Love Game - Season 2012

by Gerard, M. B.

  LOVE GAME

  Season 2012

  m.b. gerard

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LOVE GAME

  Season 2012

  by M.B. Gerard

  Copyright © 2013, M.B. Gerard

  For Dory and Stevo

  Shout-outs to Eva and Flo

  Love means nothing

  to a tennis player.

  – Tennis wisdom

  Prologue

  Ballin’ It Up

  In The Air

  Stormy Weather

  Much Ado About Nothing

  Living It Up, Going Down

  Hearts Beating Just As One

  Fishy Business

  Out In The Blue

  Doing The Splits

  Play The Game

  Secrets, Scandals And A Scent

  A Snake In The Garden

  For Whom The Bell Tolls

  Make Up And Break Up

  Barking Up The Wrong Tree

  Serves And Follies

  Diamonds On The Inside

  Moscow Moles

  Late Night Racqueteering

  PROLOGUE

  Peeking through the foam that covered the bathwater Gabriella Galloway’s toe didn’t look like a part of her body. It looked like a wizened gnome who had popped out from a blanket of white moss. If she had reached out for it and tried to catch it, it would have disappeared again, mocking her. She wagged it a little bit until it almost annoyed her, then let her foot sink back into the water and stood up. She needed to get going, pack and make a few phone calls.

  Wrapped in a bathrobe she began arranging training clothes, match outfits, jeans and shirts in piles on her bed. After half an hour her bed looked like the New York City skyline, however a wobbly one. But there was no other space in her apartment for organizing her clothes. Her bed in the bedroom, and a table and chair in the living room were the only existing furniture. On the ceiling a single bulb diffused a bright, cold light.

  In what looked to her parents and her sister Luella like an incomprehensible overreaction she had bought the small apartment in central St. Petersburg and had moved out of the apartment she had shared with her sister. Her parents had begged her to at least get a condominium in a protected neighborhood. But she refused to listen to them anymore. In the last three months she had trained harder than ever before and she had gotten used to being on her own without her twin sister, who was being treated like a star, as everyone believed she had won her first Grand Slam in Wimbledon. After the season had ended in October, the twins had visited their parents’ home, but their old friends and most of the family were only interested in Luella. Lulu received invitations to parties and spent almost every evening out with important people while Gabriella tried to catch up with the few friends who still knew who she was.

  However, in the supermarket, in the cinema and on the street she was mistaken for Luella. It had been terribly wearisome to explain every single time that she was only the little twin sister, and not the Grand Slam winner. What was even harder to swallow was the fact that Lulu was boasting about the win. It was a provocation, and every time Gabriella witnessed somebody on the street who congratulated Luella and had their picture taken with her smiling sister, she wanted to shout out that is wasn’t Luella who had won the final match. That it had been Gabriella who had stood on the Wimbledon Centre Court and held the Venus Rosewater dish up towards the blue sky.

  But she hadn’t said a word. Nobody was ever to know that the sisters had switched matches. Besides that, Gabriella had refused to keep on playing for her sister after Wimbledon. Now she was being punished for her decision by Luella, who was scooping the praise and applause for Gabriella’s effort.

  The day she moved out, Luella had stood in the doorway of their shared apartment with her arms crossed. Gabriella knew what her sister had been thinking. That Gabriella was weak and running away from the challenge Lulu’s popularity had imposed on the sisters’ relationship.

  But Lulu was wrong. Gabriella just wanted to be prepared and come back better and stronger, and for that she needed to be on her own. She closed the lid of one of her huge trolley suitcases, stretched and stepped to the window. Admittedly, the high-rise building she now called her home wasn’t pretty, but if she stood at the far end of her window and looked outside, she was able to catch a glimpse of Tampa Bay. She rarely spent time indoors anyway. The water of the bay was sparkling in the orange evening light. For a moment she wondered what Luella was doing right now but then quickly pushed the thought away. She didn’t want to ponder over her sister. Not anymore. That was over.

  Elise’s dad, Robert Renard, had helped to gather a new team around her, with Fredrik Nordström as her new coach and a fitness instructor who traveled with her to most of the tournaments. Now she felt ready. Not only to wipe Luella’s smirk off her face when Gabriella would surpass her in the rankings and beat her on the court. She also felt ready to get a Grand Slam of her own. She knew how to do it, so she was able to do it again, Gabriella told herself while looking outside the window at the bay. For the first time in her life she was truly independent.

  Yet the thought unsettled her. It was a different independence from the one she had shared with Lulu and which she had cherished for so long. The twins had never listened to their many coaches when they had given them instructions or elaborated a game plan for the upcoming match. They were only pretenses for the sisters’ secret pact. Instead they had decided for themselves who was to play the match and how. Especially Gabriella had become extremely adept at working out the opponents’ strengths and weaknesses and developing a game plan that suited the sisters’ scheme.

  Gabriella squared her shoulders and went to the kitchenette. All this could only help her now, she thought. But she couldn’t shake off nor really put her finger on the underlying tension that accompanied her. She picked up the phone and dialed the number of Kiara, a physio she had met in November, whom she had dated a couple of times and eventually inaugurated the new bed with. They weren’t in love but saying good-bye seemed appropriate nonetheless. They chatted for a while and Kiara wished her good luck for the season.

  After hanging up Gabriella began emptying the refrigerator before turning it off in preparation for the next several weeks. Sitting down at the table with a variety of yoghurts and fruits, and a huge bowl of fried rice, she grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and wrote down a list of goals she had come up with while lying in the bathtub.

  1. Win my own Grand Slam

  2. Enter Top 10

  3. Find a girl who loves me back

  She didn’t need luck, Gabriella thought. She was determined to work for it.

  ***

  Amanda parked the car next to the blue tiled water basin that surrounded the entrance of the building like a shallow moat. A couple of fish crossed under the little bridge when she entered the high archway, which gave the house a Hispanic touch. The place where Elise and her parents lived was on the outskirts of the city, close to the training courts of Rick Salieri, but not too far away from the beach. During the off-season she had become a frequent visitor, as Elise’s parents had made it a habit of inviting her over to dinner after their afternoon practices. With all of her relatives living in Australia Amanda suddenly had a new home with the Renards. She jumped up the staircase, taking two steps at a time, and rang the doorbell on the second floor.

  Robert Renard, Elise’s dad and coach opened the door with a huge grin.

  “Punctual as always,” he observed, checking his watch. “Only Elise is far fro
m ready.” He winked at Amanda and pointed his thumb to the room at the end of the hallway. The door was open and Amanda could hear Elise curse. When she approached the room she saw Elise kneeled over a large linen bin with clothes scattered all around her. She didn’t notice the Aussie. Amanda raised an eyebrow, overlooking the scene, but was somewhat relieved to see that most of Elise’s suitcases seemed already packed. They had to leave for the airport in half an hour.

  “I can’t find the yellow top,” Elise shouted loudly, so her parents could hear her.

  “Check the laundry chest,” her mother shouted back from somewhere in the apartment. Amanda leaned against the door frame and suppressed a chuckle. Pink, blue and green training tops and pants came flying over Elise’s shoulder at her, but no yellow shirt.

  “It’s not there,” Elise yelled. She had reached the bottom of the bin, turned around and yelped in surprise when she saw Amanda. “Good, you’re here,” she said after steadying herself. “You must help me find my yellow top. You know, the one with the little red stars on the shoulder.”

  “I know it well,” Amanda grinned. Elise wore the shirt whenever possible. In fact she had two of them, Amanda remembered. “You are missing both of them?”

  “Well,” Elise hesitated. “Yes, both,” she continued quickly. “But I might have forgotten one in the locker room the other day. Too bad. That’s why I must find the other one.”

  “I see,” Amanda said. “Let me take a look in your room again, and you check your racquet bags and the dirty laundry.”

  Elise nodded and stepped to the door when all of a sudden she stopped and turned around. Quickly, she walked back to Amanda, grabbed her hips and pulled her close.

  “Hello,” Elise whispered. She gave Amanda a smile, then a kiss on the lips.

  “Check the dirty laundry,” Amanda laughed but didn’t let go of Elise either for another few seconds before rushing Elise out of the door.

  With a little sigh she reached down and started picking up Elise’s clothes, folding them and piling them up in the laundry chest. The yellow top was not amongst them and after closing it she looked around. The room was tidy again. Perhaps it had flown under the bed without Elise noticing it, Amanda thought. She kneeled down, and crawling through the jungle of suitcases, she looked under the bed. There was nothing but two Tennis Nurse novels bashfully hidden behind the bedpost. Amanda grabbed them and checked the titles. Tennis Nurse and The Magician of Miami was a pretty good thriller, Amanda remembered. She had read it perhaps five years ago when it had first come out. The other one was Tennis Nurse and The Case of the Lotus Lily. This one was new. Amanda hesitated for a moment, then opened it to the first page. Apparently, the story was set in Japan and the main character was running through a bamboo forest chased by villains. Amanda giggled. Most Tennis Nurse novels started like a James Bond movie. It was always the same pattern and it always worked. She turned the page. Jane, the nurse, had come to a cliff high above a waterfall and the villains were closing in. What would she do? Would she jump? Would she fight?

  Amanda closed the book quickly. No time for Tennis Nurse now. But she had enjoyed the short indulgence and there would certainly be an evening when she had time to read more. She opened one of Elise’s bags to stuff the novel inside and gasped.

  “Oh, come on,” Amanda mumbled and rolled her eyes. She looked at a pile of shirts, neatly packed. Under a blue top she saw the edge of a bright yellow shirt. Half a red star was visible. Elise had already packed it. They would have searched for the shirt forever and in the end would have had to rush to the airport. She reached to pull it out and show it to Elise, but stopped. The fabric felt bulky. Something was wrapped inside the shirt. More Tennis Nurse novels? Amanda wouldn’t have been surprised. It was Elise’s guilty pleasure and she traded the books with Gabriella and Morgana Doré.

  Amanda pulled out the shirt but what was hidden inside was no book. It was much heavier, and when Amanda carefully unwrapped it she looked at a framed picture of herself and Elise looking at each other on a gorgeous morning in Wimbledon half a year ago.

  Amanda knew that for Elise the mysterious journey, which the picture had taken until it finally landed in Elise’s hands, had given it an even bigger meaning. Tom had taken the picture, Ted had stolen it with the help of Amanda and had lost it. Then somebody had found it, made a print and slipped it under Elise’s hotel room door in Luxembourg. The intention of the anonymous person was still unclear, especially as nothing else had happened since.

  Slowly, Amanda stroked the glass of the frame. Elise loved the picture so much, she had put it on her nightstand. It was reckless to take it along on the tour. Anybody could steal it from the hotel room, and they had decided along with Elise’s parents that they had to make an extra effort to keep the relationship private as long as possible.

  “Found it!” Elise yelled from somewhere in the apartment. Amanda could hear her footsteps coming back to the bed room. She took a look at the picture again, then quickly wrapped it in the yellow top and put it back between the other shirts. When Elise came into the room, Amanda was still sitting on the floor. She waved with the Tennis Nurse novel.

  “Can we take this one?”

  ***

  Overnight a white cover of snow had wrapped up Prague, and now – in the early morning hours of the first of January – held it siege in a cold grip. The perfectly white surface revealed nothing of the war that had been going on the previous night. It had drowned out the sound of the thousand cannons and firecrackers and nothing about this bleak, icy morning promised a good day, let alone a good year.

  Sasha Mrachova took a last look into the bathroom mirror. The glass was old and murky, and she was grateful for it.

  The house was silent. Everyone in her family was still sleeping. Everyone but her father, who was down in the kitchen pretending to clear up from last night’s festivities. Sasha knew that he just wanted to hug her for a last time before she left. When she came down he had already made her a cup of coffee. They silently drank from their cups, then Sasha got up and put on her jacket.

  “Take care,” her father said when she stepped to the door. “Don’t try too hard.”

  She nodded, swallowing down the big lump that was creeping up her throat. The wind blew a cloud of snowflakes into the house entrance when she opened the door. Pulling her light jacket tighter, Sasha shivered as she stepped out of the entrance of her parents’ house into the knee-deep snow.

  “Wait,” her father said, winking at her. Sasha smiled. She knew what was to come. Her father pulled out a little glass bottle and stuffed it into Sasha’s racquet bag. The best bootlegged Slivovice you could find in the world. He liked gestures more than words. Then he patted her on the shoulder and went back into the kitchen.

  In the street a cab was already waiting, and Sasha waved at the driver to come to the door. She had several huge bags she would take to Australia. Sasha was glad she had ordered the cab half an hour earlier than usual. Soon the traffic would press down the snow and turn the roads of her beautiful hometown into skating rinks. Swearing under his breath the driver hauled her suitcases into the trunk of the car and Sasha pulled her scarf tighter. She had wrapped it all around her head, covering her mouth and nose.

  Actually, Sasha was grateful for the cold weather, as it meant that completely wrapping her head like this didn’t look so ridiculous. However, as soon as she was sitting in the back of the cab, her thoughts began to race. Passport control would be tricky, she thought. They wouldn’t let her through with the scarf around her head. Not even if she told them who she was. She just had to be really quick, Sasha resolved. Let them take a look at her face and then she would put the scarf on again. She could cough a little, so nobody would wonder why she was wearing it on the plane. Yes, that was a good idea. Besides, the flight would be alright, Sasha thought. She had booked a whole row in first class, so nobody would be sitting next to her.

  While the cab bashed its way through the snow Sasha’s cell phone purre
d. Jaro had written her a text wishing her good luck. He had turned from obnoxious necessity into a real friend. Her only friend, Sasha sometimes thought. And he wasn’t as featherbrained as his buff body indicated. He came up with good concepts from time to time. The Christmas pictures of herself and Jaro sitting behind a huge pile of presents with only their eyes looking over them had been a clever idea to disguise the fact that her nose still looked swollen from the surgery she had to have after the double fracture. It was still swollen. At least Sasha thought it was. Everyone else seemed to overlook her big nose or nobody dared to mention it. But the Czech knew it was there.

  On Boxing Day she withdrew from the Brisbane tournament. Or rather she just didn’t show up for it. She simply stayed in bed until she was sure her plane had taken off from Václav Havel Airport without her, then ordered her management to talk to the Brisbane tournament director and reschedule her flight to New Years Day. Not only did she need another week because her nose wasn’t looking fine enough yet, but also because – in the midst of her jolly, loud cousins and nieces – an emptiness had invaded her, spread and was eventually filled with the terrifying thought that in Brisbane she could run into Lulu and that the Galloway twin might hit her again.

  Or kiss her. You never knew.

  BALLIN’ IT UP

  Auckland, New Zealand

  Standing at the window of the players’ restaurant, Mint Rickenbacher was overlooking the wet courts of the Auckland Tennis Centre. Mint and her friend, Chili García López, had completed only half an hour of their joint practice when the sky had darkened and heavy showers had driven them inside. After delaying practice for nearly three hours the rain had finally stopped. Down on the practice courts the bustle of clearing the water had begun.