Page 65 of Pickled
“Can we go another twenty minutes?” I asked, even though my head was starting to throb.
Lisa checked her watch. “I have another client, but Fred and Dot usually show up around eight thirty. They’d love to help out a beginner.”
I stiffened at the word “beginner.” This shit was easy. I’d show Lisa that Gideon Bailey was never a beginner, and I’d be damned if a couple of geriatrics were going to prove me wrong.
Fred and Dot Harding were seventy-something, but they moved like they were half that. Fred’s silver hair was slicked back, his tennis whites starched to perfection. Dot’s bedazzled sun visor reflected sunlight like a disco ball, and she called everyone “honey.” Sally, my partner, wore two knee braces and clear sports glasses with a prescription so strong her eyes looked as big as the lime-green ball we were playing with.
Fred and Dot destroyed us. Well, destroyed me. Sally carried us through the game and was the only reason we didn’t get “pickled.”
“You’re thinking too hard, honey,” Dot said after the game. “This isn’t rocket science. Feel the game, let it come to you.”
“And quit trying to kill the ball,” Fred added, not unkindly. “Finesse beats power every time out here.”
While we played, Sally offered tips. She was a patient partner, and to say I was humbled that morning would be an understatement.
With Lisa’s permission, I showed up the next day. At six thirty.
Within a week, I was hooked.
Word spread that a hockey player was learning to play, and the regulars started showing up earlier. Margie Roper, the wife of an airline CEO, brought homemade muffins, still warm from the oven. Harry Boler, the founder of a record label, brought a thermos of imported Jamaican coffee big enough for everyone on the court.
“You know,” Margie said one morning after beating me and Harry in straight games, “I think someone might actually like this sport.”
I still wouldn’t have called it a sport but didn’t want to seem rude. “I come for the muffins.”
“That’s exactly what hooked me,” Harry laughed.
Margie grinned. “My late husband used to say pickleball was chess with paddles.”
Fred chuckled as he organized the balls. “Margie, your husband couldn’t play chess to save his life.”
The banter between the seniors was as entertaining as the game, but they all took their pickleball seriously.
I saw Lisa every other day for physio and neurological work in her office and played pickleball almost every day. By my second week, after several warnings and gruesome stories of players losing their eyes, I traded my sunglasses for proper safety glasses. The sun no longer gave me headaches, and the light sensitivity had almost completely disappeared. I would stay at the court until almost ten, helping set up games for whoever showed up, learning the personalities and playing styles of the kooky morning crowd. These old people were starting to grow on me.
During one of our physio sessions, while forcing me to stand on a balance board with one foot while following her fingertip with my eyes, Lisa told me, “The club’s never had this much early morning energy.”
“Good. This sport deserves more respect than it gets.”
She grinned. “When do I get to say I told you so?”
I rolled my eyes, ruining my drill. She stomped on the wobble board, and I hopped off.
“How do you feel after the sessions? Does the noise bother you with all the new players? That was supposed to be quiet time.”
“Better every day. The light sensitivity is almost gone, balance is solid.” I hopped on the wobble board to demonstrate. “Every once in a while, I get headaches, but not like before.”
“And emotionally? The time off hockey, that’s got to be a lot to process.”
Lisa didn’t say it, but I knew that concussions often made people angry. I still wasn’t convinced that mine was worth all this rehab, and I didn’t feel any angrier than usual. Just a little sad.
“It’s been complicated.” I blinked, surprised that I’d revealed something so personal.
“Want to talk about it? Anything you say is completely confidential, by the way. It can be useful to discuss your emotions during a time like this.”
“I’m not angry, but I’m a little…” I ran my hand through my hair. “Without hockey, I don’t know who I am. It’s empty. Also, before the injury, there was this woman…”
“And?” She didn’t seem surprised.
