Sudden Death (30 page)

Wimbledon started out as usual with schedule snarling before half of the first day was up and bickering among players, coaches, and staff. The actual powers-that-be at Wimbledon rarely engaged in these daily pabulum pits since they thought themselves deified. As they were dead and too dumb to fall over, this attitude was not far off the mark.

Wimbledon is only as impressive as one cares to make it. It’s not the cathedral of tennis, but it’s a decent enough English club clinging to the days of the British Empire and kept alive because every foreigner in the world wants to be there and win it. Obviously the English don’t want to win it. They haven’t bothered with tennis in decades with the exception of Virginia Wade. Uganda has a better tennis development program than England, but by now half of Uganda is in England so perhaps things will pick up.

Fans queue up for hours, not because they are raving tennis fanatics, a few are, but because there aren’t that many tournaments in the country and this is their national tournament.

The physical structure itself isn’t imposing. The grass varies from year to year and that’s not the grounds keeper’s
fault. The weather would try the patience of all the giving saints. Once, in an act of Australian defiance, Beanie Kittredge dragged her toe on her serve to hear one of the “limey bastards,” as she called them, groan.

If Wimbledon were not Wimbledon, it would be regarded as a pleasant enough tournament, badly run and overcrowded, but with definite charm. But it was and will ever remain Wimbledon, so every sportswriter in the business genuflects annually, newscasters fabricate stories, ossification masquerades as tradition, and the players fight tooth and nail to win the Big W.

For the opening day of Wimbledon, Carmen drew a bye. She didn’t have to play until Tuesday. Tuesday came and went with a Semana victory, a wobbly one at that. If she could get through the early rounds, she’d be fine.

The grace period from the press abruptly halted after the next match. Carmen, Harriet, and Miguel were converging on Carmen’s car by separate paths. Miguel lent his car to Beanie Kittredge. A gray piece of putty with legs was in hot pursuit and followed by other similar creatures, the reporters.

“Shit, get in the car,” Miguel commanded.

Harriet, stupidly, stood on the driver’s side. She forgot the steering wheel was reversed, another example of English perversity. Carmen got the door open, jumped in, and realized Harriet was still standing outside the car. “Get in on the other side!” Miguel threw her in the car.

In America velocity is confused with achievement. Carmen drove as though velocity were achievement. In England she got away with it. The suburb of Wimbledon flashed by. Tense, she snapped, “Why did you have to tell Martin Kuzirian? Nothing would have ever happened. Everything would be all right.”

Rattled, worried, Harriet held her head up. “If you’re ashamed to be a lesbian, you’re ashamed to be a woman.”

Carmen drove home in silent fury.

Miguel considered what Harriet said. For all his slippery deals, he was not completely insensitive. Harriet had a point. He hoped other women didn’t agree with her.

Susan, herself a silent fury, prepared for Wimbledon, flanked by her husband and daughter. Did Alicia sleep with Rainey Rogers’s coach, Gary Shorter? Just what the hell was she doing, coming out of his room at that hour, then slipping back to her own room? At major tournaments Susan and Alicia became more circumspect than usual, if that’s possible. Susan wanted to rip into Alicia, but she didn’t want to know the answer until after Wimbledon. Nothing must intrude on her focus, on the mantra chant, “Win, win, win.”

If Susan had been sensitive to anyone outside herself, she might have noticed that Alicia was in torment over lesbianism. Sex with men was bad enough. The young woman was a terminal Puritan. Her body did one thing; her mind screamed another. What she needed was compassion, acceptance, and, if need be, counseling. Alicia would never go to a psychiatrist. But Alicia would have spoken to a minister, and many of these individuals, competent as counselors, were alert to crisis. If Susan had any heart at all, she would have helped Alicia help herself. Instead, Susan plotted how to dynamite the information out of Alicia. It never occurred to her simply to ask Alicia what she was doing in Gary Shorter’s room. Unlike Susan, Alicia generally told the truth.

The tidbit about Carmen’s marriage did make the papers. Harriet didn’t see it because she was grounded. Newspapers weren’t delivered to the rented house. She spent her time in
the garden or in the library reading. She felt miserable. She was about to feel worse.

Jane pulled in the driveway, honked the horn and walked around to the back of the house. “Yoo hoo.”

The door flew open. “Hi! Come on in.”

“I had to get away from the zoo. Anyway, I did my work for today. Valerie Virtue.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” Jane plopped in the kitchen chair. “They call this summer. Maybe I will have that coffee.”

Harriet puttered over to the stove. “Anything exciting on the job today?”

“Hell, no. The seeds progress in order. So far, it’s predictable. Couple of the men’s matches were good.”

“They’ve got so much depth.”

“Yeah, I know. I asked for coffee, Harriet, not a twelve-course dinner.”

“Kitchen maid I am not.”

“Here.” Jane measured out the correct amount of ground beans. Slowly the aroma of percolating coffee filled the tiny kitchen. “You look blue. Lavinia’s at it again.”

“She’s been on Carmen’s case. According to her standards, she’s doing the right thing.”

“You’re being generous. False stories of marriage aren’t the right thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you read the paper?”

“No.”

Jane put her hand to her mouth. “Oh.”

“The coffee’s ready.” Harriet poured a cup as Jane repeated the story.

“And that’s it.” Jane smiled wanly.

“That’s enough. I guess it will save her for now. If I stay out of the way, things ought to be better. Maybe I should go on home to Cazenovia now.”

“It’s not my place to advise you. In your own way, you
work for Wimbledon, too.” She propped her leg up on an empty chair. “Sometimes I think this is a tempest in a teapot. Women’s tennis has some lesbians.” Jane rolled her eyes. “Big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to Lavinia.”

“If someone farts in the dressing room, it’s a big deal to Lavinia. Remember that pig, Claire Schick, and the time she barfed in a potted palm courtside in Seattle?”

“Oh, yeah.” Harriet laughed.

“Lavinia still hasn’t gotten over it.”

“There’s always Tomahawk and the local sponsors. It’s a big deal to them.”

“Fuck’em.” Jane gulped coffee. “The game’s too commercial anyway.”

Surprised, Harriet said, “What got into you?”

“I don’t know. This is one of my waffle iron days.”

“Perish the thought!” Harriet laughed, remembering the day at Princeton when Jane’s waffle iron wouldn’t work. Jane fiddled with it and fiddled with it. Finally, she got so mad she threw the goddamned appliance across the kitchen.

“You must be stir crazy out here in the suburbs without a car. Don’t you want to see the matches?”

“I watch Carmen on tv.”

“I’ll sneak you in tomorrow. The last place anyone will look for you is the television booth; your face isn’t exactly a household item.”

“England’s loss.”

“Feel pretty rotten, don’t you.”

Harriet toyed with her spoon. “Does it show that much?”

“No, but I’m not stupid. I’d hate to be in your shoes.” She looked under the table. “Even if they are size six.”

“Jane, do you think Carmen knows about this marriage story?”

“I don’t know.”

“It must be Lavinia’s brainstorm. Carmen would tell me.”

“I would hope she’d tell you, but people are strange at Wimbledon.”

“Not that strange.”

“I wouldn’t ask any questions until after the finals. No point in upsetting her.”

Down another hallway in a small but clean room in a medium-priced hotel, Carmen Semana was humping the hell out of Bonnie Marie Bishop. Carmen had arranged her schedule with care. Harriet rarely made sexual demands during a big tournament, so Carmen would have enough energy. Bonnie Marie melted in her arms. There was a lot to melt. Bonnie Marie would never admit to being a lesbian. She was new. No past. No problems. She was wonderful.

If the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club directors were an abomination, the English spectators were a glory, especially the older citizens. They could distinguish a forehand topspin from a flat forehand whilst sitting in the remotest seats. And when they watched a match, it was not an isolated point in time but a running thread throughout their lives. They remembered Lew Hoad versus Ken Rosewall and if they didn’t see Anthony F. Wilding versus Arthur Gore in 1912, their mothers and fathers did. Wimbledon was one more sonorous note in the symphony of English life.

Ball boys in purple and green, looking like pages who walked into the wrong century, moved out on the court. Yesterday one of the ball boys winked at Carmen. Pretty cheeky, but nice.

“What do you think?” Jane, a little farsighted, held the draw sheet at arm’s length.

“Carmen will win it in two sets. Rainey Rogers will be the bitch in the semis. She ought to make the quarters against Justine Haverford okay,” Ricky predicted.

“Except the entire country will be pulling for Justine.”

“Oh God, look at Lavinia,” Jane exclaimed.

Lavinia Sibley Archer, only one vodka gimlet to her credit, floated through the crowd. Encased in yellow, she moved with the solemnity of a person marching to “Pomp and Circumstance.” Older spectators recognized her which sent her into a transport. Heads leaned together as people informed one another about who was whom. Lavinia shone today. She had been relieved to see the gossipy item in the morning paper about rumors of an upcoming marriage for Carmen Semana. She dearly hoped whatever happened in England would have no effect on her baby, the Tomahawk Circuit. She would do her best to make certain it had no effect. As she sat down at last, she pretended to be absorbed in the two women taking the court. She was really listening to the buzz behind her. Yes, they remembered her.