by Jim Plautz
Pete fell in love with Ambre while picking at a ceasor salad; at least he thought it was love. He had never felt this way about a girl. She was the most fascinating person he had ever met. She made him feel important - like he could do anything.
“Pete, I saw you play and I saw your new backhand. Your problem is a lack of self-confidence, not your two-hander. Your game was good enough to beat anyone at the Orange Bowl, except maybe a couple players. You just don’t play with enough confidence. You need to believe in yourself and hit out.”
Pete basked in her praise and felt his self-esteem growing the more they talked. “This is a double-consolation tournament and I have a match at 3:00. Let’s see if I can remember how to hit the two-hander. Will you come watch?”
“Sure, I wouldn’t miss it. Its only 1:30. Let me get my racquets and meet you at the courts in 15 minutes. You need someone to help you get the feel back for the two-hander before your match. They told me I had the day off but I could use the practice. Come on, let’s go,” Ambre said as she jumped up from the table.
The word spread like wildfire around the camp. There was a bigger crowd for Pete’s practice session than there was for any of the matches. The other kids had heard about the new girl and wanted to see for themselves. Ambre had changed into tight shorts and a sports bra and looked like a model. Pete could hear the comparisons to Kornakova and Sharipova. She also had game.
Hitting with Ambre was like practicing against a wall. Everything came back at the right pace and height. She started off giving him easy backhands while he regained the feel of his old two-hander. He barely had to move his feet. Gradually, as Pete started returning the shots consistently, he found himself moving from side to side. Ambre motioned for Pete to hit up the line, and then cross-court. Ambre returned his shots effortlessly, always seeming to be in perfect position when the ball arrived. After 30 minutes they took a break.
“The backhand looks good, Pete, I think you are ready.”
Pete was beaming inside and out. “Have you missed yet, Ambre? I can’t believe how consistent you are.”
“I’ve missed a bunch, probably more than you have,” Ambre answered deflecting his compliment. “Let’s try a few volleys and call it quits.”
Ten minutes later Pete was ready. Ambre went back to change into dry clothes, while Pete changed shirts and waited for his match. Several kids stopped over to ask Pete about Ambre, but Pete just laughed and said it was tough to be so good looking.
“Your game looks good, Pete,” one of the boys commented. “Is that backhand here to stay?”
“Count on it,” Pete replied.
Ambre almost missed Pete’s match because of the attention the pros gave her after the practice session with Pete. It was the first time they had seen her hit, and she had been impressive. Everyone knew there was a new queen in camp. It was 3:45 when she finally got to courtside. “What’s the score?” she asked.
“6-1, 30-love, Pete. He is killing him. I’ve never seen him play this well.”
“Come-on, Pete,” Ambre yelled as he put away an overhead to go up four-love.
Pete looked over and gave Ambre a quick nod and a silent thank you. He was back.
The finals were scheduled for 3:00 PM Friday and the stadium court was packed. Martina Hingis and several other players from the pro tour were there, but Pete only had eyes for Ambre. She had missed two of his matches because of her own practice schedule, but left no doubt with her instructors that she would be there for this one. Pete had never beaten Jose, a seventeen year-old Argentinean, but everyone knew that Pete was playing his best tennis. It promised to be a great match.
Pete had breezed through the consolation bracket without losing a set, and avenged his first-round loss to Craig, 6-2, 6-3. The same tactics that had worked so well Monday had no impact on Pete in the second match. Kicking serves high to Pete’s backhand were like feeding a cannon. Pete’s two-handed backhand allowed him to get on top of the ball and rip service-return winners at will. More important, Pete was moving extremely well and hitting out with confidence on big points. Fred Liu and Sammy Baston watched in awe and wondered what had happened to Pete, but all the kids knew. Her name was Ambre.
Pete had invited Mary and me to the finals, but only told us he was playing an important match. We didn’t need any details for us to rearrange our schedules. I wondered if this would be the last time to watch Pete play competitively. We were surprised at the large crowd and even more surprised when we learned that Petie was playing for the championship. We arrived during warm-ups and were rewarded with a big smile and wave. Moments later we got another surprise. Pete had not mentioned he had changed back to the two-hander.
The first set was even at three-all when Pete got his first break point opportunity, and ripped a backhand winner up the line off a 2nd serve. It sent a message. “Don’t come at me with that 85-mile junk.” Pete played nearly flawless tennis and went on to win 6-3, 6-3. Most of the crowd seemed to be solidly behind Pete, particularly a young girl that continually yelled encouragement to Pete on big points.
Mary and I were stunned. We had spoken to Pete often and knew that he was close to throwing in the towel. Pete had just asked them to come and watch a match and had neglected to mention the importance of the match and that he was using his old backhand. “Wow,” Mary exclaimed, “he has never played this well. What happened?”
“I agree. It’s not just the two-hander. He is much more aggressive than I’ve ever seen him before. Something happened to him in the last couple weeks.”
They received their first clue when the young girl jumped into Pete’s arms after the match and gave him a long hug. She looked familiar but I couldn’t place her. They waited as Pete accepted congratulations from the staff and other players.
“Here he comes, Mary, and he’s bringing that girl. Doesn’t she look familiar to you?”
“Yes, I can’t place her, but she sure is beautiful. I think we know what’s behind Pete’s improvement.”
“Mom, Dad, this is my special friend, Ambre.”
“Ambre, what a beautiful name,” Mary said giving her a warm hug.
As I shook Ambre’s hand it came to me where I had seen her before. “You were at the Orange Bowl, cheering for Pete that day he won the qualifier, weren’t you?”
“That was me, I’m his number one cheerleader,” Ambre replied with a smile at Pete.
“You played the Orange Bowl, didn’t you? How did you do?” I knew I had asked a dumb question as soon as the words were out of my mouth, but I didn’t know why.
“Daaad, she won the 18’s and is ranked #2 in the world. Excuse him, Ambre, but he had to leave early that week on business.”
“That’s okay,” Ambre said. “No big deal.”
“Well, Pete. If you had played the way you did today you would have won it too,” I replied changing the direction of the conversation. “You were awesome. Your Mother and I are really proud of you.”
“Thanks Dad. Ambre got me to believe in myself again and that made all the difference.”
“And the two-hander?” Mary asked, looking directly at Ambre. “Was that your idea too?”
“I saw him play for five minutes and couldn’t believe the difference in his game since I saw him in Miami. He wasn’t the same player. They destroyed his self-image when they changed his backhand. Pete didn’t believe in himself anymore.”
Mary and I looked at each other in disbelief. How can I fifteen-year old girl have such insight into their son, I thought? In ten minutes she had diagnosed and fixed something that we had been agonizing over for months. Pete had put his trust in her and it had paid off. It didn’t hurt that she was young, beautiful and a great tennis player.
Mary looked at her son who was watching Ambre as she spoke. She realized that their relationship was changing and that Pete had left the nest. It was inevitable, but sad.
“I’m so happy for you,” she cried as she hugged her son.
“Ambre, thank you so much for help
ing Pete,” she smiled as they embraced.
“Dinner anyone?” I asked. “We would be happy to treat you to pizza or something to celebrate.”
“No thanks, Dad. There is a small party in the clubhouse tonight and I told them we would go. Maybe next week.”
“What party?” Ambre asked as they walked away.
We were financing deals all around the world and we had more construction projects than we could handle. Our equipment leasing business was doing $2M per month with an average commission of 3.5%. The commissions on commercial mortgages averaged only 1.5%, but the average size of our commercial deals was $18M. We closed 43 deals in the first quarter.
The weekly staff meetings were fun and usually over in less than an hour. Ken was back and almost fully recovered from his Mexico City injuries. His romance with Chris was going strong and they were planning a September, or November, or December wedding. The guys in the office had a pool going with “never” being the most popular choice. I disagreed, but who knows with Ken. Chris was still traveling a lot, which made things more difficult, particularly with the travel that Ken was doing.
“Ken, give us a quick update on the projects you are working on and tell these folks about our latest venture.” Ken was coordinating the funding of international projects and had hired three brokers that reported directly to him.
“In a nutshell, we have more projects than we can handle. We received 12 new requests for funding last week. Five I rejected out of hand as a waste of time, but the other seven look decent. There are two real estate development projects that are interesting. One is a mixed use Resort Development in San Miguel, Mexico. It’s on 30 acres on a lake 6,000’ up in the Sierra Madre Mountains; golf course, 150-suite boutique hotel, 1,000 home sites, equestrian center and the works. I need to go there.”
“I gather Chris is working in Mexico,” Sally commented with a wink.
“Don’t forget to wear your bullet-proof vest,” Tom suggested. “Your last visit to Mexico wasn’t too pleasant as I recall.”
I interrupted the kidding before it got out of hand. I could see Ken was just waiting to respond. “Ken, get to the point. Tell them about Paris.”
“Can’t I tell these doubters how I threw my body in front of you and probably saved your life? I took one for the team and all I get is heckling from the uneducated masses.”
“Ken, we don’t have time for this,” I said with more than a little exasperation.
“Okay, but I’ll get my revenge when they visit our new offices in Paris and try to write their vacations off as a business trip. The IRS will be notified immediately.”
“Paris,” Roger exclaimed. “Are we going international? What led to this?”
I spoke up before Ken could answer. “Since Ken is determined to keep us here all morning, let me explain our thinking. The opportunities in Europe are unlimited for someone with reliable funding sources and the ability to separate the chaff from the corn. There are a lot of bogus projects and scams over there, much more than here in the U.S. We felt it would be to our advantage to be closer to the large European banks and have someone over there that can do site inspections and due diligence.”
“Ken, when do I transfer?” one of Roger’s mortgage brokers asked.
“Don’t hold your breath, Earl,” Ken retorted. “We hired a local guy who is going to run the office. For now it will be just Pierre and an assistant. We are considering an office in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico if you are interested.”
“No thanks; I think I’ll take a pass on whatever that city you just mentioned. I’ll wait for Paris to open up.”
“Actually, there is some truth to what Ken said. We are considering an office in Mexico or somewhere in that region, Maybe Puerta Vallarta. As Ken said, there are a lot of opportunities in Central and South America. Let’s see how the Paris office works out.”
“Marco, would you like to add anything?”
“Sure, Jim. As you know, the Tampa Raymond James Stadium is almost finished. All we need to do is finish the Pirate Ship and the landscaping. The Sports Authority is pleased with our work and is giving us glowing references. We recently started two new jobs in the Midwest and have bid on several other large projects. Yesterday afternoon we were awarded the Boston Fenway Park renovation. That’s about it. Everything is going well.”
“Thanks, Marco. I might just add that Marco has also received several RFP’s for European jobs. Marco will probably need to open a second office in Europe if we get any of them.”
“Any questions? If not, let’s get back to work. Someone needs to pay for Ken’s travel expenses.”
“Jim, you have a call from Dick Browning.”
“What did Pete do now?” I wondered as I picked up the phone. Dick Browning was the top man at Saddlebrook and presided over the hotel, golf, banquet facilities as well as tennis. We had spoken several times at Saddlebrook, but he had never called me at work. I had spoken with Pete over the weekend and everything seemed to be fine. Still, I was a little concerned.
“Dick, it’s good to hear from you; to what do I owe this pleasure? Is there anything wrong?”
“No, nothings wrong Jim. In fact, everything I hear about Pete is that he is doing great both on and off the court.”
I smiled at his reference to Pete’s romance with Ambre.
“I called to ask if you could find the time to come out here this afternoon. My owners are in from Chicago and have a business proposition that they would like to discuss with you.”
What can this be about? I thought. “I have a meeting at 3:00 but I could be there by 5:00 or so. Is that too late, Dick?”
“That will be fine, Jim. I suggest you bring a sharp pencil. They are on a fast-track and are ready to talk numbers. I think you will like what they have in mind.”
“You have piqued my interest, Dick. I’ll see you around 5:00.”
The 5 o’clock meeting turned into a dinner meeting at Saddlebrook’s Dempsey’s Steak House and it was 11:00 PM before I finally headed home. I called Mary and asked her to wait up for me.
“Okay, what’s your big surprise?” she asked as I stumbled slightly coming in the door. I hope you finished your negotiations before you finished the bottle of wine.” Mary could tell by the grin on my face and the big hug I was giving her that I was a little too happy.
“Well, almost. I’ll find out tomorrow if we can do what I promised. I think we concluded our business before we ordered the cognac.”
“Okay, let’s have it. I’m starting to worry.”
“No need, honey. I just signed an agreement to build an indoor tennis and training facility at Saddlebrook. The only catch is that we need to complete it by June 15th.”
“That’s wonderful, but why June 15th? That’s pretty fast, isn’t it?”
“It sure is and I’m sure Marco will raise the roof when he hears about it, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help them out. The Women’s Tennis Association promised them a spot on their calendar if they could have a new facility built in time. They needed a guarantee from a reputable construction company that the new stadium would be completed in time or they would lose the opportunity. I gave them the guarantee.”
“I hope you know what you are doing. Shouldn’t you have gotten Marco’s input on this before you committed?”
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I married you, didn’t I?”
“It does sound exciting,” Mary agreed as she relaxed and embraced me warmly.
“Then let’s celebrate,” I suggested as I led her to the bedroom.
Chapter 18
Thanksgiving Dinner