Page 107 of This Could be Love
I looked up. Her eyes probed my face.
“All good,” I reassured her with a cautious smile.
She put a hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t have much left in the fridge, so it’d be best to pick something up on the way.”
I nodded although I wasn’t hungry.
“You all packed?”
“I did everything last night,” I said over the rim of my mug. “Just have to close my suitcase.”
“Good.” She let a few beats pass, and a soft expression appeared on her face. “I’m going to miss having you here.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not happy to be able to dance around your house in the nude again?”
“How do you know I haven’t been all along?” she asked with a wink.
I grinned. More seriously I said, “Thank you, Kay. For everything.”
“Isn’t this what we’re supposed to say at the airport?”
I shrugged. “You can say this kind of thing twice, I think.”
She smiled and pulled me to her in a careful embrace so as not to spill our coffees.
Not even twenty minutes later I was carrying my suitcase out of the house where I’d spent the last six weeks of my life. I breathed in the scent of the plumeria blossoms one more time, the ocean’s salty smell. And firmly resolved to memorize it.
* * *
Before the plane turned away from Oahu, I looked out the window and caught a glimpse of Diamond Head crater, the only thing worth seeing in Honolulu, according to Vince. No idea if he was right or not. I never saw anything of the capital beyond the airport. Not even Waikiki Beach. Maybe next time, I said to myself, although I had the suspicion that I wouldn’t be seeing Hawaii again anytime soon.
A tissue appeared in my field of vision. Taken aback, I looked at the person sitting next to me who, up until now, I hadn’t paidany attention to. A beefy guy between forty and fifty. His flattop and dog tags made it clear that he was military.
“It hasn’t been used,” he said, as if that was why I’d hesitated. It just took me a few seconds to realize that I was crying. That silent tears were rolling down my cheeks and dripping onto my top.
* * *
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Hey… You’re probably in the air already and…I shouldn’t do this, but…I just saw a plane and had to think of you. Of yesterday…and I just wanted to say… Oh, man, what am I doing…
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Chapter 47
One week later
US Open, First Round
I was in the players’ tunnel at Arthur Ashe Stadium trotting in place to keep my muscles warm. Just a few feet away my opponent, Kim Bird, was checking the hem of her tennis skirt. She was around my age, but almost a whole head shorter and considerably smaller, which could give me a distinct advantage. I thought of the suggestion Kay had given me yesterday on FaceTime.Make sure you keep her busy. Don’t let her catch her breath for a single second. She makes mistakes when she has to hit the balls while running.Like me, Kim had Bluetooth earbuds in. In a pre-match interview she’d explained she liked to get pumped up listening to hip-hop. I used music to come down from all the commotion in the players’ area. To tune out the noise and focus.
“Five minutes,” a US Open official let us know with a gesture.
Next to him was a security guy waiting to lead us to our places.The same spot I’d had my injury. One year ago today. No screenplay in the world could have scripted it better. I could only imagine what the sportscasters were saying about fate and all. But the fact that I was here had nothing to do with fate. It had to do with hard work and my belief in myself.
At the official’s sign, Kim and I began to move. Three steps behind her, I made my way past the huge portraits of former US Open champions: Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Naomi Osaka, Novak Djokovic. So many stories behind every one of these images. The temperature rose dramatically the closer we got to the exit. At almost ninety degrees and humid, it was like a sauna out there. But after six weeks in Hawaii, I was used to it.
