8

hitting like a girl

UCLA, FEBRUARY 2016

‘Welcome back,’ a girl in a UCLA sweatshirt called to Charlie as she, Dan, and Todd made their way through the crowds gathered to watch the match.

‘Thanks for coming home!’ came another voice.

Charlie smiled and waved to the students. She was only a handful of years older than most of them, so why did she feel like she could be someone’s mother?

UCLA had heavily promoted the charity exhibition match as promised – all the viewing stands were packed with a crowd ten-deep behind them. Charlie did a quick calculation and was thrilled with the amount of money they would be raising for metastatic breast cancer, the kind that had killed her mother swiftly and ruthlessly.

At charity matches, coaches were allowed on court, so Todd escorted Charlie. As demanding as Todd was, Charlie felt some comfort having him there. It was one of the most challenging aspects of the sport: the solitude. No matter what was happening on that court, Charlie dealt with it alone. During a match, Charlie had only two things to depend on: the condition of her body and the toughness of her mind. Off the court wasn’t much different, since the girls were so competitive. She had Piper and Jake and her father – but confidants were otherwise rare. After so many years of training combined with the insane travel schedule, the prevailing attitude was that no one was looking for friends. The girls from smaller, non-English-speaking countries might stick together a bit more out of necessity, but everyone else mostly went it alone. It was the only thing Charlie didn’t love about her sport, but she knew she was still better off than athletes from other sports whose coaches gave them three minutes to prove themselves before directing them back to the bench.

‘Charlie? Charlie Silver?’ a woman’s voice called from behind her. Charlie turned around and scanned the faces through the fence, but she didn’t recognize anyone. The voice sounded timid, like the woman didn’t want to interfere, but also oddly familiar.

‘Charlie? Over here.’

It took Charlie a few seconds to locate the source, but when she finally saw the woman who was waving at her, Charlie almost dropped her racket.

‘Eileen?’ she asked, more to herself than to her mother’s long-lost best friend.

‘It’s me!’ The woman laughed, her nose scrunching up. ‘Not that you can probably tell with all this gray hair.’

It was true, the neat gray bob instead of the dirty-blond ponytail had initially thrown Charlie off, but now that she was looking, Eileen had otherwise barely aged.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Charlie said, walking toward the fence. ‘It must be, what, twelve years since we’ve seen each other?’

Charlie hadn’t meant it as a criticism, but Eileen visibly recoiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ she near-whispered, not even noticing all the students who were listening.

‘No, I didn’t mean … just that it’s been a long time since … we saw each other. That’s all.’

Eileen leaned in, grabbed Charlie’s hand. ‘It was wrong of me to leave you and Jake and your father like that. I was just so … overwhelmed. And I was having problems with my – Well, anyway, you don’t want to hear all this now.’ She dropped back again. ‘I work as an executive assistant to the dean of admissions, and, well, I heard you were on campus today, so I thought I’d pop by and say hello …’

‘Silver!’ Todd’s voice hit her like a shovel. ‘Enough gossiping. Get your ass over here!’

On the court, Dan was doing hamstring stretches while Todd paced back and forth. She held up her pointer finger.

‘Go, I don’t want to interrupt. I just – I just wanted to say hello. And congratulate you on your tremendous accomplishments. Your mother would—’ Eileen stopped herself, as though remembering that she didn’t really have the right to invoke Charlie’s mother when she’d dropped out of all their lives so soon after her death. ‘Anyway, good luck today.’

‘Silver! Right now!’

Charlie pressed her hand to the fence and did her best to smile at Eileen. ‘Sorry, I have to run.’

‘No, of course. Go. I have to get back to work, but it was, um, it was so good to see you, Charlie. It really was.’

Charlie turned around to wave once more on her jog back to the baseline, but Eileen had already vanished into the crowd. Charlie pulled a ball from under her skirt, dropped it, and smacked it to Dan’s forehand. She felt a little ridiculous for bringing her hitting partner to a college charity match, but Todd had insisted the day not interfere with her competition schedule. Which meant there would be a full-length, official practice following the exhibition match. She tried not to think about how sore her body would be after four straight hours of tennis and instead focused on loosening her muscles and warming up her limbs. The crowd oohed and aahed appreciatively as Charlie slammed overheads (Dan kindly lobbed her easy ones) and lunged for layup volleys. Afterward, as she sipped water on the sidelines, her opponent walked onto the court.

Charlie got up to introduce herself to the girl, a petite phenom from China who was UCLA’s current number one, but Todd clamped his hand around her wrist. ‘Wait for her to come to you,’ he said under his breath.

‘Seriously?’ Charlie asked, watching the girl wave to her friends. ‘She’s a kid.’

‘She’s an opponent and you need to practice treating her like one,’ he growled. ‘Are you a fucking debutante or an athlete?’

‘I really can’t be hard-hitting and friendly?’ Charlie asked. ‘I’m obviously going to kill her. I’d like to at least be gracious about it.’

Dan stood off to the side, shaking his head. As a man, was he incapable of understanding why Charlie wanted to put the girl at ease? Or did he agree with Charlie that Todd was going overboard?

‘Hi, I’m Yuan. Thanks so much for coming today. My aunt has breast cancer, so I’m especially honored to play for your same cause. It means a lot to me that you accepted my invitation.’ Yuan smiled widely at Charlie, who couldn’t help but smile back.

‘It’s my pleasure,’ she said, meaning every word. ‘My mother died from breast cancer when I was eleven, so I understand where you’re coming from. I’m glad you asked me.’ Charlie could feel Todd glaring at her, but she ignored him.