by Lola Keeley
“In the meantime you can deny me the chance to earn? To defend my titles or win new ones? No way, you can’t do this.”
“The rules and by-laws are very clear,” Tall Suit continued. “Now, if you’ll proceed next door, you’ve been selected for testing. Not so racist now, is it?”
I didn’t bother to argue. I could feel the temper rising in me like lava shooting through my veins, and I’d only make it worse. Unlike Sarah, I had enough experience to control the outbursts just long enough to make them in private. Maybe I could put that on my resume as a life skill once I retired.
I tried counting under my breath as I pushed my way out into the corridor, but it wasn’t distracting me enough.
“Miss Larsson?” A door opened further along the corridor, and a small woman in at least her sixties emerged, lab coat in place. “No rush, dear. Do you need a drink?”
I shook my head. I’d just polished off a full bottle of energy drink coming off court. Tamping down a sarcastic remark, I realised I might be able to get something useful out of the tester.
“I can come in now,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Doris,” she replied, ushering me into the bland space with its sink and singular toilet cubicle—no door. “Now let’s get this over with, shall we?”
My phone had been vibrating on and off since I left court, but I only thought to check it when I got back to my room. Flopping down on the bed in my clean tracksuit, I saw I had something from an unknown number. That wasn’t usual, given how few times I gave my number out.
Any panic about the number having leaked was wiped out by opening the text to see it was signed ‘T xx.’ Parisa must have taken pity on her and given her my number again. I saved the new number before I could think better of it and focused on reading the rest of what she’d sent.
Sorry for silence, phone died on me. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow? T xx
What did she mean about tomorrow? I scrambled for the player’s welcome pack on my nightstand and checked my schedule. The only thing I had was the quarterfinal match which meant… Oh damn, why hadn’t I looked at the whole bracket?
I’d be playing Toni in less than twenty-four hours, and she’d only just started talking to me again. There was a saying for that in English; I just couldn’t think of it for a moment. Oh yeah. Fuck my entire life.
Sleep? Forget it. I grabbed a restless hour here and there, but it wasn’t really worth the effort of lying down in the first place. I went through all my daily routine as though it was any other match, but on the practice court, the other players gave me a wide berth. Must have been something about how I looked as I served ball after ball towards Ezi, stepping in as my rally partner for the day.
It was more frustrating that we were the fourth of the four women’s matches that day, and my ranking meant we were on the biggest of the three courts—the Manolo Santana. Twelve thousand people would get to see every step, every facial expression. I was so used to tuning out crowds, but now that number was horrifying. Would they be able to tell? Was there anything for them to tell? Hadn’t I effectively been ghosted the moment I let her walk away in Miami?
At least I managed a nap in the afternoon, before my final warmup. When I made it down to the locker room, I found Mira waiting. For once she didn’t pass comment on me, concerning herself with whatever was so fascinating on her tablet. Coaching instructions to shake the world, knowing her.
Toni didn’t appear until moments before we were due to walk out. There was much less fuss than at the four slams, but it was still an occasion here in Madrid. The third quarterfinal had just finished in Stadium Two, meaning the winner here would get to play Jodie, a tour stalwart from the US who everyone liked. She didn’t win much in terms of finals, but she was usually in the reckoning most times. Still, it was a potentially simple path to the final, one I would make short work of.
Just had to beat Toni first. Which was fine, as long as I didn’t look directly at her. Or think. Or feel.
If she had looked good when I last saw her in person, Toni was unfairly gorgeous today. Seeing too much of it had generally left me immune to the charms of a woman in tennis gear, but it turned out my libido was ready to make an exception. With her hot pink and navy shorts and vest, it felt like neon arrows to point out her stunning legs and defined arms. The one indicator she might be affected by my presence was her matching baseball cap, all the better to try to hide behind. Toni’s tan had deepened with another round of sunshine tournaments behind her, and she looked all the better for being without me.
We left Mira in the locker room and walked the short distance until red clay was underfoot.
“Have a good game,” Toni said as we lined ready for the handshakes and coin toss. “You look great, by the way.”
“I looked good last month too,” I said, not moving my lips too much in case the cameras picked us up. “Which, you know, I could have shown you if you’d kept in touch.”
“Elin—”
The umpire interrupted us and there was no chance to say more. We shed our jackets on our respective chairs and I took my end to start the final warmup rally. I kicked the ground in quiet frustration at letting Toni know how hurt I’d been. So much for rising above it.
When the match started, I dug deep, reaching for that competitive boost to start things off with a sting. Instead, I found myself watching Toni shift position on the baseline, her hips swinging smoothly from side-to-side as she awaited my serve. I bounced the ball a little too long and she noticed it, giving me a wink from across the court.
Oh yeah. I was screwed.
As with most of the venues we played, there was a huge general locker room for all the women upstairs in the Caja Mágica, but the actual match participants had smaller changing rooms near the court itself. The lockers and the showers were a shared space there, with a private dressing room either side.
I should have guessed she’d come storming right in after me.
“What the fuck was that?” she almost spat the words, catching me off guard and backing me against the wall.
“Excuse me?” I might have been crazy about this woman, but nobody talked to me that way. “Oh, are we talking now?” I felt sick, I didn’t want to fight with Toni, but now it seemed inevitable. I could no sooner stop it than I could have stopped a speeding train.
“What do you mean are we talking? You’re the one who disappeared on me. Went home to California and then cancelled Stuttgart. What was I supposed to think?” Toni asked. We were inches apart, but it didn’t much look like she planned to kiss me this time. I felt her height advantage so acutely in that moment, her dark eyes trained on me as I fumbled for a response.
“You stopped calling! The messages dropped off. I can take a hint, Toni. I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself, not again.”
“Again?”
I didn’t reply, turning my head away. I tried to sidestep her, but she didn’t give an inch, planting her palms on the white brick wall behind me and effectively trapping me in place. I could get out if I wanted, we both knew that, but it gave me the excuse I needed to finally confront the whole mess.
“Fine. I started blabbing about babies because you caught me in a weak moment, and instead of listening to context, that it’s all some far-off future thing, you freaked out.” I willed myself to stare her down on this point. I was in the right. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but you handled it very badly.”
“So what if I did?” she snapped. “Anyone would freak. What you didn’t bother to ask was what kind of freaking out was I doing? Because that, Elin, is the difference. I didn’t want to run a mile from you. You started talking about the future like I could be part of it, and I didn’t panic for a second. Not until I realised how much I wanted that, how much I liked maybe being in that picture for you. We’d barely been together five minutes, and there I was, ready to grab my U-H
aul like some big fucking cliché!”
I squinted at her in confusion as I tried to put it together. “You’re saying you flipped out because you didn’t flip out at the idea of marriage and babies? That’s… That’s pretty dumb?”
“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to see why you don’t date so much, if you start talking about your future kid’s college tuition on a first date.”
“Ha ha,” I replied, patting her on the arm but still making no attempt to move. “If we had just talked…and then when I thought we would, before coming here, you suddenly disappeared!”
“I broke my phone, I told you. It took a while to get a new one—I was on the road.”
“And making Mira your secretary?”
Toni pulled back a little. “What are you talking about?”
“She fields your calls, tells me when you’re too busy? Like you didn’t put her up to it when you realised you wanted out. Please, give me some credit.”
“I…I didn’t know. I never asked her to do that.” Toni let her hand slip down the wall, taking mine instead. “Elin, come on. I would never do that. I know how you feel about Mira, for a start. She’s an excellent coach, but I wouldn’t use her to hide from you.”
“But you did hide from me.” I wasn’t letting her away with this one. I pulled my hand free and shoved past Toni. She caught me and pulled me close. Damn, I really had missed that closeness. I felt her breath on my cheek.
“Of course I hid. You, this… I’m terrified. You don’t know what this is like for me. I have idolised you, looked up to you like my personal goddess for years now. It got me through recovery and coming back. And then I find out not only are you gay, but you actually like me? It’s like shit, maybe Santa was real all this time?”
I couldn’t help it. When she started to cry, the first tear rolling down her cheek, I reached up to stroke it away with my thumb. We were basically holding each other up, and I didn’t know how we’d found ourselves at this point at all.
“I don’t think I want to be an old man in a red suit.” I had to at least try teasing her. “And I’m not asking anything of you, Toni. I just really like you, and I want to see what this is between us. As long as you want that too. I never wanted to scare you.”
She kissed me, soft and gentle and maybe just a hint of salt from her tears, but I felt the tightness in my chest ease for the first time in weeks. I didn’t care that we were both in sweaty clothes, that her hair was damp when I ran my fingers through it. I kissed her and kissed her and damn she kissed me back until I was backed against that wall again, this time with the promise of much more than a conversation.
“But one more thing,” Toni said, pulling herself away with obvious regret. “I just, I just have to know. For sure.”
“Anything,” I replied. “Ask me.”
“I just… Elin, did you let me win out there today?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Did I what?”
There was a strange ringing sound in my ears. Had she really just said that to me? It wasn’t bad enough she’d clawed her way to victory in the third set at my expense, but now she was checking I hadn’t thrown the match? Just to, what, get back in her pants?
“I need to know,” she said, having the decency to look down at her feet in something like shame. “That my win today was legit. That I earned it.”
“Did you score more points than me?” She nodded. “Did you win two sets?” Another nod. “Did I do anything other than play you full strength? Full speed?” She shook her head that time.
“Elin—”
“Then you have your answer. How can you even ask me that?”
“Well, last time I played you, I barely made it off the court alive.” Toni moved across to sit on the chair by the door.
“You’ve improved,” I replied, softening as I saw the lack of belief in her own potential. “Working with Mira has been good for you.”
“I’ve dreamed about this day, you know?” She looked like she might cry again. “Only now I don’t want it to affect any chance I might have for…us. Can we do this and still compete? I know you’re thinking about stepping down, but—”
“I’m not gone yet,” I reminded her. “And I should hide your racquets for ever accusing me of going easy on you. On anyone. If and when I retire, it won’t be because I stopped trying to win. Now will you hurry up and get to the part where you get to be smug?”
“Because I finally beat the best player in the world?” Toni replied.
I flipped her off, but I did it with a really big smile. “Exactly. Now you’ve got Jodie next round, which should mean you’re in the final on Saturday. So start enjoying that. How did you want to celebrate?”
She dragged a look up and down my body that made me feel like my clothes had just been torn off. Before she could put what that look suggested into words, the sound of Mira’s voice interrupted us.
“Antonia?”
“I have to go check in. See you in the showers in a minute?”
I grinned at her like a fool, because that’s exactly what I was when it came to all this. “Don’t take too long. I might start without you once the water hits me.”
She left with a spring in her step. Good.
As much as I wanted Toni to myself the next day, when she woke up in my bed all sleep-tousled and out of sorts, I sent her back to her own room to get ready for her semi-final. I would watch from the stands, even though it was still unusual behaviour for me to hang around after I’d been put out. Let them talk; I was officially past caring.
What I did have to care about was the threat of suspension hanging over my head. I needed two slams to equal the record and three to break it. With the French Open being one of the remaining three, I had to play in it to have any hope of wrapping up my goal in one season. Maybe I’d still play on for at least one more year, but the sooner I got the numbers, the sooner it would feel like fully my choice again.
I met with my co-conspirators in the players’ lounge, my mother and Parisa rounding out our numbers.
“I have more data,” Parisa said, brandishing some printouts. “The shift definitely started four years ago.”
We looked around for a moment until Celeste did the maths. “The season I won my first slam.”
Keiko gave a low whistle. “Shit, you know people are racist and then they still surprise you. I remember the crappy coverage you got at the time too.”
“They didn’t exactly love you winning in Paris last time either. But with me it’s always this implication that I’m cheating just by being built this way. Who knew all this time they were actually testing for it?”
“I’m sorry,” my mother said to them both. “If I’d had any idea this was going on…”
“They’ve kept it pretty quiet,” Celeste said. “I suspect what the tour wants is to maximise the slender blondes who spend half the year modelling and don’t hit the ball too hard. In case it puts any men off, that sort of thing.”
“Well, this skinny blonde hits as hard as any of you,” Parisa said, in a compliment I wasn’t sure I wanted. “But yeah, I suspect you’re right, Celeste. I’ve heard some borderline shady things from the marketing people now and then, but that’s just the risk of doing business sometimes—too many of them speak before they think.”
“Just so you all know, they invited me to a disciplinary meeting which I already refused.” I had to get it out while I could still summon the words to talk about it. “And I’ve been told there’ll be an announcement Saturday that I’m being fined and suspended for 30 days.”
That started the uproar. Parisa’s string of curse words was like shouted poetry, and my mother practically turned furniture over, on her feet and ranting in Swedish. Celeste and Keiko were talking over both of them, listing more incidents of potential racism. By the time Celeste got to where they could shove their damn trophy, I didn’t k
now whether to laugh or hide under the table. The whole room was staring at us, or at least trying to catch a glimpse.
“Calm down!” I hissed, smothering the laugh that was definitely trying to escape. “This is why I painted the little target on my back, it’s okay. I don’t like to think what they would have done to you, Celeste. It almost feels like they were trying to…I don’t know, provoke you?”
“We’ll find out soon enough, because no way are we letting them away with this. It would mean you miss Paris!”
That set my mother off, predictably. Through a flurry of muttered curses, she took out her phone and started sending out frantic messages. “Like hell will you miss a slam, Elin.”
“Mamma, they haven’t done anything yet. It could be a few guys trying to intimidate me into shutting up.” I didn’t believe that; I had seen how serious they were. Maybe that pissed me off most of all, that they expected me to be scared of them. Well, the tennis world would cope without three random assholes in suits, but they might not be so quick to go and play tournaments with their top players boycotting. Talking people into not earning money would be a struggle, but most of us could afford to take the hit.
“When will you know if they’re serious?” Keiko asked, pulling her long dark hair back into a ponytail.
“Tomorrow, I guess. That’s what they said.”
“Then we’ll decide tomorrow. None of us are going to Rome next week, right?” Celeste asked. We all shook our heads. “Okay, let’s go deal with the semi-finals. Sorry, Elin.”
“I’ll have fun watching,” I said, and for once I actually meant it.
I was wrong about it being fun.
Watching Toni in Mexico had been a breeze compared to this match. I played every point with her in my head, tried to look completely unmoved whenever she notched up another point, another game. Doing well here would look good for her going into Paris. Even though I had my eye on the big prize there, I wanted Toni to get as close as possible.