Chapter 4 A Good Plan for a Different Athlete

Theo Bradford

Emmaline Park came out of Gordon Hale’s office walking like a woman who had just signed away a kidney and been thanked for it.

I’d been waiting by the elevators for eleven minutes. Long enough to count the frames on the Wall of Champions (thirty-eight), to notice that one hung crooked (hers), and to decide, again, that this was a terrible idea.

Her right shoulder rode half an inch higher than her left. Her bag strap was strangled in a white-knuckled fist. She looked like someone who’d been handed a rope and told it was a lifeline.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” I said.

She stopped. Her eyes found me, went wide, then shuttered, fast. It was a good shutter. Practiced.

“Are you Bradford?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

I pushed off the wall and held out a hand. “On whether you’re going to be difficult.”

She took it. Her grip was cold and quick. “I’ve been told I’m a delight.”

“By whom?”

“My sister.”

“Is she paid?”

“In noodles.”

Something tugged at the corner of my mouth. I put a stop to it. “Theo Bradford.”

She flinched.

It was small. A half-second hitch, like a needle skipping on a record. People react to my name in three ways: they smirk, they stiffen, or they go politely blank. Emmaline Park did none of them. She went quiet in a way I’d seen only once before, in a hospital corridor, on someone else.

“Sorry.” She smiled so wide it had to hurt. “Emmaline Park. But you knew that.”

“I did.”

“I’m the girl from the video.”

“I’ve seen the video. Four times.”

“Four?”

“The first for context. The second for footwork. The third because I thought I’d missed something.”

“And the fourth?”

“Someone sent it to me with a laughing emoji.”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter. I blocked him.”

She stared at me. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a year.”

“I wasn’t doing it for you.”

“Ouch.”

“I don’t like emoji.”

She laughed. She hadn’t meant to. It cracked out of her like something shaken loose, and I filed it away: laughs when cornered. Useful.

The elevator doors opened. We stepped in, a careful two feet apart.

“Rules,” I said.

“Oh good. I love rules.”

“You hate rules. It’s in your file.”

“I have a file?”

“Everyone has a file.”

“What does mine say?”

“That you fire coaches.”

“They quit.”

“That you made them.”

“They were very sensitive.”

The doors slid shut. “Rule one. You tell me when something hurts.”

Her shoulder gave the tiniest twitch under her jacket. Her face stayed smooth. “Nothing hurts.”

“Rule one is for when something does. Rule two. You don’t lie to me. About pain, about sleep, about whether you ate.”

“That’s very controlling.”

“It’s very efficient.”

“Rule three?”

I studied the floor numbers instead of her. “I’m not your friend.”

“Wow.”

“I’m not your enemy either. I’m your coach. That’s all I can be to you, and it’s all I want to be.” It came out flat, like a card I’d written for myself and read so many times it had gone smooth.

The lobby was cold and bright. On the front steps, in a wind that smelled of rain, she stopped, unzipped her bag, and took out a bound document with colored tabs.

“I made you a deck.”

“A what?”

“A pitch. It’s my comeback plan.” She held it out. “Page nine.”

I turned to page nine. The page said: ALDERMERE OPEN, WEEK 6. TARGET: SEMIFINAL. Beneath it was a pie chart. It appeared to be mostly crackers.

“What’s Aldermere?”

“A small tournament. Sponsored by a dairy co-operative. Low ranking points, low pressure, and the Federation can’t stop me entering, because I negotiated the right to pick my own events.” She lifted her chin. “Six weeks. Back on court. Back in the draw.”

I read page nine again. Then page ten. Then page eleven, which was a timeline, in highlighter, of the best six weeks of her life.

“This is a good plan,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“For a different athlete.”

Her smile froze.

“The athlete in this plan has a healthy shoulder,” I said. “She has a clear head. She can walk onto a court in six weeks and not leave a point behind. You are not that athlete yet.”

“I will be.”

“Twelve weeks.”

“I have six. That’s the contract.”

“You have a shoulder, and I’d like to see it before I put a racket in your hand and a camera on your face.”

“It’s my comeback.”

“It’s your career. And my signature.” I closed the deck. “Here’s what I’ll give you. Aldermere stays on the page. Week five, I run you through three tests: shoulder, footwork, and whether you can tell me the truth for seven days. If you pass, you enter. If you don’t, you don’t.”

“Your call.”

“My call.”

“That’s not a negotiation. That’s a dictatorship.”

“It’s a gate.”

“Who decides who gets through the gate?”

“The man who’s responsible for what’s on the other side.”

She looked at me for a long moment, and I watched her weigh it: speed against safety, pride against a man she didn’t trust. Her jaw set the way I’d seen it set on a hundred matches of footage.

“Fine,” she said. “But if I pass, I go. No more moving the gate.”

“If you pass, you go.”

“Shake on it.”

“I don’t shake.”

“You shook in the elevator.”

“That was an introduction.” I held out my hand. She took it. For one full second neither of us let go, and the wind pulled at the corner of the deck, and I thought: that’s the first real decision we’ve ever made together, and I’ll regret it.

“What did you do?” she said quietly. “The ban. Everyone says something different.”

I stopped on the top step.

It was a fair question. It was the question she was owed. And the answer had cost one person her career and almost cost another her whole life, and I had spent two years making sure it never left my mouth.

“The real version wouldn’t help you win a single point.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s a boundary. Wednesday. Six a.m. Northgate. Bring your shoulder.”

I walked down the steps, hands in my pockets, and didn’t look back. I could feel her watching the whole way, like being read by someone who couldn’t decide whether I was a book or a trap.

“Mr. Bradford?”

Gordon’s assistant hurried after me, clutching a clipboard like a shield. “Mr. Hale would like a word before you leave.”

It wasn’t brief. Gordon’s office had the same leather smell, the same silver-framed smile, the same extended hand that was part welcome and part leash.

“How did she take it?”

“Like someone handed a bill.”

“Good. Expectations are healthy.” He sat. “You understand the arrangement, Theo. Six weeks. A written report every Friday. You keep her sharp, and you keep it professional.”

“I know the terms.”

“You’ve been very reliable about terms in the past.”

The words were pleasant. They landed like a hand on the back of my neck.

“One more thing.” He tapped his pen once against the desk. “Did she react to your name?”

I kept my voice flat. “People always do.”

“Of course. But did she?”

Here’s what I’ve learned about men like Gordon Hale: you never hand them what they ask for. You hand them what they can survive.

“She asked if I was difficult,” I said. “I told her I wasn’t.”

“Funny.”

“I thought so.”

He let me go.

In the corridor, I stopped beneath the Wall of Champions and looked at the one crooked frame. Emmaline Park at twenty, before she’d ever lost a final. Bright-eyed. Hungry.

Nobody flinches at my name because of a scandal. They flinch because of what they’ve been carrying.

She’d kept it. Fourteen months, folded small, and still hers. And I had just agreed to six weeks of guarding a girl who was guarding my worst mistake, while a man with a silver pen asked me to write down everything she said.

My phone buzzed. Ilse. Did you meet her?

I met her, I typed.

And?

I thought about a bound deck, and a gate, and a handshake that had lasted a second too long.

Bad shoulder, I wrote. Worse jokes.

Theo.

She’s good, Ilse.

The dots pulsed for a long time before the reply came.

Then don’t lie to her.

I looked at the screen for a long time. Then I opened the blank page I’d started for Friday’s report, the one with her name at the top, and began, line by careful line, to write the first of many things I would not say.