Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Author:Taylor Jenkins Reid [Jenkins Reid, Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2022-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

APRIL 1995

Two months before Paris

By April, after training a couple more months, my serve is now regularly clocking in at 122 miles per hour.

My feet feel light on the court. My knee feels all right. I feel nimble but mighty, exactly what I need to be for Paris.

“Unbelievable!” “¡Increíble!” “¡Brillante!” my father says at the end of each session lately, with a brightness in his eyes.

There are entire weeks of the spring when it seems like the craziest thing in the world that I could have doubted myself. I can do this. This is what I do.

One evening in early April, my father and I are eating dinner in my kitchen. We have spent the day working on my second serve. It is one of the first days in a long time when I am not exhausted, when hitting at the very best of my abilities did not take everything out of me. I remember this feeling from my twenties—this sense of sheer accomplishment without the weight of the cost. It has eluded me all year, but I finally have it back.

My father and I are eating his grilled chicken.

“It’s bone dry,” I say. “Why didn’t you make chimichurri? Or a white wine sauce? Something?”

“I’d like to see you make dinner,” he says.

“I don’t cook,” I say. “I order takeout. Because if I made chicken, it would taste like this.”

The phone rings in the kitchen, and my father gets up.

“It’s my phone, Dad,” I say. “I’ll answer it if I want it answered.”

He swats me away with a dish towel.

“Hello?” he says. And then he smiles and turns to me. “It’s Bowe.”

I bolt up and take the phone from him.

“Hey,” I say. “How are you? Nice job in Johannesburg.”

“Thank you,” Bowe says, but his voice is flat. He got to the third round and went down against Wash Lomal. But I saw the game, and he played beautifully. “Listen, I’m pulling out of Barcelona and Tokyo.”

“Oh,” I say, resting against the countertop. “Why?”

“My back is starting to hurt, and I want to save my energy. I need to regroup. Need to get ready for Roland-Garros.”

“Are you going to play Nice or Monte Carlo?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “I’m going to go to Paris now. Set up there, practice on clay.”

“Oh,” I say. “That’s a great idea. Javier and I were thinking of doing the same at Saddlebrook.”

“Well,” Bowe says. “That’s my question. What if you and Javier come to Paris instead and we train together?”

“You want us to come to Paris to train with you?” I ask.

My father hears this and immediately leaps out of his chair and starts nodding. “Tell him yes,” my father says. “You need it. You both do. Tell him I have ideas for him. Two words: Eastern grip.”

I laugh. “Did you get all that?” I say into the phone.

Bowe laughs too. “Every word, sadly. But…”

“What?”

“I don’t want to know if your dad wants you to come. I want to know if you want to come.”

I want to win the goddamn French Open with my whole gut.

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