The club featured a desert garden motif, sandy pathways lined with blooming yucca plants, and a world-renown golf course well within view. Trays of warm Salvadoran pupusas would soon appear on the tables shaded by umbrellas, along with margaritas, piña coladas, and frozen daquiris as fast as bartenders could make them. A full day of fun and camaraderie was in store. Team building and bonding, with a nod to one’s spirited drive. Pickleball battles. Sixteen teams to start, filling all eight courts, but only one would take home the trophy.
No one had a pickleball toolbox like hers—slicing serves, devastating dinks, clinically precise third-shot drops, and emphatic put-away volleys. Without even sizing up the competition—or her partner, for that matter—Melinda Yee knew she would emerge victorious.
***
Not twenty-four hours earlier, Melinda had stood by fellow employees of Oasis Commercial Realty in the all-hands meeting room, everyone waiting for the silver-haired CEO to announce the teams for the company’s annual pickleball tourney. It was a big deal. So big, in fact, employees had buzzed about it daily, as if it were more important than the company’s gross annual revenue.
She’d only been the company’s transaction coordinator for three weeks, her first job out of college. She felt lucky and grateful; the current economy was unforgiving, and most of her former sorority sisters were unemployed and living at home.
Oasis had originally seemed reluctant to bring her in for a second round of interviews, but Melinda impressed the hiring team by researching and writing a five-thousand word report she voluntarily sent them on how the evolution of the commercial real estate market in the Phoenix metropolitan area projected future trends in the Riverside area. She knew the report was largely speculative bullshit, but it helped her land the coveted job.
Now, as cars filled the spots in the parking lot, employees mingled in the clubhouse and Melinda joined their growing circle.
“Hello, Melinda? We’re playing together,” said a balding man with a dark goatee and commendable tan, who came over and extended his hand. “I’m George Callas, one of our brokers.”
“Yes,” she said. “I managed the paperwork on your recent sale.”
That’s right,” George said. “Are you liking things so far?”
Melinda nodded her head, but said nothing. She was too distracted by George’s a paunch and the fact that he was as old as her father. She guessed she’d be poaching shots all day.
“Okay, yeah. Should be fun today,” George said. “I need to make a coffee run, fuel up.” He headed for the clubhouse’s double doors that led to the poolside café.
“Let’s kick some ass!” Melinda finally exclaimed. George was long gone but all remaining eyes in the room fell upon her a moment before turning away.
***
Alone in bed the night before, Melinda stared at the ceiling fan. Nothing kickstarted her like a good competition, but that competitiveness often proved costly. Growing up, her eagerness to always share report card grades with others lost her friends over time. Her older sister Jenny still smarted from that time in high school when Melinda said Jenny’s boyfriend had a wandering eye and soon proved it with video of her making out with the guy. Sometimes, though, it was Melinda’s own relationships that suffered. Such as recently, when she got too heated over a game of Wordle, which led to her breakup with Todd.
Her mother warned her to be careful, especially as she got older. That if she remained so competitive, people would always consider her a threat. Melinda appreciated the advice but couldn’t help herself once the juices got flowing. Besides, her parents always praised her brother for accepting new challenges and gloated about his achievements. His competitive gene was far more dominant that hers. The double-standard was obvious, but she didn’t fight against it. She saved her battles for those in the classroom, in the office, or on the court.
Melinda had drifted off as the fan kept turning, knowing she’d overcome any tests the next day might offer.
***
It wasn’t long before George Callas had swigged every last drop of his drip coffee, and the Oasis Commercial Open was now in session. The courts were filling with players and, as they began rallying, the air filled with the distinct tocking and popping timbre and pitch of struck pickleballs that millions found incredibly annoying, but which served as a conducted symphony to Melinda’s ears.
She was ready for action. She’d stretched every muscle in every limb and—not to be outdone by her partner’s caffeine intake—had enjoyed a twenty-four ounce caramel latte with four shots along with a cranberry energy bar. After she and George took the court and began warming up by hitting dinks back and forth inside the no-volley zone called “the kitchen,” she was pleasantly surprised by his hand-eye coordination and basic skillset for someone as old and out-of-shape as he appeared. Still, her original plan to take the game into her own hands was unchanged. . “Remember,” she told him. “Dink responsibly; don’t get smashed.”
Each match consisted of a game to fifteen points. Well before any other games ended, Melinda and George finished off their first-round opponents, who walked off the court with slumped shoulders and lifeless gazes.
“Gosh, you’re good,” George told her. “We almost pickled them.”
“Should have,” Melinda said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I hit that drive long. Fuck!”
George looked startled, as if he’d caught her shooting up in the company bathroom. His reaction concerned Melinda. If her partner wasn’t fully in it to win it, that could spell trouble.
So, Melinda took no chances, she flew around the court, often taking a ball right before it hit George’s paddle. Perspiration dripped in rivulets behind her ears, down her neck, and from her armpits. Melinda’s periwinkle tank top soaked to a shade of violet. But it was worth it. They pickled their opponents in the quarterfinal, and only gave up two points in the semis. In the final they would face the duo others claimed were unbeatable, CEO Charlie Suskind and his partner, Ramesh something or other, the company’s CFO.
Taking the court, George said to Melinda, “Remember, we’re here to have fun.”
Suskind, the silver fox, wasn’t bad, but Melinda knew he was no match for her. She smashed balls at his feet mercilessly, and only George’s inexcusable unforced errors kept the game close. When they were two points away from victory, George signaled Melinda over against the far-side fence.
“Charlie Suskind is a prideful man who hates losing,” George said. “He’s only lost this tournament once. He fired one of the guys who beat him and made life a living hell for the other until he quit. Our jobs are on the line. Got it?”
“I see,” Melinda said, eyes growing wider. “He’s hardcore.”
Melinda intentionally served a ball out, deliberately missed a gimme volley at the kitchen line. George appeared to breathe easier. But, across the net, the CFO soon choked a couple shots and Suskind turned beet red, ready to blow a gasket. The game was there for the taking. Still, Melinda offered a sacrificial serve, yet Suskind barely managed to return it over the net. Melinda then decided to give the man the point on a silver platter and lobbed one back to him for an easy overhead. Still, he mishit it badly. The ball popped up, high in the air, as she approached the kitchen line.
During the next few seconds, the left and right hemispheres of Melinda’s brain debated. Her future at Oasis Commercial Realty had become the ball floating softly before her. And she drove it at lightning speed off Suskind’s shoulder and into oblivion.
***
“Uh oh,” George said, “That was a kitchen violation. Your toes crossed over as you hit it.”
“What?!!!” Melinda exclaimed, dumbfounded. She sensed the growing rumbles in the crowd of co-workers watching outside the fence in agreement with her.
“Yep,” Suskind said, and Ramesh, the CFO, nodded as well.
Melinda couldn’t believe it. She was a stickler for the rules and always self-reported times she screwed up and violated them. This was not one of those times. Vultures circled overhead, awaiting the carcasses of the executive team she thought she’d just delivered.
“Time out,” George said, and came over to Melinda and led her back past the baseline. Face to face now, he dropped his paddle, leaned forward, and put his hands on her shoulders. His bronze chrome dome glistened with sweat in the rising heat.
“There’s no way I stepped across the kitchen line,” Melinda said, rapid fire. “Not even close.”
“Listen to me carefully, Melinda,” George said, in a slow drawl. “You may be better at pickleball than I am, but I have more experience than you do.” Melinda noticed his already sizable belly expand as he took a deep breath before speaking again. His eyes locked on hers. “Our job is not to cross the line. And you crossed it on that last play. Understand?”
She gazed without expression as if looking into the eyes of a hypnotist.
“Understand?” George asked again, gently shaking her shoulders.
Only then, did things slow down for Melinda and the reality of the moment become clear. “You’re giving me a second chance,” she told him.
George smiled, grabbed his paddle, and shouted across the net. “We’re good to go again.”
***
Five minutes later, their executive opponents had reeled off a series of points and eventually emerged victorious. As they all met at the net to tap paddles for a game well played, Suskind stopped Melinda as she planned to walk away.
“That was a close call in so many ways,” he said with a laugh. Then he turned serious. “You are a terrific player, Melinda Yee, but I especially admire your competitiveness. It takes your game to another level.”
“Thanks,” Melinda said, still a bit dazed by what had just transpired.
“It will serve you well at Oasis,” Suskind said, before striding to exit. “I see big things ahead for you,” he called out over his shoulder as he lifted the latch of the court’s gate.
Melinda stood in place and let his words wash over her like cool, clear, cascading water. She was exulted once again, and this time it felt permanent—or maybe semi-permanent. Like, for a while at least, she could just go about each day with nothing to prove.
*****
Roland Goity lives in Issaquah, WA, where the summers are spectacular and the winters are made for writing. Recent stories of his appear or are forthcoming in Poor Yorick, Landlocked Magazine, Louisiana Literature, Bending Genres, and Barzakh Magazine.
