Open: An Autobiography

While talking to her I go skiing around the living room in my sweat socks. I schuss across the wood floors. Brad pleads with me to stop, to sit in a chair. He’s sure I’m going to break a leg or tweak a knee. I settle into an easy cross-country motion around the perimeter of the room. He smiles and tells Perry, We’re going to have a good tournament. It’s going to be a good Wimbledon.

Sssh, I tell him.

Then I lock myself in a back room.

Listen, I tell Stefanie, back in Key Biscayne you said you didn’t want any misunderstandings with me. Well, I don’t want any misunderstandings with you either. So I need to tell you, I just need to say before we go any further, that I think you are beautiful. I respect you, I admire you, and I would absolutely love to get to know you better. That’s my goal. That’s my only agenda. That’s where I am. Tell me this is possible. Tell me we can go to dinner.

No.

Please.

It’s not possible - not here.

Not here. OK. Can we go somewhere else?

No. I have a boyfriend.

I think: the boyfriend. Still. I’ve read about him. Race-car driver. The same boyfriend she’s had for six years. I try to come up with something clever to say, some way of telling her to open herself to the possibility of being with me. With the silence stretching to an uncomfortable length, the moment sliding away, all I can come up with is this: Six years is a long time.

Yes, she says. Yes it is.

If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. I’ve lived that.

She doesn’t say anything. But it’s the way she doesn’t say anything. I’ve struck a chord.

I continue. It can’t be exactly what you’re looking for. I mean, I don’t want to make any as-sumptions - but.

I hold my breath. She doesn’t contradict me.

I say, I don’t want to be disrespectful, or take liberties, but just, can you just, please, could you, maybe, I don’t know, just get to know me?

No.

Coffee?

I can’t be in public with you. It wouldn’t be right.

What about letters? Can I write you?

She laughs.

Can I send you stuff? Can I let you know me before you decide if you want to get to know me?

No.

Not even letters?

There is someone who reads my mail.

I see.

I knock my fist against my forehead. Think, Andre, think.

I say, OK, look, how about this. You’re playing your next tournament in San Francisco. I’ll be there practicing with Brad. You said you love San Francisco. Let’s meet in San Francisco.

This is - possible.

This is - possible?

I wait for her to elaborate. She doesn’t.

So can I call you, or do you just want to call me?

Call me after this tournament, she says. Let’s both play, and call me when you finish the tournament.

She gives me her cell phone number. I write it on a paper napkin, kiss it, and put it in my tennis bag.

I REACH THE SEMIS AND PLAY RAFTER. I beat him in straight sets. I don’t have to wonder who’s waiting for me in the final. It’s Pete. As always, Pete. I stagger back to the house, thinking shower, food, sleep. The phone rings - I’m sure it’s Stefanie, wishing me luck against Pete, confirming our San Francisco date.

But it’s Brooke. She’s in London and asks to come by and see me.

As I hang up the phone and turn, Perry is there, inches from my face.

Andre, please tell me you said no. Please tell me you’re not letting that woman come here.

She’s coming. In the morning.

Before you play the final at Wimbledon?

It’ll be fine.

SHE ARRIVES AT TEN, wearing an enormous British hat with a wide, floppy brim and plastic flowers. I give her a quick tour of the house. We compare it to the houses she and I used to rent, back in the day. I ask if she’d like something to drink.

Do you have any tea?

Sure.

I hear Brad cough in the next room. I know what the cough means. It’s the morning of the final. An athlete should never change his routine on the morning of a final. I’ve had coffee every morning of the tournament. I should be having coffee now.

But I want to be a good host. I make a pot of tea, and we drink it at a table under the kitchen window. We talk without saying anything. I ask if she has anything special she wanted to tell me. She misses me, she says. She wanted to tell me that.

She sees a stack of magazines on the corner of the table, copies of a recent Sports Illustrated. I’m on the cover. The headline is Suddenly Andre. (I’m suddenly starting to hate that word, suddenly.) Tournament officials sent them over, I tell her. They want me to autograph copies for fans and Wimbledon officials and staffers.

Brooke picks up one of the magazines, stares at my photo. I watch her stare. I think of that day thirteen years ago, sitting with Perry in his bedroom, beneath hundreds of Sports Illustrated covers, dreaming about Brooke. Now here she is, I’m on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Perry is a former producer of her TV show, and we’re all barely speaking.

She reads the headline aloud. Suddenly Andre. She reads it again. Suddenly Andre?

She looks up. Oh, Andre.

What?

Oh, Andre. I’m so so sorry.

Why?

Here it is, your big moment, and they make it all about me.

· · ·