Page 79 of It’s All in How You Fall
“Hey there, Keplers,” Mr. Zavala says. “Lookin’ sharp.”
And we are. Dad and Nat ganged up on me and insisted I get a couple of actual tennis skirts with pockets for balls. This one is black and swishy, and I paired it with an actual athletic top—a blue not so different from the competition leo I have stuffed in a drawer—plus a pink golf visor I picked out because it looked cute.
Meanwhile, Alex looks like he’s ready for Wimbledon in tennis whites. Honestly, my heart skips a beat like it truly understands the phrase “angel on earth.” Today’s hat is one I’ve never seen before—it’s white with a little green Lacoste gator across the front. His clothes are different too. Nike, but actual tennis clothes and a little matchy-matchy. Not the mishmash of labels and uses—basketball shorts, running shorts, soccer shorts—I’ve seen him wear all summer.
I guess we’re both a little different on game day.
Or is it match day? I’ve only had meet days. What even is this?
It’s different. That’s what it is.
“We’ll see you on the courts,” Mr. Zavala says, shaking me from my blatant bout of staring at his son. “I want to hit up the bakery before the croissant offerings are picked over.”
“Croissants?” For a moment Dad’s blinded by the idea of a second breakfast, but then he remembers himself, pivots, and catches me in a fierce hug. “You’re going to do great, Caro. See you out there.”
I mumble something through my compressed breath and then the dads peace out, jogging up the steps like they’ve been unleashed to vanquish baked goods in a way that might save the world.
Alex adjusts the bag over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”
I grab his hand and kiss his shoulder. It’s subtle, but his cheeks pink, and suddenly my stomach flips for an entirely different reason.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Okay,” Alex answers, placing a gentle palm on the small of my back. He guides me toward a set of doors I’ve never entered. “Players this way.”
The first match on my court is a rout—6–0, 6–0, aka a “double bagel,” which is mean because it sounds like the losing player spent the match reclining with brunch in hand. Though, the most natural alternative for two 6–0 sets, “double love,” might not actually be much of an improvement.
My biggest goal is not to win—I have no illusions about my talent and the timeline—but to get on the board.
Six–one, six–love, if it has to be—I don’t care. I just want to avoid a shutout.
Alex leads me to the court and then runs off to page both our dads and Nat. Which leaves me with an empty court and my opponent. A girl who is possibly younger than me—our age bracket is fourteen to sixteen—but Alex warned me that some of the more talented girls play up—even in the beginners’ draw. This girl has no hips but is also at least three or four inches taller than me, her legs indicating that past puberty she’ll appear to be serving from a tree.
Still, you can’t tell if someone has talent until you see them play.
I hope the same can be said for me.
Per warm-up rules, we take turns hitting serves, volleying from the baseline, and up at the net. By the time we’ve run through it all—me copying the other girl and always a half step behind—the meager stands on the side of the court are almost full.
Dad, Nat, Alex, and his dad sit in the front row. Alex is talking to a guy next to him who looks vaguely familiar. Does everyone belong to this club and I don’t know it?
Alex nods at me. Mouths some words. “You’ve got this, Caroline.”
I take a deep breath. The chair umpire climbs to her spot.
And we begin.
36
The first set is a graveyard of close calls but no points on theboard for me. By the time my opponent—Marina—hits 5–0 on her own serve, I’m starting to really sweat that I won’t make even my most basic goal.
Despite the scoreboard—or the score announcement, really… there’s no actual board, just the chair umpire’s running tally—I’ve been better than my “love bagel” indicates. No double faults. A couple of serves she couldn’t return and dumped straight into the net. A few winners even, but more of my points have come on her mistakes than my successes and we both know it. If Dad and Nat know it, they don’t care, cheering wildly at anything I do correctly. Also, somehow Olga snuck in—another surprise courtesy of Dad, the Zavala-Mack clan’s ticket status, and likely Elena taking over the final hour of morning practice. It’s great to see her, but somehow just her mere presence has me even more stressed than before.
Still. I can do this. I used to defy gravity on the regular. I can string together enough points to claim a game.
I can.
It’s my serve. I hold the ball and back up to the service line. Watching Marina, age twelve, waiting with a glare she clearly learned from bingeing tape after tape of Maria Sharapova’s glory days.
