Chubby, acne scarred Debbie Shuller tossed the tennis ball low and came down hard with her racket. Smack...into the net. Debbie shrugged and smiled that sickly-sweet smile that always made Hanna want to puke. She carefully set up her second serve and sailed a soft easy ball over to Hanna's side.
Hanna watched the approaching shot and crowed as she ran forward to slam it back. Only... the ball must have had a spin to it. Instead of bouncing back and into Hanna's waiting, big head, extra-long racket, it bounced sideways out of her reach.
Debbie smiled even more sweetly and yelled, "Deuce."
Hanna gritted her teeth . How could it possibly be tied, she thought. Five minutes ago she'd been leading forty-love, whacking those first three balls back at that cow before she could blink. Now they were at deuce, forty-forty. "Well, I'll win this one, Debbie," she muttered. "I always win."
She waited as Debbie crossed the back of the tennis court. Debbie seemed to be moving in slow motion as she got into position, stretched up, tossed the ball high and then hit it out of bounds.
"Long!" Hanna shouted, waiting impatiently for the second serve. "Come on already," she muttered as Debbie seemed to slow down even more before she hit the second serve low and into the net.
Debbie still smiled, unruffled. She appeared cool and collected as she yelled, "Your add, guess I'm a little rusty. Oh well, plenty of time to warm up."
Hanna wiped the perspiration from her face. God, she thought, it's hotter than hell out here and Debbie hasn't even broken a sweat yet. She snarled at her old adversary and squinted at the halo the sun made around her mousy, limp hair. "No time for you, honey, I'm gonna put this one away and win."
Debbie stopped preparing to serve. "Did you say something?"
"Yeah, I said serve already."
"All right," Debbie sighed. "You always were impatient."
"Well you know how it is, I've got to get home to Timothy," Hanna shouted back. "He hates when I'm away too long." She felt immense satisfaction as she watched Debbie quickly blink her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry," she called. "I forgot that Timothy was your husband first."
Debbie served the ball, crossing the net at a sharp angle just grazing the line. Hanna ground her teeth harder, wanting to call the shot out, but knew she didn't need to cheat to win. "It's good!" she announced.
Debbie crossed the court again. "Back to Deuce."
After the sixth return to deuce, Hanna knew the pattern. Debbie would blow the first two serves letting Hanna have the point, then she'd win the next shot taking the game back to deuce.
Frustrated, Hanna wondered why Debbie had called her and asked for this match. . They hadn't spoken since she'd taken Timothy away. Had it only been this past morning when the car phone rang?
She remembered it vividly because she was almost involved in a head-on with a truck. She didn't know how it had missed her, but she was still shaking when the phone beeped. She'd been so surprised to hear Debbie's voice that she didn't react as she normally would have, with enough sarcasm to put the cow in her place forever. In fact, she had been mildly surprised because she sort of thought that Debbie had died or something. Obviously, she'd been wrong, but after all, who had time to keep track of all the losers in the world.
She figured Debbie challenged her because if she could beat her at one thing, like tennis, then Deb could feel a little satisfaction. Hanna had to smirk. After all, she'd always beaten Debbie at everything, ever since grade school. She never understund how Debbie had gotten the guy. It wasn't fair and it took Hanna five years but she'd finally won at the marriage game too, stealing Timothy away.
"Add out...Deuce."
Hanna'd lost count of how many times they'd tied. Debbie had to be doing this on purpose, but how'd she get so good? She'd always stunk at sports and Hanna had trophies to line a room. How, she wondered wiping the sweat off her face, could Debbie be doing this?
"Deuce!" Debbie yelled. "Again."
"Just serve!" Hanna snarled as she struggled to catch her breath in the stiffling heat.
"Getting testy, aren't we?" Debbie cooed. "Don't you just love tennis? Why I could play forever."
"Yeah, yeah," Hanna yelled back. "You may want to play forever, but I've got a life. Let's stop screwing around and end this."
Debbie laughed and lowered her racket. "Why, how appropriate, you've insinuated that I don't have a life and you're right. I was so depressed after Tim left that I moved to Colorado and splat, got hit by a truck last month. Lord, I was nothing but road kill. But what does that matter anyway, you were too busy living your own life to notice a dead Deb. Bet you didn't even notice Tim's been upset the last few weeks."
Hanna put down her racket . "What are you talking about?"
Debbie continued smiling. "Why, Heaven. You see, we play tennis in heaven. That's how I've improved, eternal practice."
Hanna laughed. "You are nuts! If you are so damned good how come we can't get out of deuce?"
Debbie joined Hanna's laughter. "Because I'm not the damned one," Debbie said through her laugher. "You are."
Hanna watched as a breeze that didn't reach her side ruffled Debbie's hair. Debbie stopped laughing and smiled at her opponent. She took a sip from her water bottle, that hadn't been there a moment ago, and added, "You see, tennis is my heaven, but deuce, why Hanna, deuce for some of us can be an infinite hell!"