Carrie Soto Is Back(7)

The rest of the match was over quick.

On the last serve, I tapped the ball over, unwilling to bother with any topspin or speed. But he still hit it wide.

“You are terrible at tennis,” I said to him when I shook his hand.

“Carolina!” my father called out.

“Sorry, but he is,” I said. I looked over at Chris. “You are.”

I watched Chris glance at his father on the side of the court. His father shook his head and put out the cigarette he’d been smoking, rolling his eyes.

I remember thinking, That’s why you should practice, Chris.

When we walked off the court, my father put his hand on my shoulder and said, “That was something.”

“I didn’t even have to try,” I said as we headed toward the locker rooms.

“Oh, you made that clear. And you were mean.”

“Why should I be nice to him? He called me a seven-year-old.”

“People are going to call you a lot of things in your life,” he said. “People always call people like us all kinds of things.”

“Because we aren’t members here?” I asked as I put my things down.

My father stopped in place. “Because we are winners. Do not grow a chip on your shoulder, Carolina,” he said. “Do not let what anyone says about you determine how you feel about yourself.”

I looked at him.

“If I say your hair is purple, does that mean it’s purple?” he asked.

“No, it’s brown.”

“Does it mean you have to prove to me it’s brown?”

I shook my head. “No, you can see it is.”

“You are going to be one of the greatest tennis players in the world someday, cari?o. That is as true as your brown hair. You don’t need to show them. You just need to be.”

I considered.

“Next time you play a kid like Chris, I expect you to still play a beautiful game of tennis,” he said. “Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Está bien.”

“And we don’t cry when we lose, but we also don’t gloat when we win.”

“Bueno, entiendo.”

“You’re not playing your opponent, you understand that, yes?”

I stared at him, unsure. But I needed him to believe that I understood everything I was supposed to be—it seemed like an unbearable betrayal of our mission for me to be confused about any of it.

“Every time you get out on that court, you must play a better tennis game than you played the time before. Did you play your best game of tennis today?”

“No,” I said.

“Next time, I want you to beat yourself. Every day you must beat the day before.”

I sat down on the bench next to me and considered. What my father was proposing was a much, much harder endeavor. But once the thought had been put in my head, I had to rise to it. I could not expel it.

“Entiendo,” I said.

“Now go get your things. We are driving to the beach.”

“No, Dad,” I said. “Please, no. Can’t we just go home? Or what if we went out for ice cream? This girl in my class said there is a place that has great ice cream sandwiches. I thought we could go.”

He laughed. “We are not going to condition your legs sitting around eating ice cream sandwiches. We can only do that by…”

I frowned. “Running in the sand.”

“Sí, running in the sand, entonces vámonos.”





1968


After about two more years of beating every kid in town, we got a call from Lars Van de Berg, one of the biggest junior tennis coaches in the country.

He was coaching a fourteen-year-old named Mary-Louise Bryant down in Laguna Beach. Mary-Louise had already started winning junior championships. She’d gotten to the semifinals at Junior Wimbledon that year.

“Lars called because everyone in L.A. is talking about you,” my father said as we drove south on the freeway toward Laguna Beach. I was in a white tennis skirt and polo shirt, a cream-colored cardigan on top. I wore new socks and a brand-new blindingly white pair of tennis shoes on my feet.

My father had gone out and bought the whole outfit the week before. He’d washed it all and laid it out for me that morning. When I saw the ruffles on the butt of the tennis underpants for the skirt, I looked at him for a moment, hoping he was not serious. But from the look on his face, it was clear he was. So I put it on.

“He’s pretending it’s just a friendly match,” my father continued. “But he wants to see if you’re a threat to Mary-Louise.”

There were already whispers about my future. Competing was something I knew I would do soon, the way some kids know they will go to college. And just like college, I got the impression my father was silently working out how to pay for it.

I wriggled in my seat, trying to stop the sweater from chafing my neck. “Am I a threat to Mary-Louise?” I asked.

“Yes,” my father said.

I rolled down my window and watched the Pacific Ocean fly by.

“I want you thinking of your game plan,” my father said. “Mary-Louise is three years older, so you have to assume she’s taller, stronger, maybe more confident. How will that affect your strategy? You have five minutes.”