Trophy Son(26)

“You are not. Not by a long shot.”

“Wrong,” I said.

“Don’t you realize what this means? What this will do?”

“What, exactly, Dad?”

“It’s like spotting three games to your opponent. At the US Open. The US Goddamn Open, which happens in four goddamn days.”

“How does having a night out with friends give away three games?”

“A night out? Do I really have to answer that?”

“I’m not going to drink.”

“You’re damn right you’re not because you’re going to stay right here.” He waved his arm around the Manhattan hotel room that was like every other hotel room I’d stayed in almost every night for the last five months. “Who are these friends, anyway?”

“Rufus. Some other people.” I didn’t know who all, other than Rufus, but he said it was going to be a cool New York crowd. He grew up in Garden City and knew lots of New York people. “I’m supposed to meet Rufus downstairs in ten minutes.”

“Rufus,” he said. “Rufus would love to have you spot him three games.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“Deliberate or not, it’s what will happen.”

“I said I won’t drink and I won’t be out late.”

“No.”

I was in fight mode and I was tournament conditioned. Dad hadn’t been my opponent before but I tried not to think about it that way. I needed to win the match. “I’m going.”

“I said no.”

I squared my shoulders. I was about his height by then and I drew myself up, eye to eye. “Are you physically going to stop me? Wrestle me? Maybe dislocate my shoulder four days before the Open? If so, you better get ready because in two minutes I’m walking out that door to the elevator and going out.”

“Anton, this is a bad idea. Terrible.”

Movement. He’d gone from denying to advising. I didn’t respond but walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to fix my shirt and hair. I realized I’d never done that before. My reflection looked so different, groomed with a button-down, collared shirt made by Rag & Bone. Who was this kid in the mirror?

I walked back out past Dad who hadn’t moved other than to pivot his feet so he could follow my path like a camera.

I opened the door and tried not to pause but couldn’t stop my reflexes, like the flinch when you know a punch is on the way. “Not a drop of alcohol, Anton,” he said.

I closed the door and hit the down button for the elevator.

Rufus was waiting in the lobby of the hotel wearing a suit and no tie. The suit was crisp with some shimmery material and fitted to him exactly. He looked like the actors that walk the Oscars red carpet. You would never call Rufus handsome but he wasn’t bad looking in any remarkable way either. He was tall, lanky and a little goofy looking. Just what anyone named Rufus ought to look like.

“I was waiting for the text message that you weren’t coming,” he said.

I made a fake laugh. Getting out of the apartment was the biggest win of my career so far and I was still coming down from it. “Where are we going?”

“A place in the Meatpacking District.” He jerked his thumb like a hitchhiker but in the direction of the hotel bar. “We’re not in a rush. Want to get a drink here first?”

I’d been delaying the decision whether to drink or not and didn’t expect to need the answer so soon. I decided then that I’d drink but not this close to Dad. “I’m ready to get out of this hotel. Let’s get one there.”

Rufus stepped out of the hotel, raised a hand to hail a taxi and one pulled right up as though he had it on a string. I thought that made him look cool.

We dropped out of the August heat into the back of the air-conditioned taxi and drove south. “Who’s going to be there tonight?” I said.

“My high school buddies. You’ll like them.”

I realized I didn’t know much about Rufus. “You went to a regular high school?”

“Yeah, Garden City publics. I missed a lot of junior and senior years, but had tutors, got through. Graduated.”

“That’s great.”

“The three guys you’ll meet tonight just graduated college in the spring. Through everything, since the eighth grade, it’s been the four of us. They’re my posse.”

He had a posse. I’d have liked a posse. “They travel with you?”

“Just local stuff. Anything you can ride a train to.”

“You’re lucky.”

He nodded. He knew. He said, “Hey man, I’m good but you’re the super star. The bigger the star, the bigger the sacrifice.” He looked at me and realized how unhelpful that was. “Anyway, you’ll like these guys, Anton. And they’ll like you. You can have some fun on the tour.”

The cab pulled in front of a restaurant named Bagatelle. There were some muscley guys in suits working the door and it seemed like the kind of place where people hoped the paparazzi would show so they dressed up the front of the place with a line of actual velvet ropes. Inside at the hostess station was a six-foot-tall skinny beauty who either faked or had an Italian accent. From behind her at a large booth table with banquet seating against the back wall, three guys stood up and called to Rufus and yelled things like Raise the Roof. Two good-looking girls sat with them and waved.