“No, Dr. Phil, I don’t.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t give me that sanctimonious face. I didn’t do anything beyond flirting last night.”
“I’m not here to judge.”
“Yeah, but you do it anyway. Where are you off to?”
“Suzze’s tennis academy. Have you seen Win?”
“I don’t think he’s in yet.”
Myron grabbed a taxi west toward the Hudson River. The Suzze T Tennis Academy was located near Chelsea Piers in what looked like, and maybe was, a giant white bubble. When you entered the courts, the air pressure used to inflate the bubble made your ears pop. There were four courts, all filled with young women/teens/girls playing tennis with instructors. Suzze was on court one, all eight months pregnant of her, giving instructions on how to approach the net to two sun-soaked blond teens with ponytails. Forehands were being drilled on court two, backhands court three, serves on court four. Someone had put down hula hoops in the corners of the service line as targets. Suzze spotted Myron and signaled for him to give her a minute.
Myron moved back into the waiting room overlooking the courts. The moms were there, all in tennis whites. Tennis was the only sport where spectators liked to dress like the participants, as if they might suddenly be called out of the stands to play. Still—and Myron knew that this was politically incorrect—there was something hot about a mom in tennis whites. So he looked. He did not ogle. He was too sophisticated for that. But he looked.
The lust, if that was what this was, quickly dissipated. The mothers scrutinized their daughters with too much intensity, their lives seemingly riding on every shot. Looking out the picture window at Suzze, watching her sharing a laugh with one of her pupils, he remembered Suzze’s own mom, who used terms like “driven” or “focused” to cover up what should have been labeled “innate cruelty.” Some believe that these parents go overboard because they are living their lives through their children, but that wasn’t the case because they wouldn’t ever treat themselves so callously. Suzze’s mother wanted to create a tennis player, period, and felt the best way to do that was to tear asunder anything else that might give her child either joy or self-esteem, making her wholly dependent on how she swung a racket. Beat your opponent, you’re good. Lose, you’re meaningless. She did more than withhold love. She withheld any inkling of self-worth.
Myron had grown up in an era in which people blamed their parents for all their problems. Many were whiners, pure and simple, not willing to look in the mirror and get a grip. The Blame Generation, finding fault with everyone and everything but ourselves. But Suzze T’s situation was different. He had seen the torment, seen the years of struggle, trying to rebel against everything tennis, wanting to quit but also loving the actual game. The court became both her torture chamber and her one place of escape, and it was hard to reconcile that. Eventually, almost inevitably, it led to drugs and self-destructive behavior until finally even Suzze, who could have played the blame game with a fair amount of legitimacy, looked in the mirror and found her answer.
Myron sat and paged through a tennis magazine. Five minutes later, the kids started filing off the court. The smiles fled as they left the pressure-air confines of the bubble, their heads held down by their mothers’ forceful gazes. Suzze came out after them. A mother stopped her, but Suzze kept it short. Without breaking stride, she walked past Myron and gestured for him to follow. Moving target, Myron thought. Harder for a parent to nab.
She headed into her office and closed the door after Myron.
“This isn’t working,” Suzze said.
“What’s not?”
“The academy.”
“Looks like a pretty good crowd to me,” Myron said.
Suzze collapsed into her desk chair. “I came in with what I thought would be a great concept—a tennis academy for top players that would also let them breathe and live and become more well-rounded. I argued the obvious—that such a setting would make them better-adjusted, happier people—but I also argued that in the long run, it would make them better tennis players.”
“And?”
“Well, who knows what the long run means? But the truth is, my concept isn’t working. They aren’t better players. The kids who are single-minded and have no interest in art or theater or music or friends—those kids become the best players. The kids who just want to beat your brains in, destroy you, show no mercy—those are the ones who win.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“You don’t?”
Myron said nothing.
“And the parents see it too. Their kids are happier here. They won’t burn out as fast, but the better players are leaving for the intense boot camps.”
“That’s short-term thinking,” Myron said.
“Maybe. But if they burn out when they’re twenty-five, well, that’s late in a career anyway. They need to win now. We get that, don’t we, Myron? We were both blessed athletically, but if you don’t have that killer instinct—the part of you that makes you a great competitor if not a great human being—it is hard to be an elite.”
“So are you saying we were like that?” Myron asked.
“No, I had my mom.”
“And me?”
Suzze smiled. “I remember seeing you play at Duke in the NCAA finals. The expression on your face . . . you’d rather die than lose.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. Myron stared at tennis trophies, the shiny trinkets that represented Suzze’s success. Finally Suzze said, “Did you really see Kitty last night?”
“Yes.”
“How about your brother?”
Myron shook his head. “Brad may have been there, but I didn’t see him.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Myron shifted in his seat. “You think Kitty posted that ‘Not His’?”
“I’m raising the possibility.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions yet. You said you had something you wanted to show me. About Kitty.”
“Right.” She started gnawing on her lip, something Myron hadn’t seen her do in years. He waited, gave her a little time and space. “So yesterday after we talked, I started checking around.”
“Checking around for what?”
“I don’t know, Myron,” she said, a little impatience sneaking in. “Something, a clue, whatever.”