Chapter 16
Over the course of my first two weeks on Hawaii, my legwork had improved considerably.
I was taking a different approach to the ball and hitting it sooner and more precisely.
All the intensive training was paying off.
I was slowly starting to serve as quickly as I had at my best and was varying them more.
“I’m happy you’re making such progress,” my mother said during our weekly Zoom call. Dad had canceled at the last minute due to his flight being delayed. “I knew the change of scenery would do you good.”
“Yeah, I think coming here was a good idea.”
MacBook on my lap, I slid up to the head of my bed and made myself comfortable.
“Kay mentioned that you’ve even made some friends?”
“She said that?” I asked in surprise.
“Well, she said that you were over at a girlfriend’s house watching a movie.”
“Laurie, yeah. She lives next door. She’s here for the summer to help her brother renovate the house.”
I watched her reaction to my having brought up Vince but didn’t notice anything change in her expression.
My mother wasn’t a good actor, so I was pretty sure Kay hadn’t mentioned him.
On the one hand, I was relieved—my mother definitely would have asked me a thousand questions—but on the other, surprised.
Though maybe it meant that Kay had seen that Vince didn’t have any ulterior motives.
It had been four days since I’d seen him or Laurie, though that mainly had to do with the fact that I was endlessly training and then just falling into bed.
Laurie and I had texted a few times. She asked me how training was going and suggested getting together to do something again.
And sent me a selfie of her painting the window frames, which made me gasp.
There in the background was a shirtless Vince up on a ladder with a hammer.
“That sounds nice. Tuning out sometimes is important. Maybe you can see a bit of the island with her. Your dad and I once visited that ranch where they shoot so many Hollywood movies.” She furrowed her brow.
“The name escapes me at the moment. But Kay will know it. You definitely have to go. And then there’s that waterfall.
You can go hiking and even have a swim. And maybe the two of you could… ”
“Mom!” I groaned in a good-natured, annoyed voice. “I’m not here on vacation.”
“Of course not. But it would be an awful shame for you to see nothing but Kay’s house and the tennis school while spending six weeks on Hawaii.”
“I go jogging on the beach every morning. And I’ve been in the ocean already too.”
“If I were you, I’d jump in there every single day.”
“I jump into Kay’s pool. Does that count?”
Laughing, she rolled her eyes.
We chatted a bit longer about this and that, a series we both had seen, the heat wave in Germany, and the invitation my mom had received to some German celebrity quiz show that she ended up declining.
“Apropos. Helena said you hadn’t responded to her email yet. She doesn’t want to push, but she needs to give them an answer.”
I dug through my memory.
“The interview request from Stern magazine,” my mother reminded me.
“Oh, shit. I totally forgot about that.” I stopped myself from yawning. “That arrived right after I’d landed.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Do you want to do it, or should I tell Helena to say no?”
I thought for a moment. “After the US Open. I don’t have the head for something like that at the moment. Should I write her?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
My thanks was swallowed by a yawn.
“You should go to bed.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty beat.”
“As soon as your father’s back, we’ll make another call, the three of us.”
I nodded. “That’d be nice.”
We said goodbye, and I shut my MacBook and slid off the bed.
After putting on my pajamas, I brushed my teeth and put a healthy amount of moisturizer on my face.
Like every evening, my skin was taut from all the sun.
I crawled under the blanket and scrolled through TikTok and Instagram for a bit.
Helena ran my accounts because I didn’t have time.
She’d been working for my family for over ten years already and took care of press requests, advertising offers, and our social-media presence.
Right then, I received a message from Laurie.
Chip invited us to his party.
Saturday. Wanna go?
I hadn’t finished reading it when another arrived.
I’m supposed to tell you he would have liked to invite you himself.
But no number no invite ??
I reacted with a laughing emoji. Nevertheless, I added:
Sadly, I can’t.
Not even five seconds passed before my phone rang and Laurie greeted me with, “But you have to come!”
“I don’t go to parties while in training,” I explained.
“But you came to our barbecue.”
“I knew I’d be back home in time for bed.”
“We don’t have to stay that long.”
“It definitely won’t get going before nine.”
There was a rustling in the connection. “I’ll ask him.”
She put me on speaker.
“He’s with you?!”
“Sadly not.” She sighed over-dramatically.
I rolled my eyes, smiling. At the barbecue already I’d noticed that Laurie had a small crush on Chip. Which is why she probably just had to go to his party.
“Isn’t your brother going?”
“No, don’t worry. That’s not really his thing.”
Suddenly my ear was hit by a buzzing noise.
“Oookay. Chip says we can come whenever we want.”
“Whenever we want?”
“It’s getting started in the late afternoon.”
“Just what kind of party is it?”
“One that’s made for you,” Laurie said happily.
I hesitated.
“Come on! I promise we’ll get you home on time.”
“Who’s we?”
“You and me. You, essentially. I don’t have a driver’s license.”
“And how do you know that I do?”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course,” I grumbled.
“Perfect,” she said, and I could just see her rubbing her hands together happily. “Vince is giving us his ride, I’ve already…”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I haven’t even decided if I’m coming!”
“Well, why not?”
I thought about it feverishly, but nothing came up.
“Fine.” I sighed. “But I have to be home by ten!”