Match Maker

by Alan Chin

  “I want to know just what the hell is going to kill that bug you have up your ass. Tell me what will make everything between us all right again.”

  “I already told you, but apparently you only hear what you want to hear.”

  Everyone stood around us, steeped in embarrassment.

  “I quit,” I said, failing to keep my voice matter-of-fact. I sounded reckless, and my hands trembled. Did he notice, I wondered?

  He simply stared at me.

  “If you’re too damned good to be coached by a cripple, then you’re too damned good, and that’s fine. From now on, I’m coaching Connor, and you can go fuck yourself.”

  I could see his simmering hostilities were about to boil over, and the prospect of getting it all out both thrilled and terrified me. A stray nerve kept pulsing in my neck, reaching up to spread a tingling sensation over my skull, but he merely clamped his teeth together and walked past me, heading for the parking lot.

  I’ll give him one week, I thought, one tournament. We would go to Rome, and I would work with Connor. I would show him just how capable I was, desperately hoping that he would come back to me and that we would make things right again. At the end of the Rome tournament, I vowed, I would either have a lover, or I wouldn’t.

  Chapter 25

  RESPLENDENT Rome—a silky blue dome vaulting over sun-baked piazzas, Bernini fountains, crumbling monuments, stone churches, a labyrinth of shop-lined streets.

  I love Rome. Like San Francisco, it spreads over seven hills, but the similarity ends there. The architecture, climate, even the inhabitants’ musical chatter whiffing down the narrow streets all have a different texture. Romans are charmingly unhurried; they lounge in piazzas, trundle down sleepy back streets, and take joy in simple things. They love drama and seem to over-emphasize everything just so they can make an eloquent show in the telling. This was Rome, its ancient beauty and expressive people, half enchanted isle and half tourist trap. It infused me with an intoxicating sense of adventure.

  Emerging from the train, I saw two hundred fans pacing the platform. Someone shouted Connor’s name, and they surged toward us, begging for autographs and throwing kisses. A handful of reporters were intent on rooting out the scoop of how a gay athlete felt playing in the Christian capital. Connor repeatedly exclaimed that he was not gay, but they shook their heads and asked the same question in a different way, as if Connor had not understood. Finally, a squad of police cut a swath through the fans and led us to waiting taxies.

  We checked into separate rooms at The Ingleterre, a wonderful hideaway a few blocks from the Spanish Steps. The elevator was ancient and cranky and so small my chair filled it. I ascended alone while the others waited. The whole time I rode in that box, I feared getting stuck between floors and not be able to escape.

  Later, I felt strange—lonely—sleeping by myself in an unfamiliar room, but that seemed a better alternative than tolerating Jared’s condemnation.

  Harman arranged for a van to pick us up. The driver maneuvered the narrow city streets with practiced ease, although he used his horn so often that I became rankled long before we arrived at the tournament site. I was sure my irritation had more to do with coaching Connor without Jared’s help.

  Connor, I was sure, felt the pressure as well. This would be his first tournament without playing doubles and without Jared’s support. I made that decision for two reasons: to reduce his court time in an attempt to keep his legs fresh, and also to limit my involvement with Jared. Connor would have only Shar, Harman, Roy, and me in his corner.

  In the players’ cafeteria, the four of us ate fresh fruit and crusty bread and drank strong coffee while Harman went to arrange a practice court. Jared and Spencer sat three tables away gobbling down scrambled eggs and bacon with a mountain of fried potatoes and a tower of buttered toast. It was no secret where those extra pounds around Jared’s middle had sprung from.

  When Harman returned with our court assignment, we all trooped toward the door. As I passed Jared’s table, I stopped next to Spencer, who had just stacked eggs and potatoes on a piece of toast and stuffed it into his mouth, giving him a chipmunk’s bulging cheeks. I asked him to hit with Connor. He swallowed, a loud gulp, and shook his head. He explained that he had already agreed to hit with Jared, who had a court reservation for the same time slot. I smiled, told him no worries, and wheeled to the door.

  All the way to the court, I searched the passers-by for a player or coach who could hit with Connor, but by the time we reached the court and Connor began his stretches, I had not seen a single one. Connor looked sideways at me as he stretched, somewhat nervously, and Roy stood at the courtside railing with a loud smirk cut across his face. While Connor performed his tai chi, I continued to scan the growing number of onlookers for a hitting partner to snare—still no one.

  Connor opened his bag and removed a racket. I swallowed hard and asked him to pull one out for me. He shot me a look. A moment later, a grin fluttered across his lips. He handed me his racket and grabbed another, then loaded his pockets with balls. I laid the racket across my lap and wheeled onto the court, positioning myself at the service-line T. A murmur rose from the spectators.

  “We’ll take it slow and easy. Keep it in my hitting zone.”

  I wondered if Roy still wore that sneer, but I didn’t dare look. Instead, I wiped the sweat off my forehead and swallowed the lump in my throat. Connor pulled a ball from his pocket and looped it over the net. I kept my eyes glued to the ball, trying to shift my clunky chair sideways with one arm while swinging my racket with the other. I completely missed the ball.

  I stared at Connor. He nodded. I nodded back. He pulled another ball from his pocket and floated it into my hitting zone. I swung and missed again. I instantly realized how large a part the legs played in racket timing, and without legs, I had no timing. I hung my head, staring at the red dirt. Spectators mumbled. I decided to quit the farce, thinking Connor could work on his serve while I scrounged up someone to hit with him. I turned my head, knowing that I’d see Roy gloating, which I did.

  More importantly, I saw Jared and Spencer striding down the sidewalk that led between the courts. They were about to pass. I whirled back to face Connor.

  “Once more.”

  The ball looped over the net, bounced three feet in front of my chair, and soared into my zone. I had my racket back, and I swung up and through the ball, sending it back to Connor’s forehand. He eased it back to me, and I hit it again.

  “Keep it coming into my forehand so I don’t have to move this damned chair.”

  We kept the rally going for twenty more balls, forehand to forehand, until I clipped the net and the ball dropped on my side.

  “Okay,” I said. “Backhand.”

  We had a thirty-ball rally on the backhand side until Connor sprayed the ball too wide. I smiled, thinking I was getting my timing down as long as I didn’t have to move the chair.

  We both moved behind the baseline and began another rally, hitting the ball deep and with more pace. After a half dozen rallies, I found that I could maneuver the chair a bit to adjust to a wider-hit ball, but it proved especially difficult, because my wheelchair was the run-of-the-mill hospital type and not designed to move over dirt. It was not only tedious, but so awkward that while leaning to hit a ball I tipped the chair over and tumbled out. Connor ran to help me.

  I glanced at Roy. His smirk had vanished. Jared stood behind him, a statue. His mouth hung slightly ajar, and his eyes gleamed with mist. I sent Connor back across the net. I would not give up while Jared stood there. I felt him, felt his presence like an oncoming train.

  I finally had a weapon to fight against his silence, one that made an impression, and I found that gratifying indeed. I had gone beyond words and shown him that I would not be stopped. With or without him, I would move on with my career.

  Seeing me struggling to control that damned chair while hitting balls across the net moved his heart. I saw it in his misty eyes. I couldn’t tell
if he felt pity or respect or outright anger, and I frankly didn’t care which. At that point, I just wanted desperately to make some kind of impression on that iceberg in his chest. I bet everything that I would win him back by pushing myself all the way, even if it meant making myself a target.

  It became a good workout for Connor. He was motivated to show the others we were an effective team, so he honed his concentration in order to keep sending the ball directly into my zone, making it an exercise in precision ball control. He performed better than I could have hoped for.

  As the morning passed, I began to move better, prepare faster, and feel the ball through the swing. My timing magically emerged, which allowed me to stay in the rallies longer and hit with more pace. As my control improved, I began feeding him combinations—a deep ball to the backhand followed by a short ball to bring him to the net for a put-away volley.

  After two hours—a span in which I ate the dirt six more times—I hit the proverbial wall. Exhaustion let my old adversary, intense pain, grab hold and shake me until my bones rattled.

  I wheeled to the sidelines and downed a fistful of painkillers. Connor trotted over. He had a healthy sweat glistening on his forehead. I hadn’t given him the kind of intense warm-up I would have preferred, but that was a good thing considering his fragile legs. He had worked reasonably hard and seemed ready for his afternoon match.

  He won that match convincingly, which demonstrated to me at least that, with practice, I could do the job. So fuck all those courtside spectators—Jared and Roy included—who had stared at me with pity in their eyes.

  That night in my hotel room, one floor below Jared and up to my chin in hot water, I still felt a deeply satisfying glow—no doubt helped by Shar’s comfort shot. I could lose the man I loved, but I was no longer useless. I could make a difference in someone’s life, if only my own.

  Later, I lay in bed trying to imagine Jared sprawled on top of me, and that was what I saw as I slipped into sleep.

  THE next morning, Connor and I were on court, working on tactics specifically geared to beat Jared. Connor was on the opposite side of the draw from Jared, and assuming that they both continued to win, which I did, they would meet in the final. It’s always dangerous to look ahead, but I wanted Connor fully prepared and confident if he faced Jared on championship Sunday. It felt treasonous pulling out all the stops in order to crush the man I loved, but I felt that was the only way to get him back on my terms, to show him I could do the job.

  I didn’t line up a hitting partner for our first hour on court. I wanted to feed him balls myself while we worked on a different tactic that would give Jared fits—Throw Sand in the Eyes, Sail over the Charging Tiger, Cut off a Wing.

  No one knew Jared’s tendencies better than me, which meant that no one knew how to exploit his weakness as fully as I did. And I found that with more practice, I was capable of showing Connor these tactics.

  I was, admittedly, being selfish—gambling on Connor’s chances in the tournament in order to prove I could be an effective practice partner. In my defense, I had arranged a hitting partner for the second hour of practice so that Connor could hone what he and I worked on with someone more capable. The more we worked, the more adept I became at directing the ball and the more my confidence grew. But when forced to lean for a ball, I continued to tip the chair over and tumble out. After the last tumble of the day, I looked over at the courtside spectators and saw Karl Diefenbach glaring at me.

  Connor ran to help me back into the chair, and I told him to hit some serves while we waited for the practice partner to arrive. He gathered some balls as I wheeled over to where Diefenbach stood. I was covered in sweat, panting heavily, and dusted with red clay. He, of course, looked flawless. Even in the Roman heat, his navy-blue suit looked pristine, as did the scarlet handkerchief in his breast pocket, giving him a hint of flair.

  “You’re really quite mad,” he said. “You must have some kind of death wish.”

  “Just trying to do my job, like all the other coaches.”

  “You’ve managed to pull one over on me, but I can assure you, it won’t happen again. For your own safety, I will prevent Jared from playing another tournament.”

  “I wish the hell you’d stop looking out for us.”

  “Somebody has to protect you. It seems you’re incapable of doing it yourself.”

  “If that were really your intention, you’d increase security for all the players. But you’re not doing that, are you? You’re focusing on us, which smells suspiciously like discrimination.”

  “I don’t want to see anybody hurt, and I certainly don’t want our sport damaged either. And off the record, lying your way into this tournament has only made you a very powerful enemy.”

  “Like I didn’t know that already? The question is, what’s changed?”

  He strolled off with majestic, confident strides. I scanned the spectators for the twentieth time that morning. A Japanese couple in matching straw hats, thirty or forty gay men, a man wearing a polo shirt and chinos who I assumed was reporter because he was constantly writing in a notebook. Everyone looked harmless, but in a society of religion-bred hatred, you never knew.

  TWO days later, Connor showed up on court looking like he was expecting to receive a spinal tap. His energy levels were low, and his mood was down the toilet, which was strange, considering he was winning his matches. I tried to pump him up with encouraging remarks, but they had no effect. Ten minutes into the warm-up, and I knew we were wasting our time. Whatever the problem, we needed to get him over it, and quick. I called him to the net.

  “Connor, what’s wrong?”

  “Talk about a non sequitur.”

  “This is ridiculous. You’re going to tell me what’s eating you before we hit another ball.”

  His eyes dropped, and he seemed to study his shoelaces.

  “Connor?”

  “That bitch is seeing someone else,” he hissed.

  Yes, I thought, not surprised. I had seen her dwindling interest in Connor, her wandering eyes. She was clearly impressed by European men. But it hadn’t really registered until he pointed it out.

  “Shar?” I said, rather stupidly. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough.”

  “So you haven’t actually seen her with anyone?”

  “I can smell him on her.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m going to drop that fucking slut like third period Spanish. I mean, fuck, she’s the one who needs me, not the other way around.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Right, and you’re this upset because she means nothing to you.”

  “I’m gonna punch her teeth down her fucking throat.”

  “Okay, look at it from another angle. On Monday, we leave Rome, and she’ll leave whoever it is behind. As long as she comes back to you, is it really that huge an obstacle? And suppose you win this tournament? You know, show her you’re still a champion. That would go a long way to make you more attractive than this other schmuck.” Or girl, I thought but didn’t actually say.

  He nodded, reached across the net, and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Looks like you and I are in the same boat, only for different reasons.”

  “Right. And the best outcome for both of us will come when we win this damned championship. That will get them both back on our terms. So let’s get to work. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said with a slight grin.

  AS EXPECTED, both Connor and Jared won their matches right through the semifinals, beating all the big guns along the way: Drake, Lamas, Gardener, Montoya, and McEwan. It was six days of the hardest work I had ever done, and if someone had told me a month had elapsed, I would easily have believed them.

  A keen wind blew in on Final Sunday, and I knew it would give both players fits. Connor and I hit the practice court early to review our tactics under the blustery conditions. I didn’t arrange a hitting partner that day, because I wanted Connor to have an easy workout, to keep his legs fresh for
the final.

  We worked for thirty minutes before I noticed Connor checking his watch. Nothing registered until I saw him do it again and again. He’s worried about Shar cheating on him, I thought. I wheeled to the sidelines and grabbed a bottle of water. When he jogged over, I asked him why his mind wasn’t on the warm-up.

  Without answering, his head jerked up, and he looked past me. A grin lifted the corner of his lips. I heard a voice behind me, Jared’s voice, sharp and cutting like a scalpel.

  “So this is it?”

  I swiveled around and glared at him. It was the first display of anger I’d seen from him all week, and I was taken aback, not quite knowing how to respond.

  “You’re not backing down? You’re going to train my opponents to beat me, no matter what?”

  “It seems so,” I managed to respond with an unsteady voice.

  His chin trembled. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or fighting back tears. My plan had worked, to a degree. All week the pressure had grown until, hours before the final, he erupted. “You really think you can sit in that fucking chair and teach pro-level tennis?”

  Something solid and heavy lodged in my chest, and I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I simply shrugged my shoulders, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible.

  Long, silent seconds ticked by. People around us looked away, as if steeped in sudden embarrassment, yet Connor grinned like a Cheshire cat. I could hear rock music coming from the stadium sound system. It was Tina Turner singing, “What’s Love Got To Do With It.”

  “Because if that’s what you think, you damned well better think again. I’m not about to let you train my opponents in that crummy chair.”