Page 21 of The Game

And suddenly, just like that, laughter starts to bubble up in my throat. “What about Dad?” I say, grinning at the wall in my office. “Was he ever swept up in some romantic nonsense?”

“Of course, he wasn’t,” my mom snaps. “We married each other because it was the most sensible option available.”

“And here I was thinking you two loved one another,” I mutter, trying to stop the enormous grin that’s threatening to take over my face. “You married him because he was the most sensible man available?” I repeat.

“Of course I did, as he did me,” my mom says breezily. “That’s what you should be doing, Adam. I don’t know why you’re in New York City. You should be back here building a solid career and married to that girl, not messing around in New York.”

My dad’s take on this would be amazing, but getting him on the phone will never happen. But then I hear a cough followed by a noise in the background.

“You should marry for love like I clearly did,” says a voice coming from somewhere in the distance behind my mom, and my heart clenches as a sharp thrill runs through me. It’s times like this, when his dry sense of humor comesout, that I love Dad so intensely it’s difficult to breathe. He’s so quiet. Does he approve of what I’m doing? Probably not. But he notices everything and has always been this dependable, solid presence in my life. Even if he doesn’t agree with most of my decisions, I could always go to him for advice and he’d help me.

I grin. I’m not even annoyed at my mom’s reference to my business asmessing around. “Tell Dad I’ll let him know when I’ve found someone as wonderful as you, Mom,” I say, almost giddy with this whole conversation.

“Oh, you two!” my mom says. “Call me when you know what you’re doing, Adam.” And she hangs up.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not stupid enough to think it’s gone away; my mom is like a dog with a bone, but I’ve dodged the Thanksgiving problem for now.

When I meet Anna two days later at the entrance to Central Park, her gloved hands are clutching two coffees, breath white in the cold November air. She looks like any other person on the streets of Manhattan, long dark hair flowing out from beneath a wool cap. She holds out a coffee, and I lean in and kiss her cheek.

“In case anyone’s taking photographs,” I wink at her.

She laughs as Pepper jumps up at my legs.

“She’s your number-one fan.”

“What kind of dog is she?”

“A Papillon. Big ears, big attitude.”

“She’s a sweetheart,” I say, but Anna wrinkles her nose.

“She pooped on a very expensive rug this morning.”

This makes me laugh. Even high-powered famous athletes have to clean up their pet’s poop. I bend down and give Pepper a full-body rub, and she wriggles and tries to lick my face.

“Were you a naughty girl this morning, hmmm?” I ask.

I glance up to find Anna watching me. She bites her lip as her eyes flutteraway and she gestures toward the entrance to the park with her cup.

“Thanks for meeting up and doing this. After I won my first Grand Slam title, photographs of me cropped up everywhere and I got paranoid for a while. I stopped going out at all.”

The sadness I felt after I left her white face in the car two days ago settles into my chest. You think these people have amazing lives and then you realize that they’re on a treadmill just like the rest of us, albeit a bit more of a glamorous one. Or maybe it just appears glamorous because they win competitions and fly around the world. But I’ll bet that hours of hard tennis practice a day and endless flight delays aren’t exciting at all.

“So now I try and make sure I go out and do normal, everyday things with someone else as a buffer,” Anna adds, then pauses and swallows. “Oh God, that sounds terrible, I don’t mean that …”

I laugh. “I’m more than happy to be described as a buffer.”

Her cheeks pink up. “I’m so sorry! I’m such an awkward nerd sometimes! That came out all wrong.”

I shake my head, laughing. Surely, I’m the awkward nerd here?

“The pressure around tennis is pretty intense. Who’s beating who, rankings, rivalries. I like to concentrate on the game, but the press always asks me all these stupid-ass questions. Was Parakova favoring her right side after her injury earlier this year? Last time you met, Mila beat you in three straight sets—is she going to do that this time? The same things over and over, things you can’t answer.”

God yes, I would be so annoyed if someone watched me write code and critiqued it all the time.Jesus, that would be terrible.

“Anyway, if they take pictures of me with a man, and quiz me about him, somehow that is so much easier.”

I laugh at this. “I always thought people hated speculation about their personal lives. I remember Janus went through hell with Jo because she loathed the media attention.”

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