“If I remember correctly, you’re the one people are supposed to find charming.”
“A lot of people do find me charming.”
“How nice for them.”
“I remember this about you––every sentence that comes out of your mouth is like a razor blade.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s why you slept with me and never called me again.”
He laughs. “Bullshit.”
“It’s what happened.”
“It is not. I might have spent a big portion of the eighties drunk and confused about what tournament I was at, but let me make one thing perfectly clear, Soto. Before you left my hotel in Madrid, I said, ‘I’ll call you.’ And you said, ‘This can just be what it is.’ And I remember that because I thought, Wow, she’s so cool, and I also thought, She doesn’t want to see me again.”
“Am I supposed to believe that I left you heartbroken?”
“Not at all. I just don’t want you pretending I’m a womanizer, because I’m not.”
“You are a womanizer. Everyone knows that.”
Bowe is the most fined tennis player in history. But he was once also one of the best. He has eleven Grand Slam titles—mostly from the Australian Open and the US Open in the early eighties. He was one of the best returners I’d ever seen. He was also loud and handsome and intoxicating. And almost all of the women on the WTA tour knew they should stay away from him—which was why none of us did.
“Well, I wasn’t just trying to get in your pants is my point.”
“Yeah, sure. Regardless, everyone on both tours thinks you’re a dick.”
“And they call you a bitch, apparently.”
I laugh. “The Dick and the Bitch, coming this fall to NBC.”
Bowe laughs, uproariously loud. And I can’t help but smile.
“So what do you say, then? Do you want to play together or not?” he asks me. “My ankle is shot. My wrist never really fully recovered from my surgery two years ago. My back is killing me. I’m the oldest guy on the tour. But I still have some fire. And I know you do too. Plus, I know your game, Soto. I know you’re the best goddamn player tennis has. I don’t care how long you’ve been off the court. If I can hit a few balls off you—if I can learn from you—I want to.”
I look around the room, thinking, trying to come up with a reason to say no. But the truth is, he is my best shot at refining my game in time. And that has to be the most important thing. That has to outweigh everything else. “Fine,” I say. “Yes. When are you back in town?”
“I play Frankfurt on Monday; I fly straight home to L.A. after. How about the Sunday I’m back, first thing, we can get started. I’ll come to you.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say. “Javier will join. And what about you? Who’s coaching you now? Still Gardner?”
“Uh, no,” he says. “Pete’s gone on to Washington Lomal, of all people. It’s just me now. No coach.”
I let the silence last too long. Bowe chimes in after a few seconds. “It’s fine. He stuck by me as long as he could. I know what I am, Soto. I’ll see you next week.”
After I hang up the phone, I sit there holding on to the receiver, not yet letting it go.
MID-NOVEMBER
Two months until Melbourne
I am sitting outside on the court, stretching, at eight-thirty in the morning.
The air is dewy and brisk. The sun has begun to warm up the day. I keep looking over my shoulder at the driveway, wondering when Bowe will arrive.
My father paces by the sideline. “He’s already two minutes late.”
“Maybe this whole thing was a mistake,” I say.
My father whips his head in my direction. “I thought Bowe was a mistake the second Gwen suggested it.”
Another few minutes go by as I stand up and stretch out my shoulders and my arms, glancing at the driveway one more time. My father looks at me. “You’re nervous,” he says. “But you shouldn’t be. You’re serving at a speed that the midtier players can’t hit. Chan, sure. Cortez or Antonovich, I think so. But that’s it. You’re quicker than you were even last week. You’re disguising your shots beautifully. And that’s just off a month and a half of training. You are playing at an elite level already.”
I look at him.
“And each day you’re getting better,” he adds. “Have you noticed that?”
I let go of my shoulder and stand up straighter. He’s right. At some point in my career, I’d stopped thinking that way. I let myself focus entirely on stats and records. But that had never been the real goal. I shake my head, recalibrating, stunned for a moment at just how easy it had been for me to forget the most basic ideals I grew up with.