Love Game - Season 2012 (11 page)

Predictable, she thought. Going for the
safe serve instead of trying to hit an ace down the T-line. Nowadays everybody
was playing it safe, it seemed. Even off-court the girls were stuck in
long-term relationships. How boring! And a real predicament for the umpires who
played Love Game. Only a couple of years ago everybody was having secret
affairs. Playing Love Game was a gamble and predicting a couple who made it
through the year a real achievement. And lamenting the good old times was a sure
sign that Lynn was getting old, she scolded herself. With a little sigh the
umpire turned her concentration back to the match and watched Natsumi toss up
another ball. This time she hit a hard serve, adding a little slice, so that
the ball bent towards Tamara Parova. Moving awkwardly, the Russian player got
her racquet onto the ball which went high into the air and plummeted into the
middle of Natsumi’s side of the court. The Japanese player rushed forward,
about to smash the ball, but had misjudged the bounce. It went higher than
expected and Natsumi had to jump into the air to hit the ball. The smash went
right over the line, giving Tamara a break point.

“Advantage, Parova,” Lynn said, but her
announcement was drowned out by the collective moan of the spectators as the
airborne Japanese girl had fallen hard onto the ground, clutching her ankle.

***

“Have you packed?” Bernadette asked when
she entered the cluttered room.

“Almost,” Polly answered. She knew
Bernadette was just being nice and trying to take her under her wing a bit, but
her motherly tone bothered Polly. Only her mom was allowed to talk to her like
that and she didn’t like the thought that someone else was taking her place.
Nobody would ever take her mother’s place, no matter what happened. Polly
dedicated herself again to getting a grip on the chaos in her room. A week ago
her mother had been released from the hospital and Polly had pushed the
frightening thought of her mom’s heart condition far away again. Until the next
time.

Bernadette strolled through the room,
checking on Polly’s wardrobe, her racquet bag and her laptop which was still
lying on the desk. It was the last item Polly would pack. It was the lifeline
to home and to a world which – unlike herself – didn’t seem to move at all.

Sitting down on the bed, Bernadette grabbed
the book that Polly was about to pack into her hand luggage. It was
Tennis
Nurse and The Eighth Player
.

“So, you are reading this trash, too?”
Bernadette said. She sounded disappointed.

“I don’t think it’s bad,” Polly replied.
“It’s entertaining.”

“It’s cheap,” Bernadette spat out. She
flipped through the pages, stopping at one point. She opened the book and took
a closer look. Leaning over her shoulder to see what Bernadette was doing,
Polly realized that the older player had spotted the annotations Morgana had
left all over the book.

“Did you write this?” the older player
asked.

“I actually don’t speak French,” Polly
replied while she continued to pack.

“I do,” Bernadette said without looking up.
“Whose book is this?”

“I borrowed the book from Morgana. She has
the best collection as she studies the novels for her PhD,” Polly explained.

“I don’t understand what’s there to study,”
Bernadette grunted, but then turned the page. “Let alone for a university
paper.”

For the next twenty minutes, Polly finished
piling clothes into her suitcases while Bernadette had settled back on the bed
and was reading the
Tennis Nurse
novel. When Polly closed the lid of the
last hard-top case, Bernadette looked up.

“Now you got me hooked,” she said with a
wry smile, tapping her finger on the book.

Polly chuckled. She wanted to remark that
Bernadette had not even started reading from the beginning but Bernadette had
already bent over again, skipping through the pages. Indeed, she wasn’t reading
the novel, Polly realized. She was only reading Morgana’s notes.

“What did Morgana write down?” Polly
inquired.

Bernadette shrugged. “Nothing interesting.
Just her usual
ramassis de foutaise
.”

Polly shook her head, not understanding a
word. She zipped her last bag up and grinned. “Ready!”

“Good,” Bernadette jumped up. “Let’s have
dinner!”

They left the hotel room and walked down
the hallway. When they had come back from Melbourne Park in the afternoon,
planning the last night out on the town, Polly had insisted on taking
Bernadette out and paying for the dinner. Not only was she feeling much better
since her mother had been released from the hospital, but the new Canadian
doubles dream team had reached the quarterfinal in the doubles competition,
where they had beaten the Dutch team of Marieke and Michelle. Even though
Bernadette and Polly had fallen short in the semifinal the good run meant that
she had made a good deal of money at the Australian Open. The first time in her
career that she had earned that much.

When they turned the corner they almost
bumped into a couple of people filling up the area in front of the elevator. A
small woman was directing a couple of hotel boys who were maneuvering trolleys
with bags through the hallway into the elevator, causing a traffic jam.

“What’s going on?” Bernadette asked.

Heads turned toward the Canadians, among
them the familiar faces of Amanda Auster and the Germans, Angela Porovski and
Elise Renard. They all looked distraught.

“Natsumi had to retire with an injury,”
Angela explained. “Looks like she has torn some ligaments in her left leg.”

“Oh god,” Polly moaned. An injury this
grave would cost a player months and months of time spent in rehabilitation.
“Is she in the hospital?”

“Yes, but her mother is taking her back to
Japan for surgery,” Amanda remarked. “Natsumi’s dad is a well-known doctor.”

“It’s probably for the best to go home
right away,” Elise said. Polly nodded but from the corner of her eye she saw
Amanda pouting and shooting Elise a knowing side glance, but saying nothing.

***

Sasha sat down on the chair and tried to
steady her breath. The last rally had been over ten strokes long, and in the
end Antonia Sapore had played a great dropshot. Sasha had run to the net but
hesitated for a split second too long, and even though she had reached the
ball, she had hit it into the net.

She cursed into the towel and pulled it
over her head. All her opponents knew that she felt uneasy coming to the net.
That she would rather dictate play from the baseline. The crafty Italian was
hitting short dropshots all the time, forcing Sasha to leave her comfort zone
in the back. But since the season had started, Sasha’s inadequate abilities in
the front of the court were no longer the main reason she made way too many
errors at the net.

The closer she was to the net the closer
she also was to the photographer’s pit. There they were, sweaty and
expressionless, crouching together, with their cameras hiding their faces and
waiting for her to come closer. The snapping of cameras. It seemed impossible
to her now that she once used to love the rattling sound of it.

These days, every time she heard the
continuous sound of a camera shutter, she wanted to grab her visor and pull it
down further. How could she play tennis with these idiots slobbing around?
Sasha took a deep breath. It had already been unbearable in the other matches
but today it was worse. The photographers were lining up and waiting for her
next error. They could smell the upset of an aging champion by an upcoming,
good-looking Italian.

Sasha clenched her teeth. No longer did she
hold her head up high. She walked with her eyes staring at the ground. She
really couldn’t remember the last time she had posed confidently in front of a
camera.

Under the towel it was dark and Sasha
closed her eyes. When she was a child her father used to tell her a fable about
a boy who had been enchanted by a witch, after he insulted the ugly woman. He
grew a big nose and stayed very small. His own family didn’t recognize him anymore,
chased him away and the boy had to work as a cook. Sasha couldn’t remember how
the story ended. The boy probably had to find a magic herb to break the spell.
As it happens in fairy tales, he probably found a beautiful princess and lived
happily ever after.

“Time,” Anastasia Stea said into the
microphone.

Sasha swallowed hard. She raised the towel
and got up. When she walked over to the baseline, she looked away from the
photographers and down onto the ground. The heat coming from the blue concrete
was unbearable. It crawled up Sasha’s legs and enwrapped her mercilessly. No
magic herb would grow on these grounds. Nothing that could save the dwarf with
the big nose.

LIVING IT UP,

GOING DOWN
                                           

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Keep it safe, Natsumi had said. Don’t you
lose it!

The telephone call had been hurried.
Natsumi had called Amanda from the hospital in Melbourne just before her mother
had picked her up to fly back to Japan. Her Japanese friend had sounded dead
serious. Amanda’s suggestion to mail the box to Japan was vehemently dismissed
by Natsumi.

Don’t you dare send it to me! Keep it! Keep
it safe!

Amanda didn’t understand the reason behind
Natsumi’s vehement instruction, but finally gave in. So here she was observing
her bag with the wooden box inside slowly disappearing into the x-ray machine
at the airport, while she removed her shoes with sweaty hands and placed it in
a plastic tray. When she walked through the scanner it didn’t beep but the
security guards eyed her suspiciously. The guy screening the bags suddenly
stood up and leaned over to another guard. They were whispering. Then they
nodded at a female officer. With a sign, the security officer ordered Amanda to
come with her. Looking around for Elise and her parents, she saw another female
officer grabbing her bag. Elise was nowhere to be seen. The two women
accompanied her into a bleak room and placed the bag on a table.

“Open!”

But Amanda couldn’t move. Her feet seemed
to be stuck to the floor.

“I, I can’t,” she croaked.

“Open!” they demanded again, but when
Amanda didn’t step forward, one of the women put on a pair of rubber gloves,
zipped open the bag and pulled out the wooden box. Amanda felt the sweat gather
on her forehead. She needed to get away.

“It’s not mine,” she stammered while making
a step backward. Then she took another step – and stopped. The other officer
had grabbed Amanda by her shoulders.

“It’s not mine!” Amanda now screamed.

“Be quiet,” the officer behind her purred.
“Be quiet.”

Amanda began to struggle to break free from
the woman’s grip but to no avail.

“Open,” the woman said again. “Open your
eyes!”

Open your eyes? Her eyes were wide open,
Amanda thought. What was going on? The high-pitched sound of an airplane was
piercing through her ears. Amanda blinked. There was Elise staring at her,
shaking her shoulders lightly.

“We are almost there,” Elise said. “You
need to put your backrest up.”

Amanda moaned, but was relieved. She
shouldn’t have fallen asleep. The plane ride from Doha to Dubai wasn’t that
long. “I just had a nightmare. I dreamt that I tried to take – ,” Amanda
quickly looked around to see if anyone was listening to their conversation. “I
tried to take
it
with me in the hand luggage.”

Elise shook her head. “You’re a fool, even
in your dreams,” she whispered with a smile. “But I do wonder how we will get
it through customs here. Do you think they are strict?”

Walking through the baggage claim, Amanda
found that the Emirati security officers looked very strict. Strict and not up
for any fun with big penises. They picked up their bags and headed to the exit.
A big, green sign showed them the way: Nothing to declare. But in the past
their huge amount of bags had often attracted the custom officers’ attention
and it was not unlikely that they would want to open every single bag.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Amanda
blurted out. She tugged on Elise’s shouldered racquet bag to gesture her to
come with her. With Amanda’s loaded trolley they entered the next washroom.

“I can’t go through,” she said, shaking her
head.

“It’s not a crime to carry a dildo with
you,” Elise whispered, but she didn’t seem convinced herself.

“It’s bad enough with an ordinary sex toy,
but this one is antique. There might be a law against importing antique goods
into the Emirates,” Amanda mumbled. “I should have looked that up.”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to split
it up,” Elise suggested. “I take the box and you the dildo.”

“Stop calling it a dildo. It’s a
mara
,
a ritual phallus. Not a dildo.”

“It’s not helping that you are being such a
smartass,” Elise snapped. She opened the wooden box and took out the phallus.
“Here, take it!”

“No, I’m not taking it. I smuggled it into
Qatar last week,” Amanda said. “You take it this time.”

“What if I have to open my suitcase? My
parents are here.”

“That’s actually an argument for you being
the one to take it. They will take one look at you and your parents and wave
you through,” Amanda said persuasively. “You look innocent.”

Elise gulped and looked at the huge
phallus.

“I took it through customs in Doha,” Amanda
reminded her again. “In my pants.”

“Okay, okay, give it to me,” Elise sighed,
stashing the carved wood between her racquets.

Nervously, they approached the customs
officers again. Elise’s parents were waiting with questioning looks.

“They just pulled Luella out of the line,”
Robert Renard said. Amanda and Elise turned their heads and saw the Galloway
twin in a small room next door, unzipping one bag after another while a group
of smirking officers surrounded her.

“Quick,” Elise whispered. “It’s now or
never.”

And through they went.

***

Screw Dubai. Really. Screw it! And screw
the stupid TV show.

Gabriella threw her racquet bag onto the
bed and let herself fall next to it. Why was she even here? She wasn’t playing
the stupid tournament.

As if it wasn’t enough that she had gone
out in the second round of the Doha tournament. How absurd it was to fly to
Dubai for one day – and go skiing?

Gabriella spread out her arms and legs on
the bed. After losing her match, Gabriella and her team had begun to arrange
their travel to Monterrey in Mexico, the tournament she had planned to play
next. But then her phone had rung. Admittedly, she had been stoked when Paola
had called her on short notice and asked her if she wanted to participate in a
new edition of the Supersport show. This was her chance to prove that she
wasn’t just the grumpy sister of a Grand Slam champion, like she had come
across in the last installment of the show. She was a fun-loving, friendly
girl. In her youth she had gone skiing quite often with her family, so she’d
cut a fine figure on the slopes. Also tempting was the fact that Luella
wouldn’t be there. When Paola had phoned, Luella had just reached the next
round in Doha and even though she had lost today’s match she wouldn’t be here
in Dubai until tomorrow, Gabriella had concluded, so the sisters wouldn’t have
to meet.

Freddie had been easily persuaded to go
ahead to Monterrey and take a day off, while Gabriella would pay a short visit
to Dubai. Excitedly she had boarded the plane in Doha. But the short trip ended
on a rather low note – in the customs office of Dubai.

Even though she hadn’t brought any
forbidden items it took almost half an hour to unpack and repack all her
luggage. When the customs officers finally dismissed her she noticed the
voicemail from Paola on her phone.

“We’ve already started shooting. Take a cab
and come to the Mall of the Emirates. We are in the indoor ski hall.”

With a smile the driver nodded when
Gabriella told him the destination. They sped away and Gabriella relaxed,
thinking about racing down the slopes. She hadn’t gone skiing for ages.
Suddenly the cab slowed down. Midway through the Sheikh Zayed Road that
connected the airport with downtown Dubai, a large truck blocked the way. The
cab driver began swearing in Arabic and even though Gabriella didn’t understand
a word, her heart sank.

One hour later she finally arrived in the
large indoor ski area.

“We have just finished shooting,” Paola
informed her. Then she shrugged. “I don’t really know what to do with you now,
Gabriella. We can’t get the ski instructor to stick around for another hour
just for you.”

A ski instructor? Gabriella almost laughed
out loud as she imagined Gemma and Robyn creeping down the baby slopes. That
was great. Gabriella would look great compared with them.

“I don’t need an instructor, Paola,”
Gabriella said. “I can already ski.”

Paola raised an eyebrow, considering the
new information. But then she shook her head.

“No, I can’t let you go alone. You are not
covered by insurance without an instructor. But I have another idea.”

And so Gabriella’s day ended on a plastic
sledge in the Family Snow Park. Screw Dubai. Really.

Gabriella grabbed the hotel flyer on her
nightstand and skipped through their catalogue of activities and services. At
least she could stay in the players’ hotel for one night. Should she go for a
massage? Or for a swim? Then she got up. Today she definitely deserved both.

***

“Alright, ladies,” Tom declared more
enthusiastically than he really felt. “Here’s the list Ted and I have put
together.”

Martina Rodriguez and her Italian
girlfriend, Antonia Sapore, took the paper and stuck their heads together to
look it over. Tom’s invitation had been pretty spontaneous, but the two players
had agreed to offer their time. Tom was relieved that they hadn’t confronted
him again about why he had taken such an indiscreet picture in the first place.
He still felt embarrassed about it, even more so now that the picture had
fallen into the wrong hands. But the two girls sat down on the couch and –
after struggling briefly with their conscience – readily accepted a sugar-high,
induced by the heap of nut-filled
mammoul
cookies Tom had found today in
a small pastry shop.

“That’s a pretty long list,” Antonia
announced while munching the sweet sin. “How do you guys expect to figure out
who the anonymous person is?”

“See, that’s where you come in,” Tom
explained, pointing to the list. “We need to figure out if any of these people
have a reason to harm you or to benefit from putting you under pressure.”

Martina and Antonia looked at each other,
then at the names on the list again.

“Do you have a dispute with anyone on the
list?” Tom inquired. “Perhaps an old affair?”

The two girls looked at Tom, then at each
other again. They hesitated, then they each grabbed another
mammoul
and
stuffed it into their mouths.

“Take your time,” Tom said, realizing that
he sounded like a police officer who was showing mug shots to some witnesses.
Mug shots, he thought. That would have been nice. It might also help the photo
recipients to reanimate their memory. He was making a mental note to find
pictures of the suspects on the WTA site when his thoughts were interrupted.

“Well, it was a long time ago,” Martina
spoke up. “But I did have a little affair with Anastasia once.”

“With Anastasia?” Antonia looked at her
girlfriend, almost choking on her cookie.

“It was ages ago,” Martina said
defensively. “No need to look at me like that.”

She shrugged and handed Tom the list. Tom
moved uncomfortably in his chair. Perhaps it would have been wiser to invite
the girls separately. Who knew what skeletons these lesbians had hidden away in
their closets?

“I’m not judging you,” Antonia blurted out.
“I just wonder why you never told me.”

“Because it was just one night,” Martina
groaned in exasperation. “It wasn’t serious.”

Tom lifted his hand. “Girls, please. No
need to get upset about old love affairs.”

“I’m not upset!” Antonia screamed. Little
pieces of nut came flying towards Tom. He dodged a little to the right. “All
I’m saying is that if Martina had told me that she had a one-night-stand with
Anastasia then I would have told her that, well – ,” the Italian rolled her
eyes, “– that I had a fling with Anastasia, too. Ages ago.”

“Did you?” Martina asked, looking her lover
over. “I’m not surprised. Like myself you have a great taste in women.”

They giggled a little, appreciating their
pre-monogamous love lives and now it was Tom’s turn to roll his eyes at so much
commotion. He cleared his throat to get the two girls’ attention again.

“So you both had an affair with Anastasia,”
he noted, circling the umpire’s name on the piece of paper. “Would she have any
reason to be jealous of you or your relationship?”

Both girls shook their heads. “She never
seemed the jealous type,” Antonia explained and Martina nodded in confirmation.
“She’s pretty easygoing, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I think I understand,” Tom said with
a wink. “We’ll just keep this information in mind. Is there anybody else on the
list you would consider suspicious or capable of pressuring you with these
pictures?”