Page 110 of Carrie Soto Is Back

I suddenly feel my voice quivering, and I get control of myself. “That’s kind of you.”

“Yeah, well, you know I need my yearly strawberries and cream.”

When I come back out after getting dressed, she’s set herself up in my living room, and she’s already on her cellphone, scolding someone. She finishes her call and looks at me. The intensity of her gaze makes me sit straighter.

“How are you?” she says, frowning.

“Well…I feel better than I’ve felt in years.”

Gwen nods. “Great. Good. I love that.”

“But…playing without my dad here…I don’t know.”

Gwen nods.

“It feels like the late eighties all over again. Playing without my dad, when the whole point was to do thiswithmy dad. For us to have one last season together.”

Gwen grabs my hand and squeezes it. “So go win it and bring him back the trophy.”

WIMBLEDON

1995

In the entrance hall atCentre Court at Wimbledon, there is an inscription just above the double doors that lead out to the grass. It is from the poem “If—” by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same

It has never resonated with me. Every time I have walked onto the courts at Wimbledon, I have considered triumph to be paramount. And when I have held it in my hands, it has not felt like an impostor at all.

But as Gwen and I walk into the hall this morning, she says, “I’ve always loved that quote.”

“You know,” I say as we head to the clubhouse, “I read the whole poem years ago, to try to understand the inscription better. But it didn’t help. I do remember thinking the first line of the poem mademore sense to me than that line. But now I can’t even remember what it is.”

Gwen smiles. “ ‘If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.’ ”

I look at her. “Yeah, that’s it. What, were you an English major or something?”

Gwen pulls her head back. “Yes.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. I got my BA from Stanford before going to UCLA for my MBA.”

“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t know that. That’s cool.” I never officially finished high school, never set foot on a college campus. And I am convinced sometimes that, despite all my accomplishments, this lack of sophistication shows in ways I’m unaware of.

“Not sure how cool it is. It doesn’t often come in handy that I know the entirety of ‘If—’ by Rudyard Kipling.”

“Well, I still think it’s impressive,” I say as I head toward the dressing room.

“All right,” Gwen says, “I’m going to make some calls, and I’ll see you in the players’ box.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Good luck, Carolina,” she says.

I cannot help but smile. “Thank you.”

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