Thwing. Smack. Pop. Thwing. Smack. Pop. Over and over. I found myself painting to the rhythm. Roll. Roll. Roll. Roll. Roll. Roll. The sounds were unmistakable to me. Funny, though, this time, I didn't break into a cold sweat. Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe I was over it. Or maybe I was just too intent on getting this painting done so I could enjoy the rest of my day off. I'm all about volunteer work, just not on a beautiful, sunny Thursday morning in spring. And especially when I get volun-told to do it.
“Cate.” My store manager. He has a way of suddenly being right behind you.
“Christ. Can't you get some fucking squeaky shoes?” Said no one ever.
“Yes, Sir?” I knew what he wanted. I recognized the Team Build sign-up sheet he held in his hand. I'd seen it hanging in the break room and I'd ignored it. I also knew that the orange t-shirt he had in his hands was for me.
“I'm a little disappointed, Ms. Bradshaw. You know we talked in staff meeting about the project going on at St. Teresa's this week. My expectation was that all the department heads would sign up. I don't see your name on the list.”
I opened my mouth to answer as he tossed the t-shirt at me. I swallowed the words I planned to say.
“We start at 7:30. I've got you leading the exterior painting team.”
So here I was. Thwing. Smack. Pop. Roll. Roll. Roll. On and on. Whoever was hitting that ball never missed. I didn't look. It was one thing to hear it, but I didn't want to see it. I knew the court was there; I'd seen it out behind the church as a couple of us gathered for a cup of coffee and a doughnut before getting started. I thought it was weird - church with a tennis court. Eh, whatever. I was there to paint not ponder great mysteries.
We broke for lunch. I was pissed. Even the pizza didn't improve my mood. It was too nice to sit inside so a few of us trickled outside. We commiserated about the joys of volun-told work and listed off all the things we could be doing if we weren't here. I was glad I wasn't the only one with a shitty attitude.
“Now there's the life,” someone said, nodding in the direction of the tennis court.
I looked before I knew what I was doing. I could feel a small wave of nausea rising. I put down my plate of pizza.
A small African-American girl stood near the baseline. She held a wooden racket in her left hand. From this distance the grip looked far too big for her small hand. Hell, the racket looked far too big for her. She reached into a beige and blue plastic sack and pulled out a ball. Bounce, bounce, bounce. She set to serve. Coil, uncoil. Whack. The ball bounded through the service box and hit the back fence on one bounce.
“Holy fuck.” It was almost a whisper. Slightly louder, “Did you see that?”
I had and I wished I hadn't. In all my years in and around tennis, I had never seen someone so small hit such a powerful serve. And with an old wooden racket.
She reached in the bag again. Bounce, bounce, bounce, serve. Again the ball hit the fence on one bounce. It hadn't been a fluke.
I looked away. Thankfully, it was time to get back to work. I went back to painting but I was even less focused. I could hear the girl still serving in the distance behind me. Bounce, bounce, bounce, pause, thwing, pop, cling. Over and over again. Break, probably to pick up balls. Resume. Bounce, bounce, bounce, pause, thwing, pop, cling. Occasionally, but only occasionally, she'd miss. I knew this because instead of 'pop' and 'cling', I'd hear 'fuck'. For a little, bitty thing, she was intense.
I dared to look over as I reloaded paint on my roller. She cracked a serve into the net. Rather than falling to the ground in front of the net, it careened through the net. For the first time I looked closer at the net. The net tape was barely attached for all the holes. I don't even remember thinking. Suddenly I was at the tool box rummaging for zip ties. Then I was standing at the gate to the court. A broken hinge caused it to hang cock-eyed. I lifted the gate slightly, pushed it open, and stepped inside. I looked at the court and down at my feet. It had been a decade, a full ten years, since I'd set foot on a tennis court. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I felt the zip ties in my hand and remembered why I was there.
“Hey, hang on a sec.”
I could feel her looking at me, but I didn't look at her. I walked through the court and to the net. I hooked the first zip tie through the net, pulled it tight, and cut off the excess with my knife. The net was in bad shape. I could have used two or three times as many zip ties as I had. Still, I managed to reattach the entire net tape. When I was done, I turned and walked back to the gate.
“Thank you.” I turned toward the voice behind me. She stood in the service box squeezing that big racket to her chest.
“Yeah, no problem,” I said, barely smiling.
~
As we were leaving for the day, finally, well into the afternoon, my day off killed, the parish priest, Father Nick, shook all of our hands and thanked us for helping out. He explained that they had very little money and being in the poorest section of town, they probably never would. It was generosity like ours that made all the difference. Blah, blah, blah.
He chased me down as I was getting in my car. I'd never seen a priest run. I'd honestly never seen a priest do much of anything.
“I saw you fixing the net. Thank you.” He extended his hand. His grip was strong and firm. I could feel callouses.
“No worries. Easy stuff.”
“Still it means a lot. We don't have the money to keep the court up but we don't have the money to tear it down. And really, it's been here, part of the church, forever. Well, since the 1930s at least. I can't bear to let it go.”
“Yeah,” I said. The nausea was returning.
He kept going. “And Rony. She wouldn't know what to do without that court. She's here every day for hours, even in the rain.”
I didn't say anything.
“Well, I'll let you go. Thanks again. God bless.”
I got in my car and silently thanked his god that Father Nick hadn't asked me if I played. It was a question I didn't want to answer.
~
I was twenty. I skipped a press conference, said I was sick and I'd be there in a minute. I was the winner, the champion, my seventh Grand Slam title in five years. I'd bested my mother's total, five, and my father's total, six. I had fulfilled my destiny. I knew the questions they would ask. “How does it feel?” “How many more can you win?” “Are your parents happy?”
My answers in order would have been - “Same as always.”; “How many can I win? Seven, eight, ten more. How many do I want to win? None. I quit”; “My parents are assholes. They are never happy.”
So I avoided the whole scene and ducked out without a word. I quit.
~
Ten years later here I was. Working retail in near anonymity. I didn't need the money. I needed normal. It's the only thing I remember ever wanting. I grew up with everything, absolutely everything. By the age of ten, traveling with my parents, I'd seen the world. I'd hit with everyone who was anyone. Chris, Martina, Andre, Pete, even Billie Jean once upon a time. I was the wonder child, a tennis miracle, destined by genetics to be the best there ever was. My parents were great. I would be better. By age fourteen, I had fulfilled my early promise. As the winner of the USTA Girls 18s, I was granted a spot in the main draw of the U.S. Open. This was my coming out party. The media went crazy. I got to the Semis. Shortly after the last ball had bounced twice, I turned pro. Well, my parents turned me pro. The next six years passed in a blur of trans-Atlantic flights, photo shoots, and hollow victories. I hated tennis from the first ball I ever hit two days after learning to walk to the last. I coveted normal and there was nothing normal about my life.
~
I mindlessly walked through the afternoon sunshine to my car. The work day was done and I needed to get to the gym.
“Hey, wait. Wait!” An unfamiliar voice called out from behind me.
I kept walking.
“Catie!'” The voice said again, closer this time.
I stopped. My breath caught. No one called me 'Catie' anymore, no one. It was a name from the past.
“Ha! I was right. It is YOU!”
The little girl with the big racket and even bigger serve jogged up rolling an old ten speed bike. There was nowhere to go. I was stuck.
“Oh my God, I thought it was you the other day. But it couldn't be. Why would the great Catie Kovacs be fixing my net? It's awesome by the way. The net. It's holding up good.” The girl rambled, clearly excited by her touch with 'greatness'.
I didn't know what to say. No one had called me out like this in a very long time. I just looked at her.
Her eyes wouldn't leave mine. She held out her hand. I didn't take it. She put her hand down. I took a step toward my car. She took a step with me.
“I'm Rony. Rony Cruz.” Clearly, she was undeterred by my rudeness.
I wanted to get away, needed to get away. I lashed out.
“How in the Hell do you even know who I am? What are you? Ten? Eleven?”
“Everybody thinks I'm ten. I'm really thirteen. I'd know you anywhere. Tennis is my life. I know everything there is to know about it. I've watched your old matches on You Tube at the library. And I checked out your biography so many times the lady at the library just let me keep it.”
“Don't believe everything you read.”
I took another step toward my car. She wouldn't leave my side.
“Thanks for fixing the net.”
“Yeah, it was nothing. Just a couple zip ties.”
“Well, it meant a lot to me.”
“Shouldn't you be in school or something? You shouldn't be all the way down here by yourself.”
“My abuela homeschools me. That's how come I can play so much tennis.”
I didn't know why I was still talking. I could have gotten away if I'd really wanted to. There was something in her youthful enthusiasm that made it impossible for me to turn away. She loved tennis with a joy and intensity that I'd never seen before. I came from a family of tennis players and spent the first twenty years of my life surrounded by tennis players, but I'd never met anyone who seemed to love it the way this kid did.
“Hey, look... I know you don't play anymore, but would you want to come watch me play sometime? I mean real tennis, not just serving. On Saturday mornings a group of old guys come down to the church and we play. I can beat most of 'em. You could hit with us, too, if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, sure. I'll think about it.” What was I saying? I wasn't going to think about it, was I?
“Sweet! Thanks again, Catie”
With that, she smiled, hopped on her bike, and pedaled away.
“Cate!” I called after her. “My name is Cate!”
She raised a hand and waved. I wasn't sure if she was waving me off or waving 'goodbye'.
~
The next morning, I woke up in a cold sweat. My cell phone said 2:42. I tried to orient myself. Where was I? What day of the week was it? Was it a match day? Why didn't my knees hurt? Wait. Fuck, I thought. It was a dream. Just a strange, fucked up dream about tennis. I hadn't even thought about tennis in years. I avoided it. Changed the channel. Boycotted the tennis section at Academy. Refused to run in skirts, even if they were made for running. Stayed away from tennis courts. Until yesterday at St. Teresa's. Until that damn day. I silently cursed my store manager for volunteering me.
“Fuck it. Fuck. It. All,” I said to no one in particular.
I stripped off my clothes and turned on the shower. I didn't have to be up for another hour and a half, but I had to wash that dream off. As I let the hot water run over my head and down my back, memories came back. The last loss before the last big victory. The moment I knew. The day was glorious, sunny and blue, not a cloud in the sky, kind of like the day at St. Teresa's. The wall was hard and gray. I held my racket over my head with both hands and smacked it down on the wall. Black, blue, and white splinters of graphite burst around me. The face of the racket contorted around the strings and hung lifeless. Two, three, four times I bashed the racket against the wall. Finally with only the blue wrapped stub of a handle in her grasp, I walked off. I dropped the handle in the first trash can I saw. That was that. I was done. Or soon would be.
That had been ten years before. Ten of the best years of my life. I'd let the past be the past and moved on. I had a tennis-free, normal life now. I was just one of the crowd. The woman at the paint counter in an orange apron. The quiet woman in apartment 1107 who drove a beat up Nissan Xterra. The woman in line at the Red Box who couldn't decide what movie she wanted to rent. The woman in backwards baseball cap lifting weights at the gym. I was Cate. Not Catie Kovacs, daughter of Luka Kovacs and Karen Bradshaw. Not Catie Kovacs, world Number 1, defending champ, future Hall of Famer. Just Cate.
I thought about Rony, the tiny girl with the big serve. She deserved to have what I'd had. She loved the game. She's the one who should win Grand Slams and hold press conferences. I picked up my phone and called my brother. He would get it. He would talk me down. He would get me off the ledge.
“Ryan, just tell me to forget it. Tell me it never happened.”
“Jesus, Cate. What happened? What do you need to forget?”
“I met this kid. I think she might be good, really good. But she just plays on this crappy little court. And she doesn't care. She loves it.” I knew I was yammering and making no sense.
“Slow down. What time is it in Texas? It's gotta be way too early for this. Why don't you go back to sleep and we can talk when it's daylight where you are.”
“No, Ryan. I need to get past this. I can't go back. I can't.”
“So, stop.”
“It's not that easy. You know it's not that easy. She loves the game. Why didn't I ever love the game like that?”
“Because Mom and Dad are demanding assholes and we never had a choice.”
“And here she is on a run-down piece of shit court, playing with a WOODEN racket. Ryan, a wooden racket. Like it's the only thing she could find. In the middle of a tennis wasteland. No coaching. Just a wall and a Wal-Mart sack of old balls.”
“While we had it all? That's what you're thinking, isn't it, Cate? We had all the advantages – the pedigree, the money, the equipment, the coaching, the sponsors. And we hated every minute of it.”
“Exactly! And this kid, Rony – that's her name – loves it. What's going to become of her? She's got passion and joy. She should have a coach and a chance.”
“Then coach her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Coach her.”
“Ryan, I've worked very hard to leave tennis behind. Very hard. And now, what? Because of this kid, you want me to throw all that away? You want me to go back?
“On your terms this time, not Mom and Dad's. If this was nothing, it would be nothing. I think you should at least consider it. I think you already are.”
“Fuck you, Ryan.”
I heard him say “I love you” as I hung up the phone.
~
I woke early on Saturday morning and went for my run as usual. I was closing so I didn't have to be to work until the afternoon. I turned on ESPN and sank into the couch with a cup of coffee. I immediately bolted upright nearly spilling my coffee. This wasn't baseball highlights. This was the French Open. I saw the orangy-red blur of the Roland Garros clay and heard the pop of tennis balls. Uncle John's voice grated in the background. I grabbed the remote and punched the up arrow. A baseball score line flashed on the screen in front of me. I threw the remote to the other side of the couch.
I exhaled.
“Fucking ESPN2.”
I sat looking at the TV sipping my coffee. I retrieved the remote.
I changed the channel back. Serena Williams was serving.
“Rony will serve like that some day.”
Jesus Christ. Did I just say that? Out loud?
~
I parked a distance away and leaned on the hood of my car. From where I stood I could see the court. The zip ties were holding up, but the old net was going to need a permanent solution. Rony was on one side with her big wooden racket. She wore black high top sneakers, baggy basketball shorts, and a faded University of Arkansas t-shirt. I could just barely make out the Razorback on the front. Rony called the score, 30-love, bounced the ball three times, and unleashed a serve. Her opponent, an older Hispanic man, barely got his racket on the ball and poked a weak return to Rony's backhand. She cruised in with her racket back and cracked a picture-perfect down-the-line winner.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Two men lingering outside the fence clapped. The old man sitting on the bench inside the court whistled.
“That's it, Girl. That's it. Just like Althea.”
I took a few steps forward.
Rony called the score, 40-love, bounced the ball three times, and served again. This time her opponent guessed and guessed right. The ball carried deep to Rony's forehand but she wasn't fazed. She raced to the ball and swung the big racket. Her forehand was easily as good as her backhand. Her looping topspin fell deep in the court and bounced high. Sneaking in, expecting a short return, Rony was ready. Her opponent hit a short ball to her forehand. Rony split stepped, set her feet, and ripped a beautiful forehand cross-court winner.
I didn't realize it but I'd kept walking. As the ball bounced into the fence I was only a few feet from the fence.
“Oh my God,” I must have said a little too loudly.
“She's pretty good, isn't she?” The African-American man sitting on the bench turned to me. He wore the thickest glasses I'd ever seen.
“Yes, Sir. Any of you her coach?”
He and the other men laughed.
“Oh, no. She surpassed us a long time ago. We're just lucky she still plays with us. If you think you can beat her, give it a go.”
“Um, well...” I faltered.
One of the men held out his racket. I took it without thinking.
Rony looked over at me and smiled.
“Y'all know who that is, don'cha?”
The men all turned to look. I cringed.
“That's Cate, the one who fixed the net.”
“Well, Cate,” the African American man winked, “Grimes Jackson. Welcome and thank you. You a player?”
“I used to be, Sir. Used to be.”