Trophy Son(52)

I didn’t even have to deal with people other than my own people most times. My agents, my coach or Adam, who’d become more of an assistant than racket stringer. There were handlers at each event who would ask my team how I wanted things, then they’d take care of it. I showed up, played and was otherwise pampered.

My stardom created more attention and so I had more insulation to intercept the attention.

Panos’s friends wanted some war stories from the tour which I gave while he escaped to dance with Kristie, then I escaped to the bar.

Wedding guests rotated to me at the bar like an alternate receiving line so there was never an empty moment. Most got in and got out with only a handshake or word of congratulations. Some had a story they felt would compel my interest but through the numbing constancy of it I was half listening and offering meaningless responses. Normally, handlers would usher me through a crowd like this and I would never be so exposed.

I had managed two drinks when a striking blonde, my height with her heels on, approached with no intention of getting in and back out, nor did she offer congratulations or a handshake. She said, “You’ll never get out of this corner if I don’t get you to the dance floor.”

She was a friend of Panos from college. She’d played on the women’s tennis team and had gone on to a modeling career, living in New York City. My fear of dancing had waned over the years and it sounded better than shaking hands. “Lead on.”

She did, taking my hand and pulling me through a dozen bystanders like an airlift rescue. She had the strong, lean hands of a six-foot female athlete. She weaved to the center of the dance floor then turned to me and found the rhythm of the music while sliding up and down against my body. She’d had more to drink than I had.

Others on the dance floor gave us a few yards of space and watched. My dance partner was extremely good looking and well versed in attention.

With the next song we moved on to some bastardization of the Charleston, the two of us holding hands while we stepped away and back toward each other, then a series of twirls and spins performed by her. I knew a few of the building blocks of that kind of dance so we just repeated them with lots of energy, both of us performing.

She flung herself into a twirl and while my hand held her upraised hand over her head, her heel streaked over a wet spot on the floor. Her leg was uselessly airborne and as her body fell, her strong hands clenched my ring finger and pinkie only, the weakest two fingers of my playing hand.

Her ass fell in such a direct line to the floor that she bounced, still holding my now sprained fingers days before Wimbledon. Through pain and panic of injury, I helped her up and asked if she was okay.

She was as embarrassed as I was panicked, but otherwise fine so we retreated to the bar with less panache than the way we’d left it.

My evening ended an hour later with ice on my hand and me wondering how I’d manage to get by without my handlers.





CHAPTER

36

The following morning I met Panos and Kristie for brunch at the restaurant they had reserved for wedding guests. Later in the day they would fly to Tuscany for their honeymoon and I would fly back to London for Wimbledon. Panos’s friends were coming and going and telling stories about the reception. Dad walked in.

He came right to us, grabbed the back of a chair from another table with one hand and swept it up to ours. He sat and said to me, “So now do you want to hear about the kid I’m coaching?” There was no hello, no good morning, no congratulations to Panos and Kristie or even an acknowledgment of them at the table. It was direct and aggressive, the way a person would pick a fight.

I looked right at him. What I wanted to say was why don’t you go bother someone else. I think my look managed to say that, but I didn’t actually speak.

“If not now, when?” he said. “Are you going to dictate to me when I can talk to you?”

Erratic behavior, even for Dad. “Are you still drunk?” He’d always had olive, smooth skin but his face looked puffier than I’d noticed before and he had the beginnings of oysters under his eyes. I wondered how much he’d been smoking and drinking.

“I see. I’m an embarrassment to you. Was I drinking too much last night?”

He was loud and angry. The people in the room were listening and trying hard not to look. “Christ’s sake,” said Panos.

“Dad, let’s take a walk,” I said.

“This is it, huh? Big shot calling me out for a fight.”

“For a walk, you asshole.” I’d never called him an asshole before. Never anything like that. “Let’s have this conversation out of the restaurant.” I stood. He stood too and we started off without touching each other. I looked back at the table. Kristie looked terrified and was squeezing the hell out of Panos’s forearm. He looked worried too. I flashed a palm to say this will be fine.

On the sidewalk Dad and I faced each other square. It was already hot. Philly in the summer has a heavy heat. Cars sped by on Lancaster Avenue. I noticed the pitch of the engine was higher as each car approached, then lower once it passed by and away. The movement of the car compressed or expanded the sound waves depending on where you were standing. I remembered that from eighth-grade physics. I pictured the physics classroom while I stood in front of my deranged father. “What’s this all about, Dad?”

“What do you mean?”