I settle in at the baseline. I bounce the ball in place, and then I look over the court to see Carla crouched, waiting.
The sun is behind me—I can feel it on my neck. Which means it’s in Carla’s eyes. I serve the ball high and fast, knowing Perez will have a hard time tracking it. She loses sight of it, and the ball lands at her feet. She scrambles backward to hit it on the rise. Her return is too wide.
I hold the game, which means I am now only one away from winning the set and the match.
The crowd begins to cheer. I’ve won many of them over. I can see it when I look up at the stands.
And here’s the thing about arena sports—it’s not just about how good you are at the game. It’s about how good you are at feeling the crowd when they are with you and ignoring the crowd when they aren’t.
It’s about how swept up you can get in the momentum when winning, but also how defiant you can be when the tide turns against you.
Back in the eighties, I was great when the crowd was with me. But I was also great when they weren’t. I did not need their love or their approval. I just needed the goddamn trophy.
Sadly for Carla, she does not have that single-mindedness. Not today.
I’m at break point within six serves.
Carla tosses the ball up into the air and then slams it across the net. It comes barreling toward me. I return it down the sideline, out of her reach.
Suddenly, my father is pumping his fist in the air.
Carla drops her racket onto the ground. I fall back onto the court in relief.
I’m through to the round of sixteen.
At breakfast the next morning, Bowe is sitting outside on the hotel patio, eating scrambled eggs and toast.
He has a placid look on his face that reminds me of the surface of the ocean—which is to say it looks tranquil, but you know there are sharks mauling baby seals underneath.
I toy with the idea of turning around so that Bowe can’t see me.
He lost to O’Hara yesterday. It was not just a defeat but a bloodbath. I saw the recap last night on the sports channels. Briggs Lakin said, “Someone come out here and put Bowe Huntley down.”
I can’t afford to sit here consoling him. I have a match to focus on. My father is meeting me in the lobby at eight to practice.
“You can at least not stare,” Bowe says suddenly, not even lifting his head up but clearly speaking directly to me.
“I wasn’t staring,” I say. “I was…trying to gauge whether you wanted company.”
Bowe laughs without a smile. “You were trying to figure out if you could ignore me because you’re afraid losing is contagious.”
I look at him. He looks handsome in his regular clothes—a pair of jeans and a black pocket T-shirt, his hair combed. It’s like seeing an entirely different person.
I pick up my smoothie and walk over to his table. “I’m sorry you lost.”
I grab a chair and sit.
“Thank you,” he says. “That’s kind of you, given that I wouldn’t do the same.”
“Is that true?”
“One time, after McEnroe lost a match to Borg, I wouldn’t even look at him for the rest of clay season, in case he was bad luck.”
“And did you win a lot? That clay season?”
He cocks his head. “No.”
“I don’t actually think luck has much to do with any of this,” I say.
Bowe rolls his eyes. “If it wasn’t bad luck that got my ass handed to me yesterday, then what was it?” He puts his finger out before I say a word. “Don’t answer that.”
“It’s you,” I say. “Luck didn’t lose. You lost. Because you didn’t break his first service game like I told you to.”
“Oh, like it was that fucking easy?”
I shrug. “Could have been. If you used the platform stance Javier told you to use. It had been working for you, and then I looked at the footage from last night and you’re using pinpoint again. Like a moron.”
Bowe shakes his head. “You’re lucky I’m on the first flight out of here. That way I can’t stick around to watch you get ripped to shreds by Cortez.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I say as I get up from the table. “I was just trying to help you.”
“Telling me what I should have done helps absolutely no one. You know, Carrie, you get a bad rap—but some of it is deserved.”
“Or maybe some little boys are too sensitive.”
Bowe looks up at me, his eyes narrow. “You are—”
“What?” I say, daring him.
“This whole thing, it’s just not worth it,” he says. “At all.”
“All right, fuck you kindly,” I say, and I walk away.
I barely look behind me as my father comes down out of the elevator with my kit. He is scanning the crowd but doesn’t spot me until I walk up to him. He has a huge smile on his face.
“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t see you over there. Were you celebrating?”
“Celebrating?” I ask.
His smile grows wider.
“Nicki Chan tore her ankle up against Antonovich. She’s out for the rest of the tournament.”
“No way,” I say.
My father nods.
“I could take this,” I say.
“Yes, you could.”
“I am going to take the whole goddamn tournament!” I say. “While she’s nursing a bum ankle from her bad form, I can set this whole thing back where it belongs.”
“Yes, you can, cari?o,” he says. “But not if you keep standing here bragging about it.”
* * *
—
I am in the entryway, just two steps from the court. I can hear the noise of the crowd. I can see, from my narrow vantage point, a sign in the far back of the arena that reads Take it to the finals, Carrie!
There are three people standing between Ingrid Cortez and me—the guard, my father, and her coach are acting as the buffer between us. I am glad for it.
Yesterday, she told one of the newspapers, “I expect a swift and decisive victory in my favor. But I will try not to make it too embarrassing for Soto.”
I hold my racket in my hand and play with the strings, making sure they are tight. I have seven more in my kit. I bounce a few times on the balls of my feet, wearing my neon pink Break Points and a neon pink sweatband to pull my hair away from my forehead.
My father puts his hand on my shoulder. I can feel the weight of him there, the weight of his belief in me, his excitement.
When I was playing pro the first time around—that decade and a half of clawing my way to the top and staying there for as long as I could—I did not delight enough in the accomplishments. I would win and then move on to the next challenge.
But right now, as I turn back to take another look at the crowd, I know that, in at least one way, I have evolved.
My older self knows that you must stop—in the middle of the chaos—to take in the world around you. To breathe in deeply, smell the sunscreen and the rubber of the ball, let the breeze blow across your neck, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. In this respect, I love the way the world has aged me.
I inhale and hold the breath; I let it fill my lungs and raise my chest. And then I blow it out, ready to go.
I wipe the tops of my shoes and walk out onto the court.
SOTO VS. CORTEZ
1995 Australian Open
Round of Sixteen
I crouch behind the service line, waiting for Ingrid Cortez’s first serve.
She is over six feet tall. Her incisors are long and sharp, and when she smiles, she looks like she is about to bite.
She tosses the ball into the air and serves to the far-right edge of the box. I hit a groundstroke back. We rally for the point, and I take it. Love–15.
Another serve, another rally. My point. Love–30.
I look up at my father and see a small smile on his lips.
Cortez serves again, this time shorter, tighter. I hit it to the baseline. She hits it back soft. I win the point. Love–40. I’m already at break point in the first game.
She underestimated me. And it is a thrill to set her straight.
The sun has begun to burn, slow and hot. The crowd mumbles. I look up in the players’ box to see my father. He is nodding at me, willing me to take the game. Then I look in the next section over, and Bowe is taking a seat.
He has canceled his flight, I guess. And come here, to watch me play Cortez.