Sudden Death (34 page)

The two weeks after Wimbledon were the only two weeks out of the year when Susan stopped her obsessive practicing. She declined World Team Tennis even though the money was good. This vacation was her treat to herself.

Skimming across the deep blue waters in a small sailboat, the two chatted amicably. The weather was perfect, and Alicia was a good sailor. Susan was fixing to dump Alicia if she could find an adequate replacement. Alicia was a bit too passive. What was she doing in Gary Shorter’s room? And besides, it was time to get a new model. Like people who’ve suffered entirely too much graduate school and measure each year by the beginning of fall, so Susan’s internal clock told her it was time for someone new.

“Great day.” Alicia expertly handled the rudder and the big sail.

“I love Maine.”

“Me, too.”

“Susan?”

“Yes?”

“I have something to tell you.”

Here it comes, Susan thought. “What?”

“I think you tipped off the press about Carmen Semana and Harriet Rawls.”

“What makes you think that?” Susan lay flat on her back soaking up the delicious sun.

“The story about the marriage ceremony. It was so outrageous only you could have thought of it.”

Susan’s billowing ego took over. “Don’t be silly.”

“Reporters aren’t that smart. You cooked that up. You can’t stand the thought of Carmen winning the Grand Slam.”

Susan’s teeth gritted slightly. “She won’t win it. No one will ever win it again.”

“She’s halfway there. Just wait.”

“What’s this to you?”

“Curious. You will always fascinate me.” Alicia’s gentle voice floated over the water.

“H-m-m.”

“It was a rotten thing to do, Susan, rotten but funny in a way.”

A forbidden smile crept over Susan’s lips.

“The other thing I want to tell you”—Alicia tacked the sailboat—“is that I’m pregnant.”

“You’re what?” Susan sat up.

“I’m pregnant.”

Susan’s face was splotched. “How could you?”

“I want a baby.”

“I have a child.”

“So why can’t I have one?”

“Alicia, you’re forever reading that Bible. You worry about us. How can you go out and breed?”

“I want a baby. I want one thing or one person I can love, and I don’t want to spend a life hiding.”

“You can love me.”

“Not really. I don’t think you let anyone close enough.”

This was not the conversation Susan prepared for. She hoped for a tearful confession. She would comfort Alicia and forgive her for her one night out with the boys. Then she’d feel perfectly justified in finding a new lover posthaste. “That’s absurd.”

“I’m not getting married. I know this will kill my parents, but it’s something I have to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything but die.” Susan heated up.

“There’s something else I have to do.”

“What?”

“Leave you.” Alicia dove off the boat and swam to the shore. It took an inexperienced Susan two hours to maneuver the craft back to the basin. When she got to the room, Alicia had cleared out. Susan sat down on the bed. It was the first time in her thirty years that she was left by a lover.

Lavinia Sibley Archer was left, too. Howard Dominick got sacked. Tomahawk wanted a new big chief and women’s tennis was unceremoniously dropped in the corporate trash can.

“I never thought this could happen.”

“You’ve had your way for twelve years. I’d say you came out ahead.”

Lavinia turned to Siggy, “What did you say?”

“I said you ran the show for twelve years. Maybe it’s time for new concepts and new people.”

Empurpled with fury, she yelled, “Are you implying I’m over the hill?”

“Over the hill? You ought to be under the sod.”

“You’re fired!”

“Great. I quit. But before I go, let me tell you I don’t give a shit that you won Wimbledon. Nobody gives a shit that you won Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. The sun does not rise and set on Lavinia Sibley Archer and women’s tennis.”

Her outrage led to paralysis. Lavinia stood riveted to the spot.

Siggy, now unleashed, ripped on. “The women’s game will never bring the revenues the men’s game does, and men’s tennis ain’t no bed of roses either. If you want to survive, you’d better target your market, babe, because it ain’t Joe Six-packs. If he’s going to watch women, he’s not going to watch preteen kiddies and sweating dykes. Your market is the married, middle-aged female, the club player and her husband, if she drags him to the tournaments. And she’s not thrilled with dykes either. She comes because she wants to watch good tennis, go home, and hit a backhand like Susan Reilly. She doesn’t want to be Susan Reilly. Get it?”

“Get out!”

“I’m giving you dictatorial court. I’m going with pleasure.”

“You’re wrong about the tennis market!” she screamed.

Siggy was heading for the elevators.

Lavinia recognized a crisis when she saw one. She swallowed her ego and ran after Siggy. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I lost my head. Come back and let’s talk this out.”

Coolly Siggy backed away from the opening elevator doors.

They talked for five hours. Siggy Wayne proposed a reorganization of the circuit. Everything would be scaled down. Next he promised he’d get a new sponsor, one not identified with femininity or women’s products specifically. And lastly, he’d be made her full partner or he’d walk.

Lavinia hedged until he could produce the new sponsor. This he did. A liquor company wanted to release a new drink, an alcoholic milkshake called “Avalanche.” They decided to
take the chance for one year. The contract could be canceled if any scandal erupted. While Avalanche would be aimed at the new drinkers, those aged eighteen to twenty-four depending on the state, the company would also push its staple line, gin.

Siggy was a full partner. Women’s tennis would have a future under his reign. Promoters, once given tournaments on whim, were now subject to sets of rules handed down by Siggy Wayne. Tennis, although slightly diminished, was centralized under Siggy’s control. It was now truly a business and would steer through economic waters like any stable corporation. In his way, Siggy was more important than Wimbledon.

Carmen’s wedding, a gala Los Angeles affair, made all the papers and sports magazines. Lavinia, although no longer certain of her media pimps, knew no one could resist this. The joke was that Bonnie Marie Bishop was Carmen’s maid of honor. Arturo Semana gave away his daughter while Theresa, her mother, sat in the front row weeping copiously. Miguel wept, too. He knew this pretty actor would get involved in a power struggle with him sooner or later. Miguel and Carmen patched things up as best they could. She still loved him, but she’d never trust him again. She’d never really trust anyone again except Bonnie Marie—and whoever came after Bonnie Marie.

Christmas was the original date for the wedding but the events of midsummer shook Lavinia to her core. This was a shotgun wedding with women’s tennis as the baby.

Before the wedding, Happy Straker, along with most of the other girls on the circuit, organized a bridal shower. Movie cameras were in abundance. Afterwards, the gay players took a vow of silence. No one would ever admit she was gay, and no one would ever be seen with a publicly gay
person. Of course, that meant Harriet. Lavinia saw to that. All her press releases referred to “the unfortunate friendship.” After Carmen’s marriage, when her girls were safe, she’d stop trashing Harriet.

Susan Reilly was conspicuous by her absence. So was Alicia. That story was whispered behind closed doors. Happy policed the silence now. It was a role for which she was well suited.

Now married to an understanding Timothy, Carmen was secure and wildly happy with Bonnie Marie. Bonnie Marie was stashed in a pretty house in Westwood while Tim and Carmen inhabited her new huge Bel-Air home complete with tennis court.

Carmen’s only concern was winning the U.S. Open. She practiced with Miguel with a holy fervor. She was going to win the Grand Slam, and that was all that mattered.

Feverish as Carmen’s practice sessions were, they couldn’t match the intensity of Susan Reilly’s. Susan placed herself under the tutelage of Marvin Wheelwright, one of the great coaches of the game. He’d been a fine doubles player in the fifties, but he really found his niche with coaching. Marvin could rebuild a game more accurately and faster than anyone in the sport. He was expensive, and his pupils worked eight hours a day.

Susan was up at 6
A.M
. Since Marvin lived in Florida, they worked from 7
A.M
. to 11
A.M
. They broke for lunch, followed by weight training and strategy sessions, and then were back on the courts from 4
P.M
. to 8
P.M
.

Marvin drilled her on Deco Turf, the surface of the U.S. Open, and grass for the Australian Open. He was one of the few pros in America who maintained a grass court.

Marvin wasn’t sure about Susan and the U.S. Open. Her impatience with the artificial surface could hurt her, but on grass, if she remembered what he taught her, especially about her approach shots to the net, on grass she’d be a killer.

Susan was already a killer in her own fashion. Devoid of love, such as she knew love, Susan’s maniacal streak ran without restraint. On her own after eight
P.M
., she would head for the weight room to further punish her body. She was a woman obsessed.

Harriet found herself in dire straits. She couldn’t afford the upkeep of the Cazenovia house, but all her savings were tied up in it. She never thought Carmen would be petty about money, but she discovered otherwise. There is probably no such thing as a good parting, but the wrangling with Carmen’s high-powered lawyers over the New York property was not a happy way to spend the summer for a woman who’d been dumped by her lover and dumped without a cent. The beautiful presents Carmen gave her were useless in this situation and only further served to make Harriet hostage to Carmen’s wealth.

Finally the house was sold. The settlement was held up while Carmen’s lawyers declared Harriet hadn’t put in half the money for the house. She never said she did, but then money wasn’t the basis of her relationship with Carmen. They were lovers, not accountants.