Page 36 of Summer After Summer

“How’s the rib?”

I twist slowly from side to side. “It’s good.”

“So, then, no.”

“No what?”

“I will not be going easy on you, mija.”

I should’ve known. Matt’s philosophy is to play through everything. Injuries, bad weather, the heat. That’s how you build the toughness you need to make it on tour. If you know you’ve done something, then you can do it again and again.

“Let me get you that racquet.” He goes into the locker at the side of his office and pulls one out. “This should work.”

He hands it to me, and my hand closes around the grip. I slice through the air, once, twice. My arm feels good. Loose.

“Let’s head to the courts.”

I follow him through the clubhouse. There are seven kids already on court, playing mini tennis, warming each other up.

“Huddle up!” Matt yells. The kids hustle over, three girls and four boys between the ages of eight and fourteen. “This is Olivia Taylor. Some of you might recognize her from the pictures on the wall holding the annual cup. Or the pictures in my office from her tour wins. She’s going to be playing with us. Now, Olivia probably wants you to go easy on her because it’s been a while, but what do we say to that?”

“No mercy!” the kids yell back, and though some of them are laughing, it’s still a bit frightening.

But it also lights a fire in me. The competitive fire Matt saw in me at age six, when my mom brought me to him and said she’d found me hitting tennis balls against the garage door for two hours and maybe he could help me do something a bit more productive with my time.

“All right,” Matt yells. “Back to work. Cindy, you’ll play with Olivia.”

A spindly thirteen-year-old girl with her hair in long, blond pigtails and her socks pulled up to her knees nods with assurance. I’m her mission now. She will not be denied.

But I’ve seen that expression before. It used to be mine, and this old dog still has a few tricks left in her yet.

I follow Cindy to court one, which faces the back of the clubhouse, where the guest rooms are. I take the far side, so I’m looking right at them as we warm up at the net, then move back to hit from the baseline. Cindy strikes the ball hard and fast with lots of spin, but I can match her. I swing freely, years of training taking over as I get low and flex my knees and twist my body to generate power.

Whack, whack, whack, whack! Our rally is loud, each of us running down balls we might have normally let go in a warmup. She drop-shots me, and I struggle to get to the net on time to put it over, but I do. I’m out of position now, so I sprint across the net to intercept the forehand winner she’s trying to put down the line. I get my racquet on it, angling it away from me, and it drops low across the net and spins out of the court. Cindy is fast, and she gets her racquet on it, but not fast enough. She dumps the ball into the net.

“Nice shot,” Cindy mutters.

“That was a great rally,” I say, out of breath. “Don’t worry. No way I can keep up that kind of quality. I’m so out of shape.”

Cindy smiles to herself, thinking that I’m stupid to tell her my weakness as if it wasn’t already obvious by the way the white polo shirt I’m wearing hugs my no longer flat belly.

We’ll see.

I walk back to the baseline, taking my time so I have my breath back before the next ball arrives. I turn, getting into the ready position. My focus is pulled by the twitch of a curtain in one of the guest bedroom windows. It’s Fred, watching with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

Whether it’s because he thinks he still knows me or he’s guessed that he’s the reason I’m out here, I can’t tell.

CHAPTER TEN

July 2003

After the perfection of my sixteenth birthday, I go to bed fantasizing about the amazing summer Fred and I are going to have and all the things we’ll do between now and Labor Day, when we’ll go to the US Open. I’m filled with happiness, and if life can be better than this, I don’t see how. We have nine weeks together, and my mind is filled with kisses and plans and love.

Yes, I’m sure I’m in love.

Nine weeks, I think as I fall asleep with a smile on my face, reliving our kiss over and over again. Nine weeks.

I get one.

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