He turned to her, his face solemn. “Maybe my job is to do both, but maybe I’m only doing the first part with Destiny and the second part with Jay.”
She considered the comment for a minute. “Does making them good players have to detract from making them good humans?”
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts and watched as both players switched to harder ground strokes before saying, “I hope not.”
They watched in silence for a few more minutes until both Destiny and Jay broke for water. Destiny barely looked as if she’d been moving, not a hair out of its perfect place, and her skin carrying not even a hint of flush. Jay, on the other hand, had a clear sheen of sweat across her brow, and her sandy hair stuck to her neck in a few places. If you’d asked Sadie which one looked more the part of professional athlete, she would’ve said her daughter. The thought pleased her.
“What’s next?” She attempted to make conversation as Destiny sat next to her on the bench, but when her pride and joy merely shrugged off the question, it was Jay who answered.
“I need to work on my serve, and Hank apparently wants Larsen Junior over here to work on some return strokes, so we’ll go out there, and I’ll do a poor impression of Serena while she’ll undoubtedly prove herself to be Andre Agassi with hair.”
Sadie laughed, then glanced at Destiny, who hadn’t cracked a smile. “I thought it was funny.”
“It’s okay,” Jay said with a shrug. “She’s just not old enough to get my mom-aged jokes.”
Destiny pursed her lips and rose. “Oh, I got it. I just don’t joke until the work is done.”
Jay grinned as they watched her walk back onto the court. “Are you sure she’s not the mom and you’re the daughter?”
Sadie stifled another laugh. “She’s very serious about her job. She gets that from her father.”
“Right.” Jay said dryly. “Father. So she didn’t spring from your forehead fully formed?
“Sadly, no. I remember the twelve-hour labor very clearly, and my head was about the only part of my body that didn’t hurt.”
All the color drained from Jay’s face. “Right, well, okay then. Back to work.”
She jogged onto the court and unceremoniously let fly one of the sharpest serves Sadie had ever seen up close. The ball jumped off her racket and flattened right along the T-line before exploding back up with a sharp kick to the right. Destiny didn’t even manage to get a racket on the ball as it whirred past her.
Sadie leaned back and let out a low whistle.
Hank turned toward her, one eyebrow raised. “Surprised?”
She nodded. “She was just over here joking around about hair and childbirth, and then— bam.”
“Bam,” Hank agreed giddily. “It’s not the fastest serve in tennis, but it’s a live wire.”
“I’ve never seen any ball move like that.”
He shook his head. “And it’s not random. She knows exactly where it’s going, but she’s the only person who does.”
Jay let fly with another serve that, this time, hit the center of the service box and jumped high into the air. Destiny managed to clock it back on the upswing, but the ball had so much spin, it arced right into Jay’s wheelhouse. If she’d wanted to crank it back down Des’s throat, she’d have had no problem doing so. Instead she cradled the ball softly onto her racket as if it had been tossed by a child. Then she tapped it back into her hand before setting up to serve again.
“Why isn’t she the top player in the game?” Sadie asked, nearly breathless from the display of skill.
“That is the million-dollar question,” Hank said, without much inflection.
“You don’t even have a hunch?”
“It’s not physical. I can tell you that much.”
“What then?” Sadie asked, suddenly fascinated. “Mental? Emotional? Not enough drive, not enough heart?”
He turned and met her eyes, revealing the same sad reflection she’d seen in Jay’s earlier. “No. Maybe the opposite. She’s got too much heart.”
★ ★ ★
Despite a few early aces, practicing with Destiny wasn’t totally an ego boost. The kid caught on quickly, and Jay couldn’t ever hit the same serve more than twice before the ball came back at her head with brutal force. A time or two, it’d been all she could do to deflect the return before it blackened one of her eyes, but at least the girl kept her moving, which was more than half her hitting partners did. Jay had to work hard mentally and physically to mix things up, choosing her spots and her spin deliberately instead of running through a rote workout. Half an hour in, sweat poured down her neck, gnats buzzed around her hair, muscles ached down her sides, and her thighs burned from lateral movement, but she couldn’t say she wasn’t having fun.
Destiny grooved another return down the line, and Jay didn’t even try to reach for it. Clapping her freehand against her racket string, she laughed.
“What?” Destiny frowned.
“Nice shot.”
“Why’s that funny?”
Jay shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s funny, but it’s fun, right?”
“Fun?” Destiny sounded almost suspicious. “You call getting burned up the line fun?”
“I played a great serve. You struck an even better return,” Jay said, then looked at Hank, who nodded in confirmation. “That’s good tennis, and good tennis is fun.”
Destiny scrunched down her eyebrows, but didn’t reply.
Jay turned to Sadie. “Was she born with that furrowed brow, or has it taken her seventeen years to perfect the expression?”
Sadie’s shoulders went rigid, but then she tilted her head slightly to the side as if pondering the question before answering, “Born with it.”
“So, a child prodigy on and off the courts,” Jay said with a grin, as she let herself be pulled toward Sadie once more. She didn’t really need a water break, but took one anyway.
As she lowered herself gingerly onto the bench, Sadie’s eyes wandered to her legs, but not in the appreciative way she would’ve preferred.
“No worries. They won’t give out on me,” Jay said reassuringly. “I just sit and stand up like an old woman out of habit.”
“You have a bad knee, though?” Sadie asked, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Oh no, pry away. Everyone else does. I’ll give you the same answer I give the press, not because it’s PC, but because it’s true. I’m playing at full strength again.”
“Good,” Sadie said, “because if those serves aren’t full strength, I’d hate to see the ones that are.”
Jay threw back her head and laughed. “Wow, a compliment from a tennis mom. Hank, where did you find this woman?”
“Buffalo,” Hank responded dryly.
“Are you sure she’s not a plant? She doesn’t talk like any tennis moms I know, and she doesn’t look like one, either. I mean where’s her white visor? Where’s her sensible, short haircut? Where’s her Lexus crossover vehicle with the stick figure family stickers on the back and a tennis ball on the antenna?”
Sadie’s smile widened at the gentle ribbing, and she opened her mouth as if she intended to give a little bit back, but she was cut off.
“Are we going to practice any more, or what?” Destiny called from her baseline, the irritation in her voice serving only to make Jay want to move more slowly.
“I don’t know,” she called, lounging back on the bench and crossing one leg lazily over the other before turning to Sadie. “What do you think? Have we done enough for one day, or do we need to battle the heat and the bugs a little longer?”
“Oh, I think you should ask Hank,” Sadie said quickly.
“Why? I already know what he’s going to say. He votes for more practice. Sounds like your daughter does, too. I vote for being done for the day. You have the vote that can deadlock us and force a game of rock, paper, scissors to break the tie. Who do you side with?”
Sadie’s smile
went from genuine interest to politely tight in an instant, as a steely glint flashed in her dark eyes. “I always side with my daughter.”
Jay let out a low whistle in an attempt to cover the icy chill that ran the length of her spine. Standing up, she glanced at Hank and dryly said, “Never mind. She’s a total tennis mom.”
Hank didn’t argue. “Don’t take it personal.”
Jay forced a smile. “Me? Personal? Never.”
Hank sighed, but she didn’t want to hear whatever words he had on the other side of it, so she tossed a ball quickly in the air and knocked a flat rocket right at Destiny’s backhand. The kid sent it screaming back, and Jay sliced it hard and away, enjoying the squeak of the girl’s shoes as she pushed off futilely toward the opposite sideline.
“What was that?” Sadie asked Hank.
But Jay answered, “That was an exercise in control.”
Sadie frowned, her eyes still laced with intensity. “For whose benefit?”
“Mine,” Jay said flatly. “All mine.”
“Can you do it again?” Destiny called, her racket ready as she balanced on the balls of her feet, her eyes carrying a challenge not completely unlike her mother’s.
Jay sighed and fished another ball from her pocket before saying, “All day long.”
Chapter Three
Miami, Florida
Destiny chucked her racket to the floor with a clatter, causing heads to turn all around the locker room. Sadie bent to pick it up and slipped it neatly into the bag alongside the others. If Destiny had been five or ten, she’d have doled out a few minutes on the naughty seat for such a temper tantrum, but given the pressure the girl was under these days, she found the reaction rather mild. At least her daughter hadn’t broken the racket on the court like Jay had earlier in the day. Not that Sadie had witnessed the meltdown. She hadn’t seen Jay in person since the practice session in Indian Wells. Neither she nor Destiny had made it to their third-round match and therefore hadn’t faced each other when they’d ended up on opposite sides of the draw in Miami. Still, the outburst had been the talk of the tournament for the last couple hours.
Destiny slammed the door to her locker. “I got blanked in the second set.”
“Yes,” Sadie said. She’d been there for every excruciating point. “By the number three player in the world.”
Destiny rolled her eyes. The move made her seem younger than the loss had, and once again, Sadie wondered if they’d made the right choice allowing her to go pro. She knew that losing was a big part of tennis. Roughly a hundred women had entered this tournament, and only one of them would end on a win. Still, Destiny seemed to have taken more than her fair share of drubbings over the last few weeks. Hank kept saying that struggling was a normal part of growing up, but nothing about life felt normal to Sadie right now. How many other teenagers lived in hotels? How many of them had their struggles broadcast on national television? How many of them had to go explain their bad days to a room full of reporters, mere minutes after being embarrassed in front of a live stadium audience?
Sadie would’ve given anything to take her place in the interview room, to stand before the flashbulbs and microphones and tell them Destiny was a kid, and she was doing better than any other kid in the country, maybe even the world. Her daughter was doing something most of them would never have the guts or the talent or the drive to do. Who were they to sit in judgment of her?
Fire raced through her veins and tinged her vision as every motherly instinct to protect and defend clawed to the surface, but Destiny’s heavy sigh brought her back into the moment.
“How can I help?” Sadie asked softly.
“Just sit somewhere I can see you, okay?” Destiny asked, the quaver in her voice nearly breaking Sadie’s heart.
“Of course.” Sadie fought the urge to wrap her in the kind of public embrace that would only humiliate her further.
Destiny nodded, and her mouth straightened. “Fine. Then let’s get this part over with.”
Sadie nodded, marveling once again at her daughter’s fortitude, and followed her to the interview room.
She saw Hank waiting for them near the back and motioned him closer to the front as they waited their turn.
“How much were you fined for the racket smashing?” a reporter asked the woman currently sitting on the hot seat.
“A cool five grand,” a familiar voice said lightly, “so I’m going to pass this hat around the room before I leave, and you all can make a gratitude offering to show your appreciation for all the entertainment and column inches I’ve given you over the years.”
Several reporters laughed, but Destiny grumbled, “Why is she still here? Her match ended before mine began.”
“She had to meet with some tour officials,” Hank whispered.
Destiny’s eyes widened. “Because she smashed a racket?”
“I’d imagine there was more to it than that,” Hank said, without going into detail.
Sadie was still tense about Destiny’s upcoming trial by fire, but she did wonder about the “more” Hank mentioned. He wasn’t generally a circumspect guy.
“What’s next for you?” a reporter called then added, “and don’t say dinner. I mean on the court.”
Jay laughed. “You cut me off at the knees there, Wally, but if you must know, I’m going to take a few days to limp on up to Charleston and try not to get my ass— er, butt kicked. Then I have to take a week off to wash dishes or bus tables so I can afford the airfare to Europe for the start of clay court season, ’cause you all know how much I love clay court season.”
Several reporters laughed in a way that made Sadie suspect Jay did not, in fact, love clay court season.
“All right,” Jay said, pushing back from the table. “Since I didn’t play any tennis worth talking about today, why don’t we wrap this up and let you guys move on to lovely contestant number whoever’s after me. Bueller? Bueller?”
“Destiny Larsen,” someone offered.
The smile faded from Jay’s face only for a second, but it was enough to make Sadie’s heart pulse faster. What had caused the momentary lapse? Should she feel offended that the mere mention of her daughter’s name shook this woman’s joy more than a room full of reporters? Or did the flash of something genuine in her practiced facade mean more than Jay liked to show in public? Either way, she recovered quickly.
“Well, by all means, will the younger Ms. Larsen step right up. You’re the next contestant on the price is probably not right.”
Sadie glanced at Destiny, whose jaw had tightened so much, she must’ve already worn a layer of enamel off her teeth.
“She’s just lightening the mood,” Sadie whispered and gave Destiny’s hand a little squeeze.
Destiny rolled her eyes and shook off the touch before rising and heading to the front of the room.
As Destiny reached the table, Jay pulled out the chair even farther, and Destiny gave her a steely glare before accepting the chair. Everywhere, flashbulbs exploded, with Jay smiling broadly and Destiny glaring up at her.
Hank groaned loudly enough to be heard all over the room, had it not been for the rapid-fire questions.
“Do you two know each other?”
“We’ve met,” Destiny said into the mic.
“Jay, what do you think of Destiny’s play?”
“I think I told someone once, when it comes to returns, she’s like Agassi with hair.”
Everyone but Destiny laughed.
“What do you have to say to people who argue the future of American tennis is on the rocks?”
Jay stood back and nodded to Destiny. “It’s your show now, kid.”
Destiny seemed to ponder the question. “I guess I’d tell those people to keep watching.”
“Keep watching a tournament you’ve both been knocked out of?”
Jay winced and Destiny’s face flushed.
“Believe it or not,” Jay cut in, “we don’t sit around thinking about our master plans to revive the
game or its ties to our country of origin. I mean, who would put that kind of pressure on a kid? Oh wait, just you guys!”
Sadie fought the urge to cheer. Jay had just said for Destiny what she’d ached to be able to, and she’d done it in a way that didn’t reflect badly on either of them.
A ripple of laugher spread through the room.
“So, you don’t feel any sense of camaraderie about being the only American women who qualified for this tournament?”
“I feel a sense of camaraderie with all the women on the tour,” Jay said, then shook her head. “You’re going to twist that until it sounds risqué, aren’t you?”
A few more laughs made Sadie wonder again what inside joke she’d missed.
“What about you, Destiny? Any sense of patriotism tying you to Jay?”
Destiny leaned in close to the mic, a strand of her long curls falling forward over her shoulder, and said, “No.”
The room grew still and quiet once more, as everyone waited for more. Sadie held her breath as Jay stepped back, looking bemused, then began a slow clap, her smile growing as she picked up pace until she was a one-person applause section. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you just got D-jacked. That’s right. I said, D-jacked, a new nickname coming at you, trademarked by Jay, all rights reserved, and I’m going to do you one more and give you the slogan to boot. You ready? Wait for it. D-jack, hashtag, just say no.”
Destiny turned to stare at her as if she’d lost her mind, and quite frankly, Sadie couldn’t blame her anymore. Jay had gone off topic and possibly off her rocker. She wasn’t answering any question she’d been asked. She wasn’t even talking about tennis anymore, but she just kept going.
“Try to out-serve her, she just says ‘no.’ Try to beat her from the baseline, she just says ‘no.’ Try to ask her annoying questions, she just says ‘no.’ Cross a line and you get D-jacked.”
“What is she doing?” Sadie asked out of the side of her mouth, unsure as to whether she was watching a train wreck or a sideshow.
“She’s saving Destiny’s ass,” Hank replied, his eyes sparkling with something akin to pride.
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