Taking a Shot at Love Read online

  It was funny. Lisa and Athena had been best friends since they played together in college, but they couldn’t have been more different. At this point in their lives, in their mid-forties, Lisa craved quiet and solitude outside of basketball, and Athena liked action. Not a lot of action, mind you. But she would rather be out and about, whereas Lisa would rather be home on the couch watching television or reading a book in the little free down time she had.

  Lisa and Athena led the way to the elevators with the two volunteer coaches bringing up the rear, making sure the players didn’t stray. The team looked sharp, wearing their matching tracksuits, maroon with a gray stripe and Glassell University embroidered on the back of the jacket. They were carrying university-issued duffel bags over their shoulders. This was a moment of pride Lisa had of her team. They looked good and were turning heads. Now all she needed was for them to put in a decent performance in the tournament.

  When they got to their designated floor, Lisa and Athena handed out the key cards. The ladies had been given their room assignments before they left, and they all seemed pretty happy with their roommate situation.

  “All right, Panthers. We’re going to have dinner together in the main restaurant, then you’re free to do what you want. Bed check is at eleven p.m. so make sure you’re in your room. Anyone who misses curfew is suspended for the game. Got me?”

  A chorus of “yes, Coach” was issued. “We’ll see you at six in front of the restaurant.” Lisa stood outside the door of the room she was sharing with Athena, waiting for all the ladies to get into their rooms. Once the hallway was clear, Lisa shut the door behind her and flopped onto her bed. She was exhausted from the four-and-a-half-hour drive through the Mojave Desert. She also hadn’t been sleeping well lately, the past couple of weeks really, since she’d had dinner with Celeste. Well, not really dinner with Celeste, like a date, but when she ran into her and sat with her at the café on campus. Since then, it had been night after night filled with dreams starring Celeste Bouchard. Lisa had no business dreaming, or even thinking, about Celeste. For one, she had no time to think about starting anything with Celeste, especially during the basketball season. And two, she was hoping she wouldn’t be at the small school much longer. If she’d had her way, she’d be offered a job at a Division I school and be out of GU by the end of the school year. The way this season had started, with only one loss in six games, advancing in her coaching career was looking promising. Making a good showing in the tournament would certainly help.

  “Come on, let’s go hit the tables. Blackjack is calling for me.”

  Lisa opened her eyes and looked at Athena. “Are you kidding? We just got here.”

  “I know, but we have three whole hours before we meet for dinner.” Athena was practically bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. She loved to gamble whereas Lisa could take it or leave it. She’d occasionally play blackjack or video poker when they were in a casino, but that didn’t happen often. Lisa couldn’t fathom spending too much money gambling when she could be spending it on other things. Athena, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of it, and Lisa was certain that if Athena had constant access to casinos, she’d be broke and she’d have to join Gamblers Anonymous.

  “You go ahead and I’ll meet you at the restaurant. I’m going to watch a little TV, maybe take a nap.”

  “Jesus, Lisa. How old are you? I didn’t realize you’d become an old lady.”

  Lisa laughed and threw a pillow at Athena. “Fuck off, Chang. Go lose your money.”

  “Right. See you in a few hours.”

  Lisa fluffed her pillows against the headboard, turned on the TV, and set the alarm on her phone for five thirty. She flipped through the channels until she came across an episode of Ellen. Ellen was doing a bit where she had one of her staff members play a prank on her guest celebrity. When Ellen belly laughed, it made Lisa laugh hard too. The last thing Lisa thought of before she fell asleep was that she hoped she looked as good as Ellen when she was her age.

  “Lisa, wake up!”

  Lisa woke up discombobulated. Where was she? Strange bed, Athena hovering over her and shaking her. “What’s wrong?” Right. Vegas. Hotel room. Basketball tournament. She rubbed her hands over her eyes. How long had she been asleep? She looked at her watch and noted it was five o’clock and she was upset that she could’ve slept for another thirty minutes. Suddenly, she had money raining down on her. “What the hell is that?”

  “That, my friend, is called the progressive jackpot for a royal flush on video poker.” Athena had a smile that practically went ear to ear, and she looked like she had just won the lottery. Lisa picked up the twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills and looked up in amazement. “How much is here?”

  “Almost twelve grand.” Athena started laughing again. “I put one hundred dollars into a dollar machine, and I was just about out when I hit the ten, jack, queen, and ace of spades. I held those cards, then drew, and up came king of spades. I started screaming, people started gathering around, I was hugging strangers. Finally, an attendant showed up along with a supervisor and paid me my money. I came right back to the room to tell you.”

  Now Lisa was laughing along with Athena. “That’s so exciting! I can’t believe you won so much money. You want me to hold it so you don’t spend it?”

  “No!” Athena gathered her money and turned away from Lisa as if she was going to take it from her. “Okay, I’ll give you ten grand and I’ll keep the rest and play with it while we are here. Maybe we can go see a show.”

  “Uh, we’re here for a basketball tournament, Athena, not to party.”

  “Duh! You said that already. I was thinking we could do it on our last night after basketball is done.”

  “We’ll see. If we don’t have a good showing, the last thing I’ll want to do is have a night on the town. Now let’s get ready to meet the team for dinner.”

  On the way to the restaurant, Athena pointed out an advertisement poster near the elevators. “Hey, check it out. There’s a pole dancing competition this weekend in this casino. Is this lucky or what?” The eyebrows that Athena wiggled made Lisa give her a little shove.

  “Remember. Basketball. Why we’re here.”

  “I know, but I think it would be cool to check it out. Our game is at one o’clock tomorrow so we can go see it in the evening.”

  “Don’t you think we should be studying game tape of our next day’s opponent?”

  “Jesus, Lisa. Loosen up a little, will ya? We’re in Vegas. How often do we get here? We don’t have to stay for the whole thing, but an hour isn’t going to hurt.”

  “If I say yes, will you get off my back for the rest of the trip? I realize you’re excited to be here, to be able to gamble and all, but we are the coaches of Glassell University and we are representing our school. We need to be responsible and focus on our team and the tournament.”

  “I get it. And if we go for just an hour, I promise it will be all basketball, all the time for me.”

  “Okay. We’ll go.”

  “Yes.” Athena did a fist pump and Lisa shook her head.

  * * *

  Celeste and Olivia pulled up to the valet and gave the attendant Celeste’s name. He pulled their luggage out of the trunk and placed it on a cart that the porter took to the front desk for them. Ordinarily, the lights and sounds of a casino would fill Celeste’s senses, maybe even overload them. But she was so nervous about her upcoming performance the following day that she was just concentrating on not throwing up before she got to the room. What the hell was she thinking, signing up for the pole competition? Maybe a case of temporary insanity? If Olivia hadn’t signed up and wasn’t there with her, Celeste would have packed her car back up and headed south on the I-15 freeway back home.

  They got to the room, thanked the porter for bringing up their luggage, and Celeste started to unpack her suitcase. She needed to keep busy so she wouldn’t think of the competition. She carefully hung up her costumes she brought—enough
for three performances in case she got that far. She certainly didn’t expect to get that far, but she could keep positive thoughts. That was part of her personal growth—keeping positivity in her life. But seeing how this was her first big performance, she just wanted to not embarrass herself. At least she had Olivia there with her, and a friendly face always helped.

  “Ooh, I love that outfit, Celeste. Is it new?”

  Celeste pulled the royal purple sequined outfit off the hanger and held it up to her body. “Yes, I did a little shopping last week. I got these shoes to go with it.” She held up a pair of silver high-heeled platform shoes that gave her calves sexy definition and made the purple pop.

  “I love them. Did you get those at the shop near our studio?”

  “I did. They just got a new shipment in that morning so I practically had first choice.”

  They finished putting away their clothes and decided to go downstairs and check out the area that would be set up for the competition. There were three different ballrooms that had stages with poles and rows of chairs in front of the stages. There were lights in the back of the room that were multicolored and there was a sound check going on. Celeste was impressed with how professional this was looking to be.

  “Are you nervous?”

  Celeste swore she could feel her whole body shaking, but she tried to shake it off. “No, I’m okay.”

  Olivia put her arm around Celeste. “Liar. It’s all right. I’m nervous too. But just think, we won’t know anyone here so there’s no need to be nervous. We’ll be fine. We’ll do our performances, and when we’re not performing, we’ll drink and play slot machines.”

  “That sounds like a great idea. Let’s practice that part now.”

  They sat in a row of video poker machines and started playing, waiting for a cocktail waitress to come by and take their drink order. Soon after, there was a lot of screaming and hollering in the row on the other side of their machines. When the waitress brought their drinks, Celeste asked her if she knew why people were yelling, and she told them someone had just won a royal flush on a dollar machine. Celeste tipped her and took a sip of her vodka tonic. She’d tasted better, but it wasn’t horrible, and she certainly wasn’t going to complain about free drinks, even if she had to gamble to get those free drinks.

  After having a couple of drinks and losing forty dollars, Celeste and Olivia decided to go have dinner then wander in and out of the shops. While they were waiting for their table, a group of young ladies walked by, some of them very tall, and she automatically thought of Lisa. She hadn’t seen her since they ate together in the café and she’d been tempted many times to call her or walk over to her office. She couldn’t even find an excuse since Emily Logan was performing much better in her class. The only excuse she’d been able to come up with was that she was attracted to Lisa and wanted to get to know her better. However, Celeste lacked the confidence to come out and tell Lisa she was attracted to her. Jackie had made the first move with her, and there’d been no other women.

  Celeste wished she hadn’t been such a late bloomer and had experience with dating at least a few women. She had never thought of herself as attractive or worthy of a relationship because of her obesity. A few kids in school, then some of the athletes and cheerleaders in high school never said anything to her face, but she’d overheard them and saw them stop their conversations as she would approach. Her parents kept telling her to ignore them, that she was beautiful and smart, and anyone would be lucky to be with her. But they were her parents. They had to say that. At least that’s what she thought when she was a teenager. But even though her body image and self-confidence had improved, that didn’t mean she was comfortable enough to make a first move with Lisa. That is, if she were to ignore her own rule of not dating anyone she worked with. Which she wouldn’t. Well, she shouldn’t. But, dang it, Lisa was so attractive.

  Olivia nudged Celeste and leaned close. “There are a lot of tall women walking around here.”

  “I noticed that. I wonder if there’s a basketball tournament going on. They look around college age.”

  “Speaking of basketball, any further developments with the coach?”

  Celeste had told Olivia about her run-in with Lisa in the pool, then when she went to apologize, then finally running into her at the café. She thought she was being nonchalant when she was talking to Olivia about Lisa, but Olivia knew her too well and heard the giddy schoolgirl voice when she spoke of Lisa.

  “No, I haven’t seen her since the last time. I don’t want to come off like I’m too anxious or like I’m interested.”

  “But you are interested.”

  “I think she’s good looking. There’s a difference. After the Jackie Stone fiasco, I’m not going to get involved with anyone I work with ever again. The campus is small enough that it’s inevitable we’d run into each other if it didn’t work out.”

  “But what if it did work out?”

  “Liv.” The way Celeste said her name was a warning to stop.

  The hostess showed them to their table so their conversation was shelved for the time being. The rest of their dinner was spent discussing their routines and the songs they were going to perform to. All the talk about Lisa must’ve caused some hallucinations because she swore she saw Lisa walking toward the back of the restaurant. Well, she looked a little like Lisa, but she only caught the back of her head so she couldn’t be sure. Celeste shook her head and chuckled. She was starting to lose it. For the remainder of dinner, she kept an eye out for the woman who looked like Lisa, but she didn’t reappear.

  “Come on, Olivia. Let’s go gamble a little more before we go back to the room.”

  * * *

  Lisa returned to the private dining room area where the team was having dinner. She was grateful that the restaurant was able to accommodate their large group. Besides fifteen players and four coaches, they had three team managers to help with equipment and two trainers to take care of any minor injury or medical problem. The ladies on the team were well behaved so Lisa didn’t worry about them getting into any trouble, but they were her responsibility. She promised the parents of her players that she would stand in as a surrogate parent while they were away from home.

  They were all sitting around the table talking and laughing, and Lisa just stood observing them, admiring them. It was still early in the season, but Lisa knew this group was special. There was not only a basketball intelligence that many of the players possessed, but they were respectful, kind, and hard-working women. Even though it had been about twenty-five years since Lisa had been in college, the girls nowadays were a lot more mature than when Lisa and Athena were that age. She took a seat at the head of the table and joined in the conversation with a few of her players who were in close proximity.

  Once dinner was done, Lisa went over a few business items. “Okay, ladies, listen up. Our game tomorrow is at two. We’ll have an hour shootaround at ten to go through a few plays, then we’ll grab an early lunch. Be in your practice gear and meet in my room at nine thirty a.m. If you’re late, the vans will leave without you and you’ll sit the bench for the game. It’s now seven fifteen, and room check will be at eleven. You have free time until then, but anyone under twenty-one cannot hang out on the casino floor. They don’t play around with underage gambling or drinking here, not that I believe my girls would do that.” Lisa caught the eyes of a few players and got laughs out of most. “There’s an arcade, bowling alley, and movie theater near the elevators to the hotel so that’s a place for you to hang out if you want. Remember two things: you’re here to win this tournament, and you’re representing our school. See you all tonight at eleven.”

  Lisa held the coaches behind and waited for the others to leave. “I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but I’m going to anyway. Same goes for all of us. We’re here for the tournament. Have fun, do a little gambling and drinking if you want to, but we also have a curfew. We’ll do room checks, then we’ll go to our own rooms. No drunkenness, no
hangovers. Got it?”

  They all nodded and walked out of the restaurant. The volunteer coaches, Chris and Joe, headed toward the casino while Lisa and Athena headed to their room to watch game tape on their first opponent and make notes for tomorrow’s shootaround and game.

  Chapter Eleven

  The final buzzer went off, and Glassell University won by twelve points. Lisa walked the sideline, followed by her assistants and team to congratulate the other team on a game well played. They grabbed their gear and headed to the meeting room they had been assigned. Lisa waited for the players to be seated, and her coaching staff stood in the back.

  “Off to a good start, ladies. We played sloppy a few times on offense but made up for it with tough defense. Go get your treatments, shower, then meet me back in the gym. One of the teams in the next game is who we’re playing tomorrow. We’ll leave at halftime, grab some dinner, then head back to the hotel. Everybody in a circle.”

  The team stood and gathered in a tight huddle with their arms in the air. They all shouted “Panthers,” then left the room. Lisa asked one of the assistants to leave the video equipment up to record the first half of the game so she could review it later.

  Lisa, Athena, Chris, and Joe sat together and discussed the plusses and minuses of the game. There were two players, Taylor and Kristina, her two post players, who Lisa was going to have to talk to about rebounding. Chris and Joe would work with them on boxing out tomorrow during shootaround. The team they were playing tomorrow had two post players who were three and four inches taller than Taylor and Kristina so they were going to have to work hard to get the rebounds.