Dom grimaced, opening the envelope. “That was the good news.” He stood, pulling out two packets of paper and handing one to each of them. It was a printout of theAthlete Weeklywebsite, and there, front and center, was a collage of pictures from the past week, and every single one was of her and Alex. The photo in the center was from their photo shoot, but it was surrounded by candid shots. The first was from the Classic Reception, Alex towering over her, a tumbler in his hand, while she glared up at him. The next was of them arguing over a point on the practice court; another was of them on that same court, lying down, hands entwined; and the last was from that same night, him leaning in, his mouth hovering above hers, her fingers curled around the cotton of his T-shirt.
“Now, look,” Dom said, “what either of you does off the court is none of my business, but—”
“You’re right,” Alex cut him off. “This is none of your damn business.”
Dom raised his hands up in surrender. “Easy there, Al. I’m not the enemy here. I was on the phone with Hodges already this morning, but he claims he didn’t take these pictures. He says they were sent in anonymously and when his editor saw them, he was forced to run them.”
“Dom, this isn’t what it looks like,” Penny said, scanning through the article quickly. From what she could tell, they were creating their own narrative, starting with Australia—she and Alex leaving the Nike party together, then the motorcycle accident with another woman, filling in the blanks with whatever garbage they thought would sell the most magazines and whatever Hodges observed while he was at OBX. Apparently, she and Alex Russell had a rocky on-again, off-again relationship, which she didn’t want to commit to because he was bad for her public image, and with that, Penny stopped reading and crumpled up the papers. “None of this is true.”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, finally sitting up, as he read through the article. “Some of it they nailed right on the head.”
Penny turned, ready to blast him, but Dom said, “Look, like I said, this is none of my business, but what do you want me to say once the phone calls start pouring in?”
“No comment,” they said together.
Penny laughed, though there was absolutely no humor in it. At least that was one thing they could agree on.
JASMINE BURIED HER FACE INTO HER PILLOW. SHE WASN’Tready to face the day. She could still hear it in her mind, like a song on infinite repeat for the last two days. The chair umpire’s voice amplified by the microphone—Game, set, and match, Gaffney—as the crowd roared.
Sleep was impossible. She tossed and turned late into the night, body exhausted, but replaying the match over and over again. Then the expression on her father’s face when he saw her afterward would swim behind her eyes, part disappointment and part disbelief. She’d let him down and that hurt even more than the loss itself.
“Jasmine!” Her mother’s voice carried up the stairs, followed by the pounding of footsteps. “Jasmine, wake up!” Her mom, bracelets jangling, burst through her door and grabbed her duvet cover, yanking it away.
“Mom,” she grumbled. “Go away.”
She’d been staying at her parents’ house in her childhood bedroom since the Classic, not wanting to face anyone on campus. Her dad’s disappointment was one thing; the poorly disguised glee of the people she thought were her friends was another.
“You have to get up, mija. You gave yourself a couple of days to wallow. You lost. It happens from time to time, but today you must go back to training. The OBX Classic is over and the French Open begins. Simple as cake.”
“Pie. Simple as pie or piece of cake.” Even after nearly twenty years in the States, her mom tended to mix up her idioms.
“Cake, pie, I love both. Now, get up.” She felt a soft tap against her backside and then her curtains and windows were thrown wide open, the morning air blowing in and the sunlight blinding her.
Jasmine rolled over, sitting up, and her stomach lurched. She couldn’t go in and face everyone, not after that loss, and not after what theAthlete Weeklyarticle wrote about her.
Dom probably went nuts on Hodges for focusing his article on Penny and Alex’s off-the-court relationship in what was supposed to be a serious sports publication, but it wasn’t the tabloid crap that worried Jasmine. It was a separate section entirely, one that focused on the results of the Classic.
Mental toughness is a necessary quality in any champion. Both John Randazzo and Lisa Vega had it in spades, along with superior athleticism and instinct, but the same can’t be said for their daughter, who folded under the pressure in thetournament’s final after coasting through a relatively weak field…
There, in black and white, was an analysis of what had happened during the final match that hit far too close to home. Athleticism, instinct, mental toughness, things necessary to succeed as a top athlete in any sport, qualities Harold Hodges, a tennis expert, didn’t think she possessed.
That was why the loss was eating away at her. She’d lost big matches before and they were always disappointing, but this one was different. It was a match she should’ve been able to win. The competition at the Classic was good, but at the end of the day, it was only the up-and-coming talent that played in it, and up-and-coming didn’t necessarily translate to a career on tour. Indiana was very good, but she had a week of elite-level coaching under her belt after a two-year hiatus and managed to beat her. It shouldn’t have happened, and yet it did.
“What if he’s right? What if I’m not good enough?”
“Mija, he is one man.” Her mom sat down beside her on the bed and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “He is one man who watched you play for one week. He is not God. He is not the final word.”
“He’s one of the best tennis reporters in the world.” She slipped out from under the embrace and stood, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s his opinion. He doesn’t know you and the article is trash.”
It didn’t make her feel any better, but she knew her mom wouldn’t stop, so she plastered a grin on her face and nodded.
“Fine, you’re right. He’s one man and he doesn’t know me.”
“Good, get dressed. I’ll make you breakfast before training.” Sometimes her mom saw what she wanted to see and not what was right in front of her.
Jasmine eyed the crumpled printout of the article sitting on her nightstand next to her phone, which had finally stopped beeping at her after she ignored Teddy’s tenth message. Harold Hodges was one man, a man who didn’t know her game beyond what he saw last week. Her parents were great, but they couldn’t be objective. And Teddy, he was the last person she wanted to talk to about anything. There was only one person she knew who would be brutally honest.
