“Sí, papá.”
I toss the ball up in the air and send it flying across the net, right to the top of the carton. It falls once more. I look to my father, but his attention has shifted. Gwen is parking her Benz in my driveway.
I put my racket down, grab a towel, and drink a sip of water as Gwen walks toward us.
“Gwen!” my dad says, his voice booming as he walks toward her, pulling her in for a hug. What is it with hugging? Why would anyone want to press themself up against someone’s body to say hello? A wave will do; a handshake is more than enough.
“Javi!” Gwen says, hugging him back.
“You look radiant, as always,” my father says.
“Oh, stop it, Javier,” Gwen says. And then she turns to me. “I come bearing news.”
“Which must be bad, otherwise you would have called,” I say.
“Carrie, you don’t know that,” my dad says.
“No, she’s right. I’m here to hand-hold.”
I sit down on the bench. “What is it?”
“We are having trouble finding you someone to practice with.”
“Seriously?”
Gwen sits next to me. “We called…almost everyone on the WTA.”
“Surely one of the young players wants to learn a thing or two from me,” I say. “Did you point out that the benefits go both ways? What about Ingrid Cortez?”
Gwen’s eyes dance around. “Ingrid feels that because she is the number four player in the world, she does not have anything to gain by hitting with you.”
My father guffaws. “Her backhand is terrible, and she’s giving her opponents opportunities to break serve because of it. She’s a child.”
“And the rest of the tour?” I ask.
“I think, you know, the women who haven’t played you yet are probably a little scared. And the women who have…”
“Hate me,” I say.
“I think some have held on to some hurt feelings, yes.”
“Because I whipped their asses and I’ll do it again?” I ask.
“You know you have a way of…grinding your opponents down. You know people have not always liked your way of winning.”
“Next time I mop the court with someone, I’ll remind myself to pretend I’m ‘shocked that it went my way’ and that it ‘could have been anyone’s game,’？” I say.
Gwen laughs. “Right, but in the meantime, it does not leave us with many options.”
I look at my dad. “This is kind of funny, right?” I ask him. “I’m thirty-seven years old, and still no one wants to play with me.”
“So we get you a regular hitter,” he says. “It’s not like we’ve needed to practice against other professionals before.”
“But I want to know how I stack up before I go out there,” I tell him. “This isn’t like before. This is…I need to play against my peers. To see if I still can. I need to do that here on a private court. Before I go out there in front of the world.”
Gwen nods.
“Did you ask Nicki?” I say.
“You want me to ask Nicki Chan to hit with you?” Gwen says.
“No,” I say.
“Okay, well,” Gwen says, “Ali did have one idea.”
I look at her and realize she has not driven all the way here to hold my hand. She’s here to pitch me on something. “What is it?”
“I have an old client who is in a similar boat to you,” Gwen says.
“Who on earth is in a similar boat to me?”
Gwen laughs. “A tennis player I used to work with, who is on the older side of things, trying to give it one last go around the block. And you two might be able to help each other out.”
“Who are you talking about? Ilona Heady? She’s barely thirty.”
“No,” Gwen says. “Not Ilona.”
“Will Ilona play me?”
“You beat Ilona at Monte Carlo in ’88 and then told reporters it was ‘embarrassingly easy,’ so no, Ilona does not want to play you.”
“It was embarrassingly easy. I was embarrassed for her. That’s empathy.”
“So who is it?” my dad says.
“Just…please get yourself in the right mind space to hear me out.”
“Spit it out.”
“Bowe Huntley.”
I haven’t spoken to Bowe Huntley since we slept together in Madrid and he never called me again. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.