“Avery, I hear you want to learn how to serve?”
I put on a mock cocky look. “I mean, how hard can it be, right? Plus I’m tall, so I’ll be closer to the ball in the air.”
Rori shakes her head. “That’s not really how it works, but why don’t you give it a try?”
I then throw the ball in the air, and deliberately whiff. Though god knows I wouldn’t be able to aim it even if I miraculously hit it.
“Cut. Great job, ladies. Let’s run it again.”
We do our bit over and over, and as the takes add up, the staff starts laughing at my whiffs, which become increasingly clownish.
After we get through all the camera angles Zara wants, they give us a break, and we walk to two chairs they’ve set aside for us to rest in.
“That was more fun than I thought it would be,” I admit.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know you could make fun of yourself that way. Not because of anything Rawley’s said,” Rori explains. “But just from what I’ve seen in the press.”
“You can’t believe everything you read.”
“You can say that again.” She rolls her eyes.
“This is where you train?” I ask, hoping to keep the good energy going.
“When I’m in Orlando, yes. If there’s a longer break, or during the offseason, I stay with Landon rather than schlep between Tampa and Orlando, so I need a practice facility here. But my main one is in Tampa.”
Zara’s voice breaks up our conversation. “We’re ready for round two if you are, Rori and Avery?”
We both stand up and after some touch-ups from the glam team, we get into position for the portion where switch roles and I’m teaching her to dribble. We’re just doing it here, on the same tennis court.
When action is called, we cover the second half of the script.
“So I’m a bad student, but maybe I’m a better teacher,” I say. I put up my hands and off-camera, a production assistant zips the ball to me.
“Where did that ball come from?” Rori says, pretending like she’s confused.
“It comes when I call it,” I say, and wink at the camera. There’s apparently going to be some kind of fairy sparkle sound effect there.
Cringe, but whatever.
“Want to learn how to dribble?” I ask while I start doing some high-speed crossover moves in front of her.
“Sure,” Rori says with fake enthusiasm.
“Okay, try this, and this,” I say, showing her a slowed down crossover.
She then takes the ball, and like when I served, she’s deliberately off-rhythm with her contact on it, slapping at it too hard as well.
It’s actually really funny, but I try to keep it together.
“Cut,” Zara says, giggling.
Once again, we repeat the bit way too many times to count, and everyone’s even looser with their laughs at Rori’s fake dribbling once the camera shuts off. Probably getting a little punchy with the passage of time too.
Finally, Zara says the magic words. “All right, I think we have everything we need.”
“Yay!” Rori says. “I’m ready to get all this makeup off.”
“Definitely,” I agree.
