He turns to go.

  “Do you even have a room?” I ask. “You were supposed to leave this morning.”

  “I’ll get another one,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”

  There’s a pullout sofa in the living area of my suite. But I know that at some point in the night, he would knock on the bedroom door. Or worse yet, I’d slip into his bed on the couch.

  When I play out the scenario in fast-forward, I can barely stand to watch it. He’ll say something wonderful at some point, and I’ll start to believe he means it, despite all evidence to the contrary. And then I’ll start to like him or love him or feel something that I swear I’ve never felt before. And then one day, when I’m in too deep, he’ll stop liking me or loving me, for one reason or another. And I’ll be left with a hole in my heart.

  “All right, then,” I say. “Good luck. See you in Paris.”

  Transcript

  SportsHour USA

  The Mark Hadley Show

  Mark Hadley: And Carrie Soto out before the quarterfinals? What do we make of that?

  Gloria Jones: I think it was an excellent showing.

  Briggs Lakin: It was what we all knew it would be, which was a failed attempt at a comeback.

  Jones: I mean, yes. Ultimately, if she’s going to be a contender to win a Slam this year, you’d want to see her get past the round of sixteen.

  Lakin: If she can’t make it to the final in Melbourne when Nicki Chan’s gone home with a bum ankle, she has no shot at a Slam title this year. Especially once the Beast comes back. And you all know I’m no big fan of Chan. I can’t get over the grunting. But she is the best player in the world right now. So this was Soto’s chance to take a title, and it’s over.

  Jones: Yes, that last part, I agree with.

  Hadley: Look at that! For once, we all agree.

  Lakin: Turning to the quarterfinals, I think Cortez can take this thing to the end.

  Jones: Absolutely not. Antonovich is going to stop her.

  Hadley: Well, Chan’s no spring chicken. Who takes the reins after the Beast is done? This could be Cortez’s or Antonovich’s moment. To take a Slam while she’s out. To show us what the future of tennis looks like.

  On the flight home to Los Angeles, my father wants to go over what went wrong, how I can do better next time.

  “Sí, pero, I played poorly, Dad,” I say. “I got cocky. I assumed I was back to my old level of playing, and I wasn’t. Cortez got the best of me. And now, anyone who saw that match knows that they can run me down.”

  “Sí y…” my father says, gesturing his hand toward me to encourage me to keep talking.

  “So…I need to work on it.”

  My father smiles. “We need to work on it. We need to think through multiple strategies with each player and react more quickly once we understand what they are up to. And we need to get your volley game to the best it’s ever been, so you don’t have to rely on the groundstrokes, if you feel yourself starting to lose your power.” There is a buoyancy to his voice—an excitement—that irritates me.

  “Yes, but please stop smiling about it.”

  “I cannot!” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “This is an exciting time. It is phase two. We have learned where we can improve, and now we will. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the world is ours.”

  We are however many thousand miles up in the air. It is night and there are no birds up here. Only defeat and jet lag in a pressurized cabin.

  “Yeah, está bien,” I say. “Está bien.”

  * * *

  —

  We land and make our way home, where I sleep for twelve hours. I had planned to spend the next day alone in my room with the curtains drawn, ordering expensive pizza. But when I open my eyes, I make myself get up and turn on the television. I want to confirm what I already suspect.

  Ingrid Cortez is on my television screen, holding up the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup. She’s won the goddamn final against Antonovich.

  She looks so happy, standing there. Like the young kid she is—so full of joy and life and eagerness. Her face is beaming; her skin is flushed.

  When did I lose that? The delight of success? When did winning become something I needed in order to survive? Something I did not enjoy having, so much as panic without?

  Before I know what I am doing, I am in shorts and a T-shirt, knocking on my father’s door at eight-thirty in the morning on a rest day.

  He opens the door in his robe and slippers, wiping the crust out of his eyes. But when he sees me, he perks right up.

  I say, “Let’s play.”

  “All right,” he says. “Let me gather my notes on what we need to work on.”

  I shake my head. “No. Just me and you. Playing a match. For fun. No drills.”

  My father smiles and claps his hands in delight. “¡Me encanta el plan!”

  He puts his hand up, ready for a high five. I laugh and slap it.

  “Dame cinco minutos,” my dad says. “Y después jugamos.”

  When he comes out, there is a bounce to his step and a grin on his face. He takes the first serve, and I kick his ass.

  FEBRUARY 1995

  Three and a half months until Paris

  The sun is barely in the sky, and yet I am standing on the court in front of my father, already warmed up.

  “This is,” he says, “the beginning of clay season. We put the past behind us. We look forward to Paris. ¿Estamos de acuerdo?”

  “Sí, está bien,” I say. The loss in Melbourne still burns. The only thing that will cure it is a win at Roland-Garros.

  As the reporters so kindly reminded me, I have only won the French Open once. Twelve years ago. The other nineteen of my Slams have been on hard courts or grass. But Roland-Garros is red clay.

  Clay surfaces are softer; they absorb more of the power of the ball. Which means everything about them is slower. Players run slower, the ball bounces slower, and the ball bounces higher, too, which gives my opponents more time to react to my shots. Clay cuts into my advantage at almost every juncture. It neutralizes my speed, dulls my accuracy; even my angles don’t have quite the same effect.

  Clay is not for quick players. It favors the heavy hitters. It is a game of muscle.

  Clay is Nicki’s surface. And I sincerely hope her ankle’s too fucked to play it.

  “Are you ready to work?” my father says, holding a tennis ball in his hand.

  “Obvio que sí.”

  He throws the ball at me. I catch it. Then he begins to walk away, toward the driveway.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him.

  He turns back to me, summoning me with his hand. “Today, hija, is an adventure.”

  I sigh as I begin to follow.

  “You can leave your racket and the tennis balls,” he says.

  I look at him sideways. “Do I need my running shoes?”

  He bobs his head from side to side. “No, I do not think so.”

  “Where are we going?” I ask as he opens the driver’s-side door of the green Range Rover I bought him two years ago.

  He says, “There are three and a half months until the French Open.”

  I open the passenger-side door and get in. “Yes, I’m aware.”

  He turns the ignition. “It’s a clay surface…”

  He puts the car in reverse and turns to look behind him. Oh no.

  I say, “No. Dad, no. De ninguna manera.”

  “Carrie, sí,” he says.

  “No, ni lo sueñes, papá.”

  “Lo siento, pero ya lo estás haciendo.”

  “What am I? Twelve again? No necesito hacer esto.”

  “Yes, you do,” he says. “It’s exactly what you need to do.”

  I can see a tiny smile erupt on his face as he turns left out of the driveway. To the beach.

  * * *

  —

  I stand there, looking out onto the ocean in Santa Monica, the soft, hot sand under my feet.

  “You start here,” my dad says. “I’ll drive up the coast exactly five miles and meet you there.”

  I am once again about to run in the fucking sand.

  And not wet sand either. Dry, coarse sand that breaks apart under your weight, your feet sinking with each step.

  It hurts. Your calves, your hamstrings, your quads, your glutes. All of it.

  They make it look way too easy on Baywatch.

  I look around and sigh. Behind me, teenagers in oversized T-shirts and ripped jeans are walking on the paved path that follows the beach. A few women in neon bike shorts and sports bras glide by on Rollerblades, listening to Walkmans.

  What I wouldn’t give to run on that track instead of the sand beside it.

  I turn my head north, focused on the miles of beach before me.

  “¿Y bien?” my father says.

  Muscle fatigue leads to a lack of agility. You can’t hit your marks as accurately. Your shots don’t have the same sharpness. You can’t get high enough to hit your angles.

  He is right. I need to do this.

  “Está bien,” I say. “Five miles. I’ll see you soon.”

  My father gives me a captain’s salute and then gets back in his car. I watch as he makes his way onto PCH and then drives away from me.

  I look down at the sand. I take in a deep breath and start jogging.

  It is effortless at first; it always is. And then suddenly, my breath is thicker, my legs feel heavier.

  Forty minutes in, I am convinced I must have run the whole five miles already. My father is messing with me; he must have driven ten miles out.

  My thighs are killing me. I’m panting. But I can’t slow down—I have to keep the pace my father gave me. I have to be able to do this. This run is something I can control.

  The sand is growing hotter, burning the bottoms of my feet. The glare of the sun is blinding. Sweat drenches my forehead, getting in my eyes, soaking my T-shirt.

  I clear my mind; I listen to my breath. And for a moment, I stop thinking about the misery of what I’m doing. I think, only, of Nicki Chan.

  She is the daughter of Chinese parents, born in London, who picked up a racket at the age of six. A left-handed player, she had an advantage from the beginning. And she was good, maybe even great, at various points throughout her junior career. She turned pro and did fine. I remember playing her. I remember beating her. But then, in 1989, she took half a year off from the tour and completely revamped her game with a coach named Tim Brooks.

  Nicki’s groundstrokes became brutal, her serve deadly. She no longer played what we call percentage tennis—always hitting the safe shot. Instead, she opted for the wild, risky shots, each one a cannonball, her stamina unparalleled.

  In her new incarnation, she’s a player who dives for the ball, jumps high into the air. She goes into splits on clay, slides like a baseball player into first base.

  Her form isn’t always perfect; her shots are sometimes ugly. But she does the one thing we are all out there to do: win.

  Unfortunately for her, it’s a bitch on her body. She injures herself more often than most players—a twisted ankle, a sprained elbow, a weak knee, a back problem. She is thirty-one now, and it’s hard to say how much longer she’s got. But there is immense beauty in her game too, the wild desperation of it, the brutality. She is not a dancer. She is a gladiator.

  I wonder what she’s doing at this exact moment. I wonder if her ankle is healing. Will she be ready for Paris? Or is this the injury that takes her down for good?

  Does she know yet which it is? Is she scared? Is she as anxious as I am to see what this year holds? Or is she thrilled by it all?

  I hope at least a part of her is thrilled. It is all so thrilling.

  “That was abysmal,” my father says as I finally approach where he is standing on the beach. “It should have been at least ten minutes faster. We come back again mañana.”

  I can barely breathe. “Bueno,” I gasp. “Mañana.”

  * * *

  —

  My life becomes:

  Five miles in the sand every other morning.

  Forty-yard sprints on the days off.

  Hitting against a machine spitting balls at me that are as fast as 80 miles per hour.

  Playing against hitters for hours on end.

  My father clocking my serves with a radar gun and shaking his head until I hit at least 120 miles per hour.

  And then, when the sun begins to set and evening takes hold, watching tape.

  My father and I watch my matches in Melbourne to figure out what I could have done better. We watch Cortez, Perez, Odette Moretti, Natasha Antonovich, Suze Carter, Celine Nystrom, Petra Zetov, and Andressa Machado at the IGA Classic in Oklahoma City.

  My father’s jaw tenses as we watch Natasha Antonovich dominate in the final against Moretti. He doesn’t have to say anything—I already know his concern.

  Antonovich plays like I used to. She’s fast, with a full arsenal of shots. It will not be easy for me to go up against her in Paris, if I have to.

  “I think we should go to Indian Wells,” my father says as we turn off the TV one night. “See these players up close again, look for their weak spots. Train to defeat them.”

  “All right,” I say. “Sure.”

  My father stands up to go to his house. “Did you see Bowe got to the quarters in Milan?” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding.

  “We gotta get you two back on the court. The better he gets, the better you’ll play. Until one day, you will play the greatest tennis you’ve ever played in your life, pichona.”

  “No lo sé, papá,” I say.

  “I’m telling you, hija, the greatest match of your career is ahead of you.”

  It is such a kind thing for him to say—exactly the sort of thing a father like him would tell a daughter like me. Full of heart and love and belief, and maybe a little bit untrue.

  MARCH 1995

  Three months until Paris

  My father, Gwen, and I pack our suitcases into Gwen’s SUV and head west for Indian Wells.

  Gwen is driving, and I am in the passenger seat. TLC is playing on the radio, and Gwen’s stereo system makes me feel like they are right here in the car.

  My father is in the back seat and falls asleep five minutes after we get onto the 10.

  Gwen turns the radio down. “Look,” she says, her voice low. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay…” I say as we drive through downtown L.A.

  “Elite Gold wants to pause on the photo shoot and commercials, for now.”

  I turn to Gwen. “But I made it to the round of sixteen.”

  She checks her mirrors and moves into the fast lane—which is almost at a standstill. “They were impressed with your showing in Melbourne. But they said clay is your worst surface and they don’t want to run a bunch of commercials about what a legend you are off of two…”

  “Failures.”

  “They used the word defeats.”

  “I haven’t lost the French Open yet, and they are already counting me out?”

  “I told them they were making a mistake. I said, ‘You have a contract with the most talked-about athlete of the year. You want to shoot her now so that when she wins this summer you have the campaign of the decade.’ ”

  “But they didn’t buy it.”

  “They would rather wait and see.”

  I kick her car door, and Gwen glares at me. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Look, you and I both know Melbourne was the beginning. You will win one by the end of the year.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I ask her.

  “I believe in you. I think if you say something can be done, it will be done.”

  I close my eyes for a moment and wonder how to tell her how much I needed to hear that. But I cannot find the words.

  “So, Bowe,” Gwen says, looking at me for a split second before looking back at the road. “How did that all go? He said he got a lot out of it. Was it good? Did it help?”

  “It was great, actually,” I say. “It was really helpful to have a sparring partner at that level.”

  Gwen raises her eyebrow. “And that’s all?”

  I look at her. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “I saw a photo of you two out to dinner in Melbourne. And people are saying he came to your matches. I was wondering if…”

  I shake my head. “Mind your own business.”

  “Oh, c’mon!” she says. “I could tell that Bowe maybe still had a thing for you. I could tell.”

  I turn to face the passenger-side window and watch us crawl through traffic. We are passing through the industrial side of Los Angeles at a snail’s pace. “You’re creating a soap opera in your head.”

  “I really think you two would be good together. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s such a good person—just like someone else I know.”

  “Gwen, give it up.”

  “I just think it would be nice if you, you know, had someone in your life.”

  My hand is on the door of the car, and I find myself tightening my fist. “Are you dissatisfied in your own relationship?” I ask. “Is that why you’re prying into my mine?”

  “I’m not prying. I just want to see you happy. Is that wrong? To think it would do you good to be with someone for a change?”

  I want to open the door and jump out on the side of the freeway. “You don’t get laid enough, Gwen,” I say, keeping my voice low, not wanting to wake up my father. “I’m going to tell Michael he needs to step it up so you get out of my business.”

  Gwen rolls her eyes and waves me off. “Well, excuse me for wanting you to be loved.”