Chapter Five Juliette
FIVE JULIETTE
Two and half weeks after the horrific Australian Open final, Juliette loses to Kacic again in the quarterfinal in Dubai.
It is a humiliating loss. One that Juliette would be ashamed of if she wasn’t so sick.
She coughs and sneezes her way through the match, her lungs burning whenever she has to run too much.
At least it gives her an excuse to keep the handshake at the net brief, if anyone in the press asks about it.
Still, as Kacic’s hand, slick with sweat, clasps hers for a brief moment, lightning knifes through her veins.
A wave of tingles sprawls from her palm across her body.
For a moment, the ache in her neck and the stuffiness in her nose eases.
“Hope you feel better,” Kacic says, her gaze pinned above Juliette’s head. Juliette lets go of Kacic’s hand to sneeze into her elbow.
Phantom tingles linger as Juliette goes through the abbreviated steps of her postmatch routine. It reminds her of the TV-static feeling after lying on her arm too long. A shimmer of pins and needles whenever she flexes her fingers.
She blames the feeling on her fever.
Juliette is still sick when she arrives in Mexico to play the Monterrey 500.
She watches the replay of Kacic’s match, skipping straight to where Kacic loses the tight third set tiebreaker.
It should be satisfying to see her rival lose, but it only makes envy swirl in her chest alongside the raucous cough.
It should be she who beats Kacic, not some young upstart barely old enough to drive.
She smacks her laptop closed and fluffs the starchy hotel pillow beneath her cheek.
When sleep eludes her and boredom makes her too acutely aware of her own misery, she opens her phone.
A message from Antony drops in; a strategy document about her first round match.
Juliette ignores it in favor of Twitter.
On the top of her feed is a post from Kacic’s brand-new account. With a considerable amount of likes and reposts, it’s clear the algorithm thinks this is the perfect content for Juliette to consume.
Unlike most players, Kacic only made a Twitter after the Australian Open.
Most likely to soak in all the praise from fans after she showed her resilience and beat Juliette through an injured ankle.
Which clearly wasn’t that bad if Kacic kept winning in the tournaments after Australia.
Juliette clenches her jaw as anger roils in her again, and pain shoots through her ear because of her headache.
She clicks on Kacic’s post, curious about the responses to it. She has to click the translate button, since Kacic wrote it in Croatian.
@luca_kacic
Congratulations to my fellow countrywoman @lana_ivankovic! You played incredibly today, and I hope we share the court many more times. Good luck in the rest of the tournament! Amazing night for Croatian tennis!
Juliette rolls her eyes at the responses.
@lanadelkovic
You are a true class act @luca_kacic
@goatkacic
kind words from my champ!
@flopicci
nice words! Now go win the next one, Luca!
@idemoluca
queen shit
Juliette knows it isn’t good for her to dwell on Kacic, but her thumb presses Kacic’s profile, and she scrolls through the mundane and frankly boring tweets.
Maybe Kacic has a PR person run her account for her, and that’s why there is little to no flavor in any of her posts.
Eventually, Juliette returns to her main feed, but her mind keeps snagging on Kacic.
She’s like a scab that won’t heal. She doesn’t always bother Juliette, but occasionally if Juliette twists a certain way, she feels her.
If she closes her eyes, she can almost feel the luminous and staticky feeling of Kacic’s touch on her skin.
It’s annoying.
A knock on her door puts an end to her thoughts. “Go away,” she croaks, not wanting to get up.
A key card swipes and the door beeps as it unlocks.
Antony steps into the dim room, carrying a plastic bag hopefully full of food and Gatorade.
Everyone except Livia calls him by his first name.
A habit they picked up as a result of him being their coach.
Now, it almost feels wrong to call him Dad.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, setting the bag down on the bedside table and twisting it open.
Juliette shrugs, her arms like noodles as she tries to lift herself into a sitting position.
“I would say to pull out, but you won here last year,” Antony says, handing her a plastic shot glass of scarlet cough syrup. Juliette pinches her nose as she swallows it, but the bitterness still pools on the back of her tongue.
“I know,” she says around a half-stifled gag. Antony grimaces and hands her a blue Gatorade. “But it’s early in the season.”
Antony sits on the end of her bed, looking at her. He presses the back of his hand to her cheek, humming, as if it tells him something vital about her condition. “It is.”
Juliette can see him arguing with himself internally. As a coach, he wants to encourage her to keep going, but as a father, he’s clearly worried. So, he stays silent and lets her make the decision. She knows he wants her to play. He always does. She also knows he hates watching her lose.
She looks down at her phone, swiping her thumb over it.
The screen unlocks and opens onto one of Kacic’s tweets.
With every win she has over Juliette, she pulls farther ahead in the rankings.
The five hundred points awarded to the winner of Monterrey would certainly help Juliette’s overall ranking.
There aren’t many top players besides Juliette playing, so she could sweep through and claim the points easily if her lungs weren’t swimming in mucus.
“What do you think?” she asks finally, still teetering on the edge of a decision.
Antony’s mouth thins. “I think you should play. Anything to boost your ranking.”
Juliette swallows, her throat scratchy, and nods. “Okay, I’ll stay in.”
Antony smiles and pats her shoulder. “Good. Now, eat this soup and then rest up.”
LUCA
March is home to Luca’s favorite tournament: Indian Wells. The dry California air, wide-open sky, and skyline of palms and mountains combine to create a sweeping atmosphere that Luca looks at with stars in her eyes.
On the night before the tournament starts, Vladimir drags her out to dinner at a surprisingly nice restaurant.
“I admit I have an ulterior motive,” Vladimir says as they’re brought to the back patio by a hostess who smiles at Vladimir as if she knows him.
“What do you mean?” Luca asks, wishing she had worn a nicer pair of pants instead of jeans. Vladimir only smirks at her, a glint in his eyes that makes her stomach churn. She starts to protest when the hostess stops next to a table that is already occupied.
“Vladimir.” The woman at the table rises, sweeping her shining golden hair off her shoulder and down her back. Luca knows she’s gawking, but she can’t stop. Karoline Kitzinger is one of the best tennis players of all time. “Lovely to see you as always.”
Vladimir kisses her cheeks like they’re old friends. “It’s been too long, Karo.” He turns to Luca, and she snaps her mouth shut. “As you know, this is Luca Kacic.”
“It’s amazing to meet you,” Luca says, breathless as Karoline shakes her hand firmly.
Karoline is retired now, but in the late 1990s and early noughties, she was a part of a rivalry nicknamed the Fierce Four.
They always compelled Luca because of how different they were.
Each one excelled at a different Grand Slam because of their distinctive play styles: Victoria Ferreyra at the Australian Open, Karoline at the French Open, Aurore Cadieux at Wimbledon, and Payton Calimeris at the US Open.
There was tennis drama around the head-to-head matchups and the arguments in court, but it was the off-court scandals and incidents that Luca ravenously consumed.
The cutting words tossed carelessly in press conferences, celebrity exes, and the infamous fountain incident all created a tapestry of what the public knew of them.
Karoline had multiple nicknames throughout her career.
Her tennis one was the Dancer, but off the court she was called the Heartbreaker and the Swiss Miss.
Now, face-to-face with Karoline, Luca understands why.
She is chic and sultry, distinctly feminine, and pretty in a way that conceals her predatory ambition.
Luca sits down at the table with Vladimir next to her and Karoline across from her.
“You are an excellent player, Luca,” Karoline says, lacing her hands together in front of her.
“Thank you,” Luca says, trying not to stutter. “That means a lot coming from you.”
Karoline’s smile tightens at the corners. “I apologize that I’m not much for small talk, so I’d like to simply state why I asked you to meet me here.”
Luca reaches for her water and nods.
“I would like to invite you to be the fourth member of my team for the Connolly Cup.”
Luca is glad she didn’t take a sip, because she definitely would have spit it out. “Really?”
Karoline smirks. “You are number one in the world and the reigning Australian Open champion. Frankly, I’m surprised neither Aurore nor Victoria reached out to you earlier.
It’s between Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, the third week in June.
You’ll have to miss Birmingham, unfortunately.
” Karoline does not make it sound like it’d be a great misfortune.
And Luca does agree. It’s a small warm-up tournament, and she’d make so much more money just showing up to the Connolly Cup than winning Birmingham. “It’s in Naples this year. An indoor hard court, so I know it won’t be helpful for preparing for Wimbledon, but it’s like this.”
Luca swallows. The Connolly Cup is a charity exhibition event put on every year by the Fierce Four members in honor of their rival, Diana Connolly.
She had won every Grand Slam in 2004, dethroning them and blazing through tournaments and the rankings like a meteor.
Then, to the shock of all, at the end of the year, she died of a drug overdose.
Now, the Connolly Cup is a charity organization that raises money for addicts and mental health organizations.
This year, Karoline partnered with Payton Calimeris to set up their team to face off against Aurore and Victoria’s team.
And over the last few years, Luca has enjoyed spectating from the safety of her apartment.
Even though it’s technically low stakes for players, there is a hot spotlight shining on them, the entire tennis world watching as if they’re on a reality show.
They’re all waiting for another scandal, although Luca doesn’t know how anything will top two years ago, when Claudia Ricci slapped her then boyfriend (and coach) after finding out from a rogue post that he was still married.
The glass slips in her fingers, and she puts it down before it shatters or she spills water everywhere. “I’m honored.”
Karoline tilts her head, dark eyes glittering in the setting sun. “I fear a ‘but’ coming,” she says, leaning back and unlacing her hands. “Say yes, Luca, you won’t regret it.”
Luca chews on her lower lip. She knows the rest of Karoline’s team, and unfortunately, Juliette Ricci is one of her picks this year.
A weekend of playing on the same team as Ricci, attending events, and pretending not to hate each other sounds like torture.
Still, longing hooks into her stomach, and she finds herself nodding despite the twist of anxiety in her chest. “Okay. I’d love to. ”
Karoline grins, softer than before. “Perfect.”
By the time the dinner wraps up, the news of Luca being the fourth and final member of Karoline’s team has broken over Twitter.
While in the car back to the hotel, Luca scrolls through the excited posts below it.
A notification pops up, and Luca sees she’s been added to a group chat by Karoline.
As expected, it has Claudia Ricci and Zoe Almasi, the two other players of their team, and two numbers she doesn’t know.
One must be Juliette Ricci and the other is the team’s cocaptain, Payton Calimeris.
A flurry of welcome to the team texts pour in from everyone except Juliette Ricci.
Typical.