Page 26

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Perspective

T he plane jerked and I stiffened, clutching the arm rests. Joel glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, looking amused.

“With all the flying you do, Mel, I would have thought that you’d be desensitised to turbulence by now.”

I glared at him coldly. The plane rattled around in the sky some more, and I gasped, ruining the effect. Joel laughed.

When we’d passed the rough weather, and the seat belt light flicked off, the man in front of me turned around and smiled. He was in his mid-fifties, I would have guessed, with a thick head of wiry salt and pepper hair that looked kind of like steel wool. His eyes were crinkled with laugh lines.

“You’re Melanie Black, aren’t you?” he asked me, flashing his teeth at me. He had an Aussie accent.

I smiled back at him. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“I was at Indian Wells, and I saw you in the final – that was too bad, you deserved to win.”

I shrugged. “Well, thanks. Maybe next time.”

He cleared his throat. “Would you be able to autograph something for me?” he asked timidly.

It would never cease to weird me out that there were random strangers out there who were in awe of me.

I smiled at him and rummaged in my bag for a pen.

Joel passed me one, and a piece of the airline paper that they give you in business class if you have the urge to leap a few decades back in time and write a letter to someone.

“Here you go, Stink.”

I took the paper and pen from him with a quick smile.

“Who should I make it out to?” I asked the man.

“Can you make it out to Natalie, please?”

I looked at him questioningly.

“She’s my daughter. She’s twelve and she thinks you’re amazing – she has pictures of you all over her bedroom. She wants to be a professional tennis player when she grows up, but she’s not all that well at the moment … Leukaemia.

“We were supposed to be on holiday together; we had tickets to Indian Wells and Miami, because she was doing so well, but then she got sick again. She’s back in hospital.

I didn’t want to go without her, but she wouldn’t hear of me staying at home.

She wanted me to go so I could tell her all about it when I got back.

” The man’s eyes were watering. I found my own prickling as I put the pen to the paper.

Dear Natalie,

Be brave and keep fighting. Can’t wait to see you competing at Wimbledon one day.

All the best,

Mel Black

I passed the paper back to the man, blinking the tears from my eyes. He read it and his own overflowed.

“Thank you so much, Mel. This will make her day.”

Joel leaned forwards. “Would Natalie like it if Mel came and visited her in the hospital?”

The man’s face lit up. “Oh, would you? That’s something she would remember for the rest of her life!” His eyes clouded over – possibly wondering how long that would be.

“She’d love to, wouldn’t you, Mel?” Joel said .

I nodded. “Of course I would!” I smiled at the man, who beamed back at me. Joel captured the man’s attention then, exchanging details and asking him to get in touch when his daughter was well enough for a visit.

“So, Mel,” Joel started, changing the subject. “Let’s talk about your loss to Abigail Petersen. I want you to tell me what went wrong.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Well, not much that I could see. I mean, come on, Joel, I took it to a tie breaker! It was that close it’s not funny!”

Joel grinned at me and squeezed my hand.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear you say, Stink! You’re far too hard on yourself sometimes. You played a great game. You can’t win them all, you know.”

I grunted. Of course, I still wished I had won them all. It would have been nice to be able to go home saying I’d won my first tournament since going pro.

“Stinky, you played really well. All you need to do is be ready to go out and do it all again in Miami.”

I would almost be happy to bow out in the first round in Miami – I was feeling the burn out from competition in a way I never had before.

Steve. I kept thinking about him. And not just because of my nightmares, or the random times when images of that morning forced themselves into my brain.

It was little things, like wanting to debrief with him about a tricky shot I’d aced, only to remember he wasn’t there … he’d never be there again.

On top of that, after my long final at Indian Wells, I was feeling a twinge in my back again. I was too scared to tell Joel about it, because I knew he’d make a big deal out of it.

I nestled back against my seat and closed my eyes. California to Florida took about four hours, and I planned on trying to get a bit of nightmare-free sleep in there somewhere.

I woke with a jolt as the plane skidded to a halt on the runway. I turned to Joel, to find him looking at me with a strange expression on his face. I raised an eyebrow sleepily at him, and his mouth quirked into a smile.

“Wakey wakey,” he chuckled. I grunted and clambered out of my seat.

Pain blossomed in my lower back. I bit my lip, but it didn’t stop me crying out.

Joel was at my arm in an instant, gripping me tightly and supporting most of my weight. “Mel, is it your back? Where does it hurt?” he asked urgently.

I nodded. “Same place,” I muttered.

The flight attendants were very good at their job – with the minimum of fuss I was off the plane and waiting under the watchful eye of a nurse in an infirmary inside the terminal. The door opened and Joel came in, carrying our suitcases.

I grimaced. “Can we leave now? I’m sure if I just go and rest for –”

“Yes, we can go – to the hospital! Mel you’re obviously in a lot of pain. Why didn’t you say anything?”

I shrugged, even that small movement hurting. “It just didn’t seem like that big a deal.”

Joel slammed his fist against the side of the bed I was lying on. I flinched.

“Not a big deal! Christ, Mel – this is your career you’re toying with! Your health! There’s no such thing as ‘not a big deal’!”

I’d never seen Joel so angry.

“So, what are we going to do?” I asked in a shaky voice.

Joel scowled. “We’re going to get you to a hospital, have an MRI to make sure there’s no nerve damage, and then we’re going to get you on the first flight home so that we can get you fixed.”

“What about the Open?” I asked.

Joel looked down at me, and there was anger in his eyes, and something else. “Mel, be serious. You’re not playing, no matter how minor this turns out to be. Your health is too important.”

I didn’t argue, but I felt a tear slip from my eye. He’d never really yelled at me before. Joel noticed it too, and he reached out a thumb, swiping the moisture off my cheek, before turning away .

The trip to the hospital in the back of the ambulance was a constant loop of Joel leaning over to ask if I was okay. In the end I snapped at him that I would tell him if anything changed, but to please stop bugging me. He didn’t look happy, but he complied.

Thankfully the MRI showed no serious damage, although there was some not-minor inflammation around my sacroiliac joint, and they gave me the all-clear to travel with prescription pain relief.

I didn’t even try to argue with Joel at that point.

I was withdrawing from the Miami Open on medical grounds. We were going home.

With me dosed up to the eyeballs, we got on the next flight back to Sydney. They settled me on the plane first, and before we even took off, I was fast asleep.

They must have given me the good drugs, because I couldn’t remember the stopover at LAX, although Joel assured me that I seemed lucid, and I walked through the terminal from one flight to the next.

The first thing I remembered was waking up as the plane started to descend into Sydney. Joel was sitting at the end of my sleep pod, watching me. I wanted to ask him why he was freaking out, but I was too groggy. Yep, they gave me some really strong pain meds.

The plane landed, and Joel almost carried me out of the terminal, into a hire car and before it had even pulled away from the kerb he was on his mobile. I heard him mutter, “Yeah, we had one done in the states … no, but the SIJ is inflamed.”

He hung up. “Julie says I need to get you to a physio as soon as possible,” he said quietly. “And after that, you’re taking it very easy.”

I opened my mouth, but he held his hand up. “No, you’re staying at my house. Stink, don’t be stupid – you can hardly walk on your own, let alone look after yourself.” How had he known I was about to ask if I could go home?

“So, Julie, huh?” I asked. Joel gave me a withering look.

“Who else should I call to discuss your injury? She’s a physio who has worked on you multiple times in the past.”

“Are you and her … are you together?” I pressed.

“Stink, why would we be together? She lives in Melbourne. I kind of like to see the woman I’m dating on a regular basis.” He grinned, but his eyes looked serious.

“The only girl you see on a regular basis lately is me,” I muttered, shifting uncomfortably. It was just my back making me feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t the way Joel was staring at me.

“Yeah, but Stinky you hardly count, do you?”

I felt a pang in my chest at his words. “Well, gee thanks, Joel, for making a girl feel special!”

Joel put his hand on my knee, his fingers gently tickling at the inside of my thigh. “I can make you feel special if you like, Stinky,” he suggested, staring bedroom eyes at me.

I brushed his hand away. “Don’t be gross!”

Joel laughed. “Hey, at least I stopped you thinking about your back for a minute,” he said, and I sighed.

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction. If I heard those three words again in my life, I thought I would scream.

“I picked it when I saw the MRIs!” Joel had crowed a week ago when we’d gotten the official diagnosis from the physiotherapist.

“Hope you got good odds on that on Sportsbet,” I’d muttered.