For most of the first set Tess couldn't get the ball past Mika Radan.
It went past her racket sometimes, into the space beside her body where she could still turn and find it. It went over her, high enough to make her retreat. It hardly ever went beyond her. Radan got to balls Tess had already stopped following. She made the contact ugly, hit off one leg, lifted the ball with the outside of the strings, and the ball came back.
At two-five Tess came forward behind a backhand she had hit well. Radan passed her down the line. On the next point Tess stayed back behind the same backhand. Radan sent up a high ball, Tess tried to finish too early and missed. The crowd made a sympathetic sound. She hated that more than the pass.
Six-two. Radan took the set with an ace, her first. Tess went to her chair and pulled the towel over her face. She could hear the ice shifting in the drink bottle Hana had put beside her bag before the match. Somewhere behind her a man said she needed to be patient. His companion agreed.
Before the match Hana had wanted the approach deeper, not necessarily harder. Radan read the angle too easily when Tess went short and wide. Tess had tried deep in the warm-up, felt the ball land heavily and thought she had it. Under pressure she was reaching for the open space again, taking the ball away from Radan's body and giving her room to swing. Then she was staying back because the last approach had been passed.
She lifted the towel. Hana was sitting with her hands clasped between her knees. No big movement. No visible impatience. Tess wanted a sign that the match could still become the one she had imagined this morning. Hana met her eyes and waited.
Tess put the towel down.
Tess served first again. In the opening game she kept Radan back long enough to get a pass straight at her instead of out of reach. The impact traveled up her arm. She volleyed deep, watched the lob rise and moved back for the overhead. This one stayed away.
Through the next eight games she could hear herself getting angrier whenever Radan reached another ball. At three all a pass caught the tape and stopped on her side. Tess put the racket into her left hand before she could throw it. She held anyway. At five-four the wind moved across the court and a napkin caught against the back fence. Radan waited for someone to collect it. Tess stood with the racket against her thigh, feeling the air beneath her collar.
Radan served to stay in the set and reached thirty-fifteen. Tess won the next point scrambling back for a lob, the one after it at the end of a twenty-three-shot rally. She knew the number only because someone behind Hana said it aloud. Her own last forehand had been slower than she wanted. She could still feel the effort of keeping it deep.
Set point. A first serve missed. Tess returned the second through the middle and waited. The reply came short to her forehand. She hit toward the backhand corner and followed it. Radan went down for the pass and sent it long. Six-four. Tess walked to the chair without lifting a hand. She needed the air.
*
The third set began with both women holding. Tess served first, the same order they had had from the beginning. She had changed shirts. The dry cloth lasted less than a game.
At two all she looked into the stand and saw Owen. He was beside Hana, one knee sticking out past the edge of his seat. He had been there all along. She had seen him when she came on court, had lifted two fingers from the racket handle. Now he was leaning forward with the same concentration he used when he was trying to hear someone in a noisy room.
Mara wasn't there. Tess had known she wouldn't be. Inez's semifinal was due to start on another court before this one ended. The idea had been easier when there was no ball coming at her. Now, for one point, she wanted the old face in the old place. Not the plan, not the words. The face.
She served. Radan returned long. Tess took the next ball and went back behind the line.
At four-three she had a chance on Radan's serve. Two backhands had dropped short, the second so unexpectedly that Tess had taken it late and almost lost the opening. She was at fifteen-thirty, two points from the break. Radan made a first serve out wide. Tess stretched, lifted the return and ran back toward the middle. The next forehand went behind her. She changed direction, got there, sent it high.
Radan could have taken the high ball early. She let it fall. Tess had a second to recover, to watch the other woman's shoulders turn. She moved left. The forehand went right.
Thirty all. She had guessed. Radan had waited long enough to see it.
Tess walked to receive on the other side. She could play the next point from farther back, make the return safely, wait for Radan to grow tired. Radan was tired. So was Tess. The ball still had to be hit.
The serve went into the net. Tess stepped inside the baseline for the second. Hana's hand moved in the edge of her sight, low, a small forward gesture. Tess didn't need the gesture. She was already there.
She returned deep. Radan sent a forehand high toward her backhand, the ball that had made her impatient all afternoon. Tess moved behind it, waited for it to drop and hit crosscourt. Again. Radan tried the line. It was shorter than she wanted. Tess moved forward, sent the approach deep and stopped just inside the service line.
The pass came at her. She blocked it, nothing elaborate. Radan reached the volley and lifted. Tess stepped back for the overhead, hit it toward the open court and saw Radan reach that too.
The ball came back above the net. Tess was there. She put the second volley away.
Break point.
She wanted to look at Hana. She kept her eyes on Radan, who had turned toward the back fence with both balls in her hand. When the woman came back she bounced one only twice and served into the body. Tess got the return deep. Radan's next forehand went into the net.
Five-three. Tess took the balls and heard Owen call her name. A voice from home, strained by the effort of making itself heard. She wiped her face with her wristband and went behind the baseline. The break had not finished anything. She would have to serve.
In the last game she got to forty-fifteen with two first serves and a forehand Radan reached but couldn't control. On the first match point she missed a backhand down the line. Radan hadn't made her try it. She had seen the space and wanted to be done.
Forty-thirty. She stood with her back to the court, facing the ball kid, who held up a ball in each hand. Tess took one, then the other. Neither was going to tell her which serve would go in. She put one in her pocket and went to the baseline.
The first serve caught the net and went long. She let the crowd finish the little sound it made. On the second she went to the body. Radan blocked the return low. Tess bent, got under it and sent it deep. Radan hit crosscourt. Tess ran, found the forehand and drove it back behind her.
The reply landed short. Tess came in.
She heard the racket meet the ball, then her own shoes as she stopped. Radan's pass rose toward the backhand side. Tess met it in front. The volley landed near the sideline, far enough away that Radan did not run.
Tess stood there, racket extended, until the applause made her lower it.
She had reached a final. Another one. There was still a point in the first set she wanted back, and a patch of sweat beneath the new shirt, and a woman at the net she had to go and meet. She went. Radan clasped her hand and touched her shoulder with the other. Tess thanked her without knowing whether she had heard.
*
Owen waited while Tess finished with the trainer. When she came out he had a paper cup of coffee and the expression of someone who had been trying not to fall asleep sitting upright. He rose too fast, nearly spilled it and put it down before he hugged her.
“That was quite something,” he said.
“It was long.”
“I noticed.”
Hana was beside the door, checking the order of play on her phone. She had already told Tess what time to meet in the morning. No extra session. Tess had earned a final and had very little left in her legs. She would eat, recover and come back.
“You need a lift?” Owen asked.
“Not yet. I've got some things.”
He nodded. He would stay until tomorrow evening. She knew he had bought the later flight before he knew she would win. He had not mentioned it. She asked whether he had seen anything of Chicago.
“The airport. This.”
“Go somewhere.”
“I might go sit down.”
She laughed and hugged him again. After he left, she found a quiet place near the locker room and called April. April was at work. The call lasted four minutes, most of them spent trying to hear through a door April couldn't leave open. She had seen the score, would watch tomorrow, couldn't talk now. Tess said that was fine and stayed on until April had to hang up first.
On the other court Inez was still playing. Tess could hear the applause when the hallway door opened. She looked at the live score, put the phone down and ate the rice she had been given in a lidded container. Hana sat with her for part of it. They talked about the match enough to let it end, then about the flight home. Tess wanted to go Monday, not spend the whole night after a final getting through airports. Hana would go earlier. She had someone to meet in Richmond before she was free again.
“I'll see you before you leave,” Tess said.
“Yes. We have tomorrow.”
They looked at each other, both smiling now. Tomorrow was a final. Hana rose, took the empty container with her because she was nearer the trash and left Tess with the last of the water.
Inez won. Tess learned it from the phone before the noise reached her. She sat for another minute with the screen lit in her hand. The next meeting had been possible for days. Now it had a time.
Mara called twenty minutes later.
“Congratulations,” she said.
“Thanks. You too.”
“I'm still here. Do you need anything?”
Tess looked at her bag. The towel was wet. Everything in it seemed damp, although she had put the clean clothes in a separate pocket. She could get to the hotel on the player shuttle. She could do the whole afternoon without asking anyone for anything.
“Would you take me back?” she said.
“Of course.”
“I'm not ready yet.”
“I'll wait.”
Mara was outside when she came through the door, standing in the shade of a sign. She had a bottle of water in one hand, the car key in the other. Tess put her bag down and let her mother come close. The hug hurt a little at the shoulder where the muscles had tightened. She leaned into it anyway.
They drove with the air turned low. Mara asked whether Tess wanted it colder. Tess said no. She watched the back of a delivery truck for three blocks while Mara found the road to the hotel.
“Dad's tired,” Tess said.
“He had an early flight yesterday.”
“He said he was going to see something. I think he meant his bed.”
“He'll tell you he walked.”
Tess smiled. Her eyes kept closing. She had thought she would tell her mother something about the match, the high ball she had finally waited for, but sleep was arriving in pieces. She let her head rest against the seat. When Mara stopped at the hotel she had to touch Tess's arm to wake her.
“I'll take that,” Mara said, reaching for the bag.
“I can.”
“I know.”
Tess let her take it.
Upstairs, she sat on the edge of the bed while Mara put the bag where she asked. Her mother took the wet towel out without unpacking anything else. Tess had left yesterday's towel hanging over the shower door. Mara found a place for both, spreading the wet one so it would dry.
“Water?” she asked.
“I've got it.”
Mara came back to the room. She looked tired herself, Tess saw now, the skin beneath her eyes darker than it had been in Richmond. It had been a long match for Inez too. Tess moved her legs off the other half of the bed.
“Sit down.”
Mara sat. The mattress dipped toward her. For a little while neither spoke. Outside, something heavy was being wheeled down the hall. Tess could hear every seam in the carpet through the wheels.
“For Sunday,” she said. “Next Sunday. I could do something before you come. Instead of going out.”
“I'd like that.”
“Nothing complicated.”
“Good.”
She had a bag of pasta at home. Tomatoes would be easy, something she had made before. She could buy the bread this time. It seemed possible from here, in this room, with her mother sitting beside her and tomorrow still a day that hadn't happened.
Mara's phone vibrated. She looked at it and put it back in her pocket without opening it. Tess did not ask who it was. She leaned down, undid one shoe and then the other, keeping her head low because it was easier than sitting up again.
“Are you staying?” she asked.
“For a bit. If you want.”
“Okay.”
She lay back. Her mother moved to the chair by the window, and Tess could feel the mattress rise when her weight left it. The room was warm. Someone knocked at a different door, waited, knocked again. Tess heard the second knock more faintly than the first.