I sit next to him. “Are you in a lot of pain?” I ask.
Bowe nods. “It hurts like hell. I can barely breathe without feeling like my chest is ripping open.”
“Are you taking anything?”
Bowe shakes his head. “No, and I’m not going to. I didn’t kick alcohol just to take up worse stuff. I’ll deal with it.”
“What did the doctor say?”
Bowe frowns. “I’m out for weeks, at least. Wimbledon’s fucked.” He shakes his head. “The season is going to be winding down before I’m back on the court.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I grab his hand and hold it. He looks down at our hands together, and I pull mine back. “You will be ready for the US Open. I know it. And Wimbledon isn’t even your best surface. You’re shit at anticipating the ball on grass.”
“Yes, thank you,” Bowe says. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What I’m saying is that the US Open is your best chance. And you will be better by then.”
Bowe nods.
“Plenty of time to fuck shit up.”
Bowe laughs.
“I am sorry,” I say. “About saying you were embarrassing yourself.”
“I shouldn’t have lost my cool about any of it,” Bowe says. “You play how you want to play––that’s your business.”
“Sometimes I think you’re the only person who’s harder to deal with than me,” I say.
Bowe rolls his eyes. “Not even close.”
I laugh. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I know, I know,” he says. “It’s not the end of the world.”
I stand up.
“Are you really sticking around?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says. “I meant what I told the reporters. I think you can win it, Carrie. I really do.”
“I hate,” I say, “how much that means to me.”
Bowe laughs. “Yeah, look, I get it,” he says. “I hate that I care so much what all of you Sotos think of me.”
We are quiet for a moment, and then Bowe begins to speak. But before he can get a word out, I say, “I should go.”
He looks thrown but quickly nods. “Good night, Soto. Rest up.”
* * *
—
My father and I are at the practice courts after a sweltering session against a hitter. I’m drenched in sweat, and my father is sitting on the bench beside me, running through his plan for defeating Natasha Antonovich.
I’ve never played her before—only seen the devastation of her speed from the seats.
“She’s quick,” my father says. “The clay barely slows her down. It doesn’t present the challenge for her that it does for others.”
“So I have to be faster,” I say.
My father shakes his head. “No. That is not what I’m saying.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do not lose your temper,” he says, “when I say this.”
“I’m not going to lose my temper.”
My father raises his eyebrow at me.
“I won’t,” I say, shifting my tone. “I promise.”
“You are not as quick as she is,” he says. “Maybe once you were. At your height, perhaps. But not now. Certainly not on clay.”
I can feel my heart start to beat in my chest, my pulse rising.
“You have to be okay with that information, hija.”
My vision narrows; my mouth tightens.
“You are not the same person you were when you played six years ago, in ways both good and bad. Your body is not the same. Your mind is not the same. You have to acknowledge the areas where you are not as strong,” he says. “Even back then, clay was harder for you. We have to accept that. So that we can find another way.”
“Go on…” I say. I thump my racket against my thigh.
“I don’t want you trying to match her speed. What would be a better strategy?”
“I don’t know. Just tell me.”
“What do you have that she doesn’t?”
“Crow’s feet?” I say.
My father frowns. “Dale, hija.”
“Time on the court,” I say. “I have at least a decade of playing professional tennis over her.”
My father nods. “Exactly.”
“Just get to the point,” I say. “I don’t need the Socratic method.”
My father frowns again. “You have always excelled at shot selection and anticipation. You understand where the ball is going, how it will bounce. And you know how to construct a point—three, four, even five returns down the line. You have years of learning this. So let your body—which has done this a thousand times more than she has—guide you. You have instincts she doesn’t have yet. Use them.”