Love Game - Season 2012 (10 page)

“Did you leave something lying around?”
Elise was becoming curious.

“Maybe.” Natsumi turned away, seemingly
unwilling to say more and Elise didn’t dare inquire. But then Natsumi almost
jumped around again, taking Elise’s hands.

“Can you do me a favor? Now?” The intensity
startled Elise. She looked at the TV screen. Amanda and Angus were up two
breaks of serve in the second set.

“Can’t I wait for Amanda?”

“Yes, yes, alright!” Natsumi moaned. “But
then please rush to the hotel and get something from my room. Will you do
that?”

Elise hesitated. What could that be? You
never knew with Natsumi. Last year she had dragged Amanda to a nude sushi
dinner. Once again, the Japanese player squeezed Elise’s hands. Her hands were
ice-cold.

Elise finally nodded.

***

“What a wonderful day for a Grand Slam
semifinal,” Hugh exclaimed.

He had adjusted his headset and switched on
the microphone.

“Let’s get started.”

Samantha Watts sat down next to her
colleague and grabbed her gear. She looked out onto the Australian Open’s
centre court. It really was a beautiful day. Not a single cloud was in the sky.

“It will be so hot later,” she mumbled.

“Yes,” Hugh nodded and pointed behind
himself. “I stocked up on water for us.”

Sam grinned. Even though Hugh could be a
real blabbermouth, he was still a thoughtful colleague. Dangerously balancing
against the wall was a huge pile of water bottles. Samantha leaned over and
gave him a playful peck on the cheek.

“One minute,” they heard through their
headphones.

Broadcasting would begin half an hour
before the match started, and Sam and Hugh were expected to bridge the time
with useful, preliminary information. They got ready and as soon as the red
light indicated that they were on air they began introducing the TV spectators
to this year’s semifinalists.

“We have two very experienced players who
could reach the final today,” Hugh started.

“Yes, Tamara Parova and Sasha Mrachova,” Sam
added.
“Parova looked great in
all her previous matches. She is a very consistent player, comfortable on all
surfaces, and her high level at this Australian Open shows her confidence in
her game. It will be very hard for Natsumi Takashima to beat her today.”

“Sasha Mrachova, on the other hand, looked
down and out in a couple of matches earlier,” Hugh considered. “The fact that
she reached the semifinal demonstrates that she can fight herself out of holes
if she needs to. And her opponents love to falter against her. She has this
aura of steel around her that helps her get through horrible matches. Honestly,
Mrachova’s third round match was rather dreadful. I poured myself a drink in
the second set.”

Sam chuckled. Hugh was at his finest when
he forgot commentating etiquette. But his analysis was definitely true. In two
matches Sasha had had match points against her, but each time her opponents had
crumbled and squandered their chances with unforgivable mistakes. In the end
they gifted their matches to a mediocre Mrachova. Well, sometimes you just had
to be lucky.

“And then we have two first-time Grand Slam
semifinalists,” Sam chimed in. “Natsumi Takashima and Antonia Sapore. I must
say I was most surprised to see Takashima having such a great run. Sapore
already showed great signs last year, so her first appearance in a major
semifinal is not a huge surprise. She really has the potential to become a
strong force and Top 5 player, but Takashima has turned on the accelerator
since Sydney.”

“She didn’t have a good start in Auckland.
Went out in the first round,” Hugh explained. “When asked what she did after
that shock loss, she only smiles. Clearly the results speak for themselves. She
reached the final in Sydney, losing to Marieke Bender, but got her revenge only
two days ago, here in the quarterfinal, taking out Bender 6-2 6-4.”

“She’s not an inexperienced player,” Sam
remarked. “She’s been around for quite a while, and she has played against
Parova before and won.”

There was movement down on the court and
the spectators began to clap. Lynn Pebblestone had entered the court and begun
measuring the net height and taking out the balls out of the cans. The arena
was beginning to fill nicely and a first drop of sweat gathered on Sam’s
forehead. She reached behind and grabbed a water bottle. It wouldn’t be her
last.

***

“This is so typical,” Amanda ranted. “Much
ado about nothing, I tell you!”

She and Elise rushed down the stairs to the
garage where a car was waiting to bring them back to the hotel.

“She seemed really anxious,” Elise
remarked.

“Yes,” Amanda said over her shoulder.
“Because she will be playing a Grand Slam semifinal in thirty minutes.”

They climbed into the waiting car.

“I really wanted to see the match in the
Arena,” Amanda sighed.

“TV for us then?”

Amanda nodded. “Let’s order something from
Killer Kurry.”

Thinking about food soothed the Australian,
and Elise patted her thigh. It was only a ten minute ride along the Yarra
River, so Amanda immediately called the number of the Indian home delivery
service she had on speed-dial to ensure the food would arrive on time.

The hotel lobby was buzzing with tennis
people, clearly visible from afar by their sports clothes, tan lines and huge
racquet bags. Some of them were coming from Melbourne Park, others were leaving
town, as the huge mountains of bags and suitcases on hotel trolleys indicated.
There was only one person who stuck out. Not by height by any means, but by a
swift, determined forward movement. A petite woman was making a bee-line
through the lobby to the reception desk.

“Oh dear, that’s Natsumi’s mum,” Amanda
exclaimed. “She’s already here.”

“Let’s hurry,” Elise said, checking the
number on Natsumi’s key card. “Tenth floor.”

When the elevator doors closed they saw
Mrs. Takashima grabbing a key card of her own and turning towards the elevator
as well.

“One minute lead perhaps,” Amanda diagnosed.

The elevator reached the tenth floor and
they both began to run but the heavy racquet bags slowed them down.

“Let’s leave them here,” Elise panted. She
threw her racquet bag into a corner and kept on running. Amanda followed suit.
Now they were significantly faster. After turning two corners, Elise stopped.

“Here it is!” She swiped the key card and
opened the door.

Natsumi’s room lay dark and still, and
immediately Amanda and Elise switched to whisper mode as Amanda went inside the
room and turned on the nightstand lamp. “It’s under the bed, she said?”

Elise nodded. She kneeled down and reached
under the bed with her hand.

“There’s something,” she whispered.

She pulled out a long wooden box that was
sealed with duct tape. A look beneath the bed confirmed that there was nothing
else, so that had to be the item Mrs. Takashima wasn’t supposed to find.

“Let’s go,” Amanda pressed.

They turned out the light, left the room
and ran down the hallway. Just when they reached their racquet bags, Natsumi’s
mother stepped out of the elevator.

“Amanda?”

“
Konnichiwa
, Mrs. Takashima,” Amanda
grinned awkwardly. Elise stood behind her, waving a little with one hand. With
her other hand she held the wooden box behind her back. “We were jogging a
little bit. Didn’t have enough exercise today.”

“Of course. You haven’t changed one bit,
Amanda,” Mrs. Takashima smiled squeezing Amanda’s arm and nodding to Elise. “I
will just put my suitcase in Natsumi’s room and then take a cab to the
tournament. The match will be starting any minute. Will you join me?”

Amanda shook her head. “Sorry, we just
ordered dinner. We will cheer from the hotel room.”

They said goodbye, grabbed their bags and
took the elevator to the next floor.

“Man, we could have watched the match in
Natsumi’s box,” Amanda said grumpily, but lightened up as soon as she saw the
Killer Kurry delivery man waiting in front of their hotel room.

Inside, they switched the TV on, jumped on
the bed and Elise began unwrapping the food cartons when she noticed that
Amanda was fumbling with the duct tape on the wooden box.

“You want to look inside?”

“Yes? Don’t you?” Amanda replied. “I think
we deserve to know what this is about.”

Elise got excited. “Perhaps it’s a Samurai
sword.”

Amanda tried for several minutes but the
tape was too strong.

“Take this,” Elise suggested, handing
Amanda the plastic Killer Kurry knife. With a brisk cut Amanda swung the knife
through the tape and opened the box.

Elise blinked her eyes. “Oh.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Well, there you
go. Almost a Samurai sword.”

They both stared in amazement at the shiny,
hand-crafted treasure inside the box.

“Isn’t it a bit long?” Elise asked.

“I don’t think you would actually use it,”
Amanda said, nonplussed. “It’s probably something that you put on a shelf. It
looks antique.”

The commentators on the TV suddenly began
babbling and Amanda and Elise looked up. First Tamara came out of the tunnel
and entered the court, then Natsumi was greeted by the spectators that had
filled Rod Laver Arena. She looked perfectly content, focused and ready to go.

She and Elise looked at the close-up of
Natsumi on the TV screen warming up for the match, then at each other. Then
they stared down at the open Japanese box revealing a huge wooden phallus while
their Killer Kurry Chicken Masala was growing cold.

***

“Advantage, Takashima,” Lynn Pebblestone
announced.

Having the advantage meant a player was one
point away from winning a game, but the opportunity itself never indicated the
importance of a game. It could be the first game of the match – or the last. It
could mean a player had a chance to get a break of serve or get back on serve,
or take the lead, or simply hold serve.

Lynn’s eyes followed Natsumi who was
heading to the AD court. She’d probably place the serve into Parova’s backhand
corner, as this was the weaker side and could easily result in a mishit
backhand return. Or she would serve into the Russian’s body so that Tamara
would have to step around to hit the ball back. Or just go for the big bomb
down the middle. There were many options, and it didn’t make the decision any
easier that the Japanese player was one point away from winning the first set.

Sometimes a decision was impossible to
make, Lynn reflected. She herself was struggling with some important
decision-making at the moment. Tomorrow was the last day she could submit her
predictions for the Love Game. Which of the players would become couples? Who
would embark on a relationship? In the last four weeks, Lynn had kept her eyes
and ears open for information about what had happened in the off-season, but
she had come up with nothing so far. Most of the gay players were already in
relationships and the few younger players she had heard of didn’t seem to have
any connections to each other.

Every year the Love Game allowed each
umpire four guesses. Last year, Lynn had correctly predicted the liaison of
Martina Rodriguez and Antonia Sapore. But others had gotten that one right,
too. It wasn’t a big surprise as word about them had spread after they had
attended Monica Jordan’s New Year’s Eve party. Lynn had nevertheless won the
Love Game, as she was the only one who had predicted the relationship between
Elise Renard and Amanda Auster.

Usually she was one of the first to submit
her predictions, and with a little laugh she had noticed during the
pre-Australian Open staff party that the other umpires considered her
reluctance to place her bets as a sure sign that Lynn was waiting for
confirmation on a top-secret couple. She wished it was true and that she really
had this information. But there was none. This year she was at a loss for the
first time in her career. Moreover, she had to defend her title as Queen of the
Love Game.

Yes, she knew what pressure was.

Sitting high on her umpire chair, Lynn
observed Natsumi Takashima bounce the ball. Then she tossed it high and the
ball went a little above her head. Natsumi had opted for the wide serve to
Parova’s backhand which kicked up after the bounce – but not high enough to
trouble Tamara. It was a timid serve and this time the Russian was prepared.
She smashed it back right at Takashima’s feet and the Japanese player was only
able to slice it in return. It fell short on Parova’s side of the court and the
Russian dispatched it with a textbook dropshot winner.

“Deuce,” Lynn said into the microphone.