Open: An Autobiography

Her ranch was dotted with cottages, one of which was a movie theater. After a luncheon we wandered down there for a sneak preview of The Joy Luck Club, a quintessential chick flick, during which I thought I might expire of boredom. Then we all wandered over to another cottage, a music salon, with a grand piano under a window. We stood around eating and talking while David sat at the piano, playing a medley of torch songs. He made several attempts to get Barbra to sing. She wouldn’t. He persisted. She refused. He kept after her until it became awkward. I wished he would stop. Barbra’s elbows were resting on the piano, and her back was to me. I saw her stiffen. She was clearly petrified about performing in front of other people.

Not five minutes later, however, she let fly a few bars. The sound filled the room from the rafters to the floorboards. Everyone stopped talking. Glasses shook. Flatware rattled. The bones in my ribs and wrist vibrated. I briefly thought someone had put one of Barbra’s albums on a Bose sound system and turned the volume up full blast. I couldn’t believe that a human being was capable of producing that much sound, that a human voice could pervade every square inch of a room.

From that moment I was even more intrigued by Barbra. The idea that she possessed such a devastating instrument, such a powerful talent, and couldn’t use it freely, for pleasure, was fascinating. And familiar. And depressing. We met soon after that day. She invited me to the ranch. We shared a pizza and talked for hours, discovering many things in common. She was a tortured perfectionist who hated doing something at which she excelled. And yet, despite years of semiretirement, despite all her self-doubts and nagging fears, she admitted that she was pondering a comeback to the concert stage. I urged her to do it. I told her it was wrong to deprive the world of that voice, that astonishing voice. Above all, I told her that it would be dangerous to surrender to fear. Fears are like gateway drugs, I said. You give in to a small one, and soon you’re giving in to bigger ones. So what if she didn’t want to perform?

She had to.

Naturally I felt like a hypocrite every time I said this to Barbra. In my own struggles with fear and perfectionism, I was losing more than I won. I talked to her the way I talked to reporters: I told her things I knew to be true, and things I hoped to be true, most of which I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe and act on.

After we’d spent one long spring afternoon playing tennis, I told Barbra about a new singer I’d seen in Vegas, a woman with a big voice not unlike Barbra’s. I asked, Do you want to hear her?

Sure.

I brought her out to my car and put in a CD by this new sensation, a Canadian named Céline Dion. Barbra listened closely, biting her thumbnail. I could tell she was thinking: I can do that. She was picturing herself back in the game. Again, I felt helpful, but also like a raging hypocrite.

My sense of hypocrisy reached a crescendo when Barbra finally did push herself to perform. There I was, front row - wearing a black baseball cap. My hairpiece was malfunctioning again, and I feared what people would think and say. Beyond being a hypocrite that night, I felt a slave to fear.

More often than not, Barbra and I laugh at the shock and scandal our dates cause. We agree that we’re good for each other, and so what if she’s twenty-eight years older? We’re simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo - another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava.

Still, if I’m fatigued, if I’m not in the right mood, as is the case at Wimbledon, then the public belittling can sting. And Barbra plays into the hands of the belittlers by telling a reporter that I’m a Zen master. Newspapers have a field day with this comment. I begin to hear the Zen master quote constantly; it briefly replaces Image Is Everything. I don’t understand the reaction, maybe because I don’t know what a Zen master is. I can only assume it’s a good thing, since Barbra’s a friend.

BRUSHING ASIDE THE SUBJECT OF BARBRA, avoiding newspapers and TV, I stay on task at the 1993 Wimbledon. After surviving Karbacher, I beat João Cunha-Silva, from Por-tugal, Patrick Rafter, from Australia, then Richard Krajicek, from the Netherlands. I’m in the quarters, facing Pete. As always, it’s Pete. I wonder how my wrist can possibly hold up against his serve, which he’s developed into a force. But Pete’s suffering his own aches and pains. His shoulder is sore, his game is a tad off. Or so they say. You’d never know it the way he comes out against me. He wins the first set in less time than I spent getting dressed for the match. He wins the second set just as fast.

Going to be a short day, I tell myself. I look up at my box, and there’s Barbra, flashes going off around her. I think: Is this really my life?