Love Game - Season 2012 (35 page)

She looked tired and with a nod she
dismissed Polly.

***

Marieke’s shot went long and Gabriella had
broken for a 4-3 lead. It was a tight match and the struggle clearly showed on
the twin’s face when she walked back to her chair.

Sasha turned the volume to mute when the
advertising started and grabbed her phone. Since their ‘break-up’ she and Jaro
hadn’t been able to see each other again – at least not in public. This was the
only disadvantage of the story Candice had invented for them, as Jaro was her
only friend and the only person who knew about Gabriella.

It was almost midnight in England but,
unlike tennis players, Jaro didn’t have such a tight schedule. After two rings
he answered.

“Hello, darling,” Jaro chimed. “How is
Mission:
Revenge
going?”

“Glad you’re still awake,” Sasha sighed.
She had told him about her plan in a text that morning.

“It’s going great. Gabriella is one set and
one break up.”

Sasha could almost hear Jaro’s brain
rattling on the other end. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t
understood a single tennis rule after two years of posing as her boyfriend and
fiancé.

“She only has to win two more games and she
is into the next round,” Sasha explained further. “From then on she will have
an easy-peasy way to the final. Marieke is the only player in her half who has
ever given her trouble. But not today.”

“So, she is playing great?”

Sasha grunted in confirmation, then looked
up at the TV screen. The players had taken the court again and the Galloway
twin tossed up the ball to serve. It was a great serve – not too hard but well
placed into the corner – and Marieke was only able to produce a short ball.
Anticipating the weak return, Gabriella sped forward and dispatched the ball
with a fine backhand volley into the open court.

15-0.

She loved watching Gabriella play. It was
definitely more pleasing to the eye than watching Lulu play. For months she had
followed the slumping sister’s matches believing it was her lover on court.

Thank you very much, she thought angrily.
Thinking about Lulu or who she believed had been Lulu wasn’t a good idea. Now
she was back to wondering why the twins had played such an evil trick on her.

“Hello?” Jaro was still on the line.

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, of course,” Sasha answered. “I have a
plan. That’s good.”

“Yes, that sounds fantastic, Sasha.” Was
there a slight tone of sarcasm dripping through the phone?

Jaro cleared his throat. “You always talk
about break points and getting broken and so on. Let’s forget tennis for a
moment. Let’s talk about this broken heart of yours,” he said carefully.

Sasha closed her eyes for a moment and
breathed in deeply. Alright, she told herself. That’s what friends were for,
right?

“But I have a plan. I will beat her up in
the final. I will get revenge,” she explained.

“You think this will cure your broken
heart?”

Traitor, Sasha thought.

“Yes!” she answered. “How is your
grandmother?”

It was a feeble attempt to redirect the
conversation. Jaro chuckled.

“She told me I’m an idiot to cheat on you,”
he explained. “I had to promise that I will give my best to recapture your
heart.”

They both laughed. In preparation of the
wedding, Sasha had spent time with the old lady and really had begun to like
her. She hated the fact that they had to lie to her. On the other end of the
line Jaro cleared his throat.

“Back to the Galloways,” he said. “Don’t
you want to find out why they did this?”

“But I told you already,” Sasha sighed
angrily. “They understood that I realized that they were switching matches. You
remember how I followed them around. They found out about it and turned the
tables on me. They needed something to keep me quiet, they found my weak spot,
Lulu broke my nose, Gabriella lied to me – .” Sasha choked on her own words and
began coughing.

“Alright, alright, “ Jaro said hastily to
slow her down.

“I don’t need to know more about them,
Jaro,” she added quietly. “Lulu is blunt and dumb and Gabriella is evil. She is
plain evil.”

In that moment, Gabriella threw her arms
into the air. The muted TV showed her walking to the net to shake Marieke’s
hand. The Galloway twin was beaming. Her dark eyes were sparkling into the
camera and her smile was radiant.

Sasha fell silent. The eyes, the smile, the
hand now waving to the spectators – for many nights they had caressed her and
guarded Sasha’s sleep.

“I need to go now, Jaro,” she said quickly,
her voice already shaky.

She hung up on him without any further
explanation, putting the phone on the nightstand. She turned off the TV, went
to the bathroom and meticulously brushed her teeth. After changing into her
pyjamas, she slipped under the covers and turned off the light. Then she was
ready to let the tears fall.

***

The keys on Morgana’s computer were almost
overheating. The Frenchwoman leaned back and was actually surprised to see no
smoke.

“
Du très bon boulot
,” she said to
herself, reading over the last two sentences. She had just finished a crucial
chapter of her dissertation.

It was time now to go over the previous
writing again – eliminating spelling errors and rephrasing poor wording. But
for the most part she was finished with the first section of her doctoral
thesis.

In over two-hundred pages she had
elaborated her exposition on how the characters and storylines in
Tennis
Nurse
were connected with the real players and their careers. It had been
weeks of hard work, almost incompatible with her tennis schedule, but she had
managed to achieve great results in both fields.

She had fared well in the last couple of
tournaments, probably because the excitement of making headway with her
dissertation had fueled her with energy. Also, two-thirds of her thesis was
finished. Now the hardest part began. She still needed to conduct an interview
with the author. For this she had to find her first.

Sometimes Morgana couldn’t believe her bad
luck. She had almost pinned down the mysterious woman in Eastbourne but didn’t
have the courage to follow her back up the hill. Morgana was sure that her
visit to Brighton wasn’t considered a coincidence by the
Secret 8
. It
had been very unfortunate that the author had noticed her, and in the future
Morgana had to be more careful.

By all means she had to prevent the
Secret
8
from finding out what her dissertation was really about now. That her
topic had developed from a straightforward literary analysis to unveiling the
connection between the stories and real life. She also had to reconsider her
new approach to lending books to the younger players. She was sure that the
move was very inconvenient for the
Tennis Nurse
addicts, and that the
players would talk about it. It had not been wise to inform some of them about
her motives. No, Morgana thought. She had to start sharing with the others
again in order to prevent more suspicion from the
Secret 8
.

Perhaps she should approach the author
directly. Sometimes an unexpected, candid move was the most promising because
it looked ingenuous. Her interest in the novel series was well-known and by no
means she would let the author in on the knowledge she had gathered through her
new source about the
Secret 8
’s misdoings. It was worth a try and it was
on her to-do list for the off-season.

Morgana closed her computer and stretched
her back. Then she called her coach and asked him to go out for dinner. There
was a good restaurant just a couple of blocks down the street. And you couldn’t
say that about every American city. It wasn’t only a way to treat herself for
finishing an important part of her thesis, but also almost a necessity to eat
in a fine restaurant after weeks of American cafeteria food. They planned to
meet in the lobby in ten minutes.

“
C’est parti, mon Kiki
!” she said
into the phone and hung up to dress and get ready, when the cell phone rang
again. It was an unknown American number.

“Yes?”

“Morgana Doré?” a female voice asked. The
woman had to be around fifty perhaps, Morgana estimated.

“Yes,” she replied.

“This is Larissa Perkins,” the caller
revealed.

“Oh my,” Morgana exclaimed. “What a
wonderful surprise! I wanted to write to you later this evening to let you know
that I’ve finished the lion’s share of my dissertation. Your help was
invaluable.”

There was a long pause on the other end of
the line. Then finally Larissa spoke again.

“See, that’s why I’m calling you,” the
woman said. “I have never spoken or written to you before.”

Morgana frowned. “But of course you have,”
she wondered. “We’ve been e-mailing for a couple of months now.”

“I don’t know who you’ve been e-mailing
with but it wasn’t me.”

Morgana blinked. Was the woman perhaps
confused after a long work day?

“But you are Larissa Perkins and you live
in Florida,
n’est-ce pas
? You worked on the WTA tour until a few years
back and now you run an animal shelter,” she stammered.

“Yes, all this is correct, but I’m not the
one helping you with your PhD.”

Morgana felt dizzy. This couldn’t be.
Larissa had e-mailed her pictures of her cats and dogs. Once even a bird. In
her e-mails she talked about her daily duties with the pets. Morgana had
endured reading through all this, for the tidbits of information about
Tennis
Nurse
or the
Secret 8
.

Suddenly she understood.

“Larissa,” she said, toning down her voice.
“Is someone threatening you?”

But Larissa chuckled. “No, no. Nobody is
threatening me. But may I ask you something? How did you contact that other
Larissa Perkins?”

“Someone gave me your – I mean, someone
gave me the e-mail address.”

“Who was that?” Larissa Perkins asked.
Suddenly her voice had a fierce tone.

Bernadette, Morgana thought. She couldn’t
give away her name. Who knew what they would do then? For a second she didn’t
know what to do.

“I was given the address anonymously,” she
lied.

“Is that so?” Larissa wondered and Morgana
swallowed hard. It was better than nothing but Larissa Perkins didn’t seem to
believe her.

“Well, thanks for letting me know that
there is something dodgy going on here,” Morgana quickly said. “I’ll look into
this.”

And with this she hung up. A dinner in a
fine restaurant was waiting, but all Morgana could think about was herself
lying dead on her bed after having eaten a poisonous blowfish.

SERVES AND FOLLIES

New York City, United States

The trading was in full swing. At least in
the middle of the room.

Martina, Antonia, Elise and Chili had
occupied a large table in the dining room of the restaurant and had piled it
with stacks of
Tennis Nurse
novels. They brimmed over with excitement as
there was a new novel out and Antonia had received it first.

She was waving
Tennis Nurse and the
French Kiss Follies
.

“I have to finish it first. However, we can
make a deal now,” Antonia declared. “But I want three good novels for it.”

The others pondered over this proposition.

“What is it about?” Chili asked.

“Yes,” Elise wanted to know, too. “What’s
French kiss follies supposed to mean?”

“It’s the name of a band,” Antonia said
condescendingly. “They get involved in a murder mystery at the French Open and
Jane has to solve it.”

The rest of the table was in a tizzy.
Furiously they threw in the titles of
Tennis Nurse
novels they owned to
convince Antonia to make a deal with them.

Monica watched the young guns and smiled,
but only for a moment. She, Agnes and Candice had taken a table in the corner
of the room. On the other side, behind the loudly trading girls, sat Morgana
Doré. It was the first time this year that she was attending the swap meet –
now scheduled for a late breakfast.

She was swapping books with Amanda who
seemed to have become hooked on the novels again. Everything seemed normal.

But nothing was. After Candice had found
out through Alice Chevallier that Morgana’s source was named Larissa Perkins, they
all couldn’t believe it.

“I will call her,” Candice said and found
out the number of the former employee. They all had a faint memory of the
warm-hearted and somewhat chubby woman. Why should she talk about the old gang?
How would she know details?

She didn’t, as they found out. After
explaining to Larissa the situation she insisted upon illuminating the
situation herself. But when she called again later her answer was confusing.

“She doesn’t believe me,” Larissa had told
them. “She thinks I was pressured to say that it wasn’t me who wrote her the
e-mails.”

And now Morgana was sitting in the trading
meeting as if nothing had happened. What was going on in the French woman’s
head?

Monica leaned over to Candice and Agnes
while keeping an eye on Morgana.

“Let’s go through this again,” she
whispered. “Morgana has a new source who says her name is Larissa Perkins,
former WTA employee and now running a pet shelter in Florida. She writes her
e-mails but has obviously never called her before. Otherwise Morgana would have
noticed the different voice.”

“The question is, who is hiding behind the
Larissa persona?” Agnes threw in.

“And why does Morgana believe someone is
putting pressure on Larissa?” Candice added.

They all looked over to the French player
who was smiling and chatting with Amanda.

“What if we talk to her?” Agnes suggested.

But Candice and Monica shook their heads.

“Too dangerous,” Monica said. “She would
also understand that we have used Alice as a spy and know what she’s doing and
she might conclude correctly that we worry about it, which will give credit to
whatever her source is saying. Because if I’m guessing right we don’t get off
lightly. Why else should she believe that Larissa is threatened. She must
believe it’s us trying to keep Larissa silent.”

Candice nodded. “Exactly.”

“But if we don’t clarify the situation
Morgana won’t ever understand,” Agnes protested with a hushed voice. “If we
don’t at least try to talk to her there is no chance of changing her mind.”

“But what do you want to tell her?” Monica
looked at her doubles partner. “If we tell her that the source was most
probably lying about us, she would ask for proof. And do you really want to
tell her the truth about our little gang? How do you explain two missing
people?”

Agnes swallowed, then nodded. So many years
they had kept the secret. They couldn’t trust anyone. Especially not someone as
intelligent as Morgana.

***

The cab was speeding over the Long Island
Expressway that connected Midtown Manhattan and Queens. The driver was loudly humming
the melody of a song that was playing on the radio while the tires rattled over
the concrete slabs. Gabriella didn’t know the song. She checked her watch, even
though she knew that she had enough time. To be precise, she still had four
hours.

“Getting nervous?” Lulu asked.

“A bit,” Gabriella answered with tight
lips. In fact, she was nervous as hell.

“Want to go through the game plan again?”

Gabriella nodded. In the last two days they
had been sitting together for hours and hours in a little coffee shop in the
Upper East Side and had worked on a foolproof game plan. Foolproof, because it
was simple. And simple, because the plan only had one intent.

“Alright,” Lulu began. “What do you want to
achieve?”

“I want her to look at me again, to see me
like she did before.”

“Good, because you haven’t changed and your
feelings haven’t changed.”

Gabriella nodded again.

“So, that’s what you want her to
understand. That you still love her,” Lulu added.

Gabriella sighed. “Yes, of course. But
about twenty-thousand people are watching.”

“They are watching the U.S. Open final,”
Luella clarified. “I suggest you play a little tennis on the side.”

Gabriella wasn’t happy with Lulu’s advice.
“Plus there are a million people watching on TV at home,” Gabriella worried.
They had gone through the game plan a million times now, but the closer the cab
carried them to Flushing Meadows the more unlikely it seemed that Gabriella
could go through with it. Suddenly the plan didn’t seem foolproof but plain
foolish. How would she get eye contact with Sasha while playing tennis, while
twenty cameras and the whole nation were watching her, hoping she could win in
her home slam?

“Flirt discreetly.”

The driver shot them a glance over his
shoulder and the twins grew silent. They turned into Grand Central Parkway and
would be at the site in five minutes. Perhaps Sasha was also there already.
What if they saw each other before the match? What if Sasha said anything nasty
or nothing at all. An angry glance would be enough to make Gabriella crumble.

“I’m not good at flirting,” Gabriella
mumbled.

“Pretend to be me,” Lulu said. Gabriella
looked at her to check if her sister was serious, but Luella winked. “I mean –
really, Gabriella? You were seeing each other for months. You must have done
something
right.”

“You are mocking me!”

Lulu chuckled. “I’m trying to relax you.”

“What if she doesn’t even look at me?”

“Make her look at you,” Lulu answered
matter-of-factly.

And that was basically the game plan. Make
Sasha look at her. Then look her in the eye and let her know with a flutter of
the eyelashes that Gabriella was sorry, that she loved Sasha and that she
wanted to be with her again.

Simple. Foolproof.

“Foolish,” Gabriella whispered, looking
away from Lulu and outside the window.

At the end of the street she could make out
the huge stadium which she would enter in a few hours to play the match that
could change her life. It always reminded her of a huge spacecraft, with the
stadium lights over the stands being antennae and the red building underneath
the command center. Perhaps it would take off with her and Sasha and carry them
to a lonely planet where they could live happily ever after.

“Yeah, right,” Gabriella muttered to
herself and shook her shoulders to get rid of the ridiculous thought.

Basically the plan was to try. What could
she lose anyway? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Or to speak in tennis terms –
love.

***

“Just a wonderful achievement for the
American so far,“ Hugh Andrews exclaimed. “Didn’t succumb to the pressure of
playing in front of her home crowd like so many before her.”

Gabriella had just hit a full-paced
on-the-run forehand down the line. Sasha Mrachova had no chance of getting it.
The camera review showed the twin throwing a long look over the net to her
opponent while the American spectators rose to their feet. Then Gabriella
walked to the baseline, getting ready to serve again. It was 4-4 in the second
set and neither the American nor the Czech player had taken the chance yet to
break the other’s serve. An ace put Gabriella in the lead for 40-30.

“Great serve,” Hugh whispered with
admiration. “Serving an ace when it matters.”

Sam Watts nodded even though the TV
audience couldn’t see. “She loves the pressure. That’s the most impressive
insight from this tournament. She could have succumbed to it easily after her
Wimbledon win, like her sister did last year here in New York.”

“She’s definitely a fighter,” Hugh added.
“And we are witnessing a rivalry in the making. Two Grand Slam finals, both
with young American Gabriella Galloway and veteran Czech Sasha Mrachova. Unlike
the Wimbledon final this match is much tighter. Mrachova has adjusted well to
the American’s tricky game.”

Walking to the other side of the baseline
the American caught the balls thrown to her by the ball boy.

“Galloway is one point away from taking a
crucial lead,” Sam explained to the audience at home. “If she makes it 5-4, the
Czech veteran must hold serve to stay in the set and the Czech has showed a
tendency to struggle on her serve when it comes to important games.”

The two commentators watched Gabriella hit
a serve into the middle of the service box. The ball was bending towards
Sasha’s body and the Czech had a hard time getting around the ball and hitting
it back. The ball went high into the air but looked like it would land in
Gabriella’s half of the court, so the American rushed forward to hit it back
into one of the corners. Sasha had retreated behind the baseline, then decided
to go left. Looking into the sky, Gabriella smashed the falling ball – into the
left corner. With an inch of her racquet Sasha reached the ball, and again it
went up. Gabriella waited for it to fall down, then she hit it into the left
corner again. But once more Sasha anticipated correctly and this time she was
in a better position to hit the ball. With a scorching backhand she send the
ball past Gabriella who was too far away to reach it.

“Fantastic defense from Mrachova and going
for the winner when she has the chance,” Samantha said into the microphone.

“Great match so far,” Hugh exclaimed.

“Deuce,” Lynn Pebblestone announced.

What followed was a sixteen-shot rally that
send the players back and forth over the court and the American spectators to
their feet They were cheering and shouting from the stands. It didn’t matter
that Gabriella lost the point in the end with Sasha hitting a perfect dropshot.
This was great tennis.

“Point of the match,” Hugh shouted. “In the
contest of the year. Here you can witness Sasha’s whole experience as a player.
And on the other side of the net you find a young player full of purpose.
Gabriella Galloway has a plan and she won’t let go. Amazing rally.”

But it also meant that Sasha Mrachova had a
break point. The American had to react. On her next serve Gabriella opted for a
wide kick serve, that bounced high away from the opponent. The Czech had
trouble getting it back and it dropped short behind the net where Gabriella was
already waiting to put it away with a forehand in the corner.

“Back to deuce,” Hugh said breathlessly.

This time Gabriella tried to serve into
Sasha’s body, but the Czech was quicker and sent the ball back crosscourt into
Gabriella’s backhand corner. The American only had time to slice the ball back.
It sailed over the net and Sasha hit it straight back. Gabriella ran but then
the ball caught the net and dropped dead in Gabriella’s side of the court.
Again Sasha had a break point.

Gabriella’s first serve landed in the net
and the second serve was easy to return. Sasha hit a beautiful return shot,
unreachable for the American.

“Mrachova breaks and takes a 5-4 lead on
the American,” Hugh burst out. “The Czech will serve for the U.S. Open
Championship!”

***

The stands in Arthur Ashe stadium seemed
endlessly high. The blue color of the stadium seats was almost invisible as the
final was sold out.