Carrie Soto Is Back(45)

“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 sue?es, 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.