Page 58 of Match Point

Miranda: I’m not your dear. And I don’t want ANY flowers. My agent spent the entire afternoon getting rid of all of them. It’s so wasteful!

Me: I would waste a lifetime of flowers if it meant even the smallest chance at gaining your heart.

Miranda: You can start by not acting like a huge asshole any time there’s a camera pointed at you. Why not act normal? Like the charming man who snuck me into the Louvre?

Me: I act the way I do because it is required of me.

Miranda: Then you’ve made your choice. Nothing else you do will make me like you, Gabriel.

I typed and then deleted ten different replies. Nothing felt adequate to explain how I felt. How could she not understand that this was how the worldwantedme to be? Tennis was a boring sport. The presence of someone like me, who acted arrogant and drew the scorn of millions of fans, was a great asset to the game. Everything I had—my fame, my endorsements, my on-court success—was due to the carefully-crafted persona that my agent and I had created.

Today was my mother’s birthday, so I called her. It went to voicemail after three rings. A few seconds later, I received a text from her in French.

Mère: I am out with friends and cannot answer the phone. May I call you back tomorrow?

Me: That is fine. I was only wishing you a happy birthday.

Mère: Thank you.

My good mood was soured, so I retrieved my tennis bag and went to the practice facility. I used a ball machine to hit shots to my forehand side, and smashed my returns as hard as I could. After an hour of this, my elbow was sore, but I was in no better mood than before.

For the last decade, my path had been clear: make a name for myself in the sport of tennis, whatever the cost. All of my work had finally paid off this year. I was the top male player in the world. I would be on the cover of Sports Illustrated next month. All of this was due to my cocky persona. My agent told me to fake it until I made it, so to speak, and I had finally made it!

But when I re-read Miranda’s messages, I wondered if I had made the right choice after all.

There was a phrase I had heard in many American romantic comedies:the one who got away.

Miranda Jacobs was the one who had gotten away from me. And I was determined not to let it happen again.

No matter what it cost me.

28

Miranda

“Dimitrova is one point away from breaking her opponent’s serve for the third game in a row,” I said into my booth headset, speaking at a whisper as the stadium fell silent. “If she succeeds here, I don’t see how Weng can possibly come back.”

It was the third day of Wimbledon, and the match I was commentating was an exciting upset of one of the top seeds. But I kept glancing up at the array of televisions in the booth, which showed every single match currently in progress. Tristan and Dominic were on one of those screens, sharing a fist-bump as they switched sides between games. They had already won the first set of their match, and were winning the second set 4 - 1.

“And there it is!” said Tim Henman, the former tennis player who was now my broadcast partner. “Dimitrova takes a commanding lead in the second set.”

“Her backhand looks unstoppable,” I said. “If she can keep up this accuracy with it, I see her giving the top seeds a lot of headache.”

The voice of my producer suddenly manifested in my headset. “She won that point on a forehand winner. Not a backhand.”

I winced; I had been looking at the doubles match when the point happened. I pressed the button to switch to the private channel with my producer. “Sorry, I know. I meant in general, not for that specific point.”

“That’s fine, but we don’t want to confuse the viewers.”

“Of course,” I replied, switching back to the broadcast channel. We were on a commercial break while Demotrova and Weng switched sides, so I let my gaze drift up to the doubles match on the TV above me.

I didn’t like keeping secrets. When I was a little girl in school, I struggled to make friends because I didn’t like to gossip. If another girl told me a secret, it would eat me up inside until I eventually blurted it out. Any therapist who spent more than five minutes talking to me would immediately identify that as a coping mechanism formed when my parents got divorced when I was six, but I thought it was a good policy to have in general. Lies and secrets were bad. Honesty was always a better, if sometimes uncomfortable, policy.

But Tristan and Dominic were playing extremely well as doubles partners. Their first game two days ago was a little rusty, but since then they had fallen into a groove together. The biggest thing working in their favor was that their play styles meshed well. Tristan had an explosive serve, which was complemented by Dominic’s dominant volley skills at the net. The more they played together, the more unstoppable they seemed.

We’ll tell Dominic after Wimbledon is over, I reminded myself.That’s the best plan. Nobody wants to be distracted in the middle of a tournament.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Moreau was relentless—both onandoff the court. I had to commentate his fourth round match against an aging Rafael Nadal, and the Frenchman was at the top of his game. Nadal was a famous scrambler, chasing down shots that most players couldn’t reach and drawing out points. Gabriel scrambled right with him, causing some extremely long points that had the crowd roaring after each one. When the players switched sides every other game, Gabriel glanced up at my booth and smiled.

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