Sudden Death (32 page)

“What’s that?”

“You know what it is.”

Miguel took the clothes. He said nothing.

“Miguel, goddamn you, don’t lie to me!”

“I made a deal.” He breathed deeply and then told her about Hong Kong, the distribution network, the genius of the plan, and most important, he was putting ten percent of the profits into her account.

“What else?”

“That’s all.”

She had one card, but she played it smart. “Seth Quintard told me you borrowed the money.”

Miguel assumed she knew about the forged signature. “I’ll kill that bastard. How did he find out about Dennis Parry?”

“Athletes Unlimited has friends everywhere.”

Miguel reached for her hand. She snatched it from his grasp. “So I forged your signature—no harm in that. This was a good deal. I paid off Parry, the loan officer. He’s a weasel, but he did get me the loan. Who’s going to believe that you didn’t know about this?”

“So how much do you owe?”

“We owe about five hundred thousand dollars plus some interest. I’ve made a few payments already or it would be worse.”

“You know that Seth Quintard will probably sit down with the American manufacturers. If he gave me the phony clothes, he’ll give it to them.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“But they’ll know about all this. There’s no way to sell this stuff, not anymore.”

“Not in America.” Miguel’s face was stark white. “It’s sold in Southeast Asia.”

“Enough to pay off the debt?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. If you don’t become an instant Mrs., the stuff probably won’t sell there either.”

“Jesus Christ, Miguel, how could you do this to me?”

“Everything would have been fine, Migueletta. You’d have had more money in the bank, and I’d have been a rich man in my own right. How was I to know you were a lesbian?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Your hot crotch will cost us a fortune.”

Carmen hit him in the stomach. He doubled over. “Slippery. Papa always said you were an eel. You forged my name, and you used me.”

He straightened up and pinned her arms to her sides. “You might be half a man, sister, but I’m all man and I can still beat the shit out of you.”

“Let me go.”

“Not until you listen.”

She spit in his face and brought her knee up between his legs. He howled.

“I can hurt you pretty bad while you beat me up, stupid.”

“What good will this do us? We’re both in trouble. We’ve got to stick together.”

She stood over him. “Why?”

“Because I’m your brother. Yes, I got you in a mess, but it could have been great. What good will it do you or women’s tennis if a marketing scandal erupts? Seth Quintard had his revenge. He won’t make it public. The last thing Athletes Unlimited wants is more trouble in women’s tennis. So you pay off the loan and no one will suspect anything. We’ll stick together. Not all my investments were bad.”

She listened impassively. “Okay, Miguel. But you make no more deals. Not ever. Once I’m in the clear, you go home.”

Miguel’s eyes filled with tears. “Forgive me. Please forgive me.”

“Shut up and go home. I’ve really got to win tomorrow.”

The morning of Wimbledon’s women’s finals was clear, an unexpected blessing. Carmen, more wired than a Con Edison turbine, sprinkled pepper on her breakfast steak.

Harriet put up the tea. “Telegram from Baby Jesus arrived while you were in the shower.”

“Let me see.”

Last night after Carmen went to sleep, Harriet sneaked out of bed and cut apart all the telegrams Carmen had already received, added a few letters herself, and made a telegram from the cat. She handed it to Carmen.

Carmen smiled and read aloud. “Carmen. CATastrophe for Hilda Stambach. Stop. Win. Stop. Would like kippers for celebration. Stop. Come home. Stop. Peed in your tub. Never stop. Baby Jesus.” She folded the telegram and tucked it inside her racquet cover.

“Even the animals are on your side.” There wasn’t much else to say, since both their minds were on Centre Court.

Harriet’s prediction was accurate. The final was anti-climactic for everyone but Carmen, Harriet, and Bonnie Marie, who was buried in the stands. Carmen strung together
the points like pearls. Hilda’s first appearance on Centre Court may have rattled her nerves, but even if she’d been hardened to Wimbledon, she wouldn’t have slowed Semana.

Carmen was high. A lock lifted on her control canal. She was free. Her body was loose. She didn’t think about the points so much as she felt them. The game was instinctive, fluid, magical.

After the match, she held the silver plate high over her head and turned around for the crowd. Now people were taking her run for the Grand Slam seriously. If she could pace herself and keep well, Carmen Semana might do it.

As Jane and Harriet sped away from Wimbledon, unobserved in all the celebration and confusion, Harriet said, “Carmen’s having an affair. I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. Jane, what am I going to do?”

“Can you take it? Her having another lover?”

Harriet was silent.

Jane halted in front of a jewelry store. “If your heart is breaking, you’re allowed to cry out and crawl on all fours while you put your life back together. God knows I did.”

“You did?”

“When my first marriage came apart at the seams, I didn’t know which end was up. I’d built my whole life around that bastard. Oh, he’s not really a bastard. We were two unhappy kids who found a moment of happiness, an illusion called The Future.”

“Probably it’s the same for Carmen and this—what’s her name?”

“Bonnie Marie Bishop. As near as I can gather she’s a senior in college.”

“Bet she graduates summa cunt laude.”

Jane ran her hands through Harriet’s hair, a big sister prettying up her little sister. “This may get much worse before it gets better. Don’t be too proud to call on your friends. And remember that old phrase, ‘Leave her to heaven.’ ”

Harriet’s eyes moistened. She hated crying, and she couldn’t bring herself to cry on a public street. “Maybe lovers are like radio stations. As you cross the country, they come in clear and then fade out.”

A
thletes, like fireflies, gathered at tournaments and then dispersed at play’s end. They lived in eternal summer until winter caught up with each individual. As the species was ritually replenished with aspirants, the fallen comrades were rarely missed. When a giant of the game retired, the news stayed in memory for a day, two at the most, then sunk like a stone.

With the passing of Wimbledon, the shining bodies packed their bags and headed to the next tournament or home for a week or more off. Soon city tournaments would start again, each one sponsored by an aggregate of banks, car dealers, and other local businesses. Lavinia, back at the helm in her own country, would command the women’s tournaments until the U.S. Open, another site of her former valor.

The women players went off in one direction, and the men players went off in another. Anyone who nurtures fantasies of endless sex between male and female tennis players is smoking opium. The male players disdain the female. These fellows want starlets and models, not athletes. Only a few of the girls met with their approval. The male players thought the female players were a pack of dogs. The female players thought the male players were stupid pricks. So much for love games at tennis.

The Wimbledon crash flattened everyone: players, spectators, even linesmen. It was a two-week lawn party which, like all lawn parties, was better in the reliving than in the living. The British rightly turn their attention to cricket. The tennis players, less impressive in street clothes, faded into the year like sunlight fading into twilight until next year, same time, same place, most of the same faces.

At least when a player dropped away now, it was usually due to retirement. Some fans remembered men like Joseph Hunt of the United States or Henner Henkel of Germany, up and coming stars who were obliterated in World War II. Others remembered the blond presence of Karel Koseluth, the great Czech star of the 1930’s. He was born in the wrong country and at the wrong time. And then there was Anthony Wilding himself, the golden god of Wimbledon, destroyed in the World War I. Maria Bueno still played doubles, but a car crash cut short her amazing career. She was the most beautiful player anyone had seen since the days of Suzanne Lenglen, in the early 1920’s. A graceful, luminous presence like those two women comes once every forty or fifty years. Maureen Connolly, who should have presided as the Grand Matron of Tennis, was dead of cancer. Others, great names best left great by not ratting on them, lost to drink or drugs, were no longer part of Wimbledon’s roll call, no longer part of the functioning human race either.

Another year. Three hundred and sixty-five days. To those athletes in their prime, that seemed so long. To those past their prime, next year’s Wimbledon would arrive in the blinking of an eye, and the ghosts would crowd the memory once more with the flood of what was once young, beautiful, and strong. It befalls each generation to claim its own ghosts. The Medusa of time works her will on us all.