CHAPTER 2

“We’re ready, Kendra,” her producer said.

She heard him as clearly as if he were standing right next to her, and it wasn’t just his voice in her earpiece. She nodded to the cameraman and held her microphone to her mouth.

“April, Terry, how are you feeling right now? You just won the Chicago Open.”

“Uh…” April began when Kendra moved the microphone over toward her. “I didn’t expect this, honestly. We knew we had it in us to win, but Aspen and DJ are great players, and they’ve been on a run recently, so we knew it would be hard. We thought we’d have to gut it out in three sets to walk away with this one, so I think we’re both a little surprised, happy, and looking forward to the next one now.”

“Yeah, what April said,” Terry added when Kendra moved the microphone over to her. “I felt good out there today. We landed some key serves, got the ball to move how we wanted, and I think we’re both just feeling really good right now, heading into the next event.”

“You’ve been moving up in points recently, too. You’re currently in fourth for Olympic qualifying. I know this match won’t get you any points, but how are you feeling heading to the next one that will, knowing you’ll probably be facing the toughest teams in the world?” Kendra moved the microphone back over to April.

“Aspen and DJ are one of those teams, and I think we just showed that while we might not have as many wins as some of those teams trying to qualify, we can still take them and walk away with wins. So, we’re feeling really good about our odds of getting onto a podium and earning some more points, maybe moving up into third and then second after that.”

“Thanks, ladies,” Kendra told them.

“And we’re gone,” her producer said in her ear.

“Thanks, Kendra,” Terry replied as she and April walked off.

“Kendra, can you get Aspen Ashley?” her producer asked.

“Now?”

“Yeah, now. We’ve got some time to kill. Formula One is up next, but there’s a lightning delay. Can you fill a minute for us?”

“Um…” Kendra looked around the court and saw Aspen wrapping her towel the size of a blanket around her waist. “Yeah, I’ve got her. Give me a second.”

She hurried over toward Aspen, who was packing up her things with her partner, DJ, in the players’ area. Aspen Ashley was someone Kendra knew as a sports reporter, but only in that capacity. She’d spoken to Aspen a handful of times outside of the questions she’d asked her as a sideline reporter, but mostly, that was small talk about the weather, Aspen’s favorite flavor of Gatorade, which was the blue kind that Kendra couldn’t ever remember the name of, or where Aspen was playing next. That was about it. And she’d always gotten a good vibe from the woman, but, for some reason, out of all the athletes Kendra had interviewed over the years – and she’d been doing this job in one way or another since college, interviewing NBA players, NFL players, MLB players, NHL players, MLS players, WNBA players, NWSL players, AAWVL, and USPBV players – Aspen Ashley was the one who made her nervous. Kendra was sure there were more letters in there, representing the leagues and people she’d talked to over the years, and she’d spoken to coaches, trainers, and future hall-of-famers in their respective sports, but it was Aspen Ashley who had her stumbling most often.

“Aspen, can I have a minute?” she asked.

Aspen looked up from where she had been putting something in her bag, and those hypnotic hazel eyes landed on Kendra’s blue ones.

“Us? We lost,” Aspen replied.

“Just you. And, yeah.”

“Cool. Can I go?” DJ asked.

“Sure. Hey, DJ.”

“Hey, Kendra,” DJ said and picked up her bag. “I’ll see you in the tent,” she added to Aspen.

“Um… Okay.” Aspen walked over to Kendra and stood next to her in her usual interview-ready stance, with her legs spread shoulder-width apart and her hands behind her back, held together.

Kendra looked at her cameraman and held the microphone to her mouth, waiting for the cue from her producer. When she got it, she gave a nod.

“Aspen Ashley is standing with me to talk about the matches she played today; and that’s matches, plural. How do you think that rain delay played into your second match today?” She held the microphone over to Aspen.

“Yeah, we weren’t happy about it. We’ve played two matches in a day before – that’s how these tournaments work sometimes – but we should’ve played that first one last night. We were ready for that, warmed up and everything, but then, the weather hit, so we couldn’t play. We tried to relax and get ready this morning, and we thought we did, but we were up against a tough team that took us to a long three sets, so even after trying to rest and eat and get ready to play this afternoon, it wasn’t enough. We only had about two hours to do all of that. Not to take anything away from our opponents today, who were great, but they played last yesterday afternoon and were well-rested.”

“You’ve won the previous three tournaments. How are you feeling going into the next one with this loss?”

Aspen met Kendra’s eyes, and Kendra could tell she was at least slightly annoyed.

“I’m feeling like we played well, but we had a few mistakes we need to clean up, which we can do, and that we’ll be fine in the next tournament. We’ve got a good coach, and DJ is the best partner I could ask for. She’s the kind of person who’s working even when she’s sitting on her couch. She’s thinking about the mistakes we’ve made and how to fix them, watching film and other teams to try to learn from them, too, and she’s always early and stays late at practice. So, I’m feeling good about our chances at the next one.”

“And how about the Olympics qualifying that’s going on presently; how are you feeling about that?”

“Fine. We’re in the best position we can be in right now,” Aspen replied.

“Plenty of qualifying events are coming up, though, giving other US teams a chance to earn points,” Kendra noted.

“True, but we have the same chances, so we’re going to focus on staying healthy and keeping sharp.”

“Okay. We’re good, Kendra,” her producer said in her ear. “The weather delay is over. Wrap it up.”

“Thanks for the time, Aspen. And good luck on your next match,” Kendra said.

“Thanks,” Aspen replied.

“And we’re clear,” the producer added.

Kendra took out her earpiece and said, “Thanks for that.”

“Sure. But, Kendra?”

“Yeah?”

“What is it with you reporters?” Aspen laughed a little and reached down to pick up her bag. “You have to talk to us after a big loss? What do you all think we’re going to say, exactly? That we’re super happy we’ve just lost something we’ve worked really hard for?”

“Sorry. We had a Formula One weather delay, and my producer needed to fill, so he told me to grab you. You’re the face of the tour, Aspen.”

“I also just lost,” the woman argued, hefting her bag over her shoulder. “So, I’m not exactly feeling great.”

“I know. Sorry. You played well, though, if it makes you feel any better. So did DJ.”

“No, DJ played like crap, and she knows it, which is why she didn’t want to be interviewed. She’ll be fine because she’s a great player, but she needs to be by herself right now, in her headphones, to try to get her head back on track. So, can you keep that in mind next time if you need to fill and we lose?”

“Sure. So, just grab you, then?”

“Preferably not.” Aspen laughed a little. “I remember the Olympics when Mikaela Shiffrin skied out the first time in one of her events, and the camera stayed on her for, like, fifteen minutes or something because she just sat there in the snow, devastated. Four years of hard work would come down to a one-minute race, and it was over.”

“I was there. I remember that.”

“Yeah… I hated that for her. She’s a pro athlete, and she’d just lost something big, and there were other skiers going down that mountain, trying to win a medal, but the camera just sat there on her. Then, people wanted to interview her, and it’s like… Give her a damn break, you know?”

“Well, this isn’t exactly the Olympics,” Kendra pointed out, trying to defend herself.

“No, but the principle still applies. This is something important to DJ and me. It’s our job; our career, you know? We just lost. I’m not really up for talking about it. I get that it’s part of the job, but… still. That’s all I’m trying to say. I know you’ve got a job to do, but it kind of sucks sometimes, to be immediately confronted with your failure so that some TV network can get ratings or fill for time or some other reason I can’t think of right now because we’ve just lost a match we should’ve won.”

Kendra didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.

“Well, I should go find DJ and check on her before she goes into her hours-long solitude mode. And we have to get to the airport anyway, so… I guess I’ll see you next time.”

“Yeah, next time,” Kendra said.

Aspen walked off then, and Kendra tilted her head. Aspen’s work uniform, as they all called it, was a bikini, and today, she was wearing a dark-blue one with white around the waistband of the bottoms. Even though those were covered with her towel right now, Aspen’s entire back was still exposed, and Kendra could see it in all its muscled and tanned glory as Aspen walked away from her. Kenda had done her best to keep her eyes off Aspen’s flat stomach during the interview because she could not be objectifying the women she interviewed.

Strangely, it was always Aspen, though. In her line of work, Kendra would interview women in various stages of undress – sometimes, in their locker rooms after basketball games or soccer matches, where they were in towels post-shower or in their sports bras – because the athletes didn’t give a damn about just another woman being in there at times, but she’d never thought about any of them the way she thought of Aspen Ashley.

Aspen, who was younger than her by at least six years if Kendra remembered correctly; Aspen, who wasn’t exactly a player, according to all the rumors, but who never seemed to settle on one woman and liked to date when she could; Aspen, who had been on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue the previous year and had looked ridiculously hot on a beach, in a bikini not exactly made for playing a professional sport, with whatever oil they used to make her skin glisten like that… And Kendra needed to pay attention because her cameraman was clearing his throat.

“Oh, right,” she said. “We can go.”

Kendra was more than ready to get to the airport herself. She liked Chicago, but she wanted to get home to Los Angeles because she’d just bought a house there and had closed on it right before having to fly here, so she still hadn’t moved in. She couldn’t wait to get home and have her first night in the only place she’d ever owned. It hadn’t been her plan to buy something solo, but after years of saving and looking for the right place, she hadn’t wanted to lose it because she was waiting to fall in love and move in with someone else. Now, she wanted to decorate it, buy furniture, do some landscaping in the postage-stamp-sized backyard, and maybe even try for a garden if she could manage to keep some low-maintenance plants alive with all of her travel. Then, at some point, she would put herself back out there and try to find someone to date. It wasn’t exactly a priority for her, but after years and years of traveling for this job much more than she’d sought out, she was ready to stop losing girlfriends or possible girlfriends because she worked too much and was never home.

All her life, all Kendra had ever wanted to do was play volleyball, like Aspen and DJ. Growing up in Southern California, beach volleyball had had her whole heart from a very young age, but after playing indoor and beach in high school, her dreams of playing in college and then going pro had been cut short when she’d been diagnosed with a heart condition. It was something she’d dealt with ever since. She could play for fun, maybe, but not at the pro level and not without risking her health, and when the colleges that had offered her scholarships had found out, they’d told her they couldn’t have her on the team because it would’ve been a liability. So, instead of playing college volleyball and then maybe going pro, if she were lucky, Kendra had ended up with a degree in broadcast journalism, which had been the most interesting thing she could find for herself as an alternative, more than something she really wanted to do. Now, at thirty-five, she’d been doing it for over a decade, and she was tired.

She loved most sports and covered all of them as the network needed her to, but volleyball, both indoor and beach, was her true area of expertise. She supposed, it was also the reason she kept going in her career: it kept her close to her favorite sport, even though she couldn’t play.

When Kendra got to the airport after the tournament, she checked in at the kiosk because she’d forgotten to do it on her phone and applied for an upgrade using her reward status, hoping she’d get a first-class seat to take her from O’Hare to LAX. As she sat in the lounge, waiting until it was time to board, she kept checking the screen for her name, hoping she would be sitting in a more comfortable seat on the way home. Finally, seeing her name highlighted for an upgrade, she breathed a sigh of relief, walked to the gate, scanned her ticket, and sat down in her seat.

“Damn. The network gets you first-class?”

Kendra looked up and saw Aspen standing in the aisle.

“Must be nice. I’m in the back, with the rest of the riffraff,” Aspen joked.

“Uh… No. I upgraded. Points.”

“Oh, cool.” Aspen looked up. “I’ve got to go, or the people behind me will start hitting my ankles with their bags.” She nodded toward the moving passengers.

“Right. See you later?”

“Sure.” Aspen smiled and walked on.