Love Game - Season 2012 (17 page)

“I’m sure it will be great,” Mint said
quietly. She needed to get out of the noisiness. Leaving her flabbergasted
friend in the middle of the lawn, she made her way to the exit.

***

“Hurry up!” Tom said impatiently and
gestured Ted to follow him. They rushed down the fire staircase and Tom
explained what had happened.

“I saw Anastasia,” he panted, taking two
steps at once. “I’m on the balcony to take a last look at the skyline when I
see a movement down in the garden. A couple of girls are swimming in the pool
and then vanish inside the spa cave, and suddenly I see Anastasia coming
through the garden, walking straight towards the pool.”

“So?” Ted asked while running after Tom.
“Perhaps she wanted to take a late-night swim, too?”

“No, she didn’t,” Tom retorted. “I bumped
into her when she left the player party and thought it would be a good idea to
engage her in a conversation and find out a little bit about her relationship
with the girls, but she kept the chat very short, claiming she wanted to go to
bed early.”

Ted sighed and Tom shot him an impatient
glance. Anastasia was the only lead they had so far and even though it was hard
to believe that she was a dangerous psychopath, who knew what was going on
inside her head?

“And then I see her sneaking through the
garden,” Tom continued. “She was clearly following the other players. She is
stalking them, Ted.”

“Wait, a couple of weeks ago you said the
same about Sasha. That she was stalking the Galloways,” Ted voiced his doubts
but Tom didn’t listen. He pushed open the door to the rooftop veranda and
hurried down to the pool.

“I’m sure she followed them inside the
grotto,” Tom whispered.

He got down on his knees and elbows and
began crawling along the basin into the dark cave with Ted close on his heels.
Suddenly Tom stopped, causing Ted to bump into him. Anastasia was swimming
through the basin towards the other girls who hung onto the pool’s edge and
treaded water. In the blue and green darkness Tom could make out Michelle’s
graceful black body and the heads of two younger players, Chili and Teresa.
When Anastasia was halfway through the pool, they saw her and waved.

“Stalking, my ass!” Ted hissed behind him.
“She was just late for the pool party.”

Michelle glided into the water and with a
couple of strokes she swam towards Anastasia in the middle of the pool. Ted and
Tom crouched behind a couple of fake rocks as Michelle came closer, but the
Dutch player was only focused on the chair umpire.

“Oh,” Ted and Tom whispered in unison as
Michelle and Anastasia kissed.

Tom turned to his boyfriend. “Michelle is a
lezzer?”

Ted nodded. “Didn’t you know?”

Tom shook his head.

“She used to beard with Marc Lewinski, who
worked as her hitting partner,” Ted explained. “I had a brief affair with him a
couple of years back, but he’s not back on tour with her again as she’s only
playing doubles this year.”

The two girls retreated into a small cave
and Ted and Tom were only able to make out their moving bodies.

“I think they are having sex!”

“No, I don’t think so. I can see their
hands,” Tom mumbled.

“Good point.” Ted chuckled. “Imagine a
lesbian breaking both her hands. Poor girls. They really lack a little
something.”

“They compensate for it with other
talents,” Tom grinned and pointed to Michelle who slowly kissed Anastasia’s
neck, working her way down until she vanished under the surface.

“Oh my god. She’s giving her an underwater
blowjob.”

“I don’t think they call it a blowjob.”

“Oh, shut up Mister Smartass who knows everything
about lezzie sex!” Ted hissed, then tugged Tom’s pants. “Let’s get out of
here.”

“We can’t,” Tom said contritely. Chili and
Teresa had begun to swim laps through the pool, coming dangerously close to the
two hiding guys. They would have to wait for the girls to leave the grotto.

“I wish –,” Tom whispered. He wished he had
his camera with him so he could take a few pictures. He would have loved the
thrill of it. But then he remembered that this was how the trouble had started
in the first place – with the pictures,
30 Love
and the illusory idea
that all the gay players should come out at the same time.

Lying there they decided that it was still
more interesting to observe Michelle and Anastasia making out than Chili and
Mint swimming laps, but after a while Ted couldn’t help but yawn.

“I can’t believe we are watching lesbians
having sex. Who would do this?”

Tom grinned. “Straight guys. We are doing
something totally straight.”

They looked at each other. “We can’t have
that,” they both said and started kissing.

***

Sitting at the hotel room desk, Morgana
Doré had been working intensively for two hours on her doctoral thesis, right
now editing a chapter that was focusing on several
Tennis Nurse
characters and their counterparts in the real world. So far Morgana had
successfully detected and outlined hints of who was who in the
Tennis Nurse
universe.

In the last few weeks Morgana had summoned
dozens of articles from the archives of tennis magazines which had been popular
in the 1990s. In the evenings she had found parallels between the playing style
of the players, important matches and events off-court, and scenes in several
old
Tennis Nurse
novels.

Monica Jordan’s character was the Swedish
player, Jordana Munk. If you knew what you were looking for, the connections
between some players and the characters were easy to make. As in Monica’s case,
the names even resembled each other, but there was also an underlying, hidden
reference to the real person behind the protagonist’s name.

Munk was Swedish for monk. Not only did the
English word resemble Monica’s given name, it also was a very good description
of the impression she had made, at least in the first years of her career. A
very early piece had been written about Monica by tennis journalist Hardy Linz,
who first had laid eyes on the promising player in mid-1996. Morgana had quoted
the relevant text passages in her thesis.

“A designation of grim zealousness
accompanies the young player [...] Unseen before in the all-white tennis
landscape, Miss Jordan makes it a habit of taking the court in a shabby hooded
sweater, earning her warnings from the referees, which she shrugs off, and
giving herself the graceless aura of a mirthless monk. [...] She hardly ever
smiles.”

When she had come across the article
Morgana had almost screamed out loud. Mirthless monk. The connection was right
there! The first
Tennis Nurse
novel was written a year after the article
had been published and Monica Jordan had left her first marks on the tour. This
could only mean – Morgana concluded – that the
Tennis Nurse
writer had
read Hardy Linz’s article and had used the image to create the name for the
character modeled after Monica.

But she didn’t want to jump to conclusions
in her argumentation. All this work was merely a foundation. The centerpiece of
her dissertation would be an interview with the author – if Morgana should ever
find her. But why not? She was getting closer and closer to the core of the
Tennis
Nurse
world and to everyone involved in it.

Too bad there was still so much work to do,
Morgana thought leaning over the table. She was completing footnotes with page
numbers and author names – a nuisance, but a necessary part of the process.

The knock on the door made her jump.

“
Mon Dieu!”

Morgana pushed the laptop away from her a
little and got up. These young kids and their
Tennis Nurse
obsession!
She really could relate to the addiction but it was almost midnight. Morgana
shook her head as she walked to the door. Who had complained about the
Tennis
Nurse
trading dinner going too late? Why couldn’t they better foresee when
they would finish their novel and need a new one? It wasn’t that hard to figure
out how long a novel would last, was it?

Ripping the door open she was ready to give
a lengthy lecture to whoever it was who dared to bother her this late at night.
But all her anger subsided at the sight of her visitor. It was a player she had
least expected. It was a player she had read about and, after researching, had
identified as the
Tennis Nurse
character named Daytona Black.

“
Bonsoir
, Morgana,” Bernadette said
with an enigmatic smile. “
Je peux entrer?
”

OUT IN THE BLUE

Madrid, Spain

“What do you mean, you can’t come?” Amanda
shouted. “For the last four months I’ve been running around with a big boner in
my pocket, and you are not coming. Why are you not coming?”

She tromped up the stairs that led from the
main court to the players’ area in Madrid, struggling to keep her racquet bag
on her shoulder while holding her cell phone to her ear.

“Not so loud,” Elise hissed. She ran after
Amanda but the Australian didn’t seem to hear her. It was too late anyway. The
people who passed them threw curious glances at Amanda and grinned widely.

In the players’ café, Amanda threw her
racquet bag on a chair and sat down heavily.

“I knew it,” she moaned. “I knew this was a
bad idea from the start.”

Elise sat down as well and patted Amanda’s
hand.

“Natsumi’s not playing Madrid,” Amanda
explained. “She pulled a muscle in Estoril and will skip Madrid and Rome.
She’ll play Strasbourg. We’ll have to keep the woodpecker until the French
Open.”

“Well, we will see her in Paris and give her
the thing there,” Elise tried to console Amanda. “It’s probably better.”

“Why is that better?” Amanda retorted,
looking Elise over suspiciously. “Don’t you want to get rid of it as soon as
possible?”

“Of course,” Elise said quickly. Even
though she wasn’t so sure about that. To her embarrassment she had to admit the
mara
fascinated her. Sometimes she took it out of the box, inspected it
and examined the carvings when Amanda wasn’t around. By now she was pretty
certain that it had not only been a ritual item in a shrine but that perhaps
some hundreds of years ago a person had actually used it. The little hole in
the bottom suggested that the
mara
had been attached to something – or
someone.

Elise looked up. Amanda was still eyeing
her with a questioning look.

“Why is it better to give her the
woodpecker in Paris?”

Amanda had begun to call it the
‘woodpecker’ as a code. The name didn’t help to get rid of the ideas that more
than once had crept into Elise’s head. She gulped and quickly pushed the
thought of the dildo to the back of her mind.

“Since I left the box in the fish tank it’s
a bit damp and it smells moldy,” Elise admitted remorsefully. “It didn’t really
have a chance to dry completely because I carried it in a plastic bag.”

“Oh dear,” Amanda said, burying her face in
her hands. “Natsumi will kill us if this thing rots. Unless we kill her first.
This really is no longer acceptable.”

She clenched her fists.

“What do you want to do?” Elise asked.

“How about a little journey to Strasbourg
after Rome?” Amanda grinned. “We could rent a car and visit a few cities on the
way to Paris. We’d still be in Paris early.”

Elise considered it. They had both decided
not to play any tournament the week between Rome and the French Open, but
instead arrive early in Paris and practice on the tournament courts. Unless one
of them made the semifinal or final in Rome, they had three or four days for
some quality time alone on a romantic road trip. Also, taking a car meant that
they wouldn’t have to deal with airport security and the recurring panic
whenever they witnessed the wooden box disappear into an x-ray machine.

“I’m in,” Elise said. “It’s a bit crazy but
I love the idea. Let’s do it!”

They gave each other a high-five and Elise
could see the relief in Amanda’s eyes. Soon the dildo would belong to Natsumi
again.

***

With deft feet Lynn stepped down the little
ladder of her umpire chair, checked the court one last time and walked to the
exit in the corner. She had umpired a good match between Gabriella Galloway and
Gemma Heffington.

“Oh, I hate it,” she heard someone say
vehemently when she entered the tunnel. Ted Curry was standing in front of the
glass door which led to the players’ area. With one hand he was holding on to
Tom Richardson, the WTA photographer, so he could pull off his shoes without
falling over.

Lynn had seen Tom on court taking pictures
of Gabriella and Gemma. He was a really nice guy to give Ted a hand, Lynn
thought. The British player had probably just finished his match on a different
court and was heading back to the locker rooms.

“It’s everywhere,” Ted hissed. “It’s
slippery. It’s unnatural. It’s blue!”

Lynn had to chuckle. The Madrid
tournament’s innovative introduction of the shiny azure clay hadn’t been met
with a lot of enthusiasm by the players. Some eyed the newly-colored clay
suspiciously, claiming that the clay had a different feel and that it was hard
to move safely and confidently on it. Others liked the bright blue but felt it
was an unnecessary addition to the tour, as they would all be going back to the
red dust only a week later in Rome.

She greeted the two guys.

“Hey Lynn,” Tom said and chuckled. “Ted’s
got the blues.”

“He’s not alone,” Lynn said while opening
the door. “But I doubt you’ll have to play on it again next year.”

She winked at the two men and slipped
through the door before they could inquire about her remark. From Candice
Crantz she had heard the rumor that the tournament was considering going back
to the old, red surface as the criticism was mounting every day. But this was
still unconfirmed and unofficial, so Lynn wasn’t supposed to talk about it.

She heard Ted and Tom mumbling but suddenly
their whispers sounded excited.

“She’s coming,” Tom blurted out.

Lynn frowned but she couldn’t hear more as
the door had closed. Then it was opened again with a bang and the chair umpire
turned around. Anastasia Stea waved at her.

“Lynn, wait,” Anastasia shouted and hurried
through the hallway. “Are you having lunch now?”

Lynn nodded. “But I wanted to go to the
restaurant across the street not the tournament café.”

“That’s great. I’ll join you.”

Lynn waited for her colleague but couldn’t
help noticing the two guys were staring at Anastasia’s back. They were still on
the other side of the door where Ted hobbled on one leg and hastened to put his
shoes on again, and Tom pressed his nose against the glass panel.

“You have two admirers,” Lynn grinned after
they had turned a corner and were out of sight.

“Ted and Tom?” Anastasia wondered. Then she
shrugged. “Well, they
must
know that they have no chance. I thought
everyone knew.”

“You don’t make a big secret out of it,”
Lynn admitted. “But they don’t seem very clever either.”

Anastasia grinned. “Men usually aren’t.”

***

Their lips were only an inch apart. They
looked each other in the eyes and perhaps whispered something. From her seat in
the corner of the players café, Mint Rickenbacher had a good view of everything
that was going on in the large room, and while eating a plate with fish and
rice, she observed Amanda and Elise canoodling at a table across the room.

They were still together, Mint thought. It
had been almost a year now since Wimbledon and their love showed no sign of
cooling down. Swallowing down a piece of fish, Mint took out her laptop and
gave in to the sudden urge to look through the pictures again. She wasn’t sure
what the appeal was, but the pictures of Antonia and Martina and the one of
Sasha with one of the Galloways were lame, compared with the one of Amanda and
Elise.

There were a couple of other good pictures
of them and for a second Mint considered giving another one to the couple.
There was a shot taken a bit earlier. Amanda and Elise were not yet at the gate
but they had vanished along the little footpath, with Elise holding Amanda’s
hand and pulling the Australian after her.

But then Mint remembered that she didn’t
like Elise and that the picture would probably make Elise happy. Why should she
make that girl happy? The German had everything already. No need for Mint to
overdo it. One picture was more than enough. She closed the window which
displayed the picture of Amanda and Elise taken in Wimbledon. Just in time as
Martina Rodriguez and Antonia Sapore were walking towards her.

“Hey, girl,” Martina greeted her. “How are
you?”

They sat down and dug in.

“Where’s Chili?” Antonia asked.

Mint snorted. “Busy with the TV show.”

Martina laughed. “I watched the episodes
only a week ago. I wish they had something like that for us. It must be so much
fun.”

“Yes,” Antonia said while munching on a
tomato. “It’s a great idea for promoting the younger players.”

Mint stayed silent and shoveled the rest of
her rice into her mouth.

“We wanted to go see a movie tonight,”
Martina informed her. “Will you tell Chili? It’s a Spanish comedy but of course
you are invited to join us.”

Mint looked from Antonia to Martina. Was
Martina serious? Mint didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Why should she watch a
movie in Spanish?

“I’ll think about it,” she said politely
and began packing her laptop.

“Don’t forget to tell Chili!”

“I won’t!” she spat out, causing Antonia
and Martina to look up in surprise, but Mint felt no need to apologize for the
minor outburst or give an explanation. Without saying another word, she turned
around and rushed through the café.

She really should have bothered to learn
Spanish.

***

Gabriella was standing under the
retractable roof of the Caja Mágica and across from the outside courts. Paola
had summoned them to the last court for a new task they had to shoot for
Supersport Channel.

“Gabriella!” someone behind her screamed.
Chili and Gemma were coming towards her, waving their arms. Together they
walked along the courts until they saw the TV crew and Paola running between
the camera and lighting guys.

“Oh dear,” Chili moaned. “I fear the worst.
Paola wouldn’t tell me what we had to do this time.”

“Me neither,” Gemma growled. “But it has
something to do with the blue clay.”

Gabriella glanced over to her comrades.
Both were probably eager to finish the shoot early today as they had both been
knocked out of the tournament already and probably wanted to leave the blue
dirt behind as soon as possible. Everyone she had talked to was looking forward
to playing in Rome.

Gabriella however had a different agenda.
She wanted to stay. Besides the Supersport challenge, her next task was to win
her match, as Sasha had won her match.

They opened the little gate to the court
and stepped onto the blue, sandy surface. In the corner, Paola was supervising
two guys who piled up a huge heap of blue clay while a girl ran around the
sandhill, and arranging little plastic shovels and buckets in the four
directions of the compass.

“The challenge today will be to build the
highest sandtower,” Paola explained to them. “The two highest towers win and
the two winners will have a follow-up photo shoot tomorrow evening with a local
fashion designer.”

Gabriella saw Gemma and Chili exchange
looks, and smiled. Did Paola realize that these two would probably leave
tomorrow morning?

“Who’s the fourth player?” Gemma asked.

“Me,” Lulu said. She had sneaked over the
blue clay and greeted the TV team. Then she gave Gabriella a little nod.

As soon as the cameras and the lights were
set up, Paola called “Action” and the girls dug into the moistened sand, filled
their buckets and stacked the clay blocks onto one another to form blue
columns. While Gemma and Chili started their tower with a foundation of only
one block, Gabriella opted for safety. Even though she was sure, Gemma and
Chili wouldn’t try to win the task, she couldn’t risk a collapse of her pillar.
As there was no time limit, she carefully prepared three heavy blocks for the
basement, then began piling new blocks onto the broad foundation. She also
hoped that Luella’s tower would stand upright for the longest time, but
Gabriella was unable to see Lulu’s progress as her sister was hidden behind the
blue sandhill.

When Chili tower dangerously leaned to one
side the Spaniard stepped away and clasped her hands over her head. The cameras
captured the slow collapse and Chili was out of the competition. Left of
Gabriella, Gemma had already built a very high tower. It was not as lopsided as
Chili’s but it wouldn’t stand for much longer.

Two minutes later Paola declared the
Galloway twins the winners of the blue clay task. Stepping around the heap of
blue sand, Gabriella took a look at her sister’s tower. Lulu too had used a
broader foundation to stabilize her pillar. Smart, Gabriella had to admit, and
very good. Gabriella wasn’t the only one who would stay in Madrid a little
longer. So would her sister. And there was another good chance that Gabriella
could spend two more nights with a very hot Top 10 player.