by Andre Agassi
Brooke picks up one of the magazines, stares at my photo. I watch her stare. I think of that day thirteen years ago, sitting with Perry in his bedroom, beneath hundreds of Sports Illustrated covers, dreaming about Brooke. Now here she is, I’m on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Perry is a former producer of her TV show, and we’re all barely speaking.
She reads the headline aloud. Suddenly Andre. She reads it again. Suddenly Andre?
She looks up. Oh, Andre.
What?
Oh, Andre. I’m so so sorry.
Why?
Here it is, your big moment, and they make it all about me.
· · ·
STEFANIE IS IN THE FINAL TOO. She loses to Lindsay Davenport. She had been playing mixed doubles as well, with McEnroe, and they had reached the semis, but she pulled out because of a bad hamstring. I’m in the locker room, getting dressed for my match with Pete, and McEnroe is telling a group of players that Stefanie left him in the lurch.
Can you believe this bitch? She asks to play mixed doubles with me and I fucking do it and then we’re in the semis and she backs out?
Brad puts a hand on my shoulder. Steady, champ.
I start strong against Pete. My mind is going in several directions at once—how dare Mac say those things about Stefanie? what was the deal with that hat Brooke was wearing?—but somehow I’m playing solid, crisp tennis. It’s 3–all in the first set, Pete serving at love–40. Triple break point. I see Brad smiling, punching Perry, shouting, Come on! Let’s go! I let myself think about Borg, the last person to win the French and Wimbledon back to back, a feat now within my grasp.
I imagine Borg phoning me again to congratulate me. Andre? Andre, it’s me. Björn. I envy you.
Pete wakes me from my fantasy. Unreturnable serve. Unreturnable serve. Blur. Ace. Game, Sampras.
I stare at Pete in shock. No one, living or dead, has ever served like that. No one in the history of the game could have returned those serves.
He takes me out in straight sets, finishing me off with two aces, two fiery exclamation points at the end of a seamless performance. It’s the first match I’ve lost in a slam in the last fourteen matches, a streak of dominance almost without precedence in my career. But history will record that it’s Pete’s sixth Wimbledon, and his twelfth slam overall, tying him for most all-time among men—as history should. Later, Pete tells me he never saw me hit the ball as hard and clean as I did those first six games, and it made him raise his game, amp up his second serve by twenty miles an hour.
In the locker room I need to take the standard drug test. I so badly want to piss and run back to the house and call Stefanie, but I can’t, because I have a bladder like a whale. It takes forever. Finally my bladder cooperates with my heart.
I drop my bag in the front hall and lunge for the phone as if it’s a drop shot. Fingers trembling, I dial. Straight to voice mail. I leave a message. Hi. It’s Andre. Tournament’s over. I lost to Pete. Sorry about your loss to Lindsay. Call me when you can.
I sit. I wait. A day passes. No call. Another day. No call.
I hold the phone in front of my face and tell it: Ring.
I dial her again, leave another message. Nothing.
I fly back to the West Coast. As I step off the plane, I check my messages. Nothing.
I fly to New York for a charity event. I check my voice mail every fifteen minutes. Nothing.
J.P. meets me in New York City. We hit the town. P. J. Clarke’s and Campagnola. A big ovation when we walk in. I see my friend Bo Dietl, the cop-turned-TV personality. He’s sitting at a long table with his crew: Mike the Russian, Shelly the Tailor, Al Tomatoes, Joey Pots and Pans. They insist we join them.
J.P. asks Joey Pots and Pans how he got his nickname.
I love to cook!
Later we all break up laughing when Joey’s cell phone rings. He flips it open and yells, Pots!
Bo says he’s having a party in the Hamptons this weekend. He insists that J.P. and I come. Pots is cooking, he says. Tell him your favorite food, whatever it is, he’ll cook it. It makes me think of those long-ago Thursday nights at Gil’s house.
I tell Bo we wouldn’t miss it.
THE CROWD AT BO’S HOUSE is like the cast of GoodFellas meets Forrest Gump. We sit around the pool, smoking cigars, drinking tequila. Every now and then I pull Stefanie’s number out of my pocket and study it. At one point I go into Bo’s house and call her from his landline, in case she’s screening my calls. Straight to voice mail.
Frustrated, restless, I drink three or four too many margaritas, then put my wallet and cell phone on a chair and do a cannonball into the pool, still dressed. Everyone follows. An hour later, I check my voicemail again. You have one new message.
For some reason my cell phone didn’t ring.
Hi, she says. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back. I got very sick. My body broke down after Wimbledon. I had to pull out of San Francisco and come home to Germany. But I’m feeling better now. Call me back when you can.
She doesn’t leave her number, of course, because she already gave me her number.
I pat my pockets. Where did I put that number?
My heart stops. I remember writing it on a paper napkin, which was in my pocket when I jumped in the pool. Gingerly I reach into my pocket and pull out the napkin. It looks like Tammy Faye Bakker’s makeup.
I remember that I phoned Stefanie once from Bo’s landline. I grab him by the arm and tell him that whatever it takes, whatever favors he has to call in, whoever he needs to grease or bully or kill, he must get the phone records for his house, with all the outgoing phone calls from today. And he must do it right now.
Done, Bo says.
He reaches out to a guy who knows a guy who has a friend who has a cousin who works for the phone company. An hour later we have the records. The list of calls made from the house looks like the Pittsburgh white pages. Bo yells at his crew: I’m going to start keeping an eye on you mutts! No wonder my frigging phone bill is so high!
But there’s the number. I write it down in six different places, including my hand. I dial Stefanie, and she answers on the third ring. I tell her what I’ve been through tracking her down. She laughs.
We’re both playing near Los Angeles soon. Can we meet there? Maybe?
After your tournament, she says. Yes.
I FLY TO LOS ANGELES AND PLAY WELL. I meet Pete in the final. I lose 7–6, 7–6, and don’t care. Running off the court, I’m the happiest guy in the world.
I shower, shave, dress. I grab my tennis bag and head for the door—and there’s Brooke.
She heard I was in town and decided to come down and see me play. She gives me a head-to-toe.
Wow, she says. You’re all dressed up. Got a big date?
Actually, yes.
Oh. With who?
I don’t answer.
Gil, she says, who does he have a date with?
Brooke, I think you should probably ask Andre that.
She stares at me. I sigh.
I’m going out with Stefanie Graf.
Stefanie?
Steffi.
I know we’re both thinking of the photo on the refrigerator door. I say, Please don’t tell anybody, Brooke. She’s a private person, and she doesn’t like any attention.
I won’t tell a soul.
Thank you.
You look nice.
Really?
Uh-huh.
Thanks.
I hoist my tennis bag. She walks me into the tunnel under the stadium, where players park their cars.
Hello, Lily, she says, putting a hand on the gleaming white hood of the Cadillac. The top is already down. I throw my bag on the backseat.
Have a nice time, Brooke says. She kisses me on the cheek.
I pull away slowly, glancing at Brooke in the rearview mirror. Once more I drive away from her in Lily. But I know this time will be the last, and that we’ll never speak again.
ON THE WAY TO SAN DIEGO, where Stefanie is
playing, I phone J.P., who gives me a pep talk. Don’t try too hard, he says. Don’t try to be perfect. Be yourself.
I think I know how to follow that advice on a tennis court, but on a date, I’m at a loss.
Andre, he says, some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in a room, you change it. So be confident, be yourself, take charge. Show her your essential self.
I think I can do that. Should I pick her up with the top up or down?
Up. Girls worry about their hair.
Don’t we all. But isn’t it cooler with the top down?
Her hair, Andre, her hair.
I keep the top down. I’d rather be cool than chivalrous.
STEFANIE IS RENTING A CONDO at a large resort. I find the resort but can’t find the condo, so I phone her for directions.
What kind of car are you driving?
A Cadillac as big as a Carnival cruise ship.
Ahh. Yes. I see you.
I look up. She’s standing on a tall grassy hill, waving.
She shouts: Wait there!
She comes running down the hill and makes as if to jump in my car.
Wait, I say. I have something I want to give you. Can I come up a minute?
Oh. Um.
Just a minute.
Reluctantly, she walks back up the hill. I drive around and park outside the front door of her condo.
I present her with a gift, a box of fancy candles I bought for her in Los Angeles. She seems to like them.
OK, she says. Ready?
I was hoping we could have a drink first.
A drink? Like what?
I don’t know. Wine?
She says she doesn’t have any wine.
We could order room service.
She sighs. She hands me a wine list and asks me to pick out a bottle.
When the room-service guy knocks at the door, she asks me to wait in the kitchen. She says she doesn’t want to be seen together. She feels uncomfortable about our date. Guilty. She can imagine the room-service guy going back to tell his fellow room-service guys. She has a boyfriend, she reminds me.
But we’re just—
There’s no time to explain, she says. She pushes me into the kitchen.
I can hear the poor room-service guy, slightly enamored of Stefanie, who’s just as nervous, for very different reasons. She’s trying to rush him, he’s fumbling with the bottle, and of course he drops it. A 1989 Château Beychevelle.
When the guy leaves I help Stefanie pick up the pieces of broken glass.
I say, I think we’re off to a fine start, don’t you?
I’VE RESERVED A TABLE by the window at Georges on the Cove, overlooking the ocean. We both order chicken and vegetables on a bed of mashed potatoes. Stefanie eats faster than I and doesn’t touch her wine. I realize she’s not a foodie, not a three-course-meal-and-linger-over-coffee kind of girl. She’s also fidgeting, because someone she knows is sitting behind us.
We talk about my foundation. She’s fascinated to hear about the charter school I’m building; she has her own foundation, which gives psychological counseling to children scarred by war and violence in places like South Africa and Kosovo.
The subject of Brad, naturally, comes up. I tell her about his tremendous coaching skills, his odd people skills. We laugh about his efforts to make tonight happen. I don’t tell her about his prediction. I don’t ask about her boyfriend. I ask what she likes to do in her free time. She says she loves the ocean.
Would you like to go to the beach tomorrow?
I thought you were supposed to go to Canada.
I could take a red-eye tomorrow night.
She thinks.
OK.
After dinner I drop her at the resort. She gives me the double-cheek kiss, which is starting to feel like a karate self-defense move. She runs inside.
Driving away, I phone Brad. He’s already in Canada, and it’s hours later there. I woke him. But he rouses himself when I tell him the date went well.
Come on, he says groggily, stifling a yawn. Let’s go!
SHE SPREADS A TOWEL ON THE SAND and pulls off her jeans. Underneath she’s wearing a white one-piece bathing suit. She walks out into the water, up to her knees. She stands with one hand on her hip, the other shielding her eyes from the sun, scanning the horizon.
She asks, You coming in?
I don’t know.
I’m wearing white tennis shorts. I didn’t think to bring a bathing suit, because I’m a desert kid. I don’t do well in the water. But I’ll swim to China right now if that’s what it takes. In just my tennis shorts I walk out to where Stefanie’s standing. She laughs at my swimwear, and pretends to be shocked that I’m going commando. I tell her I’ve been like this since the French Open, and I’m never going back.
We talk for the first time about tennis. When I tell her that I hate it, she turns to me with a look that says, Of course. Doesn’t everybody?
I talk about Gil. I ask about her conditioning. She mentions that she used to train with Germany’s Olympic track team.
What’s your best race?
Eight hundred meters.
Whoa. That’s a gut check. How fast can you run it?
She smiles shyly.
You don’t want to tell me?
No answer.
Come on. How fast are you?
She points down the beach, at a red balloon in the distance.
See that red dot down there?
Yeah.
You’d never beat me to that.
Really.
Really.
She smiles. Off she goes. I go tearing after her. It feels as if I’ve been chasing her all my life, and now I’m literally chasing her. At first it’s all I can do to keep pace, but near the finish line I close the gap. She reaches the red balloon two lengths ahead of me. She turns, and peals of her laughter carry back to me like streamers on the wind.
I’ve never been so happy to lose.
24
I’M IN CANADA, she’s in New York. I’m in Vegas, she’s in Los Angeles. We stay connected by phone. One night she asks for a rundown of my favorites. Song. Book. Food. Movie.
You’ve probably never heard of my favorite movie.
Tell me, she says.
It came out several years ago. It’s called Shadowlands. It’s about C. S. Lewis, the writer.
I hear a sound like the phone dropping.
That’s impossible, she says. That’s simply not possible. That’s my favorite movie.
It’s about committing, opening yourself to love.
Yes, she says. Yes, it is, I know.
We are like blocks of stone … blows of His chisel which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.
Yes. Yes. Perfect.
PLAYING IN MONTREAL, in the semis against Kafelnikov, I can’t win a single point. He’s number two in the world and he puts a beating on me that causes people in the stands to cover their eyes. I tell myself: I have no say in the outcome of this match. I have no vote about what’s happening to me today. I’m not just being defeated, I’m being disenfranchised. But I’m OK. In the locker room I see Kafelnikov’s coach, Larry, leaning against the wall, smiling.
Larry, that was the sickest display of tennis I’ve ever seen. I’m going to make you a promise. Tell your boy he has a couple of beatings coming from me.
Later in the day I get a call from Stefanie. She’s at LAX.
I ask, How’d you do in your tournament?
I hurt myself.
Agh. I’m sorry.
Yes. That’s it. I’m done.
Where are you headed?
Back to Germany. I have some—some unfinished business.
I know what this means. She’s going to talk to her boyfriend, tell him about me, break things off. I feel a goofy smile spread across my face.
When she returns from Germany, she says, she’ll meet me in New York. We can spend time together before the 1999 U.S. Open. She m
entions that she’ll need to call a news conference.
A news conference? For what?
My retirement.
Your—you’re retiring?
That’s what I just said. I’m done.
When you said done, I thought you meant done for the tournament! I didn’t know you meant—done.
I feel bereft, thinking of tennis without Stefanie Graf, the greatest women’s player of all time. I ask how it feels knowing she’ll never swing a racket in competition again. It’s the kind of question reporters ask me every day, but I can’t help myself. I want to know. I ask with a mixture of curiosity and envy.
She says it feels fine. She’s at peace, more than ready to be done.
I wonder if I’m ready. I meditate on my own tennis mortality. But a week later, I’m in Washington, D.C., playing Kafelnikov in the final. I beat him 7–6, 6–1, and afterward I give his coach, Larry, a look. A promise is a promise.
I realize I’m not done. I have promises yet to keep.
I’M ON THE VERGE of being number one again. This time it’s not my father’s goal, or Perry’s, or Brad’s, and I remind myself that it’s not mine either. It would be nice, that’s all. It would cap off the comeback. It would be a memorable milestone on the journey. I sprint up one side of Gil Hill, down the other. I’m training for the number one ranking, I tell Gil. And for the U.S. Open. And, in a funny way, for Stefanie.
I can’t wait for you to meet her, I say.
She arrives in New York and I whisk her upstate to a friend’s nineteenth-century farmhouse. It has fifteen hundred acres and several large stone fireplaces. In every room we can sit and stare into the flames and talk. I tell her I’m a firebug. Me too, she says. The leaves are just starting to turn, and each window frames a postcard view of red-gold woods and mountains. There is no one around for miles.
We spend our time walking, hiking, driving into nearby towns, puttering in antique shops. At night we lie on the couch and watch the original Pink Panther. After half an hour we’re both laughing so hard at Peter Sellers that we have to stop the tape and catch our breath.