Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Meg’s head whipped up in time to see the ball hurtling toward her. Before she had a chance to untangle édith’s smugly generous Bonne chance , they were in the thick of the volley. On her fourth hit, she swung hard and knocked it right out of the park; a great hit for baseball, but alas, this was pickleball.
Ugh! The shock of a rough start shook her. Already, Meg’s faulty focus had cost them a point. She had not yet recovered her composure when édith’s next serve zipped past her.
Not a full minute into the game and they were down by two.
“No worries,” Ethan mouthed, reassuring her.
Still, Meg grunted with frustration. She had given away the points, offered them up on a platter with a mint garnish and a lemon squeeze.
“Sorry. My fault.”
“No sorrys,” he reminded her. “Just play your game.”
édith, confident now, sent another rocket across the net, but this time, the ball skipped just beyond the baseline and careened into Meg’s foot.
“Long,” Portia called. “Side out.”
“Long? Non ,” édith cried. “The ball. It hit her foot! It is our point.”
“It hit her foot… after it landed out,” Portia countered. “Side out.”
“ Merde ,” édith muttered. In high school French class, Meg had earned a lunch detention for uttering less.
Recentering herself, Meg set up her serve and swung, but the moment she made contact she could tell her racket was misaligned. The serve landed midcourt—a basic mistake, and easy pickings for Vance. When he returned her weak shot like a missile, Meg smacked the ball when she should have tapped it. She winced as her ball soared right into édith’s forehand slam. Ethan served next, but Meg’s third shot flew out-of-bounds. And just like that, it was side out.
“Oh my gosh. They return everything,” she said.
“You’re doing fine. Remember. Reset after each point. It’s like a coin toss. The points don’t follow a pattern; there’s no such thing as a bad run of luck. Each point is unique.”
Regaining the advantage, édith made her angled slice serve look easy. Meg popped it too high—where Vance waited for the bounce—and slammed it into Ethan’s thigh.
“Well done, babe.” Vance tapped his girlfriend’s butt with his paddle. “Your serve set me up perfectly. I remember the last time you used that move!”
“Ah!” édith remarked, her eyes wide with understanding. “ Exactement! Comme lorsqu’on a gagné le tournoi .” The significance of édith’s comment clicked into place.
“ Un tournoi ,” Meg whispered. A tournament! That time we won the tournament. That was against the rules. Beginner competitors weren’t allowed to have competed in a tournament, much less have won one.
“Time out,” Meg called. Portia raised a hand, allowing it. Meg whispered to Ethan, “She just said they won a tournament. That’s against the rules! They can’t play in the beginners’ spot!”
“What do you think? Do you wanna tell Portia what you heard?”
Meg thought it over, waging an entire internal battle over the course of seconds. Soon enough, she came to her conclusion: If Vance and édith needed to cheat to win, then that was on them. The fact that they’d played in a tournament had no impact on this game right here, right now. She was going to fight a good fight and use the skills she had built with hard work and determination.
She shot Ethan a side glance. “You know what? Forget it. We got this. Let’s take them down.”
They bumped fists. The moral high ground spurred Meg’s purpose. Overhead, a gray screen slid over the last corner of sunshine. She read the clouds.
Rain.
A teeny droplet splashed against the pale green pavement. Another hit her visor. Another smacked her forearm. Hold off , her eyes begged the charcoal sky. Give us time to turn this around. Just let us beat them. By three points. And then you can flood the place.
Portia signaled a return to play.
The light mist cleared Meg’s head, and this time when the ball came, she was ready. Instead of smashing, she angled her paddle and yanked backward to add topspin. The bounce took Vance by surprise. When he missed the shot, Bainbridge regained the serve. Encouraged by the small victory, Meg straightened.
Get a point , she told herself. Get one point.
Ethan served and the volley began. She readied herself, still half hoping the ball would not come to her so that she wouldn’t screw it up. But when édith’s too-low lob came to her wrapped up in shiny paper and a bow, she tore into it and… bam!
She scored a point!
Positivity tingled at the back of her scalp. At least she hoped it was that, and not lice.
“Way to go, partner,” Ethan whispered. “Great shot.”
They were on the board, and thanks to Ethan’s patient dink rally, in minutes, they doubled their score. Even when the serve went back to the other side, Meg felt satisfied. Their foot was in the door.
Vance and édith worked together to shove that door shut once and for all. They advanced another point. With the score at 8–2, the glamorous pair inched closer to the winning eleven points. Then, by some miracle, édith served right into the net and Vance whacked one way out.
Meg’s mind percolated with an iota of optimism. She had seen teams come back from 2–8, hadn’t she? She must have.
Readiness buzzed inside her like a current. Ethan served, and Meg achieved a textbook third-shot drop. It was such a lovely hit that Meg almost dropped her paddle in surprise.
“Whatta shot!” Ethan marveled.
One small success begot the next and another followed. While the sparse droplets turned into a light mist, Ethan and Meg’s score increased. Point by hard-earned point, she pushed herself. Rather than dampening her play, Meg felt spurred on by the fresh drizzle. Before long, they were only down by one.
Striking distance.
édith blinked the rain away. She bent forward to adjust her boobs and tugged her shirt away from her bra. “I wet myself!” she cried. édith’s normally silky hair frizzed out like an old broom and her dripping mascara gave her a stoned panda vibe.
Vance looked nervous. Forming a T with his hands, he stormed toward Portia. “Time! Time out. It’s going to pour. You have to call it, ref.”
Portia looked to her husband uncertainly. Peter shrugged. “Your call.”
“Yes,” édith pressed, her chest rearranged back into matching torpedoes. “You should stop this game. The courts will be slippery. We could be hurt.”
“It’s really just sprinkling,” Meg said. “The surface is hardly wet.”
Peter jogged over to confer with Portia. It was true: if the rain got any stronger, the courts could become slick and dangerous, and no tournament prize was worth slipping and wrecking a knee. Meg had seen it happen, and she knew how painful an injury like that could be. And worse, it would mean no pickleball for at least a month.
Still, she had played on wetter. Meg looked up at the sky. A thin line of light was stenciled at the base of the clouds. Maybe it would clear. Alternately, maybe it would pour. Either way, they ought to play fast.
“Continue play,” Portia decided.
Clutching the ball in concentration, Meg calculated. They were down by only one point. 8–9. If by some miracle they managed to win, they still wouldn’t have the requisite three-point lead to take the tournament.
But suddenly, it didn’t matter. Her goal was as obvious as a porcupine in a pillowcase. She wanted the win. Not just to beat Vance. She wanted this. For herself.
When she swung, her ball flew deep and crosscourt to Vance, exactly as planned, and when it came back, she dinked to the kitchen corner. That gave Ethan time to run forward to the center of the no-volley line. édith returned right into the trap, and Ethan poached the ball and sliced it at the perfect angle. It struck the pavement behind Vance.
“What were you thinking?” Vance yelled at édith. “Don’t just whack at the ball. Use your head! You put it right to his forehand paddle! You lost us that point.”
“Me?!” édith retorted. “It was your weak return. You set it up. The point was lost two hits ago. Just like what Coach Zach says. You need to support me.”
“Coach Zach says I need to support you ?” Vance’s face flushed red. “Who the hell does he think he is? Is he your bloody psychiatrist now? Or is it more than that?”
“Language!” Portia called. “Please. Watch your language.”
From across the net, Vance glared at Meg in disbelief. He must have thought they would be easy pickings. But no. They had tied it up at 9–9. Two more points. Two more points for a win.
Meg’s mouth hardened into a tight line. She gripped the paddle, swung her arm like a pendulum, and wham! served high and deep. “Out!” édith cried before the ball landed right on the baseline.
“The line is good,” Portia countered. “Point goes to Bainbridge. 10–9.”
Vance’s coloring climbed up his neck and reddened his forehead. He looked like a blond tomato. In his fury, he turned to édith. “You should have stayed back. That’s your third unforced error. Get it together.” He grunted while modeling a powerful swing. “Like that. Same thing you did in that tournoi. Like Christmas in Cancún.”
His comment landed like a boulder tossed off the high dive into a cup of water. Meg went numb with the weight of it. Cancún. Last winter? Her mental calculator subtracted the months. Meg had still been married to Vance last December. He’d claimed that trip to Cancún was a dental seminar. “Very boring,” he’d warned her. “I’d ask you to come along, but it’s all incisors and impacted molars.”
Indignation rolled through her. Cancún at Christmas? It was one thing to cheat in a tournament, but quite another to cheat on one’s wife. She glared at Vance, at his self-satisfied smirk. Meg lifted the ball for her serve and powered up, dead set on vengeance.
Then for an instant she was outside her body. She stared down at the other Meg, at the one from that painful photo, her face drawn and miserable with his betrayal. And as she revisited that old ache, a rush of warmth brushed her cheek. The sensation felt so palpable that she turned toward the stands to face the source.
Meg’s breathing grew slow and deep. Behind the gray cloud, the sun struggled, casting a veil of hazy light onto the smiling group. A spotlight illuminated her unwavering fans.
Her friends.
There was Annie—all logic and science—who’d swum into love’s deep waters moments after she dipped her toe in. Meg glanced at Rooster, who cuddled his granddaughter, trading his addiction for a fresh start. Beside him, Meg’s mentor Marilyn leaned forward, her face shining with encouragement and pride. There was her mom, Dina Bloomberg, who hopscotched across continents and loved without borders. And beside her, Meg could feel Ethan’s solid presence like an anchor—not dragging her down but grounding her. She looked at those good people and her eyes stung with emotion.
She reached for the 2Win tournament-quality ball beneath the stretchy liner of her skort. When her fingers brushed the business card she had placed there, pressed against her thigh, her touch sent a visceral ping to her brain. The scent of acrylic paints filled her nose, and she let her fist uncurl, releasing the pain and need for revenge. Conceived and born from her creativity, her resolve alone had brought that fence to life. That was all her. She had done that.
She could do this.
Meg twirled the ball between her fingers and felt her strength build from her toes to her scalp. All she knew was this moment: the ball and the paddle and the vapor steaming off the courts that smelled like victory. Meg drew herself to her full petite stature. Rooster’s advice bounced back to her: Remember. There are only two things out here that matter. You and the ball. And the ball doesn’t really matter .
She served.
This time when édith returned deep, Meg’s body and brain were engaged. Her third-shot drop landed perfectly. The four players ran to the kitchen line, where the pickling began. Diagonally and repeatedly, the ball hopped low over the net, Meg vs. édith, édith vs. Meg. Back and forth. Back and forth. She could keep it up forever. Until…Meg’s dink bounced too close to center. Vance took advantage of the opening. He reached into the fray with an underhand hit.
The lob arced over Ethan’s head.
Meg reacted instinctively. She spun and raced to the baseline. Twirling toward the net and screeching to a halt, she spotted the ball with a pointed finger and lined up her shot. Following the parabolic descent of the green sphere, she waited for the right millisecond. Only the ball, the ball, the falling ball, filled her brain.
And…now! Flicking her wrist, she heard the perfect sound of the ball connecting with the paddle’s sweet spot.
High above the courts, a thinning cloud shifted. A ray of light as clean and pure as the dawn of earth poured from the heavens. Vance, édith, and Ethan stood shocked and immobilized as the beam found its mark and illuminated the strange trajectory of the neon ball. The universe contracted into a single pinpoint.
The spectators leaned forward in their seats. As if lit from within, the ball slowed and hovered at center court. The seconds stretched, becoming as long as days while the plastic sphere made up its mind. It swooped toward the tape. It made featherlight contact. Skimming the vinyl, the ball whistled as it spun and balanced on the ridge. It rolled, dancing along the narrow tightrope, following an impossible path. At last, it twirled in its sunny spotlight and, suddenly aware of its own gravity, dropped straight down into the kitchen.
Ungettable.
Meg’s breath halted. An instant passed while the initial shock wore off, and then she rushed to the net and skidded to a stop. In a puddle on the other side of the net, her ball still spun and twitched.
A hush descended on the watching throng. The birds stilled on their branches. In Puget Sound, a giant octopus blew a bubble, but other than that, nobody moved. A silence as vast as the galaxies permeated the stands, the courts, the nearby trees.
And then…the crowd erupted in cheers.
“Game goes to Bainbridge.” Portia lifted her voice above the din. “11–9.”
Meg’s heart thudded in her throat as reality sank in. She had done it. The unicorn of pickleball was hers.
Meg Bloomberg had executed the Golden Pickledrop.