Chapter 22
Byron Davies is a weird fucker.
First of all, teal compression wraps cover both of his arms and his left leg, and a nasal strip stretches across his nose. I don’t know what that’s about, but he looks like a bionic tennis player.
Second, he doesn’t have very many friends on the tour.
There’s no shame in that, and I can certainly relate, but it’s no secret why he isn’t that likable.
He loves to mess with people on court. He yells at umpires, throws rackets, breaks rackets, insists a ball is in even though there’s electronic line calling now and a literal computer is saying, You’re wrong, dude.
All of that shit sounds like a him problem, but it can derail the momentum of a match, especially if you’re winning.
Which I am. Just like I said I would.
I’m defending every ball that comes my way, attacking with an approach shot whenever a ball lands anywhere near the service line, and I’m barely breaking a sweat.
I’m too fast for him, and I’d love to see Emiliano’s face right now, thinking I couldn’t win this match.
Everyone’s on my shit list, and that’s translating to great tennis.
I took the first set, and the second, and the third is almost mine—but that’s when the tapping starts. It all starts with the tapping.
It’s a tiny sound, almost lost in a stadium like this—Louis Armstrong is the second biggest stadium at the US Open. The first few times it happens, I don’t even think about it. I call it a coincidence. But the fourth time…the crowd has settled, I prepare to toss the ball to serve, and—
Tap.
I stop, looking over to catch Davies. Every time I start to serve, he squats and taps his racket on the ground. This little shit. He knows the end is close, and he’s getting desperate. And he has to cheat to stay in the match.
I start again. Tap. I serve anyway—and the ball brushes the top of the net.
“Let. First serve,” the umpire announces.
I shake it off, but Davies does it again, and this time my ball lands a foot outside the service box.
“Fault.”
One more try. I exhale. I toss up to serve—tap—and I catch the ball in midair.
“Are you serious right now?” I shout across the net. “Stop doing that!”
“Austin—” the chair umpire says to me, trying to sort out what’s going on.
“Do you hear what he’s doing? Every time I serve, he taps his racket on the ground,” I say, heading toward the chair.
“Austin, please continue,” he says.
“How can you not hear that? He’s the little fucking drummer boy over there.”
The umpire leans back to his mic. “Warning. Mr. Hardy. Audible obscenity.”
“Me? A warning for me? Are you serious?” I flail my arms at Davies, who’s putting on an award-winning performance of What the hell is he talking about?
“And I’m gonna serve again, and of course he’s not gonna do it now,” I say to myself as I walk back to the baseline. Robbie shoots me a look to let it go, but this is absolute horseshit—I’m sorry.
Before I know it, Tap Shoes is one point away from breaking my serve and winning this game.
And of course, he doesn’t pull stunts again, because he’s not an idiot.
What he does do, though, is win the game—and the next two.
I’m making tons of unforced errors, worse than ever before, and I’m screaming at Robbie over in my box.
“I can’t get my forehand to fucking work! Every fucking thing is in the net!”
“Austin, please,” Robbie says, but there’s nothing he can do to calm me down.
“Code violation. Mr. Hardy. Audible obscenity. Game, Davies,” the umpire says.
I look up to the scoreboard to see the game awarded to Davies—and I full-on lose it. “Oh my god!” I shout, in full meltdown mode. This is so fucking unfair. I look back to Rob, who has his face in his hands, offering no support here, of course.
I feel the cameras tracking me as I stomp to the baseline to receive, and my mind flashes to Mom, watching from our living room sofa.
A wave of embarrassment crashes over me, so hard that I feel it in my chest. Everything is snowballing, and it’s getting tough to breathe.
Jesus Christ, this is adding insult to injury.
“Come on. Come on,” I whisper to myself.
I have to find a way to settle down, or I’ll tank this entire thing.
But Davies takes the set. That fucker takes the set and I’m breathing fire—every time I look at his stupid face.
Robbie catches my eye as I walk to my bench. He holds his finger in the air and says two words, sternly, raising his voice over the crowd.
Bathroom and close.
I barely acknowledge him. Bathroom? I don’t need it, but he wants me to get out of here, to reset before the fourth set. Fine, I can do that.
And close? I don’t know what the hell that means.
“I’m using the bathroom,” I say to the umpire, and an official is immediately beside me as an escort. Bathroom breaks are highly regulated, two per match—very generous—and I have exactly three minutes once the bathroom door closes.
I follow the escort toward the court exit, passing Davies, just sitting on his bench, looking smug and sucking down an energy gel. I think about punting his water bottle across the court, but I’ve clearly mastered the art of self-control.
Close? What does that mean?
Oh shit.
I dart back over to my bench to grab a fresh shirt. “And I’m doing a change,” I shout to the umpire. You get two extra bathroom minutes if you change your outfit. I glance over to Robbie, shaking his head in relief. Clothes.
Really gotta punch that th next time, Rob, out here having me solve riddles.
The escort walks me down a short hallway just outside the court, and the metal door to the private bathroom clicks closed behind me.
Finally. Silence. Five minutes starts now, without a crowd, without racket taps, and without my shitty forehand that keeps landing balls feet beyond the baseline. It’s just me, alone with my fucked-up self. Actually, which one’s worse?
For a few seconds, I stand in the middle of the bathroom. It’s spotless, and the lingering scent of bleach fills my nose. Settle. I’ve got four minutes and thirty-eight seconds to settle. At least, that’s what the clock in the corner of the room tells me, the red digits ticking down.
Yesterday, Helen had lots of questions about Burpgate.
How often does that happen to you?
I dunno. A few times a month.
Does the burping really help?
It does, for some reason.
What do you think triggered it this time?
Need some help with that one, Hel.
I really don’t know what brought it on. I’m afraid to admit that it may have been the helicopter, because that would mean I’m very stupid.
It was probably what she suggested earlier—everything compounding all at once, a snowball barreling down a hill, straight toward me, getting bigger and bigger, collecting all the shit in its way.
Diego. His guys. Robbie and our disaster dinner. Dad. Shitty things people say online. Nice things people say online, because, how can I live up to them? Mom watching the replay of this match after Speech and Debate Club. Dad again. Always Dad.
It’s all closing in on me.
“I wish,” Helen said to me in that session, “you had time to yourself during these matches, for you to sit alone to reset.”
“Like, meditate?” I asked.
“I know that’s impossible in the middle of a match, but you could meditate beforehand. After, even. Have you tried that?”
“Yeah, I’ve tried some of those apps. They’re all right. I don’t know if I felt anything change, really.”
“You might need to stick with them longer. And—it’s not for everyone.”
“Yeah.”
I’m not sure what comes over me, but I squat and sit myself down on the floor, my butt against the cold tile, my back against the wall, and I close my eyes. If I’m about to hit a breaking point, I might as well brace for impact.
I know one thing about meditation. You’re not supposed to fight your thoughts.
Instead, when they come to you—and they always do—just say to yourself, Oh, a thought, and let it pass by.
That’s easier said than done, but I try it—try being the operative word.
For a minute, this is impossible to do. But then it gets a little easier, and I feel my mind starting to settle, to clear, to go…
Blank.
Well, almost. Half blank, maybe. Let’s be reasonable.
But my breathing does slow, and so does my heart rate. And the faces and images haunting my head start to blur, to fade back to their homes in the depths of my mind. All except for one.
A photograph.
One that Mom took of Dad, Char, and me when she and I were little.
I don’t know if I have an actual memory of it or if I invented one from the picture, but we’re sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner, food falling out of our mouths because we’re laughing so hard at something Dad said—he always had a joke.
We’re staring right at him, beaming, our faces full of joy.
I used to play tennis for pure fun. I couldn’t wait to get onto the court, and you’d have to drag me off of it when the sun went down.
I would play with such joy. Such freedom.
Absolutely loose. This past year, with the pressures of winning, of money, of making dropping out of college actually count, I’ve felt that joy starting to slip away. I’d kill to get it back.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Thirty-second warning,” the escort says through the door.
I peel my eyes open, and the clock backs her up. I let out a long breath, plant my palms on the floor, and hoist myself up. I open the door.
“Twenty seconds,” she says. Her mouth twists.
“What’s your name?” I ask, decidedly unconcerned about the time.
“Uh.” She hesitates. “Heather.”
“Heather, nice to meet you. I’m Austin.”
She looks at me like, Yeah, dude, I fucking know.
“You have to get back there,” she says, “or you’ll get a time-violation warning.”
“Oh, a warning. Sounds serious.” I’m starting to freak her out, so I clue her in a little. “I think…I’m gonna wait for a second.”
“You’re gonna wait?”
“Yep. Gonna wait,” I repeat. “Did you see him tapping his racket?”
She doesn’t say yes—I don’t think she can—but I see the yes in her eyes.
“I’m gonna fuck around too. He can wait an extra second.”
“Um,” she says, glancing to the officials down the hallway. Poor Heather, just trying to do her job. “You’ve got ten seconds to get back.”
“Right,” I say, but I don’t move. She keeps her eyes on her watch, occasionally darting them up to me as the time ticks down.
“Zero…seconds.”
And sure enough, the chair umpire’s announcement echoes down the hall. “Time-violation warning. Hardy.”
“There it is,” I say.
“Yep…there it is,” she says, nodding.
I milk one extra second and finally say, “Okay, then—let’s go.” And we kick into a light jog.
“Wait. Were you gonna change your shirt?” she asks.
“Oh shit.”
Stopping just before the entrance to the court, I peel off my shirt and throw on the dry one.
“Thanks for the escort, Heather. Hope you enjoy the rest of this.”
“Yep, you too,” she says, and I’m positive she thinks I’m just as weird as Davies now—but hopefully I’m nicer.
“I will,” I say. I’m living my dream, and dreams should be enjoyed.
I walk casually onto the court. The chair umpire catches my eyes immediately, relieved that I’ve made it back.
I grab a new racket on the way to serve. Robbie looks utterly confused, but I was expecting that. I throw my hand up to him. We’re all good.
Davies is waiting for me on the other side of the court, pacing.
I’m already under his skin. He gestures to the umpire, hoping for a point penalty, but the ump stays quiet on the mic.
Excellent. Davies is a few feet behind the baseline—he’s been there for most of the match.
My forehand was shit in the third set, but my serves have been on fire, as usual.
He has to stand that far back to have a chance to return anything.
The crowd quiets as I throw in a few extra bounces before my serve, buying myself more time and preparing to launch a missile.
At least that’s what Davies thinks.
I look up, ready to fire, but instead of smacking the ball, I hit him with an underarm serve—a trick shot, basically. The ball floats, and lands a few feet from the net on Davies’s side, and he’s dashing as fast as his compression wrapped legs can take him—but he was too far back to make it.
The stadium gasps, and then erupts in applause. “15–Love.” And I smile. First to Davies—he’s fuming. Then to Robbie—shaking his head again. I’m really taking him on a ride. Then to the crowd—they fucking loved it.
And then I smile just for me.