Love Game - Season 2012

by Gerard, M. B.

  Yes, Sasha thought, she really should talk to Lulu. She couldn’t just reap the benefits from their sexual encounters and let Lulu wear herself out. A young person like her probably just craved some guidance and assurance. Sasha smiled at the thought that she could be one of the elders now, even though she was only five years older than Lulu. She had never engaged with the lesbian circles on tour but stayed on her own, so they never asked her for advice or chatted with her. But perhaps it was time to skip the lonely life. Perhaps it was time to find a companion. Perhaps – .

  With a loud bang the locker room door was opened and Sasha quickly turned away from the TV and vanished between two rows of lockers. A last look at the screen confirmed that Lulu was down 15 – 40 already.

  From the other side of the lockers, Sasha could make out three voices. Chili, Mint and someone else, whose voice Sasha didn’t recognize, had entered the room. They were engaged in a conversation and began opening the lockers to take out their bags.

  “Honestly, I’ve never really talked to her. She is such a recluse.”

  “Yes,” Chili said. “A bit weird, too.”

  Sasha quietly stuffed her visor between her racquets. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

  “I’ve dubbed her Miss Nosey,” the unknown person said with a chuckle.

  Sasha frowned. Nosey? She straightened up and felt her face turn hot. Were they talking about her? The Czech player suppressed the urge to rub her nose and stepped closer to the lockers to hear them better. But the three players had already changed the subject.

  “We need to check out the pool at the hotel. It has underwater grottos,” Mint remarked.

  “The whole hotel looks like an underwater world,” Chili added. “Hence the name. Pisces Palace. Means fish palace. It’s pescado in Spanish.”

  Sasha sat back on the bench. So Kurt had lied to her! Her nose was not fine. Everybody had noticed that it was bigger now. They even called her Miss Nosey behind her back.

  “The fish in my hotel room died,” the unknown person said. “They were all floating on the surface. I had to call the hotel reception to get them removed from the tank.”

  The two girls laughed.

  Sasha didn’t know if she should be relieved that the conversation had turned to the interior design of the players’ hotel. She felt like she should have been glad, but on the other hand she needed to know what they thought about her – and her looks.

  “Your fish were all dead? Did you feed them some Dutch cheese?” Chili asked.

  “Or perhaps some pot? You can tell us, Michelle,” Mint teased.

  They all laughed and zipped up their bags.

  Michelle van der Boom, Sasha thought. Of course. The most beautiful player of the past decade had come back from retirement to give it a shot at the Olympics with countrywoman Marieke Bender. Beautiful and adored. Loved by the media. Loved by the fans. Not a recluse. Not weird. Sasha swallowed at the thought of Michelle’s lovely face.

  Then she heard the three players leaving the room. When the chatter had abated behind the door Sasha realized that she was clutching her nose – and Lulu had lost her match.

  ***

  “What are you going to do with your coins?” Elise asked the other girls.

  Polly, Gemma and Chili were sitting in the back of the Supersport Channel van and looking at their little bags in which they carried their gold-wrapped chocolate coins. A souvenir they had been presented with at the chocolate factory they had visited for another Supersport shooting.

  “Eat them,” Gemma said. “I have fifteen. So that should be enough for one at each tournament.”

  They all nodded. It was out of the question that they would eat them all at once. When they arrived at the hotel, they said good-bye and arranged to meet later at the players’ party.

  “Want to swap Tennis Nurse novels?” Elise asked Polly in the elevator.

  “Sure. I have The Queen of Kopenhagen.”

  “I could give you The Magician of Miami for it. It’s a really good one.”

  “And fitting,” Polly said when she left the elevator. Elise grinned. The book would be even better when read here in Miami.

  In her room Elise sat down on the bedside and emptied the bag with the chocolate coins onto the sheets. Twenty-two, she counted. She could eat one coin at each tournament, she thought, and the rest when the off-season started in October. Or she could eat one coin for each win as a reward. She closed her eyes and smiled at the thought of the chocolate coin melting on her tongue. How long had it been since she had had something as sweet and wonderful as chocolate?

  Suddenly a knock on her door derailed her train of chocolate-covered thoughts. Was Amanda already back from the tournament site? Her match had started in the afternoon and on the way back from the chocolate factory, Elise had checked the score. Amanda had just won against Luella Galloway in two sets. But that had been only twenty minutes ago. She could not have made it here so quickly.

  “Who is it?” she asked through the closed door.

  “It’s me,” she heard her dad say. “I need to pick up your racquets to get them to the stringer. Remember?”

  Shit! Elise jumped up. She had forgotten about that.

  “Just a second,” she yelled at the closed door and pulled her racquet bag onto the bed. There was something she needed to take out.

  The wooden box with the dildo inside was hidden in the back corner of her huge bag. She grabbed the box’s edge and pulled at it frantically. It seemed to be stuck under her racquets and her shoe sac. Finally she released it, however too hastily, and in one sweep it flung out from her bag. The box sailed through the air, fell onto the floor and all the spices spilled over the carpet.

  “Damn,” Elise yelled.

  “Do you need help?” she heard her father say through the door.

  “No, I’ll be right there,” Elise shouted.

  She needed to get rid of the dildo which had rolled out of the box. She needed to find a hiding place. Why had she forgotten that her dad would be coming by? Her eyes fell on the chocolate coins on her bed. Her dad wasn’t supposed to see those either.

  “Damn,” she said again, however this time quietly.

  She picked up the mara and put it back in the box. Then she placed the wooden case on the bed, raked the coins up and threw them into the box to obscure the antique pecker. With her feet she shoved the spice bags under the bed. Where could she put the box quickly? She took a look around the room, and found the perfect solution. Ten seconds later, she opened the door to her father who looked at her a bit puzzled but didn’t ask what had been going on. He stepped towards the bed and took a look at the racquets.

  “I’ll have two of them strung a bit tighter. It will be hot and dry tomorrow,” he mumbled. Then he sniffed the air. “Your room smells of curry.”

  “Really?” Elise asked innocently. She pretended to sniff as well but then shook her head. No, she didn’t smell anything.

  “It’s a very extravagant hotel. At least your fish are alive,” Robert Renard said with a glance at the aquarium, which enchanted every room in the hotel with a touch of exotic. “I heard from Freddie Nordström that one of his fish died.”

  He approached the fish tank and took a quick look. Elise hands began sweating.

  “Nice underwater landscape,” her dad remarked, while shouldering Elise’s racquet bag. “With a treasure chest.”

  When her dad had left the room, Elise checked the fish tank. Everything was alright. The chocolate coins had covered the wooden phallus completely and two goldfish were curiously eyeing the timbered box. Elise sighed. Thankfully, Natsumi would be returning to the tour for the tournament in Madrid to take the wooden troublemaker back. This really had been going on for too long.

  ***

  The sky was so blue that Gabriella felt she was staring upside down at one of the Australian Open courts which were painted a shiny azure color. But this wasn’t the land down under where she had lost one match after another. Th
is was her home country and while Gabriella had reached the quarterfinal of the tournament, Luella had just lost her match against Amanda Auster. Everything was as brilliant as the bright blue sky. Gabriella blinked, then stepped inside the hotel building.

  While in theory it was great that Luella had lost her match – as Gabriella would gain more ranking points here in Miami than Luella – there was one little problem

  Her sister would probably leave Miami as soon as possible, perhaps even tonight, to get ready for practicing on clay. And if Luella left today and Sasha believed she was having an affair with Lulu, Gabriella would have to act quickly. Really quickly.

  She approached the reception desk of the hotel and smiled at the young man standing behind the counter.

  “I would like to book a room for tonight,” she explained.

  “Yes, of course,” the receptionist said. “Are you not happy with the room you have?”

  So, he had recognized her. Good.

  “Well, this is my last night here, so I would like a bigger bed.”

  “Sure,” the young man replied. “You are Miss Galloway, right?”

  Gabriella nodded. “Luella.”

  The receptionist typed in her name and the computer gave him the information he needed.

  “You currently have a queen size bed,” he read. “We have a room with a king size bed available. We also have a California king size bed – it’s extra long. And we have a very nice room with an Olympic queen size bed.”

  He looked up to await Gabriella’s answer. Gabriella had to smile. After her practice this morning she had taken the time to read through the catalogue of medications and drugs that were considered to be doping by the World Anti-Doping Agency and were banned from the Olympic Games. Gabriella knew that even if a player was clean, they all had to be careful when they had a cough or a cold. Even harmless medication could contain substances that were considered performance enhancers, and a regular refresher on the various substances was a good thing. It was a scary read, covering steroids, blood doping, hormones and other stimulants.

  Thank god, extensive fucking wasn’t listed. Considering how her game had developed in the last few weeks it could very well count as a performance enhancer.

  “Olympic sounds good,” Gabriella said with a grin.

  The nights with Sasha were probably the best performance-enhancing drug she knew of, she thought while signing the hotel receipt with Luella’s signature. Then she took out her cell phone and sent Sasha a text with the room number and a time. They had three hours before they had to get ready for the players’ party.

  Enough time to get some red blood cells moving.

  ***

  “How’s the production going?” Monica asked Paola.

  After a long day at the tournament site, Monica, Agnes and Paola had decided to sit on the garden deck and enjoy the warm afternoon breeze. Candice had joined them for a quick bite and a wine spritzer before she had to go back and keep an eye on the hustle and bustle. They still had over three hours to prepare the hotel’s rooftop for a boisterous players’ party.

  “It’s going great. We did a shoot in a chocolate factory today. You should have seen how big and dreamy the girls’ eyes were,” Paola said with a smile.

  “Oh, chocolate,” Monica sighed. It was one of the things players had to forgo.

  “I loved the skiing episode,” Candice chuckled. It was airing at the moment. “Gemma and Robyn try to learn to ski while Gabriella races down the slope on a sledge.”

  “They all had a blast.”

  “She didn’t play Dubai, did she? I mean Gabriella,” Agnes threw in.

  Paola shook her head. “She went on to play Monterrey, which turned out to be a good idea in hindsight.”

  “She only won a handful of matches before the South American tournaments,” Monica nodded. “She has been playing much better since. Good to see that the collaboration with Freddie Nordström is paying off. Did you see her today? So much swagger. She’s back to her good form she had last year.”

  Paola laughed. “To be honest, I always had the feeling she had more potential than Luella. I thought it last year when Gabriella won the tournament here.”

  “Her first big title,” Monica remembered.

  Agnes took a sip from her spritzer. “All the more surprising when Luella won Wimbledon.”

  “Well, she hasn’t been able to live up to it so far,” Monica sighed. “The pressure has gotten to her game. And the money has gone to her head.”

  “See, that’s what I am talking about,” Paola spoke up again. “Gabriella gives a completely different impression. More mature.”

  Monica tilted her head. “Yes, but she had massive problems in the beginning of the season which were due to pressure, too.”

  Paola shrugged. “If Luella keeps losing like she did today Gabriella only has to wait until after Wimbledon and the rankings will be sorted for her.”

  The ranking system was brutal and unforgiving if you were out for too long or couldn’t keep your level of performance up. Professional tennis was like being on a merry-go-round in an elevator. Up and down, and if players weren’t careful, their rankings could slide quickly into free-fall.

  “Hello, girls,” a familiar voice piped up behind them. Michelle van der Boom and chair umpire Lynn Pebblestone had come over the lawn to sit down with the group.

  “We were just talking about Gabriella,” Agnes informed them.

  “She is doing fine lately,” Lynn nodded. Then she smiled slyly. “Is there anything I should know for Love Game?”

  “It’s not always about love, Lynn,” Monica teased her. “This time we witness the result of hard, hard work.”

  “The Galloways play for our team?” Michelle leaned forward. She had been out too long and was eager to catch up on any gossip.

  “Just Gabriella. Lulu is straight as an arrow,” Monica reported.

  “Well, then I will only invite Gabriella to the party,” Michelle winked. “I’m having a little private beach party tonight. You’re all invited.”

  Loud cheering erupted upon the good news. Michelle’s parties were just as notorious as Monica’s. A wild, happy discussion began with everyone throwing in their best memories of past festivities, if they had memories at all.

  ***

  “Come in.”

  Sasha waved Tom inside and retreated back into her hotel room. ‘Room’ was an underestimate, Tom thought when he stepped into the spacious accommodation. The suite actually contained three rooms, as far as Tom could tell by looking around, with a bedroom next door and a small sitting room at the other end of the living room. Sasha gestured him to sit down on the couch. She herself sat down at a writing desk and turned on the desk lamp. It blinded Tom a little as he was sitting low on the couch.

  “I wanted to ask you a couple of things,” Tom said, pulling out the list of suspects from his bag.

  “First I want to know how your investigation is proceeding,” Sasha interrupted him, leaning back in her chair. “What have you found out so far? Have you narrowed down the list of suspects? When can we expect results?”

  Tom’s mouth popped open a little bit. Why was the Czech so cranky? Earlier today, she had won her match easily. There was no reason for her to act like that.

  “Well – ,” he stuttered, unsure what to make of the interrogation. “We are working on it. But, it’s not that easy. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “It seems you are the only one working on this. Ted is busy with sponsorship duties and photo shoots,” Sasha said with a tense voice. “I don’t have to tell you that all these things will go up in smoke if your pictures are published. I could lose a lot of money! You sure understand that, as you are in the same situation with Ted. We could lose everything.”

  “I am well aware of the risk, but so far nothing has happened,” Tom said with a shrug. He also thought that both Sasha and Ted would probably not lose any money if the truth came out. Perhaps only earn a little less. But he ke
pt the thought to himself.

  Sasha didn’t look as if she liked his nonchalant answer. She leaned forward and turned the desk lamp a little further towards Tom. He blinked as the light blinded him even more. What was this, he thought angrily. A KGB grilling? Sasha’s face was almost invisible now in the dark.

  “May I?” he asked defiantly and reached out to turn the switch of an uplight standing next to the couch. Within a second the living room was lit brightly in a mellow, warm light. “Much better. Now I can see your pretty face.”

  Tom grinned at Sasha provocatively but the Czech had leaned forward, now hiding behind the desk lamp.

  “I just want to know who is on your list of suspects,” she said. Her voice suddenly sounded tired. “Maybe I can help you if you let me in.”

  “Well, that’s why I’m here.”

  “Yes, sorry,” Sasha said. “I was being impatient.”

  She began rubbing her forehead with her hand, then she softly touched her nose. It was a subconscious gesture Tom realized, and with a feeling of guilt he remembered the incident in Istanbul, the flying punch bowl and the night in the hospital. He had been so happy to reunite with Ted that he had forgotten to pay Sasha a visit.

  “How is your nose?” he asked.

  Sasha let her hand fall on the table and looked up, suddenly aware that she had drawn attention to her olfactory organ. “My nose is fine. Thank you very much,” she almost choked. “Why is everyone asking about my nose?”

  “I’m only asking because it is my fault,” Tom said. “I’m really sorry about what happened in Istanbul.”

  His apology surprised her. “Alright,” she said, then shrugged it off. “No need to talk about it anymore.”

  “Well, perhaps I can make amends,” Tom suggested. “How about I take some pictures of you? You know I can make anybody look good. Not that I would have to work too hard when it comes to you.”