Not So Snow White (10 page)

It was all she could do not to laugh at herself, Apparently the cocky confidence thing never went away. So much for being the role model Aurora was hoping for.

"I'm sorry you didn't get your chance to give me a shot," Tess told her, never more sincere. "Who knows, maybe we'll get the chance to hit a few someday, just for grins."

Gabrielle goggled. "Really?
"

Now why in the hell had she added that last part? Sheesh. Probably because Max's scowl was permanently etched into his face now. What was it about poking at him that got her going, anyway?

"Oh my God," Gaby gushed, running the words together like they were one big word. "That would be so awesome. Tess Hamilton as my hitting partner, even for an afternoon. I might die right here on the spot." She grinned. "I'm probably embarrassing you. I promise, I'm usually more polished and professional than this. I've met a lot of the great players, and I never gush.
It's just that you, well, you…
"

Tess grinned. "How do you think I felt when I first met Steffi?* She put her hand on Gaby's arm and leaned in, lowering her voice. "I sweated right through my lucky tennis dress before I ever reached the court. I was so freaked out that if I changed clothes, I'd never have a chance to beat her, but how gross was it going to be, walking out onto Centre Court in front of a box full of
royals with obvious pit stains
? Talk about embarrassing."

Gabrielle's eyes widened. "Did you change?"

Tess shook her head. "It made me so nervous I almost fell over doing my curtsy and keeping my arms down by my sides." She grinned. "But somehow I didn't mind so much when I was lifting that trophy over my head." She laughed. "So, thank you for the gushing. I'm flattered. Even if you didn't sweat through your clothes."

Gaby clamped her arms to her side. "Who says I'm not?"

They both laughed and Max finally stepped closer and cleared his throat. It only took one glance at him to know that bonding so effortlessly with his sister wasn't exactly endearing her to him. Which, perversely, made Tess want to try all the harder. She still agreed with Max that she might not be the best role model for his sister, but to Tess's way of thinking, an hour or two wasn't going to hurt anything, either

"We've got the court reserved for two, which gives you about a half hour before practice."

"I thought we had it right now? And a half hour for what?"

Gabrielle looked from her brother to Tess. "I completely forgot to ask you why you were
here. Not to watch me practice?
"

Tess shook her head. "Although I could probably learn a thing or two."

Gaby blushed furiously. "Right," she s
aid, trying for casual cool. "N
ot in this century." She glanced quickly at Max. "So
…?"

Tess probably should have stepped in and made it easy on the two of them, but it gave her a bit of pleasure to watch Max stutter his way through the explanation, especially since he wasn't one hundred percent behind the idea. Or any percent, for that matter.

"This is part of your deal with Glass Slipper. A chance to pick Tess's brain, ask her whatever you want to know about being on tour, that kind of thing."

"Are you
serious?"
Gabrielle goggled again. "Really?" She looked between the two of them, then hooted and clapped her hands together. "Well hell, if you'd told me this was part of the deal, I wouldn't have been such a brat about going in the first place."

"It, uh, it just sort of came together in the past couple of days."

She looked to Tess. "Are you going to be around the whole week I have left at Glass Slipper? Or just today?"

"Today for sure," Tess told her, careful to keep from looking at Max. She was surprisingly drawn to Gaby. She saw a lot of herself in the young girl. "Why don't we go sit on one of the benches and talk for a bit?" Tess motioned to the gate that led to the courts.

"Okay, sure." Gabrielle looked at her brother. "What are you going to do?"

Max managed a tight smile. "Assuming you don't want me hovering, I have some calls I need to make. I'll stay out here."

Tess wondered if his first call was going to be to Aurora.

" 'Kay," Gaby said, already turning to Tess as she finished speaking. "I'll come back out for my gear later. I'm all yours, Tess."

"Right this way, then
." She stepped over to the gate.

They hadn't gone a half-dozen steps when Gaby paused and said, "Wait a second, I'll be right back." Tess turned and watched as she ran back to Max and hugged him tightly. She was too far away to hear what was said, but she saw Max's tense stance relax. The smile that f
ollowed was so honest and affec
tionate, Tess actually felt a little tug in the vicinity of her heart.

Gaby gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek, then bounced back toward Tess with such natural exuberance and energy, Tess felt every day of her twenty-nine years.

She caught
Max's gaze past Gaby's shoulder
. It wasn't so tight or disapproving now. But his smile faded as he stared at Tess, and she found herself wishing she could reassure him in some way that she would never encourage Gaby to do anything rash. So she did the only thing she could think of. She grinned and popped Max a thumbs-up as Gaby stepped past her through the gate. Rather than nod in approval, or sigh in relief, the scowl came back. Tess swore under her breath and rolled her eyes. "Men," she muttered.

"What?" Gaby asked, holding the gate open for her.

"Well, then," Tess said brightly, m
otioning toward the court-
side bench. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about what the tour has been like for you so far. You just turned pro a few months ago, right?"

"Yep, Right after the Australian Open. We decided it was too much to travel all the way down there for my opening tournament. I needed some regular match play, first. So I stayed at home and prepared for the clay-court season. I wanted to make the draw for the French Open if I could. I had pretty good results in juniors, so I got a wild card to Amelia Island."

Tess took a seat and Gaby straddled the bench next to her. "How'd
you do?"

Gaby shrugged and tried to look nonchalant and humble. "I did okay. Quarterfinals at Amelia Island. Quarters over here, too, at the Italian Open."

It was all Tess could do not to snort. God, she was so much like Tess had been at that age. "Pretty good start."

Gaby's shoulders slumped. She scowled, clearly unhappy. "Until I drew Serena in the first round at the French."

Tess smiled. "Bad luck. But at least you got to play one of the stadium courts your first time out. Daunting, but kind of exciting. I missed that match. Which court did you play? Suzanne Lenglen or Philippe Chatrier?

"Chatrier."

"That's my favorite. So what did you think about the whole experience?"

Gaby gave her a sideways look. "My first match in grand-slam play and I'm on a show court with, like, five billion people watching me."

"Something tells me that didn't throw you off much."

Gabrielle fought to retain her scowl. "It was a little intimidating."

Tess grinned. "Don't be modest. You loved it."

"I'd have loved it a whole lot more if I'd played better."

Tess shrugged. "You had a good run coming in, and Serena could have had an off day."

"She played pretty well. First serve percentage was high." A hint of a smile played across her face as she gave Tess a sidelong glance. "I still got her to three sets."

Tess nudged her on the shoulder. "I call that a pretty good start."

"Yeah. I guess
." Her expression smoothed. "I r
eally wanted to do better, It was my first slam. I wanted to stay longer."

"That's good."

"What part?" Now Gaby snorted. "The part where I got wiped off the court in the third set? Or the part where I'd barely unpacked before it was time to head back to the airport?" She sighed and waved her hand. "I'm sorry, that sounded ugly."

"You just sound like an athlete who was really unhappy with her performance. That's the good thing."

Gaby looked up then. "How?"

"If you'd been completely happy with that result, that would show complacency to some degree. Which would doom you, A winner wants to win. Coming in second is losing."

Gaby grinned. "Good thing my brother can't hear you talk like that."

Tess smiled. "Yeah, well, he's not the one out there fighting for every point. You put in a lot of time on your game and so you expect it to be there for you when you need it. I hated losing. Hated it. It was like a personal insult."

"That's exactly how I feel!"

Tess shifted to look directly at her. "But you don't get mad at your opponent. You get mad at yourself. Which makes you work harder on your game so it won't let you down next time."

Gaby sat back a little, thought about it. "I never really thought about it like that."

"So, you came to London early for grass-court season. Play some warm-up events for Wimbledon?"

"One. Birmingham." She rolled her eyes. "I made it one round further before getting the other Williams sister. Fought her to a tiebreaker in both sets, but I couldn't get it to three."

"Still, pretty decent outcome for your first time meeting them. Formidable players, both of them. And Venus on grass is tough. This could be the beginning of a rivalry."

Gaby laughed. "I'm pretty sure for it to be considered a rivalry, I'd actually have to be able to beat one or the other of them at least some of the time. Or even once."

"You'll get there."

Gaby looked a bit dubious at Tess's certainty.

"You think you will, right?" Tess asked.

Gaby nodded automatically.

Tess grinned. "That's what I thought, So why aren't you playing Eastbourne this week?"

"I wanted to, but there was the whole media thing. The press in Europe has been a little crazy. It started in France, when I got Serena to three and ended her streak of not dropping a set. Then I played Venus to a pretty big crowd here and it sort of drew attention. Max panicked and decided I'd be better off taking the time before Wimbledon practicing on my own and getting 'mentally ready.' Like I can't handle a little pressure. I've waited my whole life for this!"

"So you want to come out guns blazing and taking no prisoners, and he wants you to go slower?"

She nodded. "I dominated juniors the past two years. I'm so ready for the tour, I know I am. Because of my age, I'm already restricted in how many tournaments I can play in a year, but he wants to pace me even slower, not have me enter that many events my first year on the tour, and just let my ranking improve gradually. Which is ridiculous. I'm almost seventeen!" She said this like she had one foot in the grave. "Plus he's all worried about the attention I'm getting and that it's going to freak me out." Her shoulders slumped and she looked petulant again. "He thinks I'm a baby or something. I've been playing my whole life."

"What about your coach? What did your coach say?" Tess watched her closely. "Is Max coaching you?"

"God, no. Like it's not hard enough having him as my
brother, mother, manager, and baby-sitter. I swear he'd tutor me, too, if he thought he could get away with it."

"You have a tutor on tour with you?"

She shook her head. "I worked hard the past two years during juniors so I could get my GED early. It was the only way to get him to let me go on tour instead of making me play in college instead."

Tess nodded in approval. She'd done pretty much the same thing. Except for that last part about actually getting the GED. She'd always meant to. She'd finished all of her classes. Well, most of them. But she entered the pros younger than Gaby. The age restrictions were different then, and she'd zoomed up the
r
anks so fast, she'd just never gotten around to it. She'd wheedled her mother into letting her dad and Wade think she'd finished, promising she'd take the test someday. Well, someday never came, her mother stopped bugging her as long as she was doing well on tour, and then her mom got sick and, well, none of that seemed all that important anymore.

"So if your brother doesn't coach you, who does?" She knew the answer to this, of course, but she wanted to hear what Gaby had to say on the subject.

She immediately ducked her chin, then put it right back up again, but didn't quite meet Tess's eyes. "I've been working with Sven Sardoz since right before turning pro. But I sort of lost him after the last match in Birmingham."

" 'Sort of lost him'? Where, at the airport baggage carousel? How do you lose a coach?"

Gaby's lips curved in a dry smile. "Oh, there are a couple of ways. At least, that I've discovered so far." She grinned a little. "You ran through more than a few yourself, right?"

"Is that the kind of role model I am to you?"

Gaby sobered a little, clearly unsure if she'd insulted her idol. "I, uh—"

Tess went easy on her. "I do know how hard it can be to find someone who understands how you see the ball."