THE HIDDEN COURT by Tracy J. Gates
for Robbie, who reminded me

The girl opened her eyes and looked down at her toes. She wiggled them. The polish that she had put on over the weekend appeared brighter in the turquoise light, like little raspberries. The girl puckered her mouth.

A low hum hovered over the water above the girl’s head. Suddenly, it turned louder, sharper. The girl jerked her head up, water splashing down her face.

“Bubbles,” the voice said. “I want to see some bubbles!”

The girl nodded from her place in the pool. There was too much to remember. But her brother, who was younger, was already jumping off the diving board. She took a big breath of air, lowered her face and blew.

*

Later, sitting on a bench in the locker room, she looked at her feet again as she dried them with her towel. They were wrinkly and soft from the water and the polish on her toes was dull, more like raisins than raspberries. She stood up, pulled the straps of her Speedo down under her arms, wrapped the towel around her chest like she’d seen the teenage girls do, and then reached underneath to yank her suit down to her waist and then past her knees. The suit dropped to the floor. She moved one foot over, hooked her toes under the fabric and kicked up, grabbing the suit with her left hand. When she raised her head she saw a young woman looking at her from across the small room.

“That takes talent,” the woman said, nodding. “I would probably fall over or lose the towel. Probably both,” she added, smiling a little.

The girl smiled a little back. Then she remembered to say thank you. Her parents were always reminding her of that.

The woman didn’t seem to hear her. She crossed her arms in front of her, grabbed the bottom of her t-shirt and pulled it up over her head in a swift motion and then laid it on the bench in front of her. A light layer of perspiration gleamed on her arms and stomach. When the woman leaned over, the muscles in her shoulders and biceps swelled slightly.

“Are you going swimming?” the girl asked, realizing that she was staring.

“Nope.” The woman turned toward her locker, stretched her arms behind her back and unhooked her bra. “I’d love to after a hard game, but I have to get going.” She wrapped a towel under her arms, matching the style of the girl’s, and reached under to pull off her gym shorts. The woman’s legs were muscular as well, shaped more like a teenage boy’s than a girl’s, although smooth of course, and long. The skin on her thighs and calves wrapped around something solid and strong-looking.

“Oh.” The girl knew that people did other sports at the Y, but other than gymnastics and swimming, she hadn’t seen any women playing them. “Were you playing basketball?” She seemed tall enough.

The woman shook her head. She picked up her shorts, folded them, and laid them on her other clothes on the bench. Then she reached back to the nape of her neck, pulled her hair out of an elastic band, shook out her hair and brought it high on top of her head, wrapping the band around it to make a curly topknot. She tucked her feet into a pair of rubber flip flops and pushed the metal door of her locker shut. It clanged sharply in the near empty room. “No,” she finally said. She made a swinging motion with her left arm, the palm pushing the air. “Squash.”

*

The girl stood at the front counter and waited for one of the women who worked there to notice her. The clock on the back wall behind the desks said 5:17, so she still had almost fifteen minutes before her dad picked her up on his way home from work. A pale blonde woman—Marcia?—was over by the copy machine and the tall woman whose daughter was her age and already on the swim team was talking on the phone.

“Try yelling ‘Fire’,” a voice said behind her. She turned around quickly. It belonged to a kid her brother’s age. She recognized him because his skin was a rosy pink around his right eye, kind of like a spot on dog. Some other kids said that it was from a fight, but she thought her brother said it was birthmark; it never went away. The boy was holding a rolled up towel and his brown hair was wet, although she hadn’t seen him in the pool.

She must’ve been looking at him quizzically because he explained, “that’s a good way to get their attention.” He seemed to think about it some more. “Or maybe ‘tornado!’ They probably haven’t heard that one.”

A quick laugh escaped her. “I just wanted to ask where people play squash,” she confessed.

The boy’s eyes widened a little, especially the one framed by pink. “Oh. I know where that is.” He glanced at the clock, as well. “Well, it’s easier if you follow me. It’s kind of hidden.”

They walked down two flights of stairs, but instead of going into the gym where she could hear the thump of a basketball, the boy turned left into the weight room. She’d only been in there once or twice to get something for a gym class. The room was long and narrow, the width of the gym but only about a tenth as deep, and filled with all sorts of black and silver weights and contraptions, but even more so with the earthy metallic smell of men’s sweat. Two men were in there now, one skinny and curling dumbbells so that his biceps bulged as he brought the weights close to his face, and a much bigger man lay on his back on a bench and heaved a large barbell over his head. A single drop of sweat rolled down his fleshy neck.

The boy walked the length of the room and beckoned the girl to a small doorway she’d never noticed before. “You okay with ladders?”

She nodded and ducked into the darkness after him, bumping into his body when she realized that there was nowhere to go, just a small dark space large enough for probably one adult or two kids like themselves. The heavy musk of the weight room was replaced with a dusty mustiness. For a moment, she was confused. Why had he brought her to a dead end?

“Look up,” he told her.

But she saw the rungs before she did so. And she reached up to grab one.

*

The water rushed between her fingers as she pulled her hands, one at a time toward her waist.

“Close those fingers up, honey,” the voice above her said. “Make them into scoops.”

The girl dug into the water. She squeezed her fingers together and thought about scooping out sand at the beach to make a hole. Her brother used to always make low growls as he did this. Rrrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrr.  She made holes in the water with her hands. Rrrrrrrr.

“Uh-huh. That’s right. Now head down to blow out. Head up to breath in.”

The girl lowered her face, and turned it as her right arm began to rise from the water.

“Now take a breath…”

The girl sucked in. Only it was just as she realized that her mouth was not all the way out of the water, and pool water poured down her throat with her intake of breath. The shock of it made her head jerk back and she felt a suffocating fullness in her chest and a burning behind her nose. She tried to cough, but somehow more sucked down.

There was a splash and someone was beside her.

“I’ve got you,” a familiar voice said.

She felt a slight weight on her shoulders. An arm wrapped around her waist and quickly and firmly pulled up. Water spurted out of her mouth. Air swept in. The arms let go, and a hand touched her shoulder.

“You okay?”

The girl nodded. When she wiped the water from her eyes she recognized the young woman from the locker room, only now she was in a red Speedo, her long hair tucked into a blue swim cap.

“You inspired me to take a swim after my lesson this week,” she said, smiling at her.

The girl looked at her. “For squash?”

“That’s right.” The woman looked up quickly toward the pool deck. “And you must be taking a swim lesson, so I’ll let you get back to that.” She gave the girl’s shoulder a slight squeeze. “See you later.”

The girl watched her dive under the red and yellow rope that divided the swimming lanes from the open area for lessons. She didn’t see her come up on the other side immediately, but after a few moments a blue cap popped up much further down the lane and then bobbed up and down in the rhythm of breast stroke. The girl turned back to her teacher. “I want to learn to do that,” she said.

*

Her dad was waiting for her when she came out of the locker room. He was standing near the front counter, talking with the man she knew was the Y’s director. Her dad was always talking to people. He was outgoing, her mother said. When the door clicked shut behind her, he turned around.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said, and swooped her in for a squeeze, tickling her face with his mustache. She smelled his spicy aftershave and what she thought of as his office smell—cool and papery.

“Let’s get home and see what’s for dinner,” he said, swinging her swim bag over his shoulder. “I’m starving.”

In the car, she asked, “have you ever played the game squash?”

Her dad frowned. “Squash?”

“Yeah. There’s a court, behind the gym.”

His face relaxed. “Oh, that’s a squash court? I thought it was racquetball.”

“No. A lady told me it was squash.”

Her dad smiled over at her. “Well, once in Boston. I tried hitting with a fellow who played on the Harvard courts.” He paused, remembering. “But the ball doesn’t bounce like a regular ball. Like a tennis ball,” he added. He and her mom played tennis a lot at the town courts. And sometimes he played doubles with other men at a private court. He hit the tennis ball as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

“Have you ever played squash here?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the court.”

*

The sun was in her face as she rode by the pond and she shielded her eyes to make sure no cars were coming from the other direction, before she turned onto Smith Street. She could’ve walked down—the YMCA was less than a mile from her house—but she loved biking in the crispness of early fall, after the sluggishness of summer. The trees alongside the road were turning red and gold and the air was cool on her skin. It would be colder later, but her mother had put a hat in her bag, just in case.

She pedaled up Elm Street—the only rise in what was mostly one long downhill ride—and then coasted down the rest, by the bus stop to Boston, the red brick elementary school, and the white pillared funeral home where a pallid and freckled schoolmate actually lived. After the curve at the bottom, she gave two pumps of the pedals, before pushing back on one to stop at the intersection of Elm and Pleasant. There was a crosswalk further down the block, but it was easier to cross here, walk her bike down the sidewalk by the small park, and tuck it into the steel bike rack at the bottom of the YMCA steps. It was getting dark earlier, but her mom had agreed to let her ride, as long as she came ‘right home’ after her lesson. ‘No wandering around the Y afterwards,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t want your father to have to go looking for you.’

The girl felt her face flush. She had heard her name being called just as she was about to climb up the ladder, and she’d run back out, through the weight room and into the gym. Her dad was turning around to go back upstairs. But he hadn’t asked where she was, just said that they were late for dinner.  When they were getting in the car, she saw the boy with the birthmark walk by with his bike.

Now she threaded the jelly colored chain into the frame of her own bike and around a thick steel rod on the rack, then clicked the lock closed and spun the dial. She gave it a tug, lifted her swim bag out of the basket, and ran up the steps to the front door.

The weight room was dark when she looked in, and she felt for a light switch on either side of the door, but it was just smooth wall. She could try to walk through in the dark, but without windows the room was like a cave. Kids weren’t allowed to use the weight room alone, so she couldn’t ask at the front desk. Just as she was starting back up the stairs, a guy in baggy basketball shorts and sleeveless t-shirt swung around the landing, almost bumping into her. Without giving herself a chance to think about it, she blurted, “do you know where the weight room lights are?”

The guy looked at her blankly for a moment. “You’re gonna use the weight room?” he asked, surprised.

“I just need to get something,” she said, thinking quickly. Some of the gymnastic equipment was stored there.

“Okay. No problem,” the guy said. “You just look a little small for a weight lifter,” he added, smirking. He bounded down the rest of the stairs and turned into the gym, heading over to a gray panel on the wall. “You have to turn them on here,” he said, opening it and pushing two levers, each snapping into place. Before he closed it, she noticed next to each lever the name of a different area, printed out on blue tape in raised white letters.
STAIRWELL
GYMNASIUM
SQUASH COURT
WEIGHT ROOM
The switches were all in the same position.

*

No one followed her into the weight room, but still she walked through it quickly and ducked into the small doorway at the end. As she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, the distinctive sound of sneakers squeaking drifted down from wherever the ladder went above her. Unlike last time, she could see hazy light at the top. Before anything could stop her again, she grabbed a rung and climbed up.

Poking her head into the dim light, she felt like a rabbit looking out of its hole. She was looking into a long narrow space, kind of like an unfinished attic. A few tall stools stood on the raw wood floorboards, and light washed in from a long opening just above the stools’ seats. That’s where the noise was coming from.

“Reach up to your right.”

The girl squinted into the dusky space. The boy with the rosy eye spot perched on a stool farthest from her.

“There’s a piece of wood there to hold onto and pull yourself up,” he explained. “Just be careful of splinters.”

When she stood up, she brushed the dust from her hands. If she had been much taller, she would’ve had to stoop, and she doubted that any of the larger weight-lifting guys could squeeze between the stools and the wall. But she slipped by the one closest to the ladder and over to a space by the window.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” said the boy. “Pretty cool, huh?”

They were looking down into a cavernous white box, about half the size of a basketball court. Thick red lines ran horizontally at different heights along the front wall and the very top line continued and then dipped down on the sides and then toward back wall. More lines intersected on the floor. If the whole thing was flat, it would’ve looked like a geometry problem in her math book. But the people inside it were proof that it was three dimensional. And one of those people was the woman from the locker room.

She was wearing a white tennis skirt this time with a sleeveless polo shirt, and a red bandana was tied around her head. While the girl scooched up onto a stool to watch, the woman walked to the right side of the court, tossed a small black ball into the air and swung what looked like a badminton racquet up under it, lifting the ball high on the wall in front of her. It arced off the front and dropped toward the other side wall, well behind the middle line. Her opponent, a lanky guy in a Salem State t-shirt and gym shorts, took one step toward the wall, swung his raised racquet and the ball went flying back toward the front, faster now, but this time straight along the same wall. The woman hadn’t stayed on the side she served from, though, and she easily took a few steps back from the middle of the court and got her racquet on the ball before it reached the back of the court. She, too, kept the ball close to the same wall, but with a greater loft so that this time it bounced very close to the back, hit the wall and flew forward. The guy lunged and flicked his racquet under it, but while the ball came off his racquet, it wasn’t enough to get to the front.

“Nicely placed,” the guy said, scooping the ball up with his racquet and tossing it to her. “I keep forgetting you’re a lefty.”

“It helps,” the woman agreed. “Five eleven. Big comeback.” And she tossed ball up from the left side of the court this time.

The woman did have a comeback. The guy hit the ball harder than the woman, but she didn’t ricochet around the court like he did. She often put herself in the middle, where the lines crossed to make a T, and took only a step or two before she reached with her long handled wooden racquet to hit the ball. Occasionally, if the ball was high but not too close to the wall, she sprung into the air, racquet raised, and hit the ball down fast and low into the corner, just above the line closest to the floor. It reminded the girl of watching basketball on TV when one of the players would go for a dunk shot, muscles rippling across arms and shoulders. That was her favorite shot.

At 14-13, the guy was serving and his racquet whipped the ball hard and much lower than when the woman served. She returned it, though, high and above the guy’s head so that it dropped into the corner behind him. Before it could reach the back wall, he took a step back and just as the ball was about to pass him, swung his racquet hard across his body so that the ball slammed into the near sidewall, flew on a diagonal across the court and into the right front corner. The woman was already moving there, her arm crossed in front of her and her racquet back.

The girl leaned forward. She’d seen the guy make that kind of shot a little earlier and the woman hadn’t moved forward in time. Instead, she’d clapped her hand on the strings of the racquet and moved to receive the serve. But this time, she was ready and by the way she was holding her racquet, the girl guessed that she would aim the ball above the guy’s head again. Her racquet swung down under the ball, but instead of swinging back up, it made only the bottom curve of a ‘J’. When the woman stepped quickly back toward the middle of the court, the guy was dashing across toward her and to the ball that had just tapped above the low line and was dropping short and close to the right wall. But before he could get there, he ran smack into the woman.

The girl sucked in. The guy hadn’t knocked the woman over, but he looked like a quarterback trying to get through the defensive line. The woman bent over for a moment, then stood up and rubbed her side.

“You okay?” the guy asked.

“Definitely. Nice try, but maybe next time take a detour?” She scooped the ball up and looked over at him standing with his hands on his hips. She tilted her head. “You want a let?”

“That was a stroke.”

“No way. The ball was practically on the floor.”

“You were right in my way!”

“I was getting out of your way.”

The guy shook his head and looked up toward the wall where the girl was sitting. She pulled back a little, but he was looking at the boy. “What do you say?” he said.

The boy shrugged, then said, “Let. Because you both disagree.”

“Exactly,” said the woman, pulling off her bandana and retying it.

“And what do you think?” the guy asked, turning to face the girl.

The woman quickly looked up, as well. “Well, hi there,” she said, grinning.

“Hey,” said the girl. She looked back at the guy. “I – I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve watched. But I don’t think you would’ve gotten it.”

“Ha!” The woman gave the girl a thumb’s up, then turned back to the guy. “Be a good sport, now.” She smiled sweetly at him.

“I’m always a good sport,” the guy drawled. “Serve it up.”

*

The air was tangy with autumn leaves when the girl ran down the steps to her bike. The sun was lowering its glowing bulk behind the buildings across the street. A large orange leaf drifted past her.

The boy was at the bike rack, unlocking a silver ten-speed. He looked up, hearing her steps.

“Who won the game?” she asked.

“You’ll never know,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, come on.” Shortly after the argued point, she had looked at her watch and realized that she was late for her swim lesson. The score had only advanced by a point—for the woman—as neither got a point unless they had served, and both played carefully; the guy didn’t try that side wall shot again. So the game was still going on when the girl slid off the stool and made her way down the ladder. A couple of men her father’s age were in the weight room, but they barely looked up when she ran through.

“He did.”

The girl’s swim bag dropped down off her shoulder with a jerk. “Oh. Really?”

He gave her another quick smile. “No, not really.”

“Oh, stop it. Seriously. Who?”

“Seriously. She tied it up and then won. They played a few more games I think, but I didn’t stick around. I had karate,” he said, kicking a foot into the air.

The girl put her bag in the bike basket. “I knew she’d win,” she said, more to herself than the boy. She turned toward him. “She was the smarter player,” she reasoned.

The boy squinted at her. His eye spot was barely visible in the fading light. “You want to play?” he asked her.

“With you?”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t really play, but my sister does. I can ask her.”

“Ask me what?”

The girl looked up from undoing her lock. The woman was still wearing her tennis skirt, but she’d taken off the bandana and added a gray sweatshirt for warmth. She walked up to a glossy red Schwinn next to the boy’s bike and dumped a backpack with a racquet handle sticking out of it into a wire basket over the back tire.

“Ask you if you’ll show Jaime how to play squash,” the boy said.

Jaime looked at him, not sure what she was more surprised at, that he knew her name or that this woman was his sister.

“Of course!” the woman said, putting out a hand. “I’d love to show you, Jaime. I’m Kate.”

Jaime put her hand in Kate’s. It felt firm and a little rough.

“Strong grip,” said Kate, smiling. “Maybe stronger than Kevin’s here.”

Kevin rolled his eyes at her.

Kate nudged him and turned back to Jaime. “So why don’t we play next week after your swim lesson?”

Jaime quickly thought of her dad picking her up after work, and her mother telling her not to get home late. But she couldn’t say no. “I think so,” she said. “I just have to ask my parents.”

“Great. You can let me know next week. I’ll be here anyway.” She started undoing her lock. “Wear gym clothes and tennis sneakers. I’ll bring the other stuff.”

On the way up the steepest part of the hill just past the church, she pedaled the bike hard, pulling in deep breaths of cool October air.  At the top, she coasted down the wide street lined with old elm trees and sea captain’s clapboard houses and took her hands off the handle bars for a moment. Something wonderful was filling up in her. It was too much to keep inside. She tipped her head back and let her happiness rise into one long note of joy.

*

The lights were on when Jaime walked through the weight room, although no one was in it. She could hear the squeaking of sneakers, though, and the thunk of the ball as she climbed the ladder. When she put her hands on the railing and looked down into the court, she wasn’t surprised to see Kate, but she didn’t expect to see Kate’s brother.

“Racquet back,” Kate said. She hit a soft shot just to the right of him. He swung at it hard, and missed it entirely.

“Crap.”

“Kevin! You’ve got to watch the ball, silly.”

“Sorry.” Kevin glanced up at Jaime and then back over at his sister. “I can’t when she’s watching.”

Kate looked up. “Oh! Hey there. Kevin decided he wanted to know how to hit the ball, so you guys can practice together.”

“Kate, I didn’t say that.”

She tapped him lightly with her racquet. “Well whatever you said. It helps to have someone to practice with. So I’ll see you later, Jaime, right?”

Jaime took a breath. “I can’t. I have to be home for dinner,” she added quickly.

Kate looked at her for a moment. “I can’t hear you. Come on down here.”

“Down where?”

“To the court.”

On the way down the ladder, Jaime realized she didn’t know how to get in the court. Was there a door through the gym? She was about to duck back into the weight room, when she heard something heavy creak open behind her. When she turned, two heads were staring at her through an opening the size of a manhole cover. It was like a door to a space capsule.

“In here.”

Inside it was even more white than when she saw it from above. The walls gleamed. All four sides and even the floor and ceiling were white. The only break was the viewing area at the top.

“Cool, huh?” Kate said. “We just got them to repaint it. The ball turns the walls pretty dirty. Here, take a look.” She tossed her something small.

The black rubber ball was surprisingly hard, almost as hard as one of her dad’s golf balls. Curious, Jaime let it drop to the floor and it barely bounced before rolling away. “How do you get it to move?” she asked.

“Ah,” Kate said, scooping it up with her racquet. “That’s what I want to show you.” She tilted her head. “Would Saturday morning work better? Around eleven?”

Jaime felt a knot release inside of her. She often rode her bike down for the free swim at ten. “Yes, that would definitely work.”

“Great. So until then, get a feel for this racquet.” And she put the handle into Jaime’s hand.

*

The girl tipped her face up and took a breath. Then turned back into the water and blew. Her breath, the bubbles, her feet and legs kicking the water behind her, it all made a small roar, her own little pod of sound. She grasped the foam kickboard in front of her and breathed in and blew out all the way down the length of the pool. At the end, she held onto the edge with one arm and watched the woman swimming in the next lane. An arm rose out of the water, curved up, stretched forward, and then dove back in, just as the other arm rose up to follow a similar path. The head turned and turned back, turned and turned back. Feet fluttered, barely breaking the wake of water. At the end, she stopped, put her hands on the pool deck and pushed up, turning her body quickly so that she landed by sitting on the edge. She took her goggles off and looked back down the lane, then made a swinging motion with her hand, first one way, then the other. She pointed at the girl and raised both hands. Ten fingers waved in the air.

The girl nodded.  Ten minutes. She slipped the board over the side of the pool, took a breath, and pushed off.

Tracy Gates learned to play squash on a ‘hidden court’ at her local Y in New England. She now resides in New York City, edits books for a living, and is picky about words and shoes. She’s a sports junkie, when not napping. More of her writing can be found on her blog www.squeakyfeet.wordpress.com