Love Game - Season 2012 (30 page)

“Naturally,” the umpire had answered.

Now she and Anastasia were leaving the
French restaurant after gorging on a delicious five course food spree.

“People speculate that the timing of the
wedding suggests that you want to get it over and done with as soon as
possible. In the midst of the Olympic Games does seem a bit odd, you have to
admit. You are not pregnant, are you?” Anastasia asked while holding the door
for Sasha.

“What?” If she had still been drinking her
wine, Sasha would have choked badly. Of course, they had to get through the
wedding gossip first. While driving to Anastasia’s hotel she quickly clarified
any nonsense the rumor mill had made of her wedding schedule.

“Will you watch the final?” Anastasia asked
when they entered her tidy hotel room. Tamara and Marieke would battle for the
gold medal in the singles competition.

“No, my family arrives tomorrow. Jaro’s
parents, too,” Sasha sighed. “We have to first check them first into the hotel,
then take them out for dinner and entertain them along. It will be horrible.”

For the last five years, during Wimbledon
Sasha rented a house in the heart of the village. It was so close to the AELTC
that she could walk to the tournament site. However, for the Olympic Games she
had decided to reside in a hotel closer to the city. She wasn’t keen on any
reminder of the nights she had spent in Wimbledon with Gabriella, and the hotel
would also host the wedding guests who arrived a bit earlier.

Anastasia had undressed and slipped under
the covers, waiting for Sasha to take off her summer dress.

“Your parents know that this is a marriage
of convenience, do they?” Anastasia asked.

Sasha nodded while she joined Anastasia in
bed. “Of course. They all know but Jaro’s grandmother. I will have to brief
everyone – especially my little nieces – to keep their mouths shut.”

Anastasia laughed and put an arm around
Sasha. The touch of Anastasia’s warm skin almost numbed Sasha. She pulled the
umpire closer and began kissing her.

Then she remembered something. The mission,
as Ted had called it.

Damn, Sasha thought. She opened her eyes
and took a quick look around the room. Anastasia had placed the laptop bag on
the table which was standing near the window. Sasha exhaled in relief. Even if
she had opened the door for the guys as arranged, it would have been hard for
them to crawl over the floor, snatch the laptop, creep back to the door and do
it all again after they had hacked Anastasia’s computer. Yes, she could try and
engage the umpire in some very demanding sexual activity, so that Anastasia
would be distracted, but the thought of them being seen by two men would surely
cause Sasha to giggle in the wrong moment – and Anastasia would look up and spot
Ted and Tom.

No, Sasha smiled. Plan B was not feasible.

She closed her eyes again, satisfied with
her reasoning, and was about to enjoy Anastasia’s caressing again when
something else occupied her mind. A dark softness layered around her shoulders,
weaved down her arms and finally curled in her hands.

“Oh, please,” she whispered. She needed to
resist these treacherous thoughts of dark curls. But she was helpless.

When the umpire became more and more
passionate, apparently having misunderstood Sasha’s sigh, Sasha warily dodged
out of her embrace. Holding the umpire’s shoulders, she kept her away at arm’s
length to steady her breath and gather her nerves.

“Can we just sleep?” she asked quietly.
Anastasia considered the unexpected move but then nodded. They lay down under
the covers and Anastasia pulled her close, holding her. She obviously believed
that Sasha had gotten nervous about the looming wedding. But Sasha didn’t have
church bells or wedding cakes on her mind. All her thoughts revolved around a
young American whose brown twirls revolved around Sasha’s thoughts.

***

One more win and they were in the gold
medal match, meaning they were guaranteed a medal. And even if they lost their
semifinal tomorrow they could still take home a bronze medal. Unlike other
tennis competitions which only honored the winner and the runner-up, in the
Olympic Games there was still the third place. Not that they were aiming for
that.

Polly turned out the light on her
nightstand and closed her eyes. She and Bernadette had opted for the same hotel
that they had stayed in during Wimbledon and it certainly wasn’t a bad idea to
recreate the same circumstances, hoping they could replicate their good run
during the Championships. However, for two nights Polly had stayed in the Olympic
Village with the other Canadian athletes. It had been wonderful. Not only did
she meet all the girls in the Canadian football team, she was even invited to a
party the night before the opening ceremony. What a blast to spend some time
with people her age! She sure was grateful to Bernadette for her dedication and
pushing Polly to new heights, but the older player was no fun to be with.
Instead of celebrating their last win with a dinner, Bernadette had shooed
Polly back to the practice courts to practice serves for another half an hour,
and after that to the gym for an extensive warm-down. When she came back to the
hotel Polly could barely manage to brush her teeth before falling into bed. It
wouldn’t take long until she was sound asleep.

Too bad Mint was missing all the action,
Polly thought, lying in bed with her eyes closed. Since Mint’s brazen rejection
at the Wimbledon garden party Polly tried not to spend too much time thinking
about the American, but sometimes, when she was lying in bed and waiting for
sleep Mint crossed her mind. The American hadn’t made the cut for the Olympic
Games. It had been close and with Luella Galloway still nursing her injured
hand, Mint would have been a helpful addition to the American team. But she
missed the chance to play by three ranking spots.

Polly breathed deeply to relax her body,
and almost fell out of bed when loud banging erupted against her hotel room
door.

“What the hell?” Polly reached out to turn
the light back on.

Was there a fire? But wouldn’t there be a
siren in that case? It probably was Bernadette. Polly moaned. It had happened
before that Bernadette had dragged her out of bed to hammer home the tactics
for the upcoming match.

She slipped out of bed and hurried to the
door to stop the knocking. When she flung open the door it was however neither
a hotel clerk nor her overzealous doubles partner who stumbled into the room.

“Gabriella?” Polly closed the door, stunned
by the sudden appearance of her Supersport comrade. “What are you still doing
here in London?”

The American had lost her last match two
days ago.

“I need your help. You are the only one I
know who is still in London,” Gabriella stammered. She gathered herself and sat
down at the table, then took a deep breath. “Do you know where Sasha is staying?
Have you seen her lately? Do you know where the wedding will take place? I’ve
asked everyone, but nobody seems to know for sure. Everybody talks about it all
the time. Some say this, some say that. They even speculate that she is
pregnant. That’s ridiculous.”

The heated words gushed out of Gabriella’s
mouth and Polly put her hands up to slow her down. Sasha? She hadn’t seen the
Czech since her loss a couple of days ago. What did she care about Sasha’s
wedding? She was here to win a medal.

“I have absolutely no idea, Gabriella,” she
finally replied.

Gabriella looked at Polly then let her
shoulders hang.

“Are you planning to crash Sasha’s wedding
party?” Polly asked curiously.

“Sort of,” the American replied gloomily.
She got up again and walked back to the door. “You’ll let me know if you hear
something, won’t you?”

Polly promised. Watching Gabriella
shuffling down the hotel corridor she wondered what the hell was going on. The
media had tagged them for a new rivalry. Of course, Gabriella wasn’t invited to
Sasha’s wedding. Why would Gabriella want to attend it? To make amends for
Sasha’s Wimbledon loss with a nice present? Or Sasha and Gabriella were secret
lovers and Gabriella was trying to prevent Sasha from marrying the wrong
person? Together they would escape from the church and into the sunset. Polly
had to laugh out loud at her ridiculous attempt to turn her fellow tennis
players’ lives into trashy romance. It could only mean that she needed to read
a new
Tennis Nurse
novel.

She went to bed again, slipped under the
covers and was about to turn off the light for a second time – when her cell
phone rang.

It was her brother.

***

“Have you had time to visit any other
events?” Hugh asked.

Sam shook her head.

They walked down the stairs to the side of Henman
Hill after a short picnic break. Too many lunch breaks were spent in the vaults
of the broadcast centre or the editing room. But today was the ladies’ singles
final and doubles semifinals and they had decide to take advantage of  the
light schedule to escape into the sunlight.

“I want to though. I will stay for a couple
of days longer,” she said.

“Wedding to attend?” Hugh teased her.

Sam laughed and shook her head. “This
wedding is one huge mystery. Is anyone we know invited?”

“Oh, Sam,” Hugh chuckled, putting an arm
around her shoulder. “Obviously we are not very important. We just get up every
day to talk about them until we’re blue in the face. But no love for us
journos.”

They entered the media building and made
their way to the editing room.

“Speaking of hearts,” Sam remarked. “Any
news on Polly’s mum?”

“I haven’t heard anything yet,” Hugh said
gloomily.

The unexpected withdrawal of the Canadian
doubles team caused much dismay in the media room as well as the players’
lounge. Polly kept a low profile but she was well-liked by her fellow players
and the media as well. The doubles team had had great success all through the
grass court season and was tipped to be the favorite to win gold at the
Olympics.

“Poor Bernadette,” Sam said. “She must be
devastated. She really has no luck with her Olympic quest.”

“You’re right,” Hugh said, remembering all
the Olympic Games he had covered since 1996. “Just when you think she’s finally
gotten lucky. Tragic.”

Sam wanted to remark that Bernadette
however had tested her luck perhaps too often in the past and thereby causing
her misfortune, but both journalists were stopped in their tracks.

Gabriella Galloway obstructed the passage
into the media room. At least, it had to be Gabriella as Lulu was not in
London, but recovering in the U.S. from the Wimbledon breakfast incident.

“Gabriella? Are you here to watch the other
Olympic events?” Sam wondered. Perhaps they could do a little feature with her,
get her to talk about other sports and such. But her idea was smashed immediately.

“No, no,” Gabriella blurted out. “I don’t
have time for that.”

She made a step forward and leaned closer
to the two journalists.

“You surely know about Sasha’s wedding,
don’t you?”

Sam and Hugh nodded. Who didn’t?

“Will you cover it in a report? For
example, the exit from the church?”

They shook their heads. “Nobody knows
anything about the wedding.”

 “Oh, please, you must know where the
wedding takes place,” Gabriella insisted.

“No, we don’t know,” Sam answered
uncomfortably. “Why do you want to know? The wedding is ‘invitation only’.”

“I want to surprise her.”

Hugh looked at Sam. Why would Gabriella,
Sasha’s new rival, want to surprise the Czech? This couldn’t be a good
surprise. Even if they knew, they probably shouldn’t tell Gabriella. Again he
shook his head to demonstrate that he had no clue where the wedding would take
place.

“Alright,” Gabriella gave up. Sam watched
the young player as she walked down the hallway. The look on Gabriella’s face
had startled her. It wasn’t just disappointment, it was sheer desperation.

Shaking her head she followed Hugh into the
media room.

“Did she ask you, too?” Paola’s voice came
from behind a computer. She had set up camp in the corner of the room. Lars was
next to her, editing a video.

Sam nodded. “Why does she want to crash the
party?”

Paola shrugged. During the Olympic Games
her duties encompassed producing interviews and features for Supersport. The
show with the young players and Gabriella was put on hold until the next
regular tournament. She obviously hadn’t questioned why Gabriella was still
here. Sam took a seat at a desk while Hugh was fighting with the coffee machine
and cursing loudly for everyone to hear in the media room.

“Are you not afraid that one day he will do
that while live commentating a match?” Sam looked up. Tom had entered the room
and stood in front of her desk.