Chapter Three
Three
The resort was heaven, but easier to get to.
Already, she added an all-inclusive Costa Rican vacation to her list of top inventions of the century, right behind the internet and string cheese.
Her enjoyment soared as she stretched her legs beneath the bazillion-thread-count sheets.
Lulu thought, If a cloud and a pullout sofa had a baby, it would be this insanely comfortable mattress.
Beside her, Zoe had slept through the whole night, another miraculous effect of air travel and sea breezes.
After a protracted try-on session, Zoe chose a monster truck shirt paired with a tutu and Crocs, and Lulu and her little one meandered into the kitchenette, where Rooster puttered quietly.
“Is that coffee?” she asked as the smell reached her nose.
Of course it was. Here she was, at a resort, sleeping well, eating meals she did not have to cook, and relaxing.
She did not have to be in charge of a thing except for her own enjoyment.
As Rooster had promised, it was a pickleball vacation in paradise.
Sipping the rich brew as she peered out the window at the flat, turquoise sea, she set up a personal mandate there and then.
I refuse to think about the precarious state of my job, she told herself.
For this one week, she would set it aside.
I’ll save worrying for when I return home.
Of course, intentions and reality are two separate things, but for now, she would try to let vacation be vacation.
Rooster pulled up the chair beside her. “I booked us an hour on the courts before the group gets there.” Lulu sent out beams of gratitude for his foresight.
The resort planned a meetup later that morning to brief the tourists on the pickleball program, but instinctively Rooster understood that Lulu would want to practice before going public with her skills.
As excited as she was to get back onto a court, she intended to put every effort into mastering this new sport.
She may have given away her tennis skirts years ago, but she couldn’t shed her competitive nature.
With her grandma doting, Zoe drew crayon pictures at the table while Lulu tipped the delicious last sips out of her coffee mug.
After grabbing her paddle, Lulu planted a kiss on her daughter’s cheek.
“Bye, sweets.” Zoe kept at her drawing, adding pink fins to the unicorn dolphins. Or possibly fish with party hats.
As Lulu and Rooster strolled toward the courts, she took in the landscape with unabashed amazement.
The upscale Costa Rican resort must have had a fleet of gardeners.
Pink-tipped bromeliads and neatly spaced palm trees lined the concrete walkways.
Orange bougainvillea drew tiny green hummingbirds that whizzed around the property like they owned the place.
Lulu and Rooster passed alongside the swanky pools and her eye wandered to where the path opened up to a beach draped in pink coral sand.
This afternoon, if the tide was out, she planned to point out to Zoe the myriad multicolored fish in the shallow tide pools.
She pulled her eyes from the glittering shoreline and followed Rooster up to a large gate.
On the other side lay tournament-quality surfaces, plenty of shade, and water bottle refilling stations. Pickleball Shangri-la.
Smiling at the neatly painted orange lines on the blue pavement, Lulu was reminded of an amusement park or a board game.
There was something fun about the look of pickleball—the compact dimensions of the court; the bright, kid-like balls; the popcorn sound of the bounce.
Even the name. As she stepped through the gate and onto the courts, she felt an opening, a readiness to learn something new.
Yes, she thought. This. This is what I’m here for.
And yet. It occurred to her that she hadn’t picked up a racket in more than ten years. Giving her arms a good stretch, she admitted, “So…I’m a little nervous.” What if her athleticism had gotten tired of waiting around and had run off with someone else?
“With your tennis background, this is gonna be a cinch,” Rooster promised and pointed her into position on the opposite side of the net. “Pickleball is less running around like a wild goose and more finesse, like a swan.”
“So there are birds involved?”
“No birds, wiseass. And no pickles, either. Now get yourself back to the baseline.” She retreated a few steps, lifting her paddle in front of her. Rooster served up a softie. She shifted her weight, pulled back her arm, and swung, but to Lulu’s surprise, she totally whiffed it.
An instant too late, she recognized her error. A pickleball paddle was a full head shorter than her tennis racket. She would have to recalibrate.
“Hit me another,” she urged, and this time her return sailed over Rooster’s shoulder.
The next one went into the net.
Wide. Long. Net. Different court altogether.
Shot after shot, she bungled it one way or another.
Recalibrate. Recalibrating. Recalibrated. She had completed all the tenses and now it was time to use more than just her grammar skills.
“Yes!” Rooster cried when at last her serve fell neatly to his backhand at the baseline. He returned deep, and she dropped it just over the net. A fantastic shot. He ran forward and, still moving, popped it to her forehand. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she slammed it at the perfect angle.
“That’s it!” Rooster cheered. “Wow! Way to go!”
Lulu swelled with pride. She had crushed that point. Her serve had been sleek, her slam, epic. Her sneakers still smoked from her dash to the net. And she had been nervous about learning to play! She was great at pickleball. A natural.
“Oh. Wait,” Rooster retracted. She raised an eyebrow. “Only one problem,” he said, pointing at her feet. “You can’t hit from where you are unless the ball bounces first. You’re standing in the kitchen. Everything in front of that line is a no-volley zone.”
She looked down. “But that was a great shot.”
“A great tennis shot. But this is pickleball, and them’s the rules.”
Lulu glared. “Well, that’s a stupid rule.”
“There are a lot of stupid rules. And I expect you’ll come to appreciate every one of them.”
“Yoo-hoo, pickleballers,” came a full-bodied voice from the court entrance.
A woman in a flower-print minidress and leggings powered onto the court.
Her short, silver-blond hair stood up as if electrified.
Lulu pegged her for late forties, but she could be older—if she went by Rooster’s theory: “Pickleball takes off ten years and ten pounds and replaces them with a hundred new friends.”
The newcomer marched toward them. “Have paddle, will travel. I’m Gwendolyn. Everybody calls me Gwendy. And you are…?”
Lulu opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the sight of a shuffling pair of shoes and ill-fitting shorts. There was a man hanging around inside the clothing, but his personage was redacted by his smacked-in-the-face-with-a-pan expression.
“Bill!” Gwendy barked. “You left the gate open.” Bill looked cautiously over his shoulder. “Close it! Or your balls will roll out.”
The shoes shuffled back to the gate. With a creak, Bill hooked the latch.
Gesturing, Gwendy indicated Bill’s approaching form. “This is Bill, my current husband.”
Bill tipped his forehead in greeting, but at the sound of a low creaking, his gaze lurched toward the gate that had swung open again. Quick as his jutting knees could carry him, he hastened back to fix it.
Keeping her eye on him, Gwendy confided, “You know how it is. I either drive ’em away or I bury ’em.” She leaned in toward Lulu and stage whispered, “It’s a fifty-fifty with Bill. You can put in dibs now, if you want.”
At that, Gwendy strong-armed her way to the other side of the court. “What’re we standing around for? We got four. Let’s pickle.”
“I’m Lulu,” Lulu said, scooting quickly to the other side of the net.
“Rooster,” her uncle offered, and hit a volley shot that ricocheted off Gwendy’s paddle and into the net.
“What the hell, cowboy? No volleys yet. This is a damn warm-up. Let a gal get accustomed, will ya?”
Standing at the kitchen line, they dinked, the four of them.
As insubstantial as he was, Mr. Gwendy’s hits were surprisingly solid.
Lulu hooked a low and swooping shot into the diagonal corner, and when Gwendy picked it up easily, Lulu was impressed by the woman’s graceful shots.
There was a relaxing rhythm to the pattern of bounces and hits.
Beside her, Rooster pattered, “Nice one. That was good and low. Yep. Like that.”
“Alright. Enough warming up, kids. Let’s play.” Gwendy caught the ball. “I’m serving.”
Bill puttered beside Gwendy as she made her way to the baseline. Rooster flagged Lulu over. “You start there,” he said, keeping his voice low as he pointed to the kitchen line. “I’ll receive the first serve. Just go with the flow.”
Lulu called loudly across the net, “Sorry, I don’t know all the rules yet. This is my first day playing pickleball.”
Perking up from the other side of the net, Gwendy called, “Did you say this is your first day playing? A pickle virgin! How exciting.” She turned to her husband. “Bill!” she snapped. “No mercy.”
Before Lulu could witness Bill’s ruthlessness firsthand, a parade of players strolled through the gate.
Onto the courts poured an older couple, paddles at the ready.
Next came three middle-aged men wearing polos and khakis, like they were on break from selling laptops and office chairs.
Beyond the tech store squad was a group of more than ten men, women, and teenagers.
A family, Lulu quickly surmised from the matching Jankowski Reunion T-shirts they all wore, emblazoned with a decal photo of the whole group brandishing paddles as if they were going into battle.