Trophy Son(32)
“Ana speaks very highly of you,” I said.
“That’s kind of her. How are things in Croatia?”
I would have been happy to talk more about Ana. “Going well. I’m in the finals tomorrow. I’m playing well. Feeling healthy.”
“Your father is there?”
“Yeah, it’s the same group, always. My dad, Gabe, Bobby and Adam.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said. It was quiet for a while.
I said, just to be saying something, “So it’s the same.”
“Right. And I assume that while you may not be looking to break routine entirely, you’re at least looking to change it, or inject something new into it. If you could wave a wand, pick a few things, where would you start? As an exercise, may I ask you to name three things right now that you would change?”
Specific things I would change. Hmm. Amazingly, I hadn’t done this before, and I didn’t know where to begin. “Doctor, have you seen the movie The King’s Speech?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a scene where Geoffrey Rush is playing the therapist trying to help the king and he says to the king, ‘That’s what friends are for.’ You remember what the king said back to him?”
“No.”
“The king said, ‘I wouldn’t know.’”
“I remember now.”
“That’s a lot how I feel. I don’t have a place to turn that isn’t a person on my payroll. I don’t have a history of friendships. I don’t even know how they work.”
“So where would you begin?”
“That’s just it,” I said. “The problem isn’t just about adding something to my routine. It’s way bigger. I have no real relationships and that’s not fixed by tweaking my schedule.”
“That’s awfully defeatist for a tennis champion. I don’t mean tweaking your schedule. Of course you can make friends by making different decisions in your life.”
Silence. Maybe a full minute.
He said, “How did you meet Ana?”
“I had to go to war with Dad just so I could go out to a restaurant for three hours. I met her there.”
“Sounds like a new routine.”
“It was a one-off.”
“Make it more.”
“Doc, I’m in a new city every two weeks.”
“You have friends on the tour? Players near your age?”
“Sort of. A couple.”
“Anton, I’m not saying this is an add-water-have-friends type of thing. I’m saying you have to open yourself up to it. Clearly you want relationships, so be open to the small ways that will help you make friends. It could be the little choices of sitting at an empty table for lunch or the table with two people already sitting. Think about those choices when they come to you.”
“Ana’s still got months in New Zealand,” I blurted out. With busy schedules and different time zones we almost never talked but emailed and texted a lot and usually got back to each other within twenty-four hours.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“I told her I thought it was fate that we would be together.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Stupid.”
“You believe in fate?” he said.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never thought about taking a firm position on fate. It’s just that sometimes I feel the force of it.”
“The force of it.”
“Like I’m on a train, on the rails, moving fast. Sometimes it makes me feel good and sometimes not. Sometimes I feel like I’m bracing for impact, inevitable, and I can picture it like it’s already played out thousands of times. Actors in a Broadway play that do it all over, night after night.” I had my laptop out. I wanted to see the face of Peter Minkoff so I entered the name in a Google search. “Other times I feel like the train is taking me somewhere good. Somewhere I’m supposed to be.”
“That’s interesting, Anton. I’m sure every train ride has both some good and bad.”
“I suppose so.”
“Though I think the analogy breaks down when you talk about the rails. You’re not fastened to anything.”
He was affiliated with some hospital in New York and there was a photo of him on a page of physician bios. He was late fifties, handsome and kindly, like a less effete Mr. Rogers. I said, “Intellectually, I get that. Emotionally, we have some work to do.”
The next day I won the tournament. From the moment of match point there was a tour official on the court for me. Drug test. If I had needed to go to the bathroom before the awards ceremony, he’d have followed me out, kept eyes on me the whole time and taken the pee.
I stayed on court for the ceremony though, and afterward the official and I walked off together. He was discreet, standing by the exit of the court, holding a clipboard, tour credentials around his neck and an official T-shirt. He walked behind me into the locker room where there was another official to meet us.
“Would you like to shower first, Mr. Stratis?”
I knew how that worked. They would stand right in front of the shower, curtain open, staring in, still holding the clipboard. “No, thanks.”
If I couldn’t pee, he’d give me water and watch me until I could pee. If I got hungry, he’d get me food to eat, but never leave me alone until he got my pee. “This way, then.”