Love Game - Season 2012 (8 page)

“She’s actually not a good friend.”

***

High above the Yarra River, in a hotel room
that seemed to touch the dark clouds which hung above Melbourne, Morgana Doré
lay on her stomach surrounded by heaps of books and writing utensils and was
reading
Tennis Nurse and the Case of the Lotus Lily
, the latest
publication of the novel series. Outside, the hotel tower was beleaguered by
strong winds, and while flashes of lightning illuminated the horizon, heavy
rain showers began gushing against the panorama window.

But Morgana was unfazed by the looming
apocalypse.

She had been reading for fifteen minutes
now, relaxed at first and laughing about the absurd chase through the jungle in
the first chapter. But then she had paused, staring in disbelief at the pages.
A new character had been introduced – Dorothée Margeaux. She didn’t need a PhD
to understand on whom the new character was based. Morgana gasped. How long had
she been studying the novel series? How much time had she invested in making
the correct connections between the characters and the actual players on the
tour? She had worked so hard on her literary thesis, now running at almost four
hundred pages. It felt like an award, having her own character in the famous
novel series.

Morgana looked outside the window and
greeted the loud thunder with a big smile and a nod.

“
C’est fou!”
she giggled, then bent
over the book again.

Dorothée seemed to be on a dangerous
mission, transferring money to the Yakuza. What for? Morgana quickly turned the
page. While being observed by Jane, Dorothée sat down in the restaurant. Soon,
she was served a deliciously decorated blowfish. Morgana knew it was a Japanese
delicacy, so she nodded in approval. Unfortunately, Jane left the scene and
went back to the tournament site as there was an emergency with one of the
players.

Being a thorough reader it wasn’t an easy
decision for Morgana, but after giving it some consideration she resolved to
skip the next pages in which Jane took care of Daria, one of the top players,
and quickly scanned the text for Dorothée Margeaux’s name. After a couple of
pages Morgana rejoiced. There it was again! She went back two paragraphs and began
to read again.

The smile vanished from her face with a
velocity as fast as the wind which howled outside the window.

Dorothée Margeaux’s body was found in her
hotel room.

Morgana looked at the words again. But
there it was. In black and white. Dorothée was dead. Poisoned.

“
Merde
,” Morgana whispered. “
Merde.”

She couldn’t believe that this was
happening to a character –
her
character. Why would the author introduce
a new protagonist in the second chapter of a book, only to kill her off in the
next chapter? Morgana sat up, deeply disappointed. No adventures of Doro
Margeaux. No job as the sidekick of the famous Jane. No merits on the court for
the French character. Nothing. Just a dead body in a Japanese hotel.

Morgana took the book and was about to
throw it against the huge glass pane, when she stopped mid-air. A lightning
bolt flickered outside and the following thunder made the glass shudder.

It was a warning.

Morgana slowly put the book down as the
realization sank in. Of course, it was a warning. Only a few months ago, she
herself had sat in a Japanese restaurant, eating a blowfish. She had invited
Agnes Lion to dine with her. Agnes was too scared to eat the blowfish. During
the dinner, Morgana had tried to find out more about the mysterious game of Task
Tennis, which was mentioned in the
Tennis Nurse
novel series but never
explained. She had casually alluded to its secret rules. Only a handful of
people knew about them and Agnes was one of them, Morgana suspected. However,
her French team colleague had kept a straight face throughout the conversation
and never let her guard down. But here was the proof that Agnes was one of the
secret bearers! At least she had to know the author of
Tennis Nurse
or
had told somebody about Morgana’s research. And that somebody seemed to be
worrying about her. It was a warning directed at Morgana. They wanted her to
stop her research. It could only mean that she was close to solving the
mystery.

Suddenly she heard a sound and looked up.
Had something hit the window pane? She listened closely. There it was again.
Someone was knocking on her door. Morgana grew stiff, her mind racing. She
could see herself lying on the bed. Police officers surrounding it. Her coach
and team crying in the corner. There was the knock again.

“No, no, no,” she scolded herself. The
warning didn’t make sense if they planned to silence her completely. A warning
meant they were giving her a chance. Morgana got up and walked to the door.
Through the spyhole she saw a familiar face, the short hair hidden underneath a
hoodie.

Morgana exhaled in relief. It was only
Polly Duke, who seemed to have developed an obsessive reading habit in the last
two weeks.

***

How she hated packing. Especially if it
meant she had lost a match. Gabriella threw a suitcase onto the bed and grabbed
the remote control of the TV to switch on the music channel.

She had lost a very tight match. Actually
she had played really well but in the end it didn’t matter. She had lost the
important points and it had cost her match. Yelena Kovalenko would stay in
Melbourne. Even worse than her loss of the match was the loss of ranking
points. Last year, Gabriella had reached the quarterfinal, and a loss in the
third round meant that her ranking would suffer a small setback. Again.

Gabriella began packing the suitcase,
sluggishly throwing in her shirts and pants. The last week had been less than
brilliant. Lulu had beaten her in that stupid trampoline game – and not only in
terms of playing the better tennis while jumping in the air, but also by entertaining
the whole TV crew with funny anecdotes and by acting the big shot. When the
first episode of their TV show had been aired two days ago, Luella had had much
more air time than Gabriella. Her twin had been shown having fun, while
Gabriella had been portrayed as the gloomy, close-lipped sister who failed
miserably at the game. That was so wrong, Gabriella growled. After seeing the
episode, she considered calling Paola Scetti to complain about it but then
refrained. She remembered that she herself had boasted about winning Grand
Slams. Hadn’t it been Gabriella who had loud-mouthedly declared her intent to
surpass Lulu’s ranking and to even become No. 1? So far, she hadn’t backed up
her words. Far from it. Her sister had to be laughing at her right now. While
Gabriella was out of the Australian Open, Lulu would play her fourth round
match tomorrow against Natsumi Takashima. It would be a night match.

Just when she closed the lid of her
suitcase and hauled it to the already packed bags next to the door, the music
channel began playing the next song.

“Oh god,” Gabriella moaned as soon as she
heard the opening chords. There was no getting away from the misery. By staying
far away from her twin, Gabriella had hoped she could avoid the constant
acoustic onslaught by Lulu’s favorite singer, Enrique Martinez. But to no
avail. Australian radio stations couldn’t get enough of the new collaboration
between Aussie singer, Felicia Del Castro, and Enrique Martinez.

With one big leap she jumped in front of
the TV, looking for the button to switch the channel. She couldn’t find it.
Where was the remote control? Scanning the room, Gabriella shook her head in
desperation while Felicia and Enrique were crooning their terrible tune.

“Oh, god. Please help!” Gabriella cried.
The remote had to be here! She raked through the rest of her clothes scattered
over the bed and the chair but it was nowhere to be found.

At this very moment a sound coming from the
hallway made her look up. A small envelope was being squeezed through the gap
between the door and the ground. But the gap was too narrow. The envelope got
stuck. Gabriella jumped up, heading towards the entrance.

“Hello?” she called through the closed
door. The envelope stopped moving. Then she heard footsteps running away.

Gabriella flung the door open and looked
down the hallway. But no one was there anymore. Carefully she picked up the
envelope and opened it. It was a picture – of Luella and Sasha Mrachova.
Nothing else was in the envelope.

“What is this?” Gabriella wondered. Who had
given this to her? Why would someone show her a picture of Sasha lusting after
Lulu? To make her angry? Well, that person clearly succeeded, Gabriella had to
admit. It wasn’t news to Gabriella that Sasha had been following Lulu around.
What the Czech player didn’t know was that it was Gabriella whom she had kissed
in Cincinnati. She still believed that it was Luella. This being the reason she
had hit on Lulu in Istanbul, whereon Lulu hit Sasha on the nose. And now Sasha
was avoiding the twins at all costs.

“Ridiculous,” Gabriella said with disgust.
“Absolutely ridiculous.” How was Lulu attracting everyone? Even hot gay girls
like Sasha were after her, even though her twin wasn’t interested in them at
all.

“It’s just not fair,” Gabriella yelled. Furiously,
she turned back to the TV.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,”
Gabriella hissed at Felicia and Enrique who were looking each other in the
eyes. This had to stop now! She felt the urge to take the TV and throw it,
together with the photograph, through the glass window. But then the heavy rain
would have flooded the room. Again she examined the frame – this time for a
power button. But whoever had constructed the evil device seemed to have had a
bad day, as the button was missing.

As a last resort Gabriella dove behind the
TV and pulled the plug. Immediately, a heavenly silence pervaded the room, and
exhaustedly, Gabriella sat down on the floor still with the cable in one hand
and the picture in the other. To her amazement she felt tears building in her
eyes, but her hands felt too heavy and tired to wipe them away.

“Everything goes wrong,” she whispered.
“Why?”

But nothing in the quiet room provided an
answer. Clutching the TV plug, Gabriella listened to the wind outside her room
while the tears fell and disappeared into the thick carpet.

***

A thunder clap woke Elise up with a loud
bang. For a moment she looked through the gap of the curtains into the black,
stormy sky, bewildered by the weather’s ferocity. Elise turned her head to
Amanda who was lying next to her, but the Australian was sound asleep. A look
at her watch confirmed that Elise had slept for only three hours. It was 1
a.m.. She needed to get back to sleep, as she was to play her fourth round
match tomorrow and it was scheduled first on Rod Laver Arena, the Australian
Open’s center court. She looked outside the window again. Perhaps it wouldn’t
stop raining? Perhaps she wouldn’t have to play tomorrow? But then she let her
shoulders sink, as she remembered that the arena had a roof.

Quietly, she pushed the blanket aside and
slipped out of the big bed. In the bathroom she drank some water, then sat down
on the toilet lid.

It was only a match, she and Amanda had
decided when they were having dinner. Two hours perhaps. They had played
against each other before. Elise began counting the tiles on the wall above the
bathtub. Four times, they had played. Well, admittedly the last encounter was a
while ago and long before they had become lovers. At the U.S. Open they could
have met in the quarterfinal, but Elise had lost her fourth round match, so
they never had to play against each other and Amanda went on to win the title.

And now they were here at the Australian
Open. Amanda had never fared well in the Australian tournaments, but this year
she was more successful than the years before. Amanda had reached the semifinal
in Brisbane and the quarterfinal in Sydney. Tomorrow she could reach the
quarterfinal of her home Slam. With each match Amanda seemed to gain confidence
and the usual nerviness didn’t seem to hamper her this year. Nothing was in her
way – nothing but Elise.

Elise stopped counting and buried her head
in her hands. Not since she had played her first competitive match at the age
of nine had she ever chickened out from a challenge. Never had she quit during
a match, even when it was foreseeable that it wouldn’t end the way she wanted.
Never had she faked an injury or physical discomfort in order to avoid an
encounter on the court. Never had she deliberately tanked a match.

But here she was sitting on a toilet seat,
considering all of these possibilities. Not because she was afraid she couldn’t
win against Amanda – but because she believed she could. Whenever they had
played practice matches during the off-season, Elise had beaten Amanda. She had
the weapons that gave Amanda trouble, a big serve and a flat forehand. And
Elise was doing fine so far this season. She herself had reached the semifinal
in Auckland and the third round in Sydney. This was the best shape she had been
in since she had come back from her injury. If she beat Amanda tomorrow, she
would possibly encounter Tamara Parova in the quarterfinal. Tamara’s playing
style suited Elise, so she had a better chance than Amanda to beat the Russian.
A semifinal match against Marieke Bender seemed possible, and Elise had beaten
the Top 5 player before, while Amanda had a terrible head-to-head against the
Dutch player. Even though her Australian girlfriend was on a roll, the next
match-ups could quickly put a stop to her tournament. All in all, Elise had a
better chance to reach the final.