When Noah walked into the indoor pickleball complex in Carson that rainy morning, my body said, “Wow. Look at that guy.”
The 30 minutes it took me to get to Carson from Mar Vista suddenly seemed worth it. Pulling into the parking lot of PowerPlay Pickleball, I got to see the Goodyear Blimp tethered and pivoting in the wind across the street.
My pickleball friend Hailey had booked the court. She texted me the day before that she had lined up a fourth player: a guy from Plummer Park in West Hollywood. She gave me nothing to go on about his relationship status, not that I cared. My status was “married my entire life and now separated for two years.” My husband was loud and controlling. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be in a relationship again.
Hollywood Hailey, with her long blond hair, rocked a tennis dress, thigh-high socks and baseball cap. Sometimes she wore sunglasses indoors. Men gravitated toward her like a mouth to a candy apple.
She got our friend Gary to play. Gary was a lawyer whose affability never offended off the court, but on the court I found him pushy. I met his lovely older wife at a pickleball party last year. He and I tossed our pickleball bags onto a table near the court. Gary’s bag was wadded with used towels. I asked to borrow his eraser to remove the scuff marks from my paddle.
Noah swung his backpack off his broad shoulders onto our table. I felt his body in my knees. From low to high, I noticed everything: his shoe size, muscular calves, graying temples, intelligent face. In my mind, I saw our hands laced, running on a beach, seagulls flying, the look in our eyes at the altar, the country garden with pickleball roses.
“This is Noah,” Hailey said. “He plays at Plummer.”
Noah smiled at me, reached out his strong hand to shake mine. A soft pillowy grip. No wedding ring.
Gary didn’t wear a wedding ring either. My fingers were certainly bare. (There should be a ring finger for being separated. The middle finger would be a good candidate.) Hailey wore no rings.
The four of us stepped out onto the reserved court. It was loud inside from paddles hitting pickleballs and piped-in music. Hailey knew I didn’t love playing with Gary, who poached too many of my shots, so she let me have Noah.
“Do you want to serve first?” Noah’s voice was pillowy like his palms. He backed up toward the baseline. He offered me the ball. I took it.
My bobbed hair was tucked under a baseball cap I had started wearing to emulate Hailey. Hailey swayed her hips back and forth in ready position looking like the volleyball player she once was. I was wearing leggings and a long-sleeve top covered by a puffy vest.
“Zero-zero-two,” I called out to begin the game. My serve sailed long. “Ugh,” I sighed. Noah gave me a tender look. “It’s OK,” he said. “We got this.” He walked over, extended his hand to mine. I slapped it.
Hailey served next. I returned the ball to her, but Gary overreached to poach it, driving a shot into Noah’s waiting forehand. Noah put the ball away. Our point. Noah smiled at me. I smiled back.
To celebrate a winning point, partners usually slap paddles. But Noah kept offering me his bare hand. Skin-to-skin contact. I tried not to read into it.
We traded points, pounding out volleys, firing rounds at the net, reacting quickly, lunging, grunting, all of us panting. The score was tied 9-9.
There’s something that happens on a pickleball court when points go the distance. Players get giggly, euphoric, sweaty. The euphoria bonded us in honey. When Noah and I took the win, we howled. We all clinked paddles.
Time for a breather, to grab some water, for me to say something profound to Noah to capture the moment.
“God, I’m thirsty,” I came up with. I stared at Noah’s bobbing Adam’s apple as he suckled at his bottle. Warmth spread through my breast, and my breathing quickened. In my mind, I saw us in a hotel room in Greece beneath gauzy white curtains.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said, setting down his water.
“Yep,” I said aloud. (“I do take thee,” I said to myself.)
“Did you know you have too big a backswing on your volleys?”
If my heart were a blimp, his unsolicited advice was a needle. My husband was an expert in everything, even in the way I cut tomatoes, hemmed pants, folded socks. I had had enough of men self-improving me.
Hailey took a swig of water from her bottle. Her thigh tips were glowing. Gary offered Noah his paddle eraser then toweled off the top of his bare head.
“Hmmm,” I finally said.
When pickleballs are hit too hard, they crack. Before they crack, tiny fissures show up between the holes.
The score in the second game reached game point for Hailey and Gary. Gary served. I returned hard and deep to Hailey. She popped up a juicy lob to my forehand. This was the first lob to my forehand all game, and I had something to prove. Decades of smashing overheads in tennis would sweeten me to Noah like no candy apple could.
“Mine,” I screamed, cocked my paddle back over my head, and whipped my forehand down with all my might to pound that ball into Noah’s heart. I felt a thud. Noah had jumped across my body to poach the lob with his backhand. My paddle hit his back. The ball hit the net.
Game over. Honeymoon over.
Noah crossed his arms trying to massage his own bruise. His expression was sheepish. He knew he had poached my shot and cost us the game.
Hailey ran over to him. “Are you OK?” she asked.
Gary said, “Brutal.”
Noah said, “Can’t believe I missed.”
He did not say he was sorry. I did not apologize for flogging him.
Hailey said, “We’ve got to give up the court now anyway. Great games, guys.” Hailey clinked my paddle, Hailey clinked Noah’s. Gary clinked mine, Gary clinked Noah’s. I didn’t clink Noah’s.
I gathered my stuff, made sure I stuffed my water, my paddle, my cap back into my tote. I grabbed my car keys.
“Noah and I are headed out for lunch. Do you guys want to join us?” Hailey said. It sounded like a plan made before we got there. Had there been something going on between them after all?
Gary said he couldn’t go.
I said I couldn’t go.
Noah extended his hand for a goodbye handshake, clueless to the heights and depths of our relationship. I slapped it.
This author is a pickleball enthusiast and daydreamer from Mar Vista.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
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