by Glasko Klein
“I’m saving up for a car,” she said quickly. Leanna had also found that since she’d joined the team, lying had become a much bigger part of her life. It had started with the Jenny situation, but since then she had realized that life was easier when she didn’t worry too much about telling the truth.
“Real ambitious there, Lee,” Kelsey said, rolling her eyes. “With that job you don’t have, I’m sure you’ll have enough money in no time. But I don’t want us to get embarrassed playing against East because you can’t afford to shell out for proper gear. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but what do you say to me picking up a racquet for you before the match? You can pay me back later.”
Leanna felt her ears turn red. On the one hand, getting a new racquet was something she had wanted to do for at least a year. On the other hand, she knew Kelsey would never let her forget about it if she bought her a racquet. They’d definitely gotten closer, but not that close. Of course, Kelsey would also never let her forget it if she didn’t manage to win her match against East, and Leanna didn’t want to be blamed for a loss for any other reason than a legitimate lack of skill. She’d much rather get made fun of for playing poorly than for being poor.
“Wow, Kelsey, that’s really generous,” Leanna said. “Sure, I’d love to get a new racquet. Do you want to go pick it up together tomorrow after practice?”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Kelsey said. “I want it to be a surprise.”
Leanna didn’t like the way that Kelsey said “surprise,” but she also didn’t like having the shabbiest racquet on the team, and the next chance she’d get to replace hers wouldn’t be until her birthday in July. Besides, she thought, what could go wrong?
“Okay, well just try to make sure that it’s like this one, but you know, new,” Leanna said. She couldn’t help but think back to the time when it really didn’t matter what sort of racquet she had or how well she did in a given match, back when she played tennis for fun. Things change though, she reminded herself, and this is just one more part of that. She just wished that not everything had to change. For the first time in a while, she found herself missing Jenny and how easy it was to meet at Tetterman’s for a friendly pickup match.
15
The last person Leanna expected to see when she got home after practice the day before the first match was Jenny. But there she was, sitting in her living room and drinking iced tea with her mother.
“Leanna! Look who’s here,” her mother said, gesturing toward Jenny with her glass. “She said she wanted to come by and wish you luck before the big match against East! I thought she could join us for dinner!”
“Hey, Lee,” Jenny said, doing her best to smile through the awkwardness. “It’s been a long time.”
Leanna wasn’t sure what to think. She was happy to have her friend back, if that’s what was actually going on—but she couldn’t help but be a little suspicious of her friend’s sudden change of heart. She had started to get used to life without Jenny, and to have her sitting in her living room like nothing had happened now seemed strange. What’s going on?
Dinner was surprisingly normal given that Leanna and Jenny hadn’t spoken to each other in almost a month. They talked about school, the next Teen Witch movie, and even a little bit about tennis without anybody getting upset. After everyone had finished eating, Jenny suggested that the two of them go for a walk.
“Sorry things have been kind of weird between us,” Leanna said as soon as they were out the door, rubbing her shoulder nervously. “I never meant for everything to get this messed up.”
“It’s okay,” Jenny said. “I know you’ve been trying to apologize, I just wasn’t ready to talk to you yet. I am now, though.” She stopped abruptly and looked Leanna straight in the eye. “Look, Leanna, it’s really great to see you again, but I didn’t just come over here to catch up. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
The evening was cool and the air was moist, as if it were about to rain, but suddenly Leanna felt uncomfortably hot. She had figured something like this was coming. Is Jenny still mad? Will she apologize? Should I? It was a conversation Leanna had been waiting for weeks to have, but now that it was about to happen, she suddenly wished she could put it off for just one more day. She wished things could just be normal, like nothing had ever happened, but she knew that was impossible.
“Yeah, I figured,” Leanna said before trailing off for a moment. She took a deep breath and felt a lump start to form in her throat. Then she blurted out, “Look, Jenny, I’m really sorry. I know that I was a bad friend, but you have to understand that I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.”
“That’s not what I wanted to talk about, Lee,” Jenny said. Her tone was a lot colder than Leanna would have expected after what she thought had been a heartfelt apology. “I’m still mad, but I have to tell you—Kelsey is not your friend. She’s trying to sabotage you.”
Leanna felt a chill run down her spine. The last thing she wanted to talk about right now was Kelsey. All she wanted to do was clear the air. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I just heard some of the other girls talking about it,” Jenny said, then let out a heavy sigh. “I . . . I just thought you should know.”
Leanna wanted to believe that her friend had her best interests at heart, but the timing was a little suspicious. “So all of a sudden you’re really worried about how I do on the tennis team?” She asked. Some of the anger she’d felt when Jenny disappeared after tryouts the first time started to resurface.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Jenny replied.
Leanna felt her cheeks start to redden. If Jenny really didn’t want me to get hurt, then why did she freeze me out for almost a month? Why didn’t she try to understand the pressure I was under, and why didn’t she try to see things from my point of view?
“Really, Jenny? I’m surprised. I get that you’re mad, but why are you trying to make things worse for me?” Leanna snapped. “Kelsey is actually pretty cool once you get to know her, and I don’t think she would do anything to hurt the team’s chances. She’s even getting me a new racquet. Did you really think that you could just come over and have dinner then tell me not to trust my teammates and it would somehow make things better between us?”
“I’m just trying to help, Leanna,” Jenny said, keeping her tone cold and even. “But if you don’t want to listen to me, you don’t have to. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Fine,” Leanna said, “you warned me. But it’s getting kind of late, Jen. I think I’m going to go home.” She spun on her heel and headed back toward her house without looking back.
* * *
Leanna had trouble getting to sleep that night. Part of it was that she was nervous about her match against East, but the rest was because she simply couldn’t understand why Jenny would try to make her distrust her teammates the day before her big match, especially when she was just starting to feel like she was part of the team.
I know Kelsey’s competitive, but would she really try to sabotage me? And even if she wanted to, what could Kelsey possibly do to hurt my chances of doing well? Leanna did her best to push these questions from her mind and get some sleep, but it didn’t come easily. The next morning she wasn’t nearly as well rested as she would have liked to be, but the meet was going to happen whether she liked it or not.
16
The racquet Kelsey got for her was nicer than any racquet Leanna had ever owned. Still, it felt unfamiliar in her hands as she was warming up for the big match against East. She was exhausted from her lack of sleep the night before, and she couldn’t get Jenny’s warning off her mind. She still thought it was unlikely that Kelsey would actually try to sabotage her, especially given how generous she had been in giving her a new racquet. Focus, she thought. Now is not the time to be worrying about Jenny drama. I have to keep my head in the game.
Her opponent was tougher than she had anticipated. Despite East’s poor reputation, the gir
l on the other side of the court had a wicked backhand and an even meaner serve. Still, Leanna managed to pull out a win in the first set by focusing on her fundamentals and making sure to conserve her energy. She didn’t want a repeat of her matchup with Kelsey at the first tryouts.
In the second set, Leanna fell behind in the first couple of games but quickly regained ground in the next three, managing to outmaneuver her opponent by staying aggressive and charging the net. But each point was a battle, and she was starting to get tired. Her opponent was fast and had excellent placement, so even when Leanna kept up the pressure at the net, she found herself sprinting back and forth just to keep the rally going. She knew that if she was going to win her first match, she would have to knock the other girl out quickly before she started to get tired. You’ve built up a solid rhythm, Leanna—now just keep it going.
The girl from East waited until the sixth game of the second set to start pulling out all of her tricks, but thanks to playing against Kelsey, Leanna was ready for them. She had managed to fight her way to a set point through sheer force of will, and her opponent gave a last-ditch effort to break Leanna’s momentum. Leanna recognized the windup of the kick serve immediately, so she pretended to put her racquet toward the center of the court as if she was tricked by the direction of the serve. Her opponent thought she had the point in the bag and dashed toward the net, trying to get a good position while Leanna was thrown off, but as soon as she left the baseline, Leanna dashed toward the outside, where she knew the serve would bounce.
When her opponent recognized that Leanna was onto her, it was too late. Leanna reached out and smashed the ball straight at her feet. Her opponent tried to recover, but her positioning was just too awkward, and she wasn’t able to get her return over the net.
Now all that was left was to win the next two games and she’d win the match. And I’ve got the serve, she thought, smiling to herself. She spun her racquet across her palm and bounced the ball against the court a couple times, making a mental note to thank Kelsey for using the kick serve against her in tryouts. Across the court, the girl from East was looking ragged and had a scowl on her face, clearly upset about how the last game ended. Leanna smiled to herself, tossed the ball in the air, wound up, and took a swing.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Leanna looked down in horror. Half the strings on her brand new racquet had broken all at once.
She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed before, but as she inspected her racquet more closely, she saw that the remaining strings had little grooves carved into them near the frame, as if someone had used a file to weaken them. The sneer on Kelsey’s face two courts over was enough to tell Leanna what she already knew—Kelsey had messed with her strings on purpose.
Worse yet, she hadn’t thought to bring her old racquet with her. Leanna’s heart dropped into her stomach. Jenny warned me about this, she thought, mentally kicking herself. I should never have doubted her.
Borrowing another racquet would be easy enough, but at this point Leanna wasn’t sure she could win her match anyway with so much on her mind. She felt awful for not believing Jenny and even worse knowing that one of her teammates—even if it was Kelsey—had betrayed her. As she walked over to the sidelines to borrow a racquet from one of her teammates, she considered forfeiting. That’s when she saw Jenny standing in the crowd. Their eyes met, and suddenly Leanna’s heart soared. Jenny actually came to watch me play! But then Leanna noticed something else. Jenny had her own tennis racquet slung over her shoulder.
“Jenny!” Leanna shouted, running toward her. “You were right about everything. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“I’m sorry too, Lee,” Jenny said. “I thought about what you said about Kelsey giving you a racquet and realized that must be what the other girls were talking about. I couldn’t just leave you out here without a backup. Here.” She held out her racquet with a smile and Leanna took it from her. The grip was worn down from the long hours Jenny had spent playing with her, and it felt good in Leanna’s hands.
“Thanks, Jen,” she said with a smile.
Jenny grinned back at her. “You’ve got a match to finish. Go get ’em, Lee.”
Leanna jogged back to the court, where her opponent was waiting for her. Kelsey had tried to throw her off, but now Leanna was even more determined to bring home a win for Kramer. She took a fresh ball out of her skirt and bounced it off the court’s surface, preparing to serve. With all eyes on her, she tossed the ball into the air. This one’s for you, Jen, she thought. Jenny’s racquet struck the ball clean, and she knew even before the ball had crossed the net that she had just fired off an ace. Everyone cheered, but one voice stood out from the rest—Jenny, her friend until the end, shouting, “Bring home the win!”
About the Author
Glasko Klein is a financial researcher who holds an MFA in fiction from Long Island University Brooklyn. He resides in New York City with his fiancée and his bilingual cat, Umlaut.