Sudden Death (4 page)

T
he sports arena off the Capitol Beltway was a hymn to the fact that urban planners don’t know shit from shinola. Equally inconvenient to dwellers of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, the sports arena squatted on the land with little to soften its blunt features.

Each January Tomahawk sponsored a championship. The top eight players from the indoor circuit competed in a round robin. The beauty of the round robin format was that no one understood it. Despite numerous diagrams and explanations from Lavinia at the microphone down on the court, the structure remained unintelligible. The fans didn’t care since the finals cleaned up the mess. The prize money was a whopping $250,000 compared to the normal $150,000 for a regular tournament in a city such as Minneapolis.

Miguel marveled at the miniature tepees crammed with Tomahawk products. It had been ten years since he accompanied his sister and in those ten years an explosion of commercialization had taken place. He wandered through practice sessions and watched the players. The excitement of the game captured him once again. He loved tennis although he wasn’t really sorry he went to law school. He knew he didn’t want to be a washed-up jock at thirty-five, but he also wasn’t too keen about being a lawyer either. Hearing the reassuring sound of
the ball against tight gut strings lifted his spirits. The Cazenovia winter had already dampened them.

Carmen polished off the first set of her first match. She drew Michele Kittredge, an Australian with a deadly forehand, serviceable backhand, solid first serve, and pea brain. Michele played; she didn’t think. She was the same off the court, which gave her a consistency people found reassuring. Despite not being overly intelligent, Michele had a good heart and a strong sense of fair play. Her pals called her Beanie because of her beanballs; she would usually hit her opponent at least once in a match because her powerful forehand had erratic moments. Tonight she played well, but Carmen knocked off the first set six-four.

In the second set, two-all, Beanie began picking the corners. The surface was carpet laid over boards; under the boards rested the ice hockey rink. Because the surface was fast, it was to Beanie’s advantage as well as Carmen’s, since they played the “big game,” serve and volley.

Beanie got hot. Her serve twisted into Carmen’s body, causing weak returns. Beanie rushed the net, putting the ball away. As the match became more interesting to the fans, Harriet moved from interest to anxiety. Placid though her exterior was, every time the ball hit the center of Carmen’s racquet with a twang, Harriet could feel the vibrations up her own arm. Beanie was putting up one hell of a fight.

Howard Dominick, watching from the control booth, was anxious, too. He wanted a good match, but since Carmen was seeded number one, she’d better get in those finals. Carmen fattened the gate. When she was in the draw, a promoter rarely lost money, and that many more fans would be assaulted with a barrage of Tomahawk products. If that didn’t
give them the hint, the banners plastered all over the arena would.

Carmen sliced her backhand returns. She wanted to keep the ball low. Her backhand was strong, but not overpowering. Every now and then she’d give it a rip, but right now, her full concentration was on breaking Beanie’s hot streak. Beanie usually couldn’t sustain this level of play more than a set, but Carmen didn’t want to split sets.

At six-all, Miranda Mexata, the best umpire in the business, informed the audience a twelve-point tie breaker was now in effect to determine the outcome of the set. Up until 1971, tennis sets had to be won by a margin of two games. If you couldn’t break your opponent’s serve, and she could not break yours, the two of you could conceivably be there on the court until the Second Coming. In 1963, it took Billie Jean King thirty-six games to defeat Christine Truman during the Wightman Cup Competition: six-four, nineteen-seventeen. In 1968, John Brown of Australia defeated Bill Brown of Omaha after seventy games. The first set went thirty-six-thirty-four. Obviously, something had to give. Maybe the players could stand it, but the spectators couldn’t. It was rumored that several actually perished of fanny fatigue during the Brown versus Brown match. After much argument between the Old Guard, old and guarded, and the young professionals, the tie breaker was established.

The twelve-point tie breaker was used: sudden death. Carmen served first. She would get one serve, Beanie would get two serves, Carmen would get another two serves; the two-service pattern would continue, but the two opponents would change sides after six points. Even in indoor tennis, changing sides is fair and upheld. Sun and wind are obvious enough reasons for changing outdoors, but in an indoor arena, the lights are often better on one spot of the court than another. The tie breaker was a simple solution to a complicated problem. Whoever reached seven points first would
win the set. Whoever won two out of three sets would win the match. Should the competition be so equal that even in the tie breaker the score reached six points all, then they would continue the two-service pattern until one player won by a margin of two points.

Tie breakers speeded up the sport and excited the fans. They were excited now because Beanie shot ahead five-four. She broke Carmen’s serve.

Miguel put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. Jane and Ricky held their breath up in the press booth. Too much chat during a tie breaker didn’t go down with a tv audience. Harriet calmly stared straight ahead.

Carmen, champion that she was, got tougher as the situation worsened. She focused all her energy on one single task and tore through the next three points before Beanie or the crowd knew what hit them. She nailed down the match.

Back in the locker room, icing her knee after interviews and a massage, she said to Harriet, “No way was I going to three sets with Beanie.”

Lavinia breezed by the locker room door on her way to the hospitality bar. “Good work, Carmen.” Lavinia Sibley Archer could gulp a lake of vodka and remain coherent. Her Wimbledon victory diminished next to this display of bodily power, especially at her age. Harriet said there was nothing to it. Lavinia was already pickled.

Hurtling down the corridors, Harriet and Miguel almost collided with Susan Reilly as they all turned a corner at top speed. Susan carried her equipment bag over her shoulder. Harriet looked at Susan, Susan looked at Harriet. Each moved out of the other’s way.

“Buenas noches, Susan.” Miguel had known her for years.

After Billie Jean King and the original crew of professionals founded the circuit along with Lavinia, Susan came along to reap the benefits. She was six feet tall which gave her incredible reach at the net, and surprisingly, she was fast for a tall woman. Her court presence was electrifying. She possessed the charisma of leadership and discipline, but had no organizational skills. Luckily for her, there were plenty of people around to pick up the pieces. Susan at thirty remained a formidable foe.

Trailing behind Susan was Happy Straker, her current doubles partner and past bed partner. Happy flashed a smile at Miguel. “Haven’t seen you since Wimbledon. You look great.”

Lisa, Susan’s seven-year-old daughter, caught up with her mother as did Craig Reilly, Susan’s husband. Craig was a doctor and rarely joined his wife on the road. That was just as well.

“Still great,” Miguel said as Susan’s entourage moved down the hallway. Susan was one of the greatest. She was also one of the greatest liars, but why spoil the illusion? Harriet once described her as exhaustingly dishonest, which covered it.

“Why don’t you two play doubles anymore?” Miguel asked.

Carmen shrugged her shoulders. “Susan likes to change partners. Keeps her fresh.”

Miguel eyed his sister. Carmen and Susan had won every doubles championship there was to win. Changing for the sake of change sounded odd.

Carmen returned his gaze. “That’s the way she is. Fickle.”

“Doubles partnerships may be like marriage, but you don’t need the pope to break up.” Miguel touched a nerve without realizing it.

What he didn’t know was that Susan Reilly was the first woman to sleep with his sister. Carmen was sixteen and highly impressionable. At twenty-four, she was still plenty
impressionable, but at sixteen she was so emotional as to be helpless. Susan bedded down what was then an ambitious Argentine kid on her way up, if she could ever control her temper. Susan told Carmen that she loved Craig but they had an understanding. He went his way and she went hers. She neglected to tell Carmen that she also serviced an expensive, beautiful matron high on Nob Hill. Whatever else she said, it was enough to convince a kid in the throes of first love, not to mention first lesbian affair, that she had to live with Susan. Indeed, Carmen felt she couldn’t live without Susan. So Carmen packed her bags and left for the U.S.

Carmen didn’t discuss this with Susan. She assumed Mrs. Reilly would be thrilled to see her and live with her. She’d have to make periodic visits to Argentina to keep her citizenship intact and to satisfy U.S. bureaucratic standards, notoriously hard on resident aliens. When she arrived unannounced at Susan’s house, Susan looked right beyond her, told her she was crazy, and slammed the door. She ignored Carmen’s phone calls and entreaties. Carmen, stranded, lived with a tennis player and her family in Palo Alto until she could pull herself together.

Harriet wondered if Carmen ever settled the issue, if not the score. Carmen preferred to avoid conflict. If something was rotten, ignore it. If it got worse, take a drink, smoke a cigarette, or puff on the magic weed, but under no circumstances face the pain.

Carmen eventually signed on as Susan’s doubles partner. This lasted for three years and then Susan dumped her without warning for Happy Straker, another fleeting fancy but a terrific doubles partner. At no time did Susan ever sleep with Carmen again or mention the affair which had preceded Carmen’s arrival on her doorstep. Susan had moral amnesia. Why Carmen remained friendly to Susan mystified Harriet, for she felt, like a deep undertone beneath human hearing, that the other shoe had yet to drop.

Miguel ordered cherries jubilee for dessert. All that blue flame at the table gave dinner a slightly exterminatory air. Miguel and Ricky talked about the expansion of cable television. The women talked among themselves.

“I haven’t had cherries jubilee since baked Alaska and I haven’t had baked Alaska since my senior year at Smith College.” Jane shoved the dripping concoction into her mouth.

“Did you bring your Smithie T-shirt?” Carmen had already finished her dessert. “The one that says Smith College, A Century of Women on Top.” Carmen coveted that T-shirt.

Miguel turned to his sister. “Did someone say ‘women on top’?”

“Forget it, Miguel, you’re a chauvinist. You’d never get it.” Carmen turned back to Jane.

“They’re talking about Jane’s college,” Ricky explained.

“Oh, for a moment there I thought we’d be embarrassed by the ladies.” Miguel’s teeth looked almost silver in the light.

“We’d be embarrassed all right, but not tonight.” The two of them returned to their discussion.