Sudden Death (28 page)

Harriet finally broke it. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Carmen stopped her spoon in midair. “Uh, not before the finals.” She wondered if Harriet knew about her meeting with Lavinia. Crimson, Carmen gulped down the cantaloupe.

Harriet smiled, “I hope you win.”

“I will.” Carmen kissed Harriet. She walked into the closet and selected her outfit for the match.

Harriet fought off a throbbing headache and wondered what happens when a little lie becomes a reality or when reality becomes a lie.

There are moments in sport when everything works. Chance magnificence because no matter how perfectly one plays his part, a thousand tiny things can go wrong. When they go right, no one ever forgets, neither the players nor the audience nor even the grounds keepers. Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves. The great difference between sport and art is that sport, like a sonnet, forces beauty within its own system. Art, on the other hand, cyclically destroys boundaries and breaks free.

Tennis, imprisoned within fixed boundaries, a patch of an acre, a green rectangle, tries the human soul. A tennis
court is like a coffin, only larger. Someone can invent a new technique, but the lines, the rules, are fixed. Despite the mildewed intelligence of promoters and the industrial malaise that reduced tennis into just another vehicle for selling douche powder, beer, and automobiles, a fracture appeared in the commercial structure and the human spirit occasionally slipped through.

The women’s finals of the French Open was such a moment. Page Bartlett Campbell versus Carmen Semana, the classic backcourt player versus the queen of serve and volley, gave people a glimpse of something beyond terminal greed.

The first set ticked off as odds makers expected. Page clung to the baseline and forced errors from Carmen. A great serve and volley player commits herself. Page knew Carmen would come in off a strong serve, off any deep, driving shot. The net was Carmen’s domain. From that vantage point, like Archimedes, she could move the world. Hit into her body and she’d blast it back at a short angle. Hit wide and she’d leap into the ball and kill it. Page, a backcourt player, couldn’t afford to hit too many slices. If she was going to pass Carmen Semana at the net, she would have to hit the ball flat and hard as hell or fire it past her with wicked topspin. Page would need pinpoint accuracy because even the quickest volleyer can’t nick the blazing fury of a ball hit full force down the line.

The first set seesawed between the two women, but Page Bartlett Campbell could hit a dime from ten feet behind the baseline. She was better than a gunner in a Flying Tiger. Carmen, playing well, didn’t let this rattle her. Only a goddess could keep up that deadly aim for the duration of the match. However, Page came as close as any mortal to that description.

Carmen had to win this final. No one thought she could win on clay. It was the beginning of her dream, the Slam, and it would terrify the other players to know she could put down the best clay court player in the world.

Carmen lost the first set in the tie breaker.

The second set opened up with Carmen pushing a little harder, taking chances but not foolish ones. Her opportunities were born of confidence. Coming up midcourt, she hit a half-volley that cut over the net and died. The drop shot brought applause from the crowd. Page waved—a great shot was a great shot—then dug into the baseline like an infantryman at Verdun. Campbell could not be beaten psychologically. The accuracy continued. Her short, backhand crosscourt ate away at Carmen’s stamina. Page pulled her up, then passed her, if she could. She jerked her from one side of the court to the other. Carmen, a panther, increased her vocabulary of movement. It was as though her body extended that extra inch. She was there.

If they were goddesses, Page was Athena. Her game was the essence of rationality, planning, and flawless execution. Carmen was Artemis, goddess of the hunt. She sprang, leapt, and twisted in a ballet of power. Her game plan was secondary to her phenomenal athletic prowess. Page thought through every shot; she could gauge the degree of spin and height of bounce before the ball was on her side of the net. Carmen understood strategy, but at her best, she seemed guided by divine inspiration.

The contrast of personalities electrified the crowd. Spectators chose sides as to which woman was the greatest player alive in the world today. Seeing them at their best, head to head, was like watching Man O’ War or Secretariat. Spectators knew they’d not see the like again for decades. Between Page Bartlett Campbell and Carmen Semana, competition reached its highest level and became a sophisticated form of cooperation.

Carmen won the second set seven-five.

Jeffrey Campbell devoured four packs of gum. His wild swings of emotion were either blood sugar rushes or total identification or both. Harriet, face impassive, prayed the
muscles in her midriff would not constrict further. She could scarcely breathe, and sweat poured from under her armpits. Before an important match, she would sandblast her armpits because of nerves. It was one thing to be nervous. It was another thing to stink. Her mouth was dry. She never took her eyes off Carmen. Her radar, usually activated the night before a match, told her the outcome. She literally woke up in the mornings and knew if Carmen would win or lose. She awakened this morning thinking Carmen would win, but after watching Page on her best surface, at a tournament she repeatedly conquered, Harriet was questioning her prediction.

By now, the women had been in the afternoon sun for three hours. Every game went to deuce, ad; deuce, ad. Each point was an arabesque of struggle. The third set was at five-all, Page serving.

Page’s serve was deceptive. She lacked the booming power of Carmen. What she possessed was that deadly accuracy, coupled with enough power to hold an opponent back. Her feminine appearance belied her strength. When necessary, Page had a surprisingly flat, forceful service. She usually conserved her energy, opting for placement and fair speed. Her ground strokes depended on torque. The twist of her body sent the ball winging over the net. Those who played her often never underrated her power. The Sunday coaches in the stands thought Page Bartlett Campbell was all brains and no brawn. Too bad they didn’t have the opportunity to play her. She’d grind them into hamburger.

Thirty-all in the game and Page rocketed a serve to Carmen’s backhand, then followed it to the net. Page only came to the net to shake hands after the match was over. She caught Carmen off guard and cracked a forehand volley neatly into the corner.

At forty-thirty, Carmen rocked back and forth awaiting service. She didn’t know what to expect. Page hit her standard
speed serve. Carmen ripped a forehand down the line. Deuce. Page coolly called for a ball from the ball boy. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and hit that flat serve again. Carmen was surprised once more, and Page danced up to the net; she never seemed to be clumsy or heavy footed. Carmen returned the ball across Page’s body. Page had a reputation of being afraid of the net. Carmen figured instead of going down the line, she’d bore into her and perhaps force an error. Without batting an eye, Page met the ball with her racquet head open, no slant. The ball ricocheted back, Carmen’s power turned back on herself. Carmen scrambled for the wide return, and with a superhuman lunge and a flick of her stainless steel wrist, she hit a clear winner down the line.

Her advantage. Carmen’s steady rocking motion to receive the serve gave no hint of her own fear. She’d been in the sun, on grueling clay, for over three and a half hours now. She was tiring, and she knew it. Page was tiring, too, but neither one could slacken the pace. A whiff of indecision, a hint of exhaustion, and one would tear the other’s throat out.

Page served hard to Carmen’s backhand. The steady slice returned the shot over the net. Page’s two-handed backhand meant she had to take more steps to get to the ball. She barely made it, but she got off a decent return. Carmen took advantage of the chance and laid everything she had into that ball. She drove it back on the baseline. Page reached up almost at shoulder level to return the ball, but the return was weak and in no-man’s-land. Instantly, Carmen was on it. Page hovered in the backcourt waiting for the tremendous blow sure to follow. Carmen caressed the ball over the net like an artist stroking the canvas. The ball dropped over the net, spun backwards, and was impossible to reach. Carmen broke Page’s service. She had only to hold her own to win the match.

Holding her own took another twenty minutes. No one could believe the punishment those women inflicted upon one another. Each point was an agony. Page called upon all
the reserve and courage she had. Her murderous, line-catching shots would have broken the back of a weaker player. Carmen ran until she thought her lungs would burst. She made one backhand volley at the net where she leapt a foot off the ground, hit the shot, spun around completely, and hit Page’s return on her forehand volley. Yet after all that, she still lost the point.

The audience was on emotional overload. Jane and Ricky, hypnotized by the quality of their play, commented very little on the points. The tennis was so fantastic, it was best left to view in silence. The audience held its breath. All that could be heard was the ping of the ball on the racquet and the groans of the women, by now in obvious distress.

Finally, on ad in, Carmen used her last ounce of power for a blazing serve. Page’s serve return was crisp but short; Carmen moved in. Page shot down the line. Carmen, displaying a sixth sense, catapulted her body parallel to the net, blocking the shot. Page raced to it but couldn’t get it over the net.

Carmen Semana won the French Open. She won the first of the big four, the tournament no one thought she would ever win. What or who could stop her now?

A
fter the French Open, there were two warm-up tournaments on grass in England. Carmen always skipped the first, preferring to practice on the private grass courts of English friends.

Miguel, Harriet, and Carmen slipped into England on the last hydrofoil. The reporters hanging around the airport were fooled, but when the Eastbourne tournament began, there’d be no escape.

Cold, damp, the weather did not tempt Carmen to practice, but she knew she had to. Miguel was especially demanding as he drilled her on the court. His analytical mind made him a good coach.

Before returning to the house, Miguel wrapped a towel around her neck and put her sweat jacket on. “Migueletta, you must send Harriet back or force her to marry me this week.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We’ve got to talk about it. Lavinia calls me every day.” He didn’t mention that Seth, the shit, called once to gloat.

“Lavinia’s planting an article about my marriage.”

“What marriage?” Miguel was thunderstruck.

“She found me a man in Los Angeles to marry.”

Miguel tempered his voice. “Who is this man? What kind
of man would marry you without knowing you? A man who needs a cover of his own! And money!”