Love Love

by Sung J. Woo

  “Can I blame this on you?” She adjusted the strings on her racquet.

  “You can, but you’re the one out there, not me.”

  “Really? Can you impart some more brilliant nuggets while I’m getting my ass handed to me?”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. You don’t have to be perfect. Not every shot you hit has to be a winner, and that’s what you’re doing right now. All you have to be is better than the person across the net. Not always, even—just today, for the next ninety minutes, enough to win.”

  She heard him, every word, and understood. Whether she would be able to execute would determine the outcome of this match, but he could see he got through to her, and that was no small thing. A lot of players in her situation would be stuck in panic mode, but she wasn’t at all. She was still trying to figure out Vera’s game.

  “Okay, coach,” she said, and she put on her business face.

  The game was close. Alexa pushed Vera to two deuces and a break point, but she couldn’t find a way to break Vera’s serve. Alexa almost rammed her racquet into the ground but managed to stop herself, which was good because she’d done it earlier and this would’ve been a second violation, a loss of a point.

  As expected, she played horribly on her own serve, unable to pull herself out of the disappointment of not being able to win the previous game. At love–30, she looked at him, on the verge of tears, and all he could do was clap for her as hard as he could. Seeing her go through this was like experiencing his own life all over again. How many times had he fallen into the same dark, frustrating hole?

  On Monday at six in the morning, he would pick up his father and drive him and Soo to the University Medical Center of Princeton. Roger would already be there with Judy, and then the transplant would take place. When he’d asked his father about it, Kevin could see his old man was still baffled. He was thankful for sure, but no matter how many times Kevin had explained it to him, he didn’t get it.

  “Your dog? It die, so I live?”

  “That’s what Judy told me.”

  His father leaned back into his armchair, eyes closed.

  “Life is funny,” he said.

  Alexa battled back to 30–40, but then she committed the worst possible sin: She double faulted to give Vera a commanding 5–2 lead.

  “I’m sorry your first coaching gig has been so miserable,” she said, back at his corner. She ripped off her hat and retightened its strap.

  “You’re still playing, right?” He pointed up at the score. “It’s not over yet.”

  “Yes, this is true, the torture will continue for one more game.”

  On the other side of the court, Vera sat with two towels, one draped over her legs and the other pitched over her head, looking like a ghost.

  “Maybe it’s not too late for me to slip her a mickey,” Kevin said.

  “What’s sad is that she’d probably still beat me, half conscious.”

  “Maybe this would be a good time to tell you how I won my only Challenger tournament.”

  “You’ve been holding out on me?”

  “It’s not pleasant, what I’m about to tell you. Kinda shameful, really. It took a lot out of me. Too much. I could never do it again.”

  “We have sixty seconds, so out with it.”

  “In my final match, I learned to hate my opponent enough to want to kill him. I’m not talking about having some killer instinct bullshit. I mean really kill. Murder. With every stroke, I envisioned hurting him. Blood, bones, all of it.”

  Alexa looked at Vera, then back to him.

  “Interesting,” she said, and something both controlled and animal flashed behind her eyes. She was about to walk back but stopped.

  “I’m sorry about Snaps, by the way. I never got a chance to tell you.”

  Just the mention of her name poked the wound inside him.

  “Thanks. I wish you could’ve met her.”

  Alexa took her racquet and tapped his head lightly with it. “You’re too young to have a senior moment. You brought her to the club before one of our US Open bus trips.”

  And just like that, he did remember, and it was so clear in his mind that it felt as if Snaps were right here. He’d brought her in because his pet sitter had canceled at the last minute and one of the women who manned the desk said she’d take care of her for the day.

  “You threw two tennis balls to Snaps at the same time, and she just froze, not knowing which one to go for,” Kevin said. “It was years ago, seven or eight? You were just a little girl, and Snaps was a big dog, but you weren’t afraid of her at all.”

  “No,” she said. “She was your dog, so I figured she was all right.”

  Time was called, and Alexa headed back to the baseline.

  “Kill,” she said, and she meant it.

  Jesus, did he just create a monster? Or perhaps a future Wimbledon champion?

  On Tuesday, he was to meet with a real estate agent to put the house up. Next month, he promised to travel to San Diego with Alexa for her first USTA match, the sixteen-year-old division tournament that would feature some of the top players in the country. It was possible he’d see Claudia again, and the prospect of that reunion filled him with not exactly a pleasant sensation, but not an unpleasant one, either. What he felt was anticipation, the possible, the unknown future. He’d purchased an open-jawed plane ticket. His family was here in Jersey, but it would be okay if he were to leave for a while. They were in good hands. They were in each other’s hands.

  A cheer roared through the sparse crowd. From the south entrance of the court, Judy saw her brother rise up and clap, then raise his fist in the air.

  “Fifteen–forty, double break point for Alexa,” she whispered to Roger. “If she wins the next point, then she’s a step closer to being back in the match.”

  Judy was late, but this time it didn’t matter, because Kevin didn’t know she was coming.

  “What are we waiting for?” Roger asked. They were standing by the steps leading to the seats.

  “It’s customary to wait until the game is finished to sit. Can’t disturb the players’ concentration with noise and such.”

  “But that other girl—she’s grunting like she’s having a bowel movement every time she hits the ball.”

  “It’s a strange sport,” Judy said.

  The next point was a blur, Alexa’s opponent firing a serve to her backhand and Alexa drilling it down the line for a winner. This time, Kevin had company as many others stood up.

  “Let’s sit over here,” Judy said, pointing to the empty row in the back. “Just for a bit.”

  Kevin was on the other side of the court, and Judy watched him as he studied the game in progress. Sometimes his right arm jerked, his body still trained to respond to the ball. For as long as she’d watched the game, she saw her brother from afar. It was strange to be at a tennis match and not have him down there, twirling his racquet twice in his hand before receiving a serve, springing to the net like a coiled panther. But that was years ago, when their father was healthy and their mother was alive. Judy let the nostalgia run through her like water.

  Another burst of applause, and the score was tied 5–5.

  “One more and she wins?”

  “You have to win by two when the score goes to five. Or if it goes to six–all, then they’ll play a tiebreaker to win seven–six.” Roger didn’t know much about tennis, but he was learning.

  She was learning, too. Learning to love this oddball of a man, learning to accept her father, learning to become an artist in her own time. Yesterday, she’d called Cody, the gallery owner in New York who wanted to show her works after Claudia’s rejection.

  “I think you’re nuts,” Cody had said. “You know my gallery is hot, right? You’ve Googled me, girlfriend?”

  Judy laughed. “I have, and I know, and I really do thank you for the offer. I have every intention for you to see my stuff when it has nothing to do with Claudia X or anybody else. I want to do this right. I want to do
it on my own merit.”

  “The road not taken,” Cody said. “I get it, I get it. I still think you’re wrong, that this business, like any other business, is about timing and who you know. But I respect your wishes, Judy Yoon Lee. And I fully expect to hear from you again.”

  And he would, when she was ready. But for her to get there, it would take more than a few weeks, or even a few months of work. For the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful about what lay ahead of her. Maybe none of it would work out. Maybe she’d end up going nowhere, but she was going to try.

  “Yeah!”

  It was her brother, jumping out of his seat again, raising both hands in the air. Alexa had stormed back to win the set 7–5.

  “Okay.” Judy patted Roger’s leg. “Let’s go.”

  Kevin was talking so intently to Alexa that he didn’t even notice Judy and Roger approaching. Judy liked seeing this side of him, the mentor, a notepad in hand, a pencil stuck behind an ear. With the baseball cap, he looked like an athletic scholar, and it fit him nicely. It looked like a life he could grow into.

  “Judy!” Alexa said, looking up from the court.

  “Great set, Alexa.”

  “Hey, what are you guys doing here?” Kevin asked.

  “Came to see the match,” Judy said.

  “I’m good, Kevin,” Alexa said. She slapped the strings on her racquet and walked away.

  “Serve into her body,” he said after her. “It’ll throw off her timing.”

  Judy sat next to Kevin, and Roger sat next to her. Flanked by the two most important men in her life, there was no other place she wanted to be.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, sis,” Kevin said.

  “That was my intention. You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. Did you catch the last set? Alexa’s been pretty fierce. She has a real chance.”

  “All tied up, one set a piece. It’s a brand-new game.”

  Kevin and Judy watched the ball boy offer two balls to Alexa. She considered both, dropping one back to him and keeping one to serve. She positioned her feet against the baseline, bounced the ball three times, then tossed it to the sky.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you, my readers: E. A. Durden, Paul Gacioch, Arun John, Ava Sloane, Dawn S. White, and Jessica D. White. A special thanks to Stewart O’Nan for his friendship, his guidance, and for making me want to be a better writer.

  Thank you, my bosses: Tiphanie Combre and Sterling Norcross.

  Thank you, my agent: Anna Ghosh.

  Thank you, my editor and publisher: Rolph Blythe and the rest of the fabulous Counterpoint team.

  Thank you, my copyeditor: Mikayla Butchart.

  Thanks to the authors Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne, who put together The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits, and John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter, who edited Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs. Their books were invaluable during the research phase of this novel.

  Thank you, John Greenwood, for creating The Dream, and Gaela Erwin, for your disarming self-portraits. If some of Claudia X’s works resemble yours, that’s because they do.

  And finally, thanks to my family and friends, near and far, who’ve always supported me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SUNG J. WOO’S short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Guernica/PEN, and KoreAm Journal. His debut novel Everything Asian won the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Award. A graduate of Cornell University with an MFA from NYU, he lives in Washington, New Jersey.