Chapter 10
Side-out: Winning the serve back from the opponent. Desperately needed when the other team is on a roll.
“I WANT THE OCAPUS!”
Jess grimaced but, with great effort, refrained from covering her ears as the red-faced child continued to screech about the stuffed sea creature.
“Sorry, bud,” Jess said in what she hoped was a neutral tone. “You need a hundred points for that one.”
His mom huffed. “This place is such a rip-off.”
If you want the cheap toy that bad, go to a dollar store, Jess bit back. Instead she shrugged, wishing she had another ibuprofen on hand for her pounding head.
The mom held up the tickets they had. “What can he get with twenty?”
Jess waved her hand at the clearly marked display showing the available prizes.
Kazoo in hand a minute later, the boy finally left. Jess took a long drink from her water bottle and pressed a hand to her eyes.
Backyard Chickens had been magical, of course, and Symphony turned out to be great—four cuties with a definite Queen vibe, led by a captivating, sultry queer man, all having the time of their lives—although the details of the night had become fuzzier as it went on.
George had picked up her and Tania and dropped Jess at home. She remembered giving Fleming a handful of treats, then the next thing she knew, the sun was streaming brightly through her window and she was sprawled on her covers, still in her bikini.
Work was a shit show too, which didn’t help her hangover.
The Whac-A-Mole was broken and no one on-shift could fix it.
Jess couldn’t even get anyone on the phone who could come deal with it.
Three kids threw up on the midway during the first two hours, and two people had just called in sick for the night shift, so Jess would have to fill in herself.
The kid screeching about the octopus just about put her over the edge.
Are you free to pop over and take Fleming for a walk in the next couple hours? she texted Nelson during a break. Need to cover a shift so I won’t be home until after ten.
I got you, Nelson replied.
Taking a moment, once again, to be so grateful for her neighbor, Jess tried calling another repair place on her way back to the ring toss, plugging her ear against the screams from the roller coaster.
An hour into her second shift, her phone buzzed with a text from Nelson. We saw your friend Vivienne on our walk.
She’s not my friend, Jess replied automatically. What was she doing?
I didn’t interrogate her, but she appeared to be out for a walk herself.
Weird. I’ve never seen her around my apartment before.
She loves Fleming. And, might I add, as somewhat of an expert myself, she’s sexy as hell.
Not really.
Bitch, please.
She’s … too perfect.
Yeah, gross, who wants perfect? Not me.
Glad Nelson couldn’t see her laugh, Jess sent the eye-roll emoji. Vivienne and I don’t fit together. Trust me.
I don’t trust you, actually. Your lack of self-awareness is truly stunning.
All she had time to send was the middle-finger emoji as a pack of teens approached. Jess tucked her phone under the counter and gave them her work smile, just hoping no one else would throw up tonight.
On Sunday morning, after a quiet cup of tea out on the walkway, Jess blasted Backyard Chickens while she got ready to leave for her game, trying to summon the buzzing in her veins she’d felt at the concert—the buzzing that had been somewhat tempered by yesterday’s hangover and midway vomit.
“I can do this,” she said to herself in the mirror after she brushed her teeth. “I’ve got this.” Her reflection smiled back tentatively, too-big nose and new zit included.
Fleming barked in agreement.
She sang while she packed her bag, kissed Fleming goodbye, popped in her earbuds, and walked to the pavilion, slipping Vivienne’s three banana bread loaves from last week’s wins into her locker when she arrived.
Jess’s step faltered a little when she got out to the court and saw the team from North Bay warming up already. Tall, agile, and covering vast stretches of sand in no time at all, it was no surprise that they were second in the league behind Vivienne and Lee. Jess’s stomach fizzed.
“Pfft, they’ve got nothing,” Tania muttered in her ear after another spectacular warm-up hit from their opponents.
Jess pushed her nerves down and gave Tania a smile. “Nothing we can’t handle, anyway,”
Tania slapped her hand. “Yes, girl. Let’s do this.”
They came out strong. The other team was maybe expecting an easier match, and Jess and Tania went up 7–2. Their opponents called a time-out.
Tania rocked from foot to foot on the sideline. “Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. They’re going to go hard for the side-out now. Watch for a roll shot or something cheesy.”
But there was nothing cheesy. One of the women went up and smashed the shit out of the ball around Jess’s block. Tania dove but couldn’t get there.
“Fuck,” Tania said, dusting the sand off of her hands.
“Mm-hmm,” Jess agreed. “You want me to block her cross?”
“Yeah, let’s see if she can do that down the line.”
She could, in fact, also smash the shit out of it down the line.
“Soooo,” Jess said when they called the next time-out, now losing 7–8. “She’s a pretty fucking good hitter.”
“Pretty good,” Tania gasped, clutching her water bottle. They’d had a few long rallies and she’d been diving full out for every hit, getting to some in time, but others … not so much.
But the usual flutter of panic was gone from Jess’s rib cage.
They were playing well, it just happened that this was a really good team.
“I can block her. I’m going to go hard line with everything I’ve got.
But her shoulders tell where she’s swinging, and, when she’s rolling it instead, she looks to the spot first. Keep going for those digs. Come on, let’s get this side-out.”
They slapped hands, then Jess added another smack to Tania’s butt when she turned, for extra luck.
Jess got the side-out off her next hit, but then so did the other team. Jess got a block, they scored an ace. The score teetered back and forth until it was tied at twenty.
It was Jess’s serve.
“Go for it, Button,” Tania called to her. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”
Jess nodded and hammered a jump serve at the sideline next to the weaker hitter. She left it, thinking—or hoping—it was out, but Jess’s serve clipped the outside of the line.
Tania whooped and ran to Jess for a high five. “Fuck, yes! Amazing serve. One more.”
Jess smacked the logo and served again, aiming for the same spot. This time it would have been out, but the passer took it. Jess ran to her blocking position at the net, watching the hitter’s shoulders, and knew she was aiming for a line shot.
Mistake, Jess thought as she loaded her quads, because she was all over this one. She jumped, thrust her hands over the net as hard as she could, then felt the reverberation all down her arms when the hitter swung right into her block. The ball fell straight to the sand.
Holy fuck. They won the first set.
Jess had barely landed by the time Tania wrapped her in a hug.
“Yes! What a fucking block!” she cried.
Jess laughed, the adrenaline screaming through her cells.
The other team looked grim.
They came out hitting even harder in the second set.
Jess blocked what she could, and Tania dug up a lot of balls, but it wasn’t quite enough. They were down by four quickly, and then five, and, while they sort of hung in there, they couldn’t win enough of the long rallies, and they lost 15–21.
Jess and Tania sat on the bench, winded.
“We know we can beat them,” Jess said while Tania squirted some water over her head.
“Yeah,” Tania replied, but she was distracted.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just … I think I’m gonna get my shoulder taped up real quick.
” She turned to signal to the trainer waiting nearby.
The trainer hustled over, bag of supplies on her shoulder.
She and Tania conferred quickly, then the trainer pulled out a roll of kinesiology tape and started cleaning Tania’s shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Jess asked, trying not to be overly worried.
Tania didn’t look at her. “Fine, just a bit sore.”
Jess nodded, biting back further questions, knowing they would only irritate Tania.
Once it was done, Tania stood and rolled her shoulder. “Thanks. Feels good.”
Jess offered what she hoped was an encouraging smile and avoided staring at the tape job. She had to trust that Tania knew her limits.
They hit the court for the third and deciding game.
It was another tight one. They had pulled even to tie it at thirteen, thanks to a big hit from Jess, when the other team called a time-out.
“Be on your toes here,” Tania said. “They’re gonna fight for this side-out. Watch for an attack on the second hit.”
Jess nodded and went back to serve. She took a deep breath, smacked the ball’s logo twice, and closed her eyes for a moment. She pictured the serve she wanted to send over. The only sound was the thudding of her heart.
She aimed to thread her jump serve down the middle, but closer to their slightly less-effective attacker, then hustled up to the net into blocking position.
The pass was high and tight to the net. Jess watched the attacker, but kept an eye on the other one too, in case she got some ideas about that tight ball.
Tania was right—the woman jumped to hit the second touch.
Jess was ready to move and launched herself in the air to block her swing.
She got a hand on it, not enough for a full block, but enough to send it up into a high arch above her.