CHAPTER 13 #3
Beck slams his fist against the steering wheel.
“She’s never gone this far before. She must be desperate for money.
” I don’t dare disagree with him, but I can’t help but feel bad when I visit my mother in her cramped Vegas apartment, which smells of cheap perfume and moldy carpet.
The contrast between our gated Malibu mansion and her home feels like a gaping wound.
Last year for Christmas, I tried to give her a check for a few thousand dollars, but she refused.
Unfortunately, Beck and I have become conflated in her mind, and she will not accept money from that man.
Even though I’m the one who won it.
I work to keep my tone steady. “Is anything in the article true? Is that why you’re so angry?”
I only skimmed the email, but a few quotes stood out to me.
“Dinah claims that when she first became pregnant, she reached out to Beck for financial help. He accused her of trapping him and cut all contact.”
“When Dinah couldn’t afford to raise Amy on her tips from waiting tables, she decided to do what was best for her child: reach out to Amy’s millionaire father.”
“Beck was skeptical of Amy’s parentage when she first came to live with him. He forced Dinah to pay for paternity tests. Later, he only agreed to help Amy if he could raise her the way he wanted—within the world of tennis.”
“Interviewer: Did Beck ever try to hurt you?
Dinah: (laughs) Beck doesn’t hurt women in that way. How could he when he doesn’t even see us?”
Beck narrows his eyes. “Which part?”
“Did my mother ask you for child support and you refused?” I know Beck’s finances well; they intersect with mine.
He could have thrown her a couple thousand bucks a month and not even noticed it was gone.
I’m not surprised exactly. It’s like he’s been blurry all these years, and he’s finally coming into focus.
Beck rolls his eyes. “She was a stranger, Amy. How was I to know if you were an accident or not? She probably planned the whole thing. I wasn’t about to let her siphon money off me for decades.
” I don’t mention that it isn’t siphoning money when the money is paying for your child’s welfare. No point.
I tilt my head. “Have you ever had a girlfriend? A real one?” It’s clear my mother gets no credit for giving birth to me because she was a one-night stand. A stranger.
He makes a dismissive noise. “Of course, I dated Brooke Dyer in the 90s and Nellie Belle in the early 2000s and—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Not dated. Have you ever had a real partner? Someone you share your life with?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. There’s a pause where he racks his brain.
Where he thinks of his parents, who he never really got along with, and Suzy, who left him earlier this year and he doesn’t know why, and Rafe, who’s just one of a dozen kids who have worshipped him long enough to be his assistant.
I know that’s what he’s thinking because I’m thinking it, too. “Just you,” he finally says. “I guess.”
A lump rises in my throat. “Why me?” I ask, voice small. “No one else was good enough?”
His expression becomes distant. It almost looks like he’s staring at the front of the Wimbledon gates.
“I didn’t really choose you. I ignored you for weeks when you first came to live with me.
I hired a nanny to take care of you.” I don’t clearly remember those early years with Beck, though I’m not surprised to hear that we hardly saw each other.
Even when I was six, eight, 10 years old, the only time I saw him was on the tennis court.
I spent most of my time locked in some ornate office with tutors or roaming wildly around our Malibu compound.
Beck glances my way. “But you wanted to be with me, I guess.” He sounds a little unsure, like he can’t imagine why a daughter would want to be with her father.
“So, Suzy brought you out to watch me practice. You toddled around the court, not even four years old.” Beck smiles a little at the memory.
My gaze feels locked onto him, trying to see what he’s seeing in the past. “And without prompting, without help, you walked over and tried to pick up one of my rackets. Suzy laughed and helped you pick it up. It was too big for you.” He chuckles.
“You turned to me, desperately holding onto the racket, and you said, “Me, too.’”
I want to reach out to Beck, to keep this version of him with me, but I don’t know how. “I always wanted to be like you.”
Beck shrugs. “So, then I became your dad for real.”
I take a deep breath, but it’s shaky. I don’t tell him the truth. I don’t tell him that in that moment, he wasn’t picking me, Amy Bowman, his daughter. He was picking Amy Bowman, the tennis player. He was picking tennis.
And that’s never been a hard choice for him to make.
I shrug a little, easy and brief, just like Amy the tennis player would.
“Your choice got us here, so we can’t complain.
Her choices got her the same life she’s always had.
” And isn’t that unfair, I want to add. But I don’t.
Beck nods thoughtfully, as though I’m speaking gospel.
“The more you talk about her, the more relevance she has. Sara would tell you the same thing.”
Beck sighs, long-suffering. “I know. I just hate to let her win.”
I suppress an eye roll, patting him on the shoulder instead. “Why don’t you see if there’s a court that will take us early? Rafe and I are ready to go. I’ll follow you in a minute.”
Beck nods, his brain already circling back to how he’ll torture me in practice today.
Those thoughts relieve his stress. Without another word to me, he heads out of the car towards a nervous Rafe, still waiting on the sidewalk.
Beck claps Rafe on the shoulder, nodding towards Wimbledon’s entrance.
Rafe’s nervous expression melts away, and he happily follows my father like the puppy-dog he is.
I’m pretty sure that Rafe was so panicked he hardly noticed Aurelio with me earlier, but I’ll have to keep an eye on him.
I pull out my phone again. I hesitate a moment over the screen before finally clicking on her number.
“Dinah (Mom)” is what her contact reads.
The phone rings and rings as I chew my lip, wondering what to say.
Unsurprisingly, I get her voicemail. Despite being a millennial, she seems allergic to talking on the phone.
She loves sending a text with fifty emojis, though.
When her voicemail beeps, I consider saying something, but I can’t decide on what.
You really hurt my feelings with that interview, Mom.
Hey, do you need some money?
Beck is furious, by the way. But that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?
I do know you, Mom. Don’t I?
I hang up without saying a word. Instead, I open up my texts and click on the thread with Aurelio.
I falter a little when I see his contact looks a lot like my mom’s.
No picture. No emoji. Instead, “Aurelio (Tennis)” is his only label.
In a fit of frustration, I change his contact.
I have a picture from the observatory where he’s looking up at the stars and add that to his contact.
I change his name to “Aurelio” with an Eiffel tower and a sun emoji.
And then I shoot him a text.
Amy:
I’ll meet your family.
He must have been waiting for me to give an update, because he immediately replies.
Aurelio:
Are you okay? What was wrong?
I don’t want to burden him with more Beck drama.
I’m afraid he’ll become tired of it. Or at least, tired with my involvement in it.
I’m getting tired of it, too. I just need to make it through this tournament, and then in the break afterwards, Beck and I can have a real conversation.
Instead, I smile as I text Aurelio back.
Amy:
But only if you win the whole tournament.
Aurelio’s response is quick.
Aurelio:
Game on, mia dolce.
Something lifts off my chest at his response, and I’m able to get out of the car.