Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Come morning, Lulu splashed cold water on her puffy eyes.
The simple luxury of dry hair and dry clothes did not escape Lulu as she dressed in comfy palazzo pants and a tank top.
She scrunched at her curly hair, and despite her clean and fresh appearance, she scowled at herself in the mirror.
Her wet-sand skin tone was flushed from the sun, accentuating her dark eyes and straight nose.
Plenty of times, Aunt Laverne had complimented Lulu’s strong features, saying they reminded her of Lulu’s mom, who, according to family lore, could have been a glamour model if she had wanted to, but she hadn’t.
Today, however, Lulu wondered if her mother ever looked in the mirror and felt alone, as Lulu did, despite all her gifts.
She was so tired of the ups and downs.
As was her habit in the mornings, she sifted through the photos Laverne sent last night: Zoe splashing in the pool, Zoe finding a shell on the beach, Zoe with a face coated in jelly.
She sent heart emojis and excited reactions, and to her aunt’s inquiries she responded, Went zip-lining!
and felt bad about the exclamation point because it was overkill, and Can’t wait to see you too!
and considered putting a couple more exclamation points but didn’t want to look desperate to get back to her family.
At long last, she dragged herself to the breakfast room.
There, deep in conversation with Alejandro, sat Tyler, his shin well bandaged, and sporting a pair of spare pickleball shoes.
His cocky smile lifted his cheek. He pointed at his feet and gave her a thumbs-up.
She returned it with a cordial nod and set her plate next to Ariana.
Clueless. That was Tyler Demming in a nutshell.
Ariana looked up from her phone, noticed Lulu, flipped her phone face down, and pushed it away from her. She gave Lulu a wry stare. “Tea?”
“Coffee for me.” Lulu poured a cupful from the thermos and stirred in as much sugar as she thought she could consume without attracting bears.
“No. The tea. Spill it.”
Lulu shook her head. There was no eyebrow to raise suggestively, no casual shrug that indicated there was more to say. Just a slow shake of her head.
“No progress with pickleboy, huh?” Ariana mixed a tablespoon of natilla, a thick sour cream, into her rice and beans, and seeing Lulu’s glance, she took a giant mouthful.
“It’s delicious,” she said, her mouth bursting.
“This is how the Ticos eat it,” she said, waving her fork as flecks of rice flew off.
“You know, you should try new things. Sour cream with rice and beans. Sealing the deal with your high school bootie-call buddy. Could be the move.”
First off, Lulu was in no mood to take #lifelessons from a social media influencer whose cologne prank had nearly cost Tyler his peccary.
And also, by the way, she had tried new things: rappelling down a mountain, rafting on a class IV river, and snogging her old flame. And look how that all turned out.
Ariana’s head dipped back toward her phone. She tapped out the last of a caption and posted.
“How have you been able to post on your socials all this time?” Lulu asked. “We’ve barely had data.”
“Satellite uplink.” Ariana shrugged. That would have been helpful to know, Lulu thought ruefully.
Tyler’s offer to lend her his phone way back at the bat cave had been the spark that had reignited her ill-fated interest in him in the first place.
If she could go back in time…But alas, her time machine was broken.
For the rest of the meal, Lulu kept her head down and her mood in check. Today, Alejandro had explained the tour would travel to the northern Central Valley, where pickleball thrived in the temperate hill town of San Ramón.
Surely, she could keep it together with a distraction as compelling as pickleball.
She would focus on advancing her skills and hitting out her frustrating feelings for Tyler.
Let him be the pro; she would be a tourist. Traveling around Costa Rica.
Learning more pickleball. Easy peasy. Pura… no. She was not there yet.
Fortunately, the road to San Ramón was chock-full of visual pleasures.
The countryside pulled her thoughts out of the Poor Me recycling bin and guided her around each curve, where a new pastoral vista greeted her.
Farmlands dotted with white and pink calla lilies, grazing cows, and banyan trees stretched along the hillsides.
Coffee plantations rose up the sloping grades, their red and green berries glinting in the light like ornaments.
They passed small villages, each boasting a collection of farms and homes, a school, a church, a town soccer field.
Lulu asked Alejandro about a decorative oxcart as large as a semitruck parked in the village of Sarchi’s central square, and the guide explained that the town was famous for the artisans who painted Costa Rica’s famous colorful wooden wheels.
They drove through Grecia, known for hand-hewn wooden furniture, and hopped out at a roadside stand, where Lulu bought coconut and cane sugar cookies to share with her family when the tour returned to Blue Seas later that afternoon.
They drove through the neat, quaint center of San Ramón and past the upscale vibey restaurants.
In the cozy town square, they stopped for warm pastries at the bakery before continuing to the rural side of town.
Soon, the rolling hills gave way to the distant views of the Poás Volcano and a vista opened up all the way to the sea.
When they pulled into a quiet driveway and parked the van, Lulu squinted at the ungroomed field.
What kind of pickleball center could this be?
But when they walked over the rise, the view answered her question.
San Ramón’s tennis and pickleball center boasted newly constructed courts, and according to Alejandro, the owners coached both sports.
Local tennis players and pickleballers from the area’s ex-pat community were already set up on the courts, and they paused their games to greet the new arrivals.
Gwendy coaxed Ariana onto the court, and even Alejandro grabbed a paddle and played alongside Bill. Concentrating on her own game, Lulu forced herself to respond to Tyler’s coaching as if she were any of the others, pushing herself to be right here, right now.
And for his part, Tyler did his thing. Helping Alejandro with a bounce serve, urging Ariana to loosen her grip for better precision, giving advice to Bill about a two-handed backhand.
Mostly, Lulu noted, he just complimented each of them in turn, which she refused to let her brain think was a sweet gesture.
When Lulu joined in to partner with Pittsburgh Jeff against local players Samuel and David, she shook off Tyler’s presence and pressed her body to focus on the game.
Her brain followed suit. Her hits were solid, accurate, and intentional, and even better than the quality of her play, she found herself relaxing and enjoying the mix of Spanish and English score-calling and the easy banter in both languages.
She didn’t need to be fluent in Spanish to understand the playful nature of the smack-talking.
By the end of the third game, Pittsburgh Jeff commented, “Did anybody else notice that whoever plays with Lulu wins?”
It was true, Lulu realized. She was playing with the easy fluidity she remembered from her tennis days, and each small success bolstered her confidence.
Pickleball had a way of consuming her attention, and she let herself be immersed in the game and the comradery between the players.
She was, she admitted, making clear gains.
And perhaps Tyler was right: If she worked at it, if she really applied herself, she could kill this sport.
It pleased her to know that she had discovered something lasting out of this Costa Rican adventure.
Even though her job still hung in the balance and her fling with Tyler was game over, at least there was this.
She could see the long-range effect of returning to sports and how it lifted her in a way she could be proud of.
How dedicating herself to self-improvement could be inspiring to her own momentum, and a positive example for Zoe, too.
“Can I give you some pointers?” Tyler said, suddenly beside her.
She regarded him coolly, but by the way he was bouncing on his heels, her ice stare had no effect. At last she shrugged her assent. The only way to build her skills was to suck it up and remember what she was here for.
Shuffling closer and closer to the net from the baseline, they drilled on half the court. When she saw an opening, she sliced the ball right past him.
“Nope!” Tyler waggled a finger. “That’s your tennis brain, slamming from the net.
This is pickleball. You’re standing in the kitchen.
That’s seven feet of no-valley zone, right there.
The only time you can hit in the kitchen is if the ball bounces first. So unless you’re going to cook me an omelet, stay out of there. ”
The next time she moved forward, she skidded to a stop, her toes a quarter inch behind the kitchen line.
She raised her paddle like she intended to smash a long, hard ball to the back, then faked the swing, dropping a dink just over the tape.
He ran for it, knowing he’d been outplayed, and groaned when it bounced twice before he could reach it.
Tyler laughed. “I’m telling you. You’re a natural, Lu.”
She met him at the net and asked him the question that had been hovering in her mind. “Do you think I could ever be as good as I was at tennis?”
His gaze hit hers. “You’ll be better.”