To France With Love

I slept pretty well for being in a new place with a new time zone. I looked at the clock. It was 8:30. I unplugged my phone to check some things. I had a new text from a number that wasn't in my contact list. I opened it and it said

Hey. Its Maria. Text me when you awake.

I answered her message, telling her I was up and that she could come over here if she wanted. She did.

"Hey." I whispered. Tyler was still sleeping, but whatever. We talked for a while, but then we had a little of an awkward silence. Then I got an idea.

"Maria," I said, "Do you have an iPad?"

"Yes." She said. I grinned at her.

"Go get it!" I said.

"Okay." She said sounding a little confused. She walked out to grab hers while I grabbed mine.

She came back in with hers and I told her about the tennis app and she downloaded it. We played for a half an hour, until we finally woke Ty up with our squealing and laughing.

"Girls. You should probably go find something light to eat and change your clothes before you're due on the courts. You should probably go out of the room to find something to eat and be really quiet so I can sleep." Said Tyler rolling over. Maria and I sighed knowing he was right and went to find something to eat.
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We got out on the courts and Maria and I hit short court while the coaches yelled out various things to do to improve our shots. Then we moved to the baseline and then took turns feeding volleys and overheads for each other. The last thing we did was serve and play some points.

When we finally finished, it was 11:30. We drove back to the hotel to get a much-needed breakfast. We sat and ate and talked for about an hour. We walked around on the streets until three o'clock. That's when we decided that it was time to go back to the hotel to change up for the first opening dinner for the French Open.

I showered up and put on the first of my few nice dresses that I had packed for these occasions. I wore a short navy Sail to Sable tunic dress that was pink and white striped with navy blue trim. I wore it with white wedges and a white monogram necklace. Could I be any preppier?

We met outside our rooms again, but when Maria saw me she asked if she could talk to me in my room.

We went inside and shut the door. She opened her bag that was a little on the big side for tonight and showed me that she had put her iPad inside.

"These things can get boring." She said. "Grab yours, you know if we need to sneak out for while." I grinned. I liked what she was thinking. I grabbed mine and put it into my Longchamp bag to bring with me.

We walked out of my room. "Alright." Said Maria. "We ready to go now." We gilled and grinned at each other like six-year olds hiding something from their parents, and honestly it was the almost the exact same thing. A nineteen year old and twenty-six-year-old hiding something from their coaches.
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We put our bags in the coat check place and I followed Maria out to mingle with everyone. This was the opening dinner. Everyone had gotten here today and this was the "welcome" party.

I talked to people with Maria. I recited my practice partner speech a few hundred times for various people. We paused to eat dinner and hear the people in charge of everything talk. When dinner was over we mingled for a while, but that was pretty boring.

When we were able to escape from our last conversation, Maria gave me this crazed grin. I followed her to get our bags and find somewhere quiet.
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"What do you think you're doing?" Said someone behind us. Maria and I had just gotten into the lobby to play our game.

I turned around and let out a huge sigh. It was Rafael Nadal. I immediately sucked in again. It was Rafael Nadal! He was wearing the most charming outfit ever! He had on goldish khaki pants with a blue long sleeve dress shirt, and a salmon colored tie.

"Rafa." Said Maria. "Don't scare me like that, and don't let anyone see we escaped."

"Don't worry." He said. "I wanted to get away too." He looked at me. "Emelie right?" I nodded. He remembered me! "We meet again. You look pretty." I smiled.

"Thanks." I said. Maria nudged my arm. "I like your tie." He grinned and sat down next to me.

"So what are you girls playing?" We showed him our app. We all played a few matches against each other before all of our coaches came out to find us, looking like parents trying to find their six-year old kids that were hiding from them. We might as well have been six year olds.

When we saw them we realized that we were adults hiding from a party to play on iPads. We made our way back into the party and stayed there a little longer until we were tired and wanted to go to bed.