Open: An Autobiography

They’re eerie. Also, vaguely familiar.

Andre, what is it?

This isn’t easy to admit, Brooke. But, look, I’ve been losing my hair for quite some time and I wear a hairpiece to cover it up.

I reach out, take her hand, put it on my hairpiece.

She smiles. I had a feeling, she says.

You did?

It’s no big deal.

You’re not just saying that?

It’s your eyes I find attractive. And your heart. Not your hair.

I stare at the eyeless, hairless faces and wonder if I’m falling.

I GO WITH BROOKE to the hospital and wait for her in the recovery room. I’m there when they wheel her in, her feet bandaged like mine before a match, and I’m there when she wakes up. I feel an enormous surge of protectiveness, and tenderness - which ebbs when she gets a phone call from her close friend, Michael Jackson. I can’t fathom her continuing friendship with Jackson, given all the stories and accusations. But Brooke says he’s just like us. Another prodigy who didn’t have a childhood.

I follow Brooke home and spend days at her bedside while she recuperates. Her mother finds me one morning on the floor beside Brooke’s bed. She’s scandalized. Sleeping on the floor? It simply isn’t done. I tell her that I prefer sleeping on the floor. My back. She walks away in a huff.

I kiss Brooke good morning. Your mother and I are getting off on the wrong foot.

We look down at her feet. Poor choice of words.

I need to leave. I’m due in Scottsdale for my first tournament since the surgery.

See you in a few weeks, I tell her, kissing her again, holding her.

I HAVE AN EASY DRAW IN SCOTTSDALE, but this doesn’t make me any less fearful.

Here comes the first real test of my wrist - what if it’s not healed? What if it’s worse? I have a recurring nightmare about being in the middle of a match and my hand falling off. I’m in my hotel room, closing my eyes, trying to visualize the wrist being fine and the match going well, when there’s a knock at the door.

Who is it?

Brooke.

With two broken feet, she rallied to be here.

I win the tournament, feeling no pain.

WEEKS LATER, Pete and I agree to do a simultaneous interview with a magazine reporter. Pete comes to my hotel room, where the interview is to take place, and he’s shocked to meet Peaches.

What the hell? Pete says.

Pete, meet Peaches. She’s an old parrot I rescued from a Vegas pet store that was going out of business.

Nice bird, Pete says mockingly.

She is a nice bird, I say. She doesn’t bite. She imitates people.

Like who?

Like me. She sneezes like me, talks like me - except she has a better vocabulary. I crack up every time the phone rings. Peaches yells, Telephone! Telephone!

I tell Pete that back in Vegas I have a whole menagerie. A cat named King, a rabbit named Buddy, whatever it takes to fend off the loneliness. No man is an island. He shakes his head. Apparently he doesn’t find tennis as lonely as I do.

We do the interview, and suddenly I feel as if I’m in the room with two parrots. At least when I bullshit a reporter, I do it with some flair, a little color. Pete sounds more robotic than Peaches.

I don’t bother telling Pete, but I consider Peaches an integral part of my team, which is ever growing, ever changing, a constant experiment. I lost Nick and Wendi, but I’ve added Brooke and Slim, a bright, sweet kid from Vegas. We went to grade school together. We were born a day apart - at the same hospital. Slim is a good guy, if a lost soul, so I put him to work as my personal assistant. He watches my house, lets in the pool guy and the various handy-men, sorts the mail, and answers fan requests for photos and autographs.

Now I think I might need to add a manager to the team. I pull Perry aside and ask him to take a look at my current management, see if they’re overcharging me. He reviews the contracts and says that indeed I could do better. I put my arms around him, thank him - then get an idea. Why don’t you be my manager, Perry? I need someone I trust.

I know he’s busy. He’s in his second year at the University of Arizona Law School, busting his ass. But I ask him to please consider taking this on, at least part-time.

I don’t need to ask twice. Perry wants the job, and he wants to start right away. He’ll work between classes, he says. Mornings, weekends, whenever. Aside from being a great opportunity, the job will enable him to whittle down what he owes me. I loaned Perry the money for law school because he didn’t want to ask his father. He sat before me one night, telling me how his father uses money to control people, especially Perry. I have to break free of my father, Perry said. I’ve got to break free, Andre, once and for all.

There are few pleas I could find more compelling. I wrote him a check on the spot.

As my new manager, Perry’s primary task is finding me a new coach, someone to replace Nick. He draws up a short list of candidates, and at the top of the list is a guy who’s just written a book about tennis: Winning Ugly.

Perry hands me the book, urges me to read it.

I shoot him a dirty look. Thanks, no thanks. No more school for me.