“If you want to.”
Bowe rolls his eyes and growls. He puts a pillow over his head, but I can still hear him bitching. “You are so annoying,” he says. “Just say you like me, for fuck’s sake!”
I pull the pillow off his head. I want to say it. I try to make myself.
“What do you want for breakfast?” I say. “I’ll call down.”
* * *
—
Bowe and I spend the next few days together, walking around Paris. My father, who I still have barely spoken to, stays in his room. Gwen’s office booked us all flights home the day after the final.
Tonight, Bowe and I are at a French bistro around the corner from my hotel. The women’s final is playing on the television by the bar: Chan vs. Antonovich.
I’m wearing one of Bowe’s baseball caps and a pair of sunglasses. We are sitting out on the patio. Part of me wants to run back to the hotel and hide, to not be in public right now. But if people recognize us, they don’t acknowledge it. And I want to be here, at this bistro, with Bowe.
We can see the TV from our table. At first, we are both pretending not to watch, but by the time Nicki has won the first set, we have given up all pretenses.
Bowe grabs my hand as the second set begins. I don’t pull it away, even when our food arrives. Antonovich takes the second set while we eat our steak frites.
“Maybe Antonovich has a shot,” Bowe says.
I frown at him. “I almost wish Cortez had made it past Antonovich in the semis,” I say. “I think Cortez could beat Nicki here. But Antonovich…I don’t know. I don’t know.”
He nods.
Forty-five minutes later, Nicki takes the third set, 6–4. She drops to the ground, victorious and tearful.
That’s the match, that’s the tournament, that’s my record. Shattered.
Bowe looks at me, but he knows there’s nothing to say. We watch as the officials hand Nicki Chan the cup.
All of the coverage is in French, so I only half understand the commentators. But it’s clear enough when I hear, “Elle a maintenant dépásse Carrie Soto…” She has overtaken Carrie Soto.
Bowe catches my eye. And for a moment, I feel the nearly irresistible urge to flip the table we are sitting at.
“She deserves it,” I say. “She played a brutal match.”
Down the sidewalk, I see my father walking toward me. And I know that I’m supposed to be mad at him, or he’s supposed to be mad at me. But I don’t really care very much at the moment. Rather, I’m overwhelmed by a sense of inevitability: Of course he would come find me.
“Hi,” he says as he makes his way to us on the sidewalk patio. He puts one hand on my shoulder and then the other on Bowe’s. “You both did a great job here in France.”
He looks me in the eye, and I don’t look away. It feels as if the two of us are cycling through decades of moments together, everything that’s led to this. My unparalleled achievement. Now hers.
“I have not made peace with it,” I say. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Ya lo sé, pichona,” he says.
I look up at the television. Nicki is crying, her shoulders heaving, actual tears falling down her face.
“Come sit,” I say.
My father nods and pulls a chair over to join us.
The waitress comes by, and Bowe orders my father a drink. Dad leans over and whispers in my ear, “Nothing will ever diminish what you did and have done.”
I do not want to cry, so I can’t really think too hard about whether I believe him. Instead, I take the moment and pin it to my heart, as if it will wait for me to come back to it later.
I smile, and I pat his hand, and then I change the subject.
Bowe, my father, and I spend the night at that table. We drink club sodas and ginger ales. Bowe laments having to drop out of Wimbledon. My dad tells Bowe that he’ll coach him full-time for the US Open, if Bowe is healed by then.
Bowe reaches his hand out and they shake on it—and I notice how gently my father moves, so as not to hurt Bowe’s ribs.
When it gets late, Bowe pays the check, and my father raises his eyebrows at me—as if to pose the question that I’ve told him a million times not to ask. I nod: the only answer he’ll get. And he looks at me and grins, a simple, bright smile.
For a moment, I’m bowled over by just how old he looks. When did this happen? But he looks a happy old, a satisfied old. He’s had a lot of heartbreak in his life, and yet there is so much he’s gotten right.