Alice ate when she was nervous. Bored. Upset. She was what you’d call an emotional eater.
With her match against Hildegard Sterling postponed, her body moved on autopilot to the hospitality tent. The table was full of delicious-looking little sandwiches and sweet cakes. There was a silver tea set. It was all very British.
She helped herself.
Ten minutes later, there was nothing left on her plate but crumbs. She sipped her tea. Her knee still bounced whenever she thought about her delayed match, but a sleepiness had come over her to help dull some of those nerves.
A woman burst into the tent. “Thank goodness.” She blew out a breath. “There you are, Miss Marble. The chair umpire has decided you’ll play after all. You’re due at Centre Court in five minutes.”
Alice nearly spat out her tea.
“That’s not possible.”
“What . . . what do you mean?” the attendant asked, clearly at a loss for how to handle a hesitant player.
Alice released her own breath, though hers wasn’t relief. It was acquiescence. “Never mind. I’ll be there.” What other choice did she have?
Hilde hadn’t just eaten her body weight in tiny sandwiches. She was ready to play. She had no reason to default.
Alice ran for the dressing room, stretching one arm and then the other above her head. She hoped to stretch out her stomach as well.
Teach was waiting for her there.
“I’m here, I’m here.”
She said no more. No way was she going to confess to her coach she felt ten pounds heavier. Her movements as she dressed were abrupt, sharp, laced with fury. She’d likely just cost herself—and Teach—the semifinal match. She prayed that at the very least she wouldn’t throw up on Centre Court.
“Good, you have on your pin,” Teach noted. “And hey, the fact it’s our country’s independence can’t be poor luck, right? Now remember, when you get out there, wave hello with your racquet so everyone gets a good look at it.”
A few months back, Alice and Teach both had the opportunity to design their own signature racquets with Wilson Sporting Goods. Now the pressure was on to sell them.
But so was the pressure not to lose.
Alice snapped back, “Do you want me to win or do you want me to sell sporting goods?”
“Can you not do both?” Teach followed the question with a coy smile.
Alice wanted to vomit. She was nearly out of breath as she skidded to a stop at the entrance to the court and nodded at Hilde, who looked just as shocked—but not as disheveled—at the sudden match start.
It wasn’t until Alice’s name was being announced and she stepped out onto the court that she realized she forgot her wool “traction” socks.
She cursed.
It also wasn’t until she was seven games in that she realized she’d forgotten to take off her warm-up sweater.
That she didn’t curse at, because those seven games had all been her wins. And the wins kept coming.
Maybe the less-than-ideal circumstances freed up Alice’s mind to just play.
Maybe she was having a phenomenal day.
Maybe Hilde wasn’t. Her usually stoic nature made it hard to tell what she was thinking.
But Alice won 6–0, 6–0.
There was little doubt what Hilde thought about that.
There was even less doubt when Alice entered the dressing room, leaving Teach to deal with the press, and found Hilde with her head in her hands, her cheeks wet with emotion, the most emotion she’d ever seen the woman display.
How many times had that been Alice? She’d let that remain rhetorical. Hesitantly, she sat beside her opponent on the bench.
Hilde clenched her jaw, and Alice questioned leaving her be, but then Hilde said, “I’ve never been beaten like that before.”
No animosity. No poor sportsmanship. Simply shock. And likely a whole lot of disappointment in herself.
Alice had been there before too. She bumped Hilde with her shoulder. Mary K. Browne had done this once for her. “I’ve sat where you’re sitting many times.”
Hilde’s head bobbed until a tear tracked down her face. “I’m getting older. My coach and I decided this would be my last Wimbledon.” Then the woman was sobbing.
Alice couldn’t help it; she cried for Hilde too.
The door opened and a woman came in with a wave of noise. It was Lady Crosfield, a society woman who also dabbled in tennis. She stopped short, her brow wrinkling as she studied both Alice and Hilde. “My goodness, ladies, did you both lose?”
Alice snorted a laugh while the jest at least ended Hilde’s tears.
“Hilde, dear,” Lady Crosfield said, “there is absolutely no room for tears. No one could have stopped her on this particular day. Alice, you were truly magnificent.”
Alice wanted to vocalize her gratitude but only smiled her thanks. Then she gripped Hilde’s hand and squeezed.
* * *
The press had a field day with Alice’s win against Hilde, calling her Miss Marvel instead of Miss Marble.
“Those reporters love their play on words, don’t they?” Alice remarked to Teach.
“They love you.”
“For now they do.”
One said she’d played like a man but looked like a goddess.
Truly, Alice’s confidence didn’t extend that far, but who was she to stop someone from comparing her to Athena or Circe? She wouldn’t mind being a magical being who could transform her next opponent into a silly pig.
Or better yet, she’d be Nike.
The goddess of victory.
That’d suit her just fine.
The next day she went on to claim another semifinal victory with Sarah Palfrey as her doubles partner, and she was about to win again with Bobby Riggs in mixed doubles when she stretched to hit a smash and felt something in her stomach smart.
She stopped short, taking inventory of herself, as the hit found its mark, giving Alice and Bobby the point. Brows scrunched, Teach gestured to Alice in a “what’s going on?” manner.
Alice ignored her.
Nothing.
Nothing was going on.
She bent, ready to receive the serve to put the game away. And she did.
The next morning Alice woke in agony. She couldn’t sit up. She touched her stomach and winced in pain. “Teach!” she yelled, panicking.
The next bed over, Teach shot up, her head on a swivel. “What? What is it?”
“Teach, I can’t move.”
“What do you mean you can’t move? You have the finals of Wimbledon in a few hours.”
Alice gripped the sheets, squeezing, fighting for composure. “I need a doctor. I think I pulled a muscle.”
This wasn’t happening.
Her mind flashed to Hilde, head in her hands, crying in the dressing room, saying how it’d been her last chance at the finals.
Teach’s voice was urgent. “Don’t move an inch, Allie. I’m calling now.”
The hotel doctor came straightaway. “When did you start feeling pain, Miss Marble?”
“Yesterday during my mixed doubles match.”
She ignored the whip of Teach’s head toward her.
“Was there a particular moment when you aggravated the area?”
Yes, she explained.
Teach now glared. “And you didn’t tell me after the match?”
She answered her coach’s question, yet kept her words directed at the doctor. “It smarted when it happened, but afterward it felt fine. I didn’t see the need to mention it and cause any hysterics.”
Teach narrowed her eyes. “I am not hysterical.”
“Hmm,” the doctor said. “As you suspected, Miss Marble, you have a torn stomach muscle. It likely began to swell after the fact, significantly while you were sleeping, and here we are now.”
He glanced at Teach. She was pacing.
“Miss Tennant,” he said, “will you help me sit her up? I want to tape around her abdomen to try to increase blood flow and reduce the swelling.”
Alice grunted with the movement. She didn’t want to scream or let on how bad even sitting against the headrest felt . . . because then her next question would sound even more nonsensical. “Can I play?”
The doctor had been rustling around in his bag. He froze, the roll of tape in hand, at Alice’s question.
“I’m in three finals today,” Alice explained. “I can’t default in any of them. There are too many people I’d be letting down.”
Alice still couldn’t look at her coach’s face. She kept her focus trained on the doctor. He sighed. “It’d be foolish and very painful.”
She nodded to the tape. “Make it tight.”