“You don’t have the papers out yet?” I asked. Usually the morning after a final, I’d be greeted with the papers sorted by favourable and unfavourable coverage laid out on the nearest surface. “Not like you, Mamma.”
“It’s still early,” she replied, voice rasping a little. “And I already checked the important ones on my tablet. They’re happy: You made it interesting for them.”
“That’s one way of saying it,” I said with a snort. “The other would be that Celeste wiped the floor with me in the first set. We showed her, though, didn’t we?”
These were the best times for my mother and I. Winning always gave her that temporary respite from the endless pushing she had devoted her life to. I shouldn’t complain; all her energy and drive would have been for nothing if I hadn’t wanted to do this. It was easy to forget that after all these years. At first she had wanted me to be any other teenager, not dropping out of school at fourteen to go professional and play in my first championships.
“I was worried about you out there,” Mother said. “But you took control like I knew you could, Elin. Very good.” The compliments were rare, and I wasn’t ashamed to bask in them for a moment. “Of course it could have been a quicker start for you if Friday night had been spent in proper preparation.”
“Mamma…”
“Fine, fine. You won; I have no case. But this is the critical time, dear daughter. You need to focus on breaking your records before you can even think about slowing down or retiring. You’re so close to having the most Grand Slams of any player, ever. Don’t let yourself fall short.”
“And if I break that record I can just walk away?” I asked. “Who says I’ll be any more ready then?”
“Only you can tell,” she replied. “But until you do, I’m going to train you as hard as I ever have and keep planning for the next win. Now, how are you feeling after playing so differently yesterday?”
“Exhausted,” I had to admit. “I was thinking of having a real massage this afternoon—not sports massage, something more relaxing. Can I book you one too? Call it my thank you.”
She sipped at her coffee, eyes closed for a moment. “That might be nice, yes. Don’t think this means you can skip the dinner.”
Parisa showed up then to save me an argument, half-dressed with a bundle of couture bags over one arm. “Right, these are all the dresses you have to choose from, and I sent a text to a friend at Harvey Nicks to be on standby, in case you’re feeling extra fussy.”
My mother stared at Parisa, before a suspicious look made its way to me.
“This is…more enthusiastic than normal.”
“I won!” I reminded them. “Really, it’s ungrateful to be a bitch about a party being thrown half in my honour. I’ve decided to enjoy myself. You know, since I can go out drinking without a bunch of other adults tracking my movements?”
That shut them up, at least for a little while. I grabbed the dresses from Parisa, draining my coffee mug on the way out of the kitchen.
“Going to try these on! Won’t be long!”
The red carpet wasn’t as bad as in previous years. After all, it was a Sunday evening in a city with a hundred other cool things going on. The pressure was in winning the damn thing, not celebrating it.
I managed not to trip in the ridiculous heels Parisa picked out, and for once I felt like a bit of a princess in the navy satin dress we’d decided on. Strapless and cut in all the right places, it definitely showed off my arms. My one small tattoo—a rebellious souvenir from the first major tour that neither of my parents had been on with me—had a smudge of make-up covering it. When playing it was always covered by the racer back of my sports bras, but this dress left that whole section on display.
Did I mention that what I knew about fashion could be written on the white stripe running through a tennis ball? Honestly, if it wasn’t about the newest rubber soles on tennis shoes, I had less than zero chance of knowing about it.
I knew that the dress looked good, though. If I had to play dress up, I liked garments that looked classic. The one good crossover between professional sport and fashion was that they liked you lean, so I had that going for me, although my thigh muscles made the skirt of the dress a little tighter than I think the designer intended. The split in the material certainly drew plenty of glances.
As was tradition, the Men’s and Ladies’ Singles winners were photographed together. Jürgen, the men’s champ, was far better at all this press than me and better than most people on the tour. He was tall as all hell, and when the girl who’s over a metre-seventy said that, it meant properly tall. With close-cropped dark curls atop stylised shaving on the sides, and some designer stubble, he often looked like a male model who’d wandered into a game of tennis by accident.
The press often seemed to think Sweden and Germany, where Jürgen hailed from, were basically the same country, not helped by the fact that we’d played mixed doubles together at a few tournaments when I still did that sort of thing.
That should have been the point where I got to say
