21. Gideon
GIDEON
Dew coated the rolling fairways as the sun rose over the golf course at the Azalea Bay Club.
I stood on court three with a paddle that looked like a toy, my eyes, still a little sensitive, hidden behind my aviator sunglasses.
Back in my tennis-playing days, I had worn protective eyewear, but I doubted that the wiffle balls packed enough punch to cause any damage.
The plastic ball barely bounced off the surface of the court. “This feels ridiculous,” I said.
“Follow along.” Lisa stretched her arm across her chest.
I obeyed and groaned as the muscles in my body started to loosen up. I was in my thirties now, stretching was going to play a big role in the rest of my life if I wanted to keep playing.
“Try to keep an open mind. Let’s start with some drills. We will do them with both hands to give your brain a little challenge this morning.” She pointed to the far side of the court with her paddle.
For the first forty minutes, we “dinked”—a slow-motion rally I could manage with both my left and right hands. It was easy. The shuffle step I learned in tennis came in handy as I moved along the ridiculously named kitchen line.
“You’re a natural.” Lisa grinned. “Let’s move on.” She backed up to the serving line. “Forget everything you know about tennis. The serve is underhand, and you have to serve cross-court, avoiding the kitchen.”
I shook my head. “Crease is so much better than the kitchen.” Who in their right mind took this joke of a sport seriously.
The first few serves were disasters. Every instinct from my tennis days kicked in wrong. I kept trying to blast the ball, sending it flying way past Lisa.
“Ease up,” Lisa called after my fifth ball disappeared behind a Mercedes. “Imagine you’re stick-handling. You know, soft hands.”
Now, that was an analogy I could understand. I dialed it back on my next serve. This time, the ball sailed perfectly to Lisa’s waiting paddle. The ball made a pock sound as she hit it back to me. I snatched it with my free hand.
“Better. Now, let’s rally.”
The next twenty minutes were humbling. The ball moved differently from a tennis ball, and the smaller court meant I was constantly misjudging distances. At about the half-hour mark, I started to see the patterns. It was like watching plays develop in hockey, but slower.
“That’s it,” Lisa said after I executed a decent third-shot drop that landed just inside the line. “You’re starting to think pickleball, not tennis.”
“It’s like learning a new language,” I admitted, wiping the surprise sweat from my forehead. The game was way harder than I’d anticipated.
When we reached the hour mark, something shifted, and I didn’t want to stop playing. The strategic elements were clicking, and I could see how it could be a fun thing to play.
“Can we go another twenty minutes?” I asked, even though my head was starting to throb.
Lisa checked her watch. “I have another client, but Fred and Dot usually show up around eight thirty. They’d love to help out a beginner.”
I stiffened at the word “beginner.” This shit was easy. I’d show Lisa that Gideon Bailey was never a beginner, and I’d be damned if a couple of geriatrics were going to prove me wrong.
Fred and Dot Harding were seventy-something, but they moved like they were half that.
Fred’s silver hair was slicked back, his tennis whites starched to perfection.
Dot’s bedazzled sun visor reflected sunlight like a disco ball, and she called everyone “honey.” Sally, my partner, wore two knee braces and clear sports glasses with a prescription so strong her eyes looked as big as the lime-green ball we were playing with.
Fred and Dot destroyed us. Well, destroyed me. Sally carried us through the game and was the only reason we didn’t get “pickled.”
“You’re thinking too hard, honey,” Dot said after the game. “This isn’t rocket science. Feel the game, let it come to you.”
“And quit trying to kill the ball,” Fred added, not unkindly. “Finesse beats power every time out here.”
While we played, Sally offered tips. She was a patient partner, and to say I was humbled that morning would be an understatement.
With Lisa’s permission, I showed up the next day. At six thirty.
Within a week, I was hooked.
Word spread that a hockey player was learning to play, and the regulars started showing up earlier.
Margie Roper, the wife of an airline CEO, brought homemade muffins, still warm from the oven.
Harry Boler, the founder of a record label, brought a thermos of imported Jamaican coffee big enough for everyone on the court.
“You know,” Margie said one morning after beating me and Harry in straight games, “I think someone might actually like this sport.”
I still wouldn’t have called it a sport but didn’t want to seem rude. “I come for the muffins.”
“That’s exactly what hooked me,” Harry laughed.
Margie grinned. “My late husband used to say pickleball was chess with paddles.”
Fred chuckled as he organized the balls. “Margie, your husband couldn’t play chess to save his life.”
The banter between the seniors was as entertaining as the game, but they all took their pickleball seriously.
I saw Lisa every other day for physio and neurological work in her office and played pickleball almost every day.
By my second week, after several warnings and gruesome stories of players losing their eyes, I traded my sunglasses for proper safety glasses.
The sun no longer gave me headaches, and the light sensitivity had almost completely disappeared.
I would stay at the court until almost ten, helping set up games for whoever showed up, learning the personalities and playing styles of the kooky morning crowd.
These old people were starting to grow on me.
During one of our physio sessions, while forcing me to stand on a balance board with one foot while following her fingertip with my eyes, Lisa told me, “The club’s never had this much early morning energy.”
“Good. This sport deserves more respect than it gets.”
She grinned. “When do I get to say I told you so?”
I rolled my eyes, ruining my drill. She stomped on the wobble board, and I hopped off.
“How do you feel after the sessions? Does the noise bother you with all the new players? That was supposed to be quiet time.”
“Better every day. The light sensitivity is almost gone, balance is solid.” I hopped on the wobble board to demonstrate. “Every once in a while, I get headaches, but not like before.”
“And emotionally? The time off hockey, that’s got to be a lot to process.”
Lisa didn’t say it, but I knew that concussions often made people angry. I still wasn’t convinced that mine was worth all this rehab, and I didn’t feel any angrier than usual. Just a little sad.
“It’s been complicated.” I blinked, surprised that I’d revealed something so personal.
“Want to talk about it? Anything you say is completely confidential, by the way. It can be useful to discuss your emotions during a time like this.”
“I’m not angry, but I’m a little…” I ran my hand through my hair. “Without hockey, I don’t know who I am. It’s empty. Also, before the injury, there was this woman…”
“And?” She didn’t seem surprised.
“I found out she’d lied to me.” The words came out easier than I’d expected. “I handled it badly and said some things I regret.”
Lisa was quiet. Which I appreciated. Other than Ace and Goldie, I hadn’t discussed what had happened with Piper. Ace and Goldie both wanted me to talk to Piper, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“I’m angry, don’t get me wrong, but I also feel guilty about walking away without really listening to her side of things. At least trying to understand why she felt like she couldn’t be honest with me.”
“That’s valid.”
I used my feet to rotate the wobble board, keeping focus on the eye chart on the wall. “Hockey’s simple. This feels like overtime that never ends.”
Lisa nodded. “Sometimes the hardest part isn’t forgiving the other person. It’s forgiving ourselves for not being who we thought we were in a crucial moment.”
“Exactly.” The relief at having someone understand was overwhelming. “I thought I was this emotionless guy who didn’t care about stuff. Turns out I’m just as shallow as everyone else.”
“Are you? Or were you reacting to feeling deceived?”
“Both, probably.”
Screams from kids doing cannonballs into the pool distracted my gaze from the neuro chart to the big window.
“You can stop.” Lisa put her hand on my forearm. “May I offer a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Hockey took up so much of your life. Without it, you have too much free time on your hands, and rumination isn’t a good thing.
There’s a tournament here in a couple weeks.
Big prize money, serious competition. It might be good for you to have a goal, something to focus on besides replaying old conversations. ”
“A tournament?”
“The Azalea Bay Open. Twenty-five thousand for first place in doubles. Teams from all over Florida.” Lisa scribbled some notes onto her tablet with her fancy pen. “It would give you something to channel all this energy into.”
The idea sparked something in me. Competition. Purpose. My inner athlete woke up and said yes.
“I’d need a partner.”
“I might know someone who could complement your game. Former tennis player, really strong fundamentally.” Lisa paused. “Would you be interested?”
“Hell yeah, I’m interested.”
“Great. Let me make some calls and set something up.” Lisa shoved the wobble board back to its place next to the reformer.
I unzipped my hoodie, preparing for the outdoor heat. “Thanks, Lisa.”
“Gideon.” She spoke as I had my hand on the door lever. I paused.
“This might sound too woo-woo for you, but it might help your recovery to get some answers from that woman.”
“That does sound woo-woo, but I’ll think about it.”
Walking to my car, I thought about what Lisa had said. I’d built up a lot of respect for her but wondered if I’d have been better off seeing the physiotherapist downtown. She was starting to sound a lot like Goldie.
Instead of heading to my car, I retrieved my paddle from the locker room and went to the courts. Without the rink, the courts were one place that I could put all my focus into a sport and forget about the outside world.
Margie was leaving the court next to mine, and she stopped on her way by. “You’re brooding, honey. That’s never good for the game.”
Another one? What was with these women? “Nah, just thinking about hockey.”
Margie eyed me. “Want some unsolicited advice from an old lady?”
“Sure.”
“Whatever’s eating at you, playing it out in your head over and over won’t solve it. Sometimes you have to step onto the court and see what happens when the ball is actually in play.” She patted my arm. “You’ve got good instincts, Gideon. Trust them.”