Love Game - Season 2011 (16 page)

In the end it meant nothing. It had no meaning for the future – so she told herself. She could have touched her cheek and rubbed the burn away but she didn’t. She wanted to feel it. It reminded her of her own stupidity and apparently she needed a reminder. And wasn’t it a good step towards self improvement to admit your own shortcomings?

The moonlight was sliding along the bare furniture and sighing loudly, Amanda rolled onto her stomach and buried her head in her arms. But then quickly turned back again. She didn’t want to close her eyes. If she did so, then the whole scene in the hotel corridor would replay again and she’d only feel embarrassed. Should she have acted differently? Maybe. Life could be so terribly confusing. Or maybe she was confusing everything. The whole scheme that had been unfolding in her mind in the last days and hours had been illusory and Amanda knew it. Just one of these enticing ideas that cropped up after another disappointing relationship had ended.

It wasn’t easy to get involved in a relationship on tour. Too much travelling and only a blurry concept of home made it almost impossible to find someone for a long-term partnership. But sometimes two players found each other and it made life and love a lot easier.

It had only been a sweet idea – good enough to take her mind off Felicia and perfectly harmless. But she had felt it coming the whole week and the piercing hotness on her cheek only confirmed it – she should have never said yes to going out for dinner, she should have never said yes to playing doubles with Elise. She should have stayed far away from the girl. She moaned quietly. What had she been thinking? She should have stopped herself. Rolling onto her stomach again, Amanda ruffled her hair. There really was no use for a broken heart. Not a second time in a month.

But this German kid had captured her mind, there was no denying it. They had met by the showers and in the lockers, talked casually. They had hugged on court, touched each other and shared good moments. They had laughed a lot. Amanda relaxed thinking about the time they had spent together. Elise had made her smile. She had made Amanda crack jokes and tell stories. She had made her forget Felicia completely. Yes, she couldn’t help it and as much as she tried to focus on something else, her thoughts always ended up leading her to Elise. She was probably asleep now, lost in quiet dreams with a smile playing on her lips, lighting up her graceful features.

Biting her lower lip in frustration, Amanda frowned and cleared her voice. What on earth was wrong with her, Amanda wondered. Should she have seen it coming? The Germans swift forward movement wasn’t exactly what she had expected and Amanda wasn’t fast enough to dodge. If Amanda was lucky Elise wouldn’t bother her again with playing doubles. Perhaps after a while they could have a nice friendship. But nothing else.

She closed her eyes.

There they were in the corridor still smiling about the previous witty exchange in the elevator when Amanda told Elise about the first time she had played on clay, not being able to handle the new surface, and Elise told her about her first time playing on grass. Amanda had thought of a ballsy, suggestive comment about first times in general and for a second she considered throwing it at Elise to test her reaction, but in the end she didn’t. Amanda had been constantly aware of that lingering feeling below the surface but restrained herself from getting too engaged with the young woman. The evening had been pleasantly joyful and relaxed and Amanda had kept her cool with the young German who seemed thoroughly happy to spend the evening with the Australian. Everything had gone according to plan and Amanda couldn’t remember when she had felt so much at ease with someone.

Then they said good night and just when Amanda wanted to turn around to walk down to her room, Elise put her hands lightly on Amanda’s arms and kissed her on the left cheek.

“Thank you for a wonderful week,” Elise said.

Shocked by the sudden gesture and the emotions the touch set free, Amanda flashed Elise a last smile, nodded and turned around. Pretending that nothing had happened she walked to her bedroom door a few steps away. When she finally looked over her shoulders, Elise had left and only the gloomy corridor stared back at her.

***

30 Love
. Tom would have to thank Teddy for that.

His unexpected encounter with Melanie a few weeks earlier had sparked the idea in him to set up a blog of his own. Thanks to his wonderful lover he also had a name for his blog. After he had done interviews with the finalists he had retreated to his hotel room, motivated and determined to write history. With the only exception that he had assumed it would be a lot easier. Tom had been working on his secret blog project for over an hour now but technology didn’t seem to be his best friend that day.

“Damn it!”

Nothing worked. Nothing at all. The whole blog setup seemed to get the better of him. He didn’t like the formatting, the themes and he had no idea how to change it. It was just like talking Chinese to him. He didn’t understand the slightest thing. When he cast a glance at Mel’s blog – and Lord knew he had these past few days – everything looked terribly easy. From inserting a song to adjusting a picture next to the text, it seemed like a kid of five was able to do it. Except now that he faced the challenge, it appeared to be a lot more complex.

Access denied – incorrect password
.

With a loud warning bang the website shut down.

“Oh, for hell’s nipples!” The internet was mocking him. He restrained from hitting the brand new laptop, took a deep breath instead and closed his eyes. He counted until five then looked back at the screen. Nothing had changed, of course. His inability to set up his glorious blog had become an embarrassment.

Exasperated, Tom stood up and went to lean against the window of his hotel room. If he should ever succeed in setting up his blog, he had to write his first entry yet. For some reason it made him slightly anxious. The first words were the most difficult ones. Once you had them, the rest came along rather easily. But in the meantime, you had to find those few sentences that would launch the whole thing and what Tom hoped would become the juiciest blog ever written. Even though for the moment, he was pretty far from it.

He looked out over the tree-lined entrance area. The hotel they stayed at was rather cozy if not luxurious. There was nobody outside and Tom was just bracing himself to face his
30 Love
venture again, when his eyes caught two figures he knew well. The Galloway twins were marching across the path to the hotel entrance. Tom had to laugh. Lulu and Gabriella definitely confirmed the cliché that it was just impossible to separate twins. These two spent literally all their time together. One could almost suspect that they were plotting world dominance. They disappeared through the entrance but Tom still looked outside into the night. He could make out another figure in the background. He squinted his eyes to get accustomed to the darkness. Someone was hiding behind a tree, watching the twins entering the lobby.

In an instinctive gesture, Tom crouched down to the floor. Only his eyes were looking over the window sill into the dark outside. Thank god he had forgotten to turn on the light when he was busy setting up
30 Love
, he thought. Peeping out into the night he let out a surprised yelp when he finally saw the dark figure’s face.

It was Sasha Mrachova, sporting a hat and pair of huge sunglasses.

***

Elise rolled onto her side and opened her eyes again. She wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. A multitude of ideas were dancing around in her head, hitting against each other with such frenzy that she almost felt dizzy. She stared into the sky outside the window of her hotel room. It was a starry night, serene and still, and it almost angered Elise that the world seemed unperturbed by the confusion that was agitating her heart.

Two hours ago in the corridor outside her room she had bent over casually and with the routine of the thousand automatisms that ran her life she had touched Amanda’s cheek with her lips. Just a mere contact of her skin against someone else’s. A European automatism. It was nothing.

And yet it was everything. Everything she had at the moment – because she would have never dared to go further. And, of course, she knew there was no chance that Amanda would have paused for a moment in surprise before locking eyes with her, taking Elise’s hands and kissing her back. No chance that Amanda would have held her tight and pushed her back against the wall or pulled her away to her room at the end of the corridor where they would lie in the dark kissing and whispering for hours and hours.

She wasn’t different from the other girls. Like everyone else she waited for the one kiss in the dark, the one moment when everything spilled over, like in the romantic comedies she secretly loved watching from the depths of her bed. After the wonderful dinner she had with Amanda she had forgotten about Felicia and about her own good intentions. Elise wanted it to happen there, but her lips had lasted too long on Amanda’s skin and when they had broken apart, panic had invaded her. From Amanda’s quick exit she could tell that she had gone too far, and now it was too late to make up for the move. Or too soon? Not the right time at all?

Turning around one more time, Elise moaned in embarrassment. It definitely had been the wrong decision. Lingering very closely to Amanda’s cheek she had waited for Amanda to kiss her back. But the Australian had only backed up and nodded with an awkward smile. Without a word Amanda had turned away. Of course, she had. She was in a relationship with a famous pop singer and Elise’s advances must have caught her off-guard as they were clearly inappropriate. Elise could only hope that Amanda would misinterpret the touch as a mere good-night kiss. If not, there would forever be awkwardness between them, Elise feared.

Staring into the darkness, Elise told herself to forget the whole scene but the truth was that she wanted nothing but to experience it one more time. Just one more kiss. The thought of it made her chest heave. It felt as if she could sing out loud and at the same time it felt she couldn’t breathe. As if her thorax was expanding without limits and yet being crunched to a little ball. Amanda’s skin had been soft, but what had actually astonished her most was the warmth of her skin. There was Amanda’s life that spread underneath the surface rushing through her veins to her heart and back to her cheek. Elise closed her eyes and, lost in the reminiscence of the sensations that the kiss had stirred up, she put a hand onto her heart and listened to the beats of the precious organ.

For a while she counted the beats but its regularity disappointed her. Nothing had changed, she realized. Nothing. Just another automatism that ruled her life.

Rome, Italy

A loud honk from the street woke Amanda. The rising kerfuffle of Rome was drifting up to her hotel room window making it impossible to go back to sleep. She picked up her watch from the nightstand and checked the time. Still too early to get up. Her match was scheduled third on the Campo Centrale. But she didn’t want to go back to sleep either. Soon her cell phone would buzz anyway. Like it did every day. Like a clockwork. She smiled. It was only a matter of time before the sound would make her jump up.

Since the tour had hit the red dust she felt better. Stuttgart had been a good result for her reaching the quarterfinal even though she had done better last year having been a semifinalist in the German tournament. Her ranking had been gradually slipping during the spring and she needed a good result in the Eternal City. So far it looked good. She was doing well in the tournament. Today she would play the quarterfinal against local favorite Antonia Sapore. It would be a tough match but not impossible. Antonia would feel the pressure of the crowd like Amanda did in Australia.

She rolled over and grabbed her cell phone from the nightstand. It was already 7:13 A.M. Why hadn’t it buzzed yet? She put it down again looking at the stucco that ornamented the high ceilings.

For the last three weeks she had been woken by messages from Elise. First they came every third day, then every other day, and since she was in Rome her texts came every morning. Usually Elise only wrote little innocent and goofy messages like
Hey, how are you?
or
Good morning
and on match days Amanda was sure to receive a
Good luck! I’ll keep my fingers crossed
. Amanda usually would answer with a likewise short text. There was nothing in these words to indicate that this was more than the beginning of a nice, easygoing friendship.

However, Elise’s persistency was surprising the Australian. Amanda had to admit she had become accustomed to the reliable sound of her cell phone buzzing. Two days ago she had even considered turning off the alarm clock, which was due at 7:15 A.M., after Elise’s texts had begun to drop in punctually at 7:10 A.M.. Since Stuttgart they hadn’t spoken but it seemed that the good-night kiss after their doubles win had been only that and Amanda had racked her brain in vain.