Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
NAOMI
London, UK – June
Queen’s Championship – Women’s Draw
Lois:
You available today?
Lois Fields was both my greatest competitor and my best friend.
We’d trained together when we were kids, and it was apparent very early on that we both had greatness embedded in our bones if we wanted to take it.
A coach once tried to stoke up a rivalry between us, but it never took.
One, because both our mothers shut it down.
They had no desire to feed into the small white blonde girl’s biggest competition being the always-too-tall-for-her-age mixed-race girl, when there were plenty of other promising players to pit us against. Two, because we really were just as good as each other.
She was better on clay, she had a new French Open championship to prove it, and I was better on grass, but put us both on a hard court, and it was anybody’s game.
There was no one I loved playing against more.
And there was also no one I practised against more.
Depends on what you need?
Wyatt had decided that I wasn’t going to practise today, but I didn’t think he’d mind if I had a little hit around as long as I was sensible about it.
Lois:
A lefty. Doesn’t have to be long. I just need the best and seeing as you’re back, that’s you
When I became the world number one, I received the biggest bouquet of flowers, an array of dark coloured blooms, I’d ever seen. They were from Lois with a note that said, ‘Congrats on making official what most of us had already known. You’re the best in the world’.
She was the current number one, but every time I reminded her of that fact, she replied that she was only there because I wasn’t playing. I thought she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
And also, I might just want to see you. It’s been too long
Lois wasn’t wrong. We went from seeing each other almost every day because we did the same job to basically not seeing each other at all.
We’d managed to get dinner just before she went to Australia in December, but she’d been so worn out from a successful season, she had to cut it short so she could go to bed.
I can give you half an hour
Lois:
On court or just of your time in general?
I smiled.
I’m free all afternoon so you can have the whole thing. But only half an hour on court
Lois:
Thank fuck for that. Half an hour wouldn’t be enough time to get into everything we need to catch up on
Half one? Queens?
Wyatt was of the belief that UK grass was UK grass, and I didn’t necessarily disagree with him, especially when S there was no time to pay attention to the rest.”
“You’re welcome, I guess. We’ve got five minutes left. Are you okay to keep serving? I’m happy to switch. I know you’re playing tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine to serve. I need all the practise on it I can get.”
“Great. Then we can get lunch and have a proper conversation. We have so much to catch up on.”
“I don’t really have that much to catch you up on.”
Lois raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Mimi, we are on a practice court at Queen’s, and you play a professional match tomorrow. Three weeks ago, you were pummelling the shit out of my muscles in a physio appointment. Oh, and you have a doubles partner now. We have so much to catch up on.”
Well, when she put it like that.