People act like you can never forget your own name, but if you’re not paying attention, you can veer so incredibly far away from everything you know about yourself to the point where you stop recognizing what they call you.
“Every day,” I say, “I’m playing better than the day before.”
My father nods. “So do not live in the future, cari?o. Don’t play the first match in Melbourne months before you’ve gotten there. We don’t know what kind of player you’ll be that day.”
“I will be two months better of a player than I am today,” I say.
A Jeep pulls into the driveway and Bowe gets out. He looks older and grayer than the last time I saw him, weathered—like a leather wallet that has lightened and wrinkled at the folds. He sees us and waves as he heads toward the court.
My father pats me on the back. “Let’s see what this thug over here has got left in him. He’s already ten minutes late.”
“Be nice, Dad.”
“I will be perfectly nice to his face, you know that,” he says. “But it is my God-given right to complain about him behind his back.”
* * *
—
One of the great injustices of this rigged world we live in is that women are considered to be depleting with age and men are somehow deepening.
But Bowe swiftly puts any of my resentments about that to rest. He looks like shit and I take him in straight sets.
When the match is over, he sits on the ground, staring at the racket in his hand. “You demolished me,” he says.
“My daughter is one of the very best in the world,” my father reminds him.
“Yes, I know,” Bowe says. “But still.”
My father rolls his eyes and goes inside to get more water. I sit down next to Bowe.
“Today went well for me,” I say. “I’m not going to lie.”
Bowe looks up. His brown eyes are so big and wide, and his hair is cut close to his head, gray creeping across his temples. His skin is sun-beaten. It has been a big ten years.
“You played well,” he says. “You’re not all that far from the Carrie I knew.”
I am surprised by his magnanimity. I would not possess it in his position.
“Thank you,” I say. “There is still a long way to go. Still seems like I’m running through mud out there.”
Bowe nods. “I know what you mean.”
“And it is not enough to be good,” I say. “It’s not even enough to be great. I have to be…”
“You have to be better than you’ve ever been,” Bowe says, “to go up against this crop of women. I’ve seen some of them. Chan’s a killer, but Cortez is deadly too.”
“I know,” I say, feeling myself tense up.
“Look, I’ve been in this part of my career for years now. Competing against people half my age, practically. Some of these women you’re going to face are twenty years younger than us. They have brand-new knees—fresh from the factory. Brand-new everything, not a stress fracture on them.”
“That is not helping—”
“Brand-new hearts too. They haven’t been shattered yet, haven’t taken a beating over and over. New hearts bounce back faster.”
“You’re not—”
“You know what my heart is—no, my soul? It’s like an old mattress that’s been bounced on so many times that now, if you put your hand on it, it leaves a permanent imprint. That’s what my soul is now. Just a big old mattress showing every dent.”
“Were you always so good at self-pity?”
Bowe laughs. “Why do you think I drank so much?”
I turn from him and let a tennis ball roll away from me, just watching it drift farther and farther into the court.
I say, “Listen, I can’t get better unless you get better. I need to play somebody good, and I need it now. So quit it with the crying and try to play the game.”
Bowe looks away. “I don’t know. It might be better to get someone else. Somebody on the WTA.”
I sigh. “It’s not that simple.” I look at the net, rattling in the breeze, and then back at him. “Nobody on the WTA will play me.”
Bowe’s eyes go wide. “Are you serious?”
“Bowe, I’ve heard it enough times; I don’t need it from you too. Nobody likes me––I get it.”
Bowe catches my gaze. “I always liked you.”
I roll my eyes. “Being attracted to me and liking me are two different things.”