Page 11 of The Pickleball Girl Finds Her Match

“Unless you can come up with the money for the next couple of years.” Joel shrugged and then looked far over to the pickleball courts filled with players. “I don’t know, maybe …”

Endy peeked through her hands, her eyebrows raised.

“Like maybe if you wanted to do a fundraiser out of the racquet club before the end of the season, we could help you out with that at least.” He took a sip of his smoothie. “We could do a Saturday event or something.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s awesome. A Saturday fundraising event!” exclaimed Endy, bouncing in her seat. “Great idea. Thank you so much, Joel.”

“Don’t thank me yet … it’s all on your shoulders. It’ll be completely up to you to raise the $25,000,” replied Joel. “You think you’ll be able to do that?”

Endy nodded and smiled widely. “Anything can happen.”

Endy rounded up all the kids and separated them four to a court. With an even number of kids, all of them could play and no one would need to sit out. Endy went over the rules, reminding the kids to play fair.

“… and if a ball lands on the very outside of a line, is it considered in or out?” she asked the group.

“IfIhit it, then it’s in,” came a reply. “If it’s anyone else’s, then it’s out.”

Endy rolled her eyes but smiled at the boy holding the paddle next to her. Ten-year-old Paco Lopez had been one of the first to join up with Picklers. His mother worked a midday shift, so he always found his own way to Whisper Hills on the bus after school. His older brothers were athletic and participated in competitive organized sports throughout the year, but Paco was considered too impulsive, too volatile, and too much of a handful, so he never lasted long with any team or coach. Paco just wasn’t made for team sports.

Endy once had overheard Paco describe himself as “short, fat, and brown,” which, unfortunately, Endy could not disagree with. Paco kept his jet-black hair cropped short, close to his large, round head, a little cowlick swirling at his crown. His cheeks plumped his face, surrounding his dark eyes, hooded with heavy lids.

The wicked gleam in his eyes, along with his arrogance, set him apart from the rest of the kids in the program. On and off the pickleball court, if he were ever provoked in the slightest, his response would often cause exasperation or even tears. Yet, minutes or even seconds afterward, Paco would be apologetic, offering his hand to whomever he’d upset. He’d give a full smile and would be attentive the rest of the practice time.

Was it bluster or was it charisma that made him so unpredictable? Endy thought that maybe with Paco, they were one and the same.

Paco’s mother, Valentina, picked him up after she got off work at seven o’clock, but she often ran late, giving Endy alone time with Paco. It didn’t take Endy long to see that there was something magical about Paco, and she wondered if anyone else would ever see that too.

The kids played hard over the course of the next hour as the afternoon began transitioning to early evening. At the end of the last point, laughing and yelling and talking, they all drifted off the courts to the tables scattered with water and Gatorade bottles and backpacks. When the sun started drifting lower, dropping below the tops of the palm trees, and the air grew chilly, some kids pulled hoodies over their heads. They moved onto the lawn, waiting for the Toyotas, Hyundais, and Kias driven by a mother or older sibling to pull up to bring them home.

“Look!” a little girl said, her face tilted upward.

Above them, dozens of Canada geese soared over the courts, their wings beating along with their honking calls. The kids, inexplicably and finally hushed, lifted their eyes. The large birds in their V formation seemed like an arrow cutting across the entire periwinkle sky. They all watched mesmerized.

Pushing past the other kids close to Endy, Paco took a spot right next to her, then reached out and placed his small, sweaty hand in hers until the geese flapped away, their honks fading into the night.

7

Sebastian knew it was creepy to follow her after she had locked up the pro shop and raced away. But leaning into his bad decision, he started his own golf cart and tailed Endy, keeping a block behind her.

After she had bumped into him, as he held her in his arms, he had instantly felt a mega-spark of attraction. And when she’d turned around and jogged off and he saw “Big Dink Energy” printed on the back of her huge neon-green T-shirt, Sebastian had actually laughed out loud.

He didn’t know her, but he knew he wanted to.

Big time.

He’d followed her around the perimeter of the racquet club’s tennis courts to where she joined a group of wild and out-of-control kids. She had stepped in the middle of that chaos and let loose with the most joyous laugh. Watching her twirl, her long, dark hair fanning out behind her, had Sebastian bewitched.

All of the kids seemed to love her—the young ones ran around her, screaming, while the older ones walked next to her, their faces upturned with relaxed smiles.

But when she’d gotten all the kids out onto pickleball courts and they had started hitting the bright green wiffle ball, Sebastian knew it was his cue to move on. Sure, maybe pickleball was picking up across the nation, but it wasn’t at all for him, and the sound of those stupid paddles hitting those annoying plastic balls was quickly getting on his nerves.

Sebastian clicked the switch on the golf cart to drive forward and cranked the steering wheel into a U-turn. He looked over his shoulder one last time and saw her under the awning, bent over the picnic table. He tapped on the cart’s accelerator and slowly rolled away just as he heard some Harry Styles song from the speaker on the table. Looking back, he saw the girl tug her short tennis skirt over her hips again.

He cruised around the country club slowly, enjoying the end-of-day quiet. The landscaping crew had gone home hours before, so calm had settled over the lush green golf courses. Smooth as mirrors, the water of the ponds reflected the last rays of the sun dipping behind the San Jacinto Mountains. Someone grilled steaks on their back patio, the smell making Sebastian’s stomach growl.

Heading home, Sebastian took the road next to the pickleball courts, where the kids were all now waiting on the nearby grass. Evening was just coming on, and he didn’t yet need to put on the headlights. So he parked in the same place he had earlier, a block away, and watched the kids gather around the girl in the “Big Dink Energy” T-shirt.

He heard a little girl yell, “Look!” Then he saw a massive flock of gray-and-brown geese cruising above them all in a huge wedge-shaped V. Echoing off the walls of the Spanish-style homes, their nasalhooonksseemed to strum through his bones.

---