Aphrodite #2
“That’s love. Most of the men who are on this team truly expect their women to be focused only on them and what they have going on.
” Sterling had her wavy, deep-brown hair hanging down.
We were both crazy to be wearing our hair down in all this heat but she kept herself cool in a tank and some shorts.
“Is that what you think about Money?”
“Nah. Remember how different our situation is. I mean, I lived with him not long after I met him. This relationship happening wasn’t ever something I saw happening with all the issues we had to navigate.
It’s crazy that my mother wanted me to change so much about myself to fit her model of what womanhood should be.
But I’ve basically become what she wanted on my own terms and in the way I wanted.
” Her confession had her looking troubled and even though we were recent friends I couldn’t help but check in with her mentally.
“How does that make you feel?”
Her eyes left Aldrich and focused on me. I could tell that doubt in her eyes was from wondering if she could trust me. It was borne from a life of having a mother use your words against you. She must’ve deemed me worthy because her body relaxed and she opened up.
“Part of me wanted me to rebel against it since I didn’t want to feel like she’d won. But then I had to realize it would be stupid to miss out on joy just to spite her. It wouldn’t make me any better than her and God knows I don’t want to be anything like that lady.”
“Well, I’m still happily bucking my mother’s desires and I’m sure she is pulling her hair out trying to figure out how she can get me to comply.”
“Well, we’ll make sure that Ami is raised to be whatever she wants to be as long as she is happy.”
She held her hands out to retrieve Ami from me just as we were called over to the dressing area. I gave her the baby back and put my arm around her shoulder. Sterling had even fewer friends here than I did so I was going to pull her into the circle of love kicking and screaming if I had to.
“You know I’ll be around for that.” She grinned and nodded her head at me gratefully.
We got to the dressing area and split up to check out what the men had been doing without us.
“What you think?” Anthony held his arms wide awaiting my judgement on what he’d chosen.
Anthony was going to have to let me suck his dick in the car because the outfit he was wearing had to be slutwear for men. It was the suit equivalent of gray sweatpants and hoochie daddy shorts.
The cut was narrow emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders but balancing the thickness of his thighs.
The material looked like a wool and silk blend and was deep blue with a thin silver pinstripe through it.
He had a light Champagne-colored silk pocket square that balanced out the coolness of the suit and an off-white shirt that made his skin look lustrous.
“It’s definitely a winner. Like…it looks really good.”
“You don’t think the color is corny?” He was tugging at the sleeves like he was concerned about wearing his team’s colors. It wasn’t corny to me and the color wasn’t an exact match so I thought he would be fine.
“No. I mean men have limited colors you all can wear as it is. I would like to see if they have olive green or something in that family. Those will look good on you too.”
“You have excellent taste, Ms. Harper.” He leaned down from the podium to give me a kiss and the man who’d been taking care of him looked away to give us privacy.
“Thank you.”
“The suit will be ready for you before the last pre-season game if that’s okay?” The attendant was reaching up to remove the jacket and Anthony handed it back to him with a nod of thanks.
“That works for me. I don’t need it until September.”
“More than enough time. You can change out of that so that I can get the next suit pinned up for you.”
Anthony nodded and the man walked back to the dressing area. Anthony stepped down off the podium and came to me. Wrapping his arms around my waist he pulled me closer and I tried to be careful so he didn’t get stabbed with a pin. “You look like you wanted to do something nasty.”
“Not nasty but definitely grown. That suit was made for you.”
“You gone keep that same energy tonight?”
“Always. Now let’s go pick up the rest of this stuff so we can get out of here. I’m about to find a bowtie for you to model for me tonight.”
“Tell me what we looking at.”
Anthony plopped down on the sofa and I tried not to feel melancholy. Camp was starting up in a few days, which meant this constant time we’d been spending together would end for a while.
I paused the match I’d been watching and turned to him. “What you mean?” I needed to get my head back into my training and had scouted out places for me to play.
“You’re watching this the way we watch game film, I want to know what you’re looking for so I can help.” He nodded toward the screen and I don’t know why I was surprised but I was.
“You want to watch film with me?”
Anthony glanced at me and shook his head, ignoring what I was saying. “Don’t start that, AP, you not about to play me like the other niggas.”
“Sorry, I just get tense when people want to watch. It’s normally not a positive experience.”
“I thought we already established that your daddy was a ho? We don’t need to think about it, it’s a known fact, lil baybeeh.”
“Sorry.” I looked back at the screen and watched myself nod at whatever Terri was saying to me on the sidelines.
“Where is everyone else?”
I took my eyes off the screen trying to understand what he was talking about. The crowd was full so what he asked didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean?”
“Where are your people and fans and shit?” He pointed to the crowd and they were very reserved compared to what he contended with in a football stadium.
“You’re not supposed to make too much noise when you score a point.”
He sucked his teeth in disgust as he watched the tepid response to my serving. “Oh, that’s lame as hell. The crowd getting hyped is part of the fun. Being polite during athletics is wild.”
“Well, you know that we have to do things differently than you all get to do.”
“I mean we do the handshake thing sometimes at the end of the games.”
“It’s kind of mandatory for us to show good sportsmanship.”
“So you can’t talk your shit? Like ever?”
I tried not to laugh at him but his genuine confusion was hilarious. “Um, it’s not encouraged.”
“For everybody or just for you? Cause I remember how people were talking crazy to the Williams sisters and they were just supposed to take it.”
I could see Anthony getting upset thinking someone was trying to mistreat me simply because I didn’t fit their mold of a tennis player.
“I’m sure there’s a huge double standard that happens when it comes to us, but that’s life in general.”
“I get it. You want that serve to speak for you. Cause you be lulling people to sleep with that meek and mild shit you got going on. But never sleep on yourself.” He gave me an intense glare, as if he dared me to disagree even though he knew I wouldn’t.
I had been back on the court practicing and even when I made a mistake I spoke more kindly to myself than I had before. My inner voice was telling me to get the shit right, but it wasn’t telling me I would never amount to anything. Growth.
“I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”
“I think that you need to let that shit out. You know you’re good at this but you keep your desire to be seen as a champion buried deep because you’re so used to people putting you down. You stay low so that their words won’t hurt too bad when you hear them.”
“Ouch, just right in my face like that?” He was doing that thing again. Reading me and I was still unused to the kind of truth that passed between us.
“Yeah, we gone be for real with each other. You gotta stop that. If there’s anyone who should be okay with praising you, it should be you.”
“And then when I inevitably fail they’re gonna sit there and talk shit.”
“Let me ask you something. They talk shit when you win, right? Critique your game no matter the outcome.”
I shrugged and fiddled with my fingers because his questions were provoking a lot of thought.
“Well, it’s kind of their job.”
“So why are you worried about what they’re going to say?”
“Public perception is a big thing in our sport.”
He barked out a laugh and I knew he wasn’t going to take my answer seriously.
“I distinctly remember that there’s a bad boy in every sport.
And let’s face it love, they might accept that there’s a Black woman that’s at the top of the tennis world, because one has been for the last almost twenty years, but they not gonna ever root for you altruistically.
White folks in this country do it because America .
But other than that? They’d probably act stupid if they saw you on the street even after paying thousands to watch you play. ”
I sighed at his words because they had been proven right time and again. There was no delusion on my part that my success equaled acceptance. I didn’t want that. More than anything, I wanted acknowledgment of my talent without so many people trying to critique it away.
“You’re not wrong.”
“We already knew that, though.” He was grinning at me arrogantly and I smacked him in the face with one of the throw pillows I’d gotten for the austere black leather sectional he had in the living room.
“Shut up, Ant.”
“One thing I know, you gotta work on your chest more during workouts.”
I looked down at my titties like he’d called them ugly or something. I wasn’t in the baddie double D territory but they fit my frame.
“My chest?”
“Yep. One thing I did was take an anatomy and physiology class when I was back at school. I always thought football would work out but I still wanted to know the whys and hows of my body. I can tell your chest muscles are weaker than your back.”
“How in the hell can you say that? Just by looking at me? I hold a racket for three to four hours a day.”
“Which is why they’re as strong as they are now. But even when we trained you focused on your core, your back and arms. Your body is out of balance. Not by a lot, but enough. Work on your chest more and it will keep your posture better and your alignment stronger.”
“You’re really serious.”
Nobody had ever told me to focus on my chest when working out. Leg, arm, and core strength were always the focus. Tennis was about torque and force so I could see how my chest needing to be strong made sense.
“Yeah. It’s not something big. I’m not saying you’re deficient, it’s just a tweak I see that you can make in your workout that might help you improve the force in your swings.
You gotta remember that your back, core and chest allow you to power your swing and your serve just as much as your arms. Your entire upper body powers your serve so if you neglect any part of it, it’s not as powerful as it could be. ”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that. Of course, core strength is always emphasized but a lot more of my focus has always been footwork and my arms. I thought chest would just get taken care of along the way.”
Hearing his critique without feeling attacked showed that the way he delivered the information made all the difference in how I received it. Anthony was trying to help, not tear me down.
“That’s how men work out. We have naturally more upper body strength so we focus on the lower body.
For women, it’s normally the opposite. You’ve trained yourself to have a lot because of the sport that you love.
Incorporate it before the next match and watch how you hit without having to exert as much effort. ”
I nodded almost absentmindedly thinking of just how wrong I’d been going at this. It seemed like I’d been winning by sheer luck at this point.
“My father was trying to get me to bulk up so that I could be more proficient. He said that tennis players weren’t as small as I was anymore and that was the reason why.”
He blew out a deep breath and shifted away from me slightly. I wondered why he had put space between us but I understood when he spoke again.
“This one of them times I gotta ask if I can speak plainly.”
“Of course you can. What happened to truth and honesty?”
“I’m ‘bout to talk real greasy on your bloodline so I wanted to make sure it was going to be okay.” His jaw was clenched and I knew something I’d said had pissed him off.
“I’m the last person who’s going to protect his image so go right ahead.”
“Real talk, that nigga is trying to turn you into everything he could never be but also tear you down at the same time. I don’t have kids, but I have my niece and I wouldn’t waste a second of my life telling her she wasn’t perfect.
Not in a coddling way but in a way that solidified her self-esteem.
Your father does the shit he does because he’s jealous.
So he will do whatever he can to tear you down and give you shitty advice.
And if you follow it and fail he will blame it on you.
And if you win he can take credit for it.
That nigga makes my ass itch and I pray we’re never in the same space again because there’s something about a man like him that gets my hand itching to fuck something up. ”
“Well, let’s not do that. I’m sure he’s going to do something drastic if you hit him again. Besides, my dad was a tennis champion so he’s technically already done what I’ve done.”
“By luck. If your father had actually done any of the work he could’ve been far greater than he was, but I bet he’d never admit that to you, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Cool. We gone watch this shit and get you ready for September. Nothing is going to stop you from being in the finals again. This is your year, AP.”
He kissed my cheek and pulled me to him to get back to watching tape. It thrilled me to hear his affirmation of my goals and without a doubt, I believed his every word.