too late; my mom's already left by now. Thanks anyway … Luke.” I said his name aloud just to hear myself say it.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Did you say something?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Skittish Helper Guy dragged two sparkly ball machines onto the court. Trent followed, mumbling gruffly.

“Bringing out the big guns now. You're gonna love this. I love this,” I said.

Coach scratched his shaved scalp and glanced around the court until I came into view. “Your father isn't paying me big bucks to watch you sit around with your friends. Get your lazy butt over here or I'll make you run sprints!”

“He's kind of bossy,” I explained.

Luke shrugged. “I gotta go anyway, Holloway. Bruce will be waiting at the pool. I'll see you later, OK?”

I said something terrifically stupid, like, “You will?”

“Hall!” Coach bellowed.

“Later,” Luke said.

I could only smile as I returned to the baseline.

“Why are you limping?” Trent said. “Blisters?”

“My toe. Caught the corner of a chair before practice. Wasn't wearing shoes. Smashed it right in. It aches,” I said, trying to catch a glimpse of Luke through the windscreen.

“An ache doesn't cause a limp.”

“Was an ache at first, now it's more like a pain.”

“Which toe?”

“Right foot. Second toe.” I kicked off my shoe. Luke had vanished completely.

Coach knelt, eyes widened as I removed my bloody sock. He gingerly prodded my naked second toe. “Braxton, it's swollen like a balloon. It's purple!”

“That's what I'm saying. I'll ice it when I get home.”

“Ice?” he said, disbelieving. He ran his finger over it, his touch full of fear. It was a toe, not a bomb. I'd never seen him like this. Maybe he'd been in the sun too long and was delirious from the heat.

I removed my toe from his gentle grasp. “I'll ice it.”

“Can you walk?”

“Walk? Hello? Been running after tennis balls for half an hour, Coach.”

“Could be broken.” My six-foot-three, 220-pound tennis coach looked to the heavens for help.
“Broken, “
he said, gasping.

“It's not broken. I swear.”

“The Cherry Creek Invitational is coming up. You'll be a sitting duck!”

“It's not broken,” Why all the fuss? I played injured all the time. Once when my elbow was the size of a grapefruit, even.

“Wiggle it,” he screamed.

I wiggled. It wiggled fine.

“It's not broken,” I said for the third time.

H
olding my bloody sock in one hand and my sweaty shoe in the other, I hobbled to a poolside table, squinting in the hazy afternoon sun. Compassion got the best of Trent; he cut practice short and bought us glasses of iced tea. He sat with me while I waited for my ride home.

“Well practice an extra hour tomorrow. What a hassle. Braxton, next time put some shoes on or watch where you're going. Trying to give a man a heart attack or what?”

“It'll be fine.”

“I talked to Janie yesterday,” Trent said softly, changing the subject from the pain of my toe to the pain of Janie's mind.

My heart sort of sank. “How's she doing?”

“She's getting better. I don't think she'll be coming home right away. They're trying to find the right medication for her.”

“Oh,” I said.

In addition to being my doubles partner, Janie was my fiercest competition and the only close friend I'd made in all my years on the junior tennis circuit. Trent used to be her coach, too.

She'd trained with Trent for eight months. Eight months of fun, as far as I was concerned. Janie was a goofball, an expert at cracking dumb jokes. She lived, breathed, and slept tennis. On court her apt skills kept me hustling. But tennis aside, the girl hated, and I mean
hated,
her dad.

There are two kinds of tennis parents: the kind I have, encouraging but semi-removed (until lately, that is), and the kind Janie Alessandro had, demanding and mean. Janie Alessandro's father was the scariest tennis parent I've ever seen, and I've seen them all. He screamed constantly. Red-faced. Vein at his temple surging. Ugly eyes bulging. He shouted insults at Janie for minor tennis infractions. It was humiliating.

Trent banned him from practices, claiming Janie's father was “detrimental to her ability to succeed.” He
couldn't ban him from tournaments, though. No father, after spending all that cash,
skips
the tournaments.

“Know what I hate about tennis?” Janie would ask, her voice like a songbird's.

“What?”

“My dad.”

“Understandable. “

Her brow would crinkle. “My brain is gonna explode. I think I'm getting an ulcer.”

“Hang in there,” I'd say. “It'll be OK.”

She'd be eased, her tension softened. “Know what I
like
about tennis?”

“What?”

“I've got the strokes,” she'd say. “I especially like it that one day I'm going to be ranked higher than you—”

“Not likely.”

“—be better than you, leave your butt in the dust.”

“Yeah, right. I'm ranked number four, Janie darling. Four! You're what, seventeenth now?”

“Seventh, excuse you. And quickly rising.”

“Wow, I'm scared.”

“You will be.”

The USTA National Open Girls 14's in Utah last month was where it all went down. Neither Janie's parents nor mine could make the trip, so Trent and his wife,
Annie, drove us. I'd just won my semifinal match and settled into the stands, Trent on one side of me, Annie on the other, to watch Janie grind out her semifinal. Her opponent, Caitlin Stark, was a wily player, but Janie had won their last match.

I always rooted for Janie, but more so that day because if she prevailed, we'd face each other in the final. I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather battle for a trophy.

And then I saw him, Janie Alessandro's father, standing courtside like a stalker, watching Janie serve.

“Oh no,” I'd said, pointing. “Coach, look!”

Just then the lineswoman made a bad call in Caitlin's favor. Janie's maniac father leapt onto the court and threatened to
slap
the lineswoman. All hell broke loose, as one could expect. Out of nowhere, Caitlin's parents and outraged spectators rushed the court as well, yelling and shoving. The umpire was frantic.

Trent said something like, “Now he's done it, the bastard.” Tournament security started arresting people. Standing in the middle of the chaos, Janie somehow got punched in the jaw. No one to this day knows who did it.

When the melee settled, Janie was found passed out cold on the service line, her hand still expertly gripping
her racquet. Trent had to carry her off the court. When she finally came to, she wasn't Janie Alessandro any-more. Tennis pressure had turned her into a basket case. Babbling incoherently, she was unable to make eye contact with Trent, or anyone else. She lost her edge, I guess, along with her mind.

She's housed in a “special care” hospital called Well-springs Mental Health Facility—a loony bin. Janie Alessandro is now a cautionary tale to tennis parents everywhere.

It's happened before—fierce, talented girls dropping off the circuit suddenly, never to be heard from again. I always figured they were flawed in some way. Weak. But I knew Janie; heck, that girl could
play.
If it could happen to Janie Alessandro, it could happen to anyone.

It could happen to me.

I didn't want to go to practice after the Janie fiasco, but Coach made me—said I should take out my frustrations on court, that it would help. It hadn't yet. But I didn't want to tell him that, because then he'd keep talking about her even more than he already did. The only way I knew how to deal with what happened to Janie was to
not
think about her. But I was struggling; lately, Polly's similar personality kept Janie on my mind.

“Janie asked about you. She's curious to know why you haven't gone to see her. Why haven't you?”

My voice wobbled. “I don't know.”

That was a lie. I did know. What happened to her scared the crap out of me, and
I didn't want to see her.

Oddly, I didn't think about Janie when I was on court. It came in small slices, usually when I was alone: the throaty cackle of her laugh, or the baby-blue shoestrings on her tennis shoes, or the image of her pained face dropping to that Utah court popped into my head.

“But you said you were going to. I told your mother we had it all worked out,” Coach said.

I shrugged.

Coach sighed. “Janie doesn't have the mental toughness for the game, Hall,” he said. “She didn't do anything wrong; she just doesn't have the head for it.”

Coach had tried convincing me of it before. But it was a lie. That girl
was
tennis. Tennis balls
worshiped
her. “I know,” I said, hoping we could stop talking about it.

“Janie isn't like you, Hall. You have the talent
and
the head. You're tough. She isn't.”

I shrank in my seat. That killed me—Coach disrespecting her like that. Plus, it wasn't true, about my toughness. He didn't know I was fighting to find his
once omnipresent voice; he didn't know I needed that voice to win. Lately, I felt I was
this close
to becoming Janie.

Coach stopped talking for a while. I moved my chair, getting the sun out of my eyes. We'd solved nothing here concerning Janie. He knew it and so did I.

“And another thing,” Coach said, as if suddenly remembering. “I don't want you bringing people to practice, either. You're here to work, not to show off for a bunch of boys.”

“Show off?”

“I'm not asking. I'm telling.”

“Are you mad at me, Coach?”

“Tennis is an
individual
sport. And I—”

“He's the finest boy I've ever seen. Except for Roger Fédérer.”

“Hmpf.” Coach's body remained calm, hands relaxed on the table, but his eyes were stricken by my remark. Nostrils flared. A general look of
Oh my God
settled into his features. As in
Oh my God
—
she's discovered boys.

This shift happened before my eyes. I was no longer a person to Trent, but a
player.
A valuable prodigy that needed every bone unbroken. Every spare ounce of energy needed to be devoted to hitting a ball over a net, not to
boys.
Boys were worse than broken toes.

But nothing was worse than Janie Alessandro's broken mind. Coach said nothing more. It was the
way
he said nothing more that bothered me. I felt I should apologize. But I was afraid to see Janie, and how could I truly be sorry for liking the Greek God?

T
he doors slid open, welcoming us. They know us here, my mom and me, by name. Employees at Tennis Emporium get a commission on each sale, and for a long time now our salesman, Wesley, who looks like a Ken doll, has had dibs on the commission we generate. We purchase a lot. The commission is high. Wesley loves us. The strain on my mom's face prompts him to give us a straight ten percent discount every time. My mother says he's a “nice boy.”