‘What do you think is the worst bit?’ Nadia asks, very conversationally.
My answer is instantaneous. ‘The frilly pants, no question.’ My mother has supplied her with a very short dress, which does not cover the frilly tennis pants that I vaguely remember women wearing for tennis when I was a child. They aren’t unflattering, in fact weirdly quite the opposite, but they do look very, very peculiar. The dress is very tight and surprisingly low-cut for a tennis dress. ‘Also, the… Yep.’ No, I cannot refer out loud to her cleavage. Also, I tell myself sternly, I really should not be noticing it at all. She is myfakegirlfriend. It’s hardnotto notice it, though.
Nadia cranes over her shoulder to look at her bottom and then looks down at herself.
Then she sees herself for the first time in the floor-length mirror in the corner of the room.
‘My. Goodness,’ she says after a moment. She stares at herself again and suddenly laughs. ‘Fuck it. Let’s do it. I don’t know them. It does not matter.’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘Wecouldgo down the food-poisoning route.’
‘Nope, I’m fine, I’m doing it. Unless you don’t want me to?’
‘Well, I…’
We stare at each other for a minute, and then my mother calls from downstairs. ‘I don’t want to interrupt you but just to let you know that you’re on court next.’
We do this weird thing where we both do a little nod at the same time, and then I holler, ‘Coming,’ and off we go downstairs.
I try very, very hard not to find any humour in the way that as Nadia walks the dress rides up so that more and more of the frills are on show. The pants kind of remind me of some white chickens my grandparents had when I was little. Absolutely not what Nadia would want to hear right now.
* * *
When we get to the kitchen, Mum’s eyes widen and she clamps her lips together for a second, before saying, ‘Excellent. The shoes are just here.’
‘The shoes are quite… large,’ Nadia says when she puts her first foot in. She looks up at us from where she’s crouched on the floor. I don’t have any words. Apparently nor does Mum (unusual). After a couple of moments, Nadia breaks the silence. ‘Better for a shoe to be too big than too small.’
Then, as I nod, she stands up, pulls her dress down as far as it will go, and sets off across the garden towards the tennis court.
I jog a few paces to catch her up and then say, ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this?’
‘Totally. I’m already looking forward to the excellent anecdote this is going to become.’
‘Erm, good?’
Nadia laughs. ‘Honestly, yes. One more thing I need to mention, by the way, is that I really cannot play tennis.’
‘Just flash your frills. They’ll laugh so much they won’t be able to hit the ball.’
* * *
Our opponents are my cousin Josh and his husband Jameel. Josh is pretty good; I know that.
‘Just so you know,’ Nadia says cheerfully as she shakes hands with them, ‘I can’t play at all. You won’t enjoy the match unless you’re terrible too.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Jameel does a very pro-looking practice swing. ‘I haven’t played for a couple of years.’
‘Oh, cool. That’s cheered me up.’ Nadia doesn’t seem to have clocked how good his swing is.
It becomes obvious on the second point of the first game (after Josh aced Nadia on the first point) that Jameel must have been bordering on Wimbledon-qualifying levels before he stopped if this is how he plays after two years out.
At the end of the first game, we switch ends (Mum’s a stickler for taking matches very seriously).
‘I wouldloveto be able to play tennis like you,’ Nadia tells Jameel.
‘Ha, thanks. I might have spent a bit too much time on a court and not enough time in the classroom when I was a kid.’
‘Time very, very well spent,’ Nadia says admiringly, and he grins.
