Open: An Autobiography

They put a mask over my nose and mouth. Breathe deeply, they say. My eyelids are heavy. I fight to keep them open, fight against the loss of control. Don’t go away, Gil. Don’t leave me. I stare at Gil’s black eyes, above his surgical mask, watching, unblinking. Gil is here, I tell myself. Gil’s got this. Gil’s on duty. Everything’s going to be all right. I let my eyes close, let a kind of mist swallow me, and a half second later I’m waking and Gil is leaning over me, saying the wrist was worse than they thought. Much worse. But they cleaned it out, Andre, and we’ll hope for the best. That’s all we can do, right? Hope for the best.

I TAKE UP RESIDENCE on the green chenille double-stuffed goosedown couch, remote in one hand, phone in the other. The surgeon says I must keep my wrist elevated for several days, so I lie with it propped on a large, hard pillow. Though I’m on powerful pain pills, I still feel wounded, worried, vulnerable. At least I have something to distract me. A woman. A friend of Kenny G’s wife, Lyndie.

I met Kenny G through Michael Bolton, whom I met while playing Davis Cup. We were all at the same hotel. Then, out of the blue, Lyndie phoned me and said she’d met the perfect woman.

Well, I like perfect.

I think you two will really hit it off.

Why?

She’s beautiful, brilliant, sophisticated, funny.

I don’t think so. I’m still trying to get over Wendi. Plus, I don’t do setups.

You’ll do this setup. Her name is Brooke Shields.

I’ve heard of her.

What have you got to lose?

Plenty.

Andre.

I’ll think about it. What’s her number?

You can’t phone her. She’s in South Africa, doing a film.

She must have a phone.

Nope. She’s in the middle of nowhere. She’s in a tent, or a hut, in the bush. You can only reach her by fax.

She gave me Brooke’s fax number and asked for mine.

I don’t have a fax. It’s the only gadget I don’t have in the house.

I gave her Philly’s fax number.

Then, just before my surgery, I got a call from Philly.

You have a fax here at my house - from Brooke Shields?

And so it began. Faxes back and forth, a long-distance correspondence with a woman I’d never met. What began oddly became progressively more odd. The pace of the conversation was outrageously slow, and this suited us both - neither of us was in any hurry. But the enormous geographical distance also led us to quickly let down our guard. We segued within a few faxes from innocent flirting to innermost secrets. Within a few days our faxes took on a tone of fondness, then intimacy. I felt as if I were going steady with this woman I’d never met or spoken to.

I stopped phoning Barbra.

Now, immobilized, my bandaged wrist propped on the pillow, I have nothing to do but obsess about the next fax to Brooke. Gil comes over some days and helps me work through several drafts. I’m intimidated by the fact that Brooke graduated from Princeton with a degree in French literature, whereas I dropped out of ninth grade. Gil brushes aside such talk, pumps up my confidence.

Besides, he says, don’t worry about whether she likes you. Worry about whether you like her.

Yeah, I say. Yeah. You’re right.

So I ask him to rent the collected works of Brooke Shields, and we have a two-man film festival. We make popcorn, dim the lights, and Gil puts in the first movie. The Blue Lagoon.

Brooke as a prepubescent mermaid, stranded with a boy on an island paradise. A retelling of Adam and Eve. We rewind, fast-forward, freeze-frame, debate if Brooke Shields is my type.

Not bad, Gil says. Not bad at all. She’s definitely worth another fax.

The courtship via fax continues for weeks, until Brooke sends a short fax saying she’s finished filming her movie and she’s coming back to the U.S. She’ll be here in two weeks. She lands at LAX. By coincidence I have to be in Los Angeles the day after she arrives. I’m filming an interview with Jim Rome.

WE MEET AT HER HOUSE. I race there straight from the studio, still wearing the heavy TV makeup from my interview with Rome. She throws open the door, looking very much the movie star, wearing a flowing scarfy thing around her neck. And no makeup. (Or at least less than I.) But her hair is chopped short, which gives me a jolt. All this time I’ve been picturing her with long, flowing hair.

I cut it for a part, she says.

In what? Bad News Bears?

Her mother appears from nowhere. We shake hands. She’s cordial, but stiff. I get a strange vibe. I know, instinctively, regardless of what happens, this woman and I will never get along.

I drive Brooke to dinner. Along the way I ask, Do you live with your mother?

Yes. Well, no. Not really. It’s complicated.

It always is with parents.

We go to Pasta Maria, a little Italian joint on San Vicente. I ask to be seated in a corner of the restaurant, so we can have privacy, and it doesn’t take long before I forget about Brooke’s mother, her haircut, everything. She has remarkable poise, and charisma, and she’s surprisingly funny. We both laugh when the waiter comes to our table and asks, Have you two ladies had a chance to look over the menu?