“The press loves that we supposedly hate each other,” Emilia said. “They would not like that we’re becoming friends.”
“We’ll have to fake it going forward,” Yoko agreed.
“It’s like wrestlers who make a big show out of hating each other.” Emilia sat on the edge of Yoko’s bed.
“They have better costumes than we do.” Yoko remained standing, waiting for whatever it was her friend wanted to talk about. A strange, competitive part of her wondered whether Emilia would try to ask her to let Emilia win next time.
But that was far from Emilia’s game.
“I need to tell you something.” Emilia gazed into the glass of wine, unable to look at Yoko. “And it isn’t easy to say out loud.”
Yoko’s stomach went icy. She sat cross-legged on the bed and glared at her friend. “What’s up?”
Emilia took another drink. “I saw something I shouldn’t have. But you deserve to know.”
Yoko hated all this cryptic talk. If she were dealing with a Japanese person, they would come out and say it fast and direct. None of this messing around.
“It was your boyfriend,” Emilia said. “Kendall Reynolds. I saw him at a bar in London before I came out for the championship. He was with someone. A woman I’ve never seen before.”
Yoko’s chest heaved. For a terrible moment, she thought she was going to throw up all over Emilia. But she filled her lungs and reminded herself that Kendall had numerous friends from all over the world. He’d probably met up with a friend from grad school when he landed. It was innocuous. Emilia didn’t understand.
She outlined this to Emilia, deciding as she said it that this was what she had to believe. “He’s a man of the world,” she added at the end. “But I’m his only partner. I’m it for him.” They’d talk about marriage numerous times. It was all Yoko knew to believe in.
But Emilia wouldn’t let her escape what she’d seen. “They were not just talking,” she said, closing her eyes. “They werekissing. Touching hands.” Her face went white. “I’m sorry to tell you. I’m sorry to bring you this pain.”
Yoko flared her nostrils. Every sense of friendship she’d courted for Emilia suddenly vanished, and she was left with resentment and rage. It was clear that Emilia was jealous of Yoko’s ever-growing career. She wanted what Yoko had—more wins, more trophies. Maybe she wanted Kendall for herself, too. Yoko recalled that Emilia had recently gone through a traumatic breakup with a Lithuanian soccer star. The soccer star had cheated on her, if Yoko remembered right. She wanted to stir the pot and ruin Yoko’s joy.
“I think you’d better go,” Yoko said through gritted teeth. She felt tears far off, threatening her, but she ground her molars to keep them in.
Emilia stood but didn’t bother to reach for her wine on the table. “If you want to talk more about this, I’m here,” she said. “Give me a call, or find me at the next open. I know what it’s like to be cheated on. It happened to me last month.”
Emilia left after that, closing the door behind her and leaving Yoko in the overwhelming quiet. Yoko drank the rest of her wine and stared into space. Anger felt like the only thing she knew.How dare she!she thought. But she wasn’t going to let Emilia ruin her big day. She got in the shower and scrubbed herself clean, trying to forget.
Out to dinner later with her parents, Kendall, Coach, and Kathy, Yoko was bright and vivacious, performing a version of herself who had not only won Wimbledon four times but was also creative, funny, intellectual, and alive. Occasionally, she caught herself thinking,See, Kendall? You could never cheat on me. I’m too wonderful!But other times, what Emilia had said caught up to her and crashed in on her, leaving her heartbeat weak.
To add insult to injury, it seemed her parents weren’t as interested in yet another Wimbledon win as they were in Kendall’s newfound success in the business sector. Already a CEO for a Fortune 500 company, he was raking in millions a year, giving talks at conferences all over the globe, and making a plan of attack for the next ten to fifteen years.
Yoko’s father was especially fascinated, asking Kendall pertinent business questions that went way over Yoko’s head. Her mother, whose English was now fully better than Yoko’s despite Yoko’s multiyear stint in America, spoke succinctly and intellectually about the state of the business world and how she thought the future would advance certain technologies (and vice versa).
“I have to agree with you there,” Kendall said about something her mother said, his tone stern and serious.
At the table, Yoko and Kathy made accidental, brief eye contact that embarrassed them both. Yoko yanked her eyes away, then couldn’t help but think,Kathy hates this conversation as much as I do.
Coach, being Coach, wasn’t listening to their conversation at all. His eyes were on the television in the corner, watching a football game between Liverpool and Manchester. Regardless of what sport was on, he was into it, ready at all times for athleticism and teamwork and the confidence required to win. He still called Yoko his crowning achievement, but Yoko sensed that he was becoming bored with working with her. She was already great. He wanted another challenge. He wanted someone younger to build toward something incredible. A champion. She wondered whether Kendall was getting bored with her, too. Was that what Emilia had seen? Now, she felt pummeled with imaginary scenes of Kendall with a strange woman in a bar in London. Kendall, thinking he was all alone.She filled her mouth with sake and put on her best and most sterling smile. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t.
“What’s gotten into you?” her mother asked in Japanese so that Kendall couldn’t understand. “It looks like you have a light bulb in your stomach.”
Her mother meant,You look too happy. You look insane. Yoko let her smile drop.
The rest of the championships went by in a blur until the last one of 1999. Yoko won every single one, beating not only Emilia but a Spanish woman, a French woman with a killer backhand, and an eighteen-year-old up-and-coming American who hit serves nobody could see. Yoko was on another two magazine covers, although even she was getting bored with seeing herself all over the place. It was like the world was beginning to turn on her. There was too much of her. They were oversaturated.
The final championship was held in Australia at the tail end of the year. Yoko was in Sydney, warming up with Coach, feeling her blood pump from her heart to her head to her legs. She was in good spirits, grateful to be off to the island and back in the Down Under summertime. After she defeated the Spanish woman in the final, she planned to spend a few days with Kendall at the beach, eating seafood and maybe trying surfing for the first time. She was nearly twenty-six years old and in the prime of her life. Marriage and children would catch them soon, she knew. But she planned to celebrate till then.
After warming up, Coach and Yoko ate a banana each on the sidelines and talked about the Spanish woman’s strengths and weaknesses. Coach reminded Yoko of the various ways the Spanish woman had tried to “get her” last time, and Yokonodded, chewed her banana, and tried to “get in the zone” mentally. But as she finished her banana and tossed her peel, she locked eyes with a woman across the road, her blond braid swinging. It was Emilia, here to watch the championship's final match. Emilia locked eyes with Yoko. With that, everything Emilia had told Yoko in the hotel room after Wimbledon fell back on her head. Yoko couldn’t breathe for a moment. She’d spent months trying to forget.
Yoko started the match strong. She whipped the ball back hard and with plenty of topspin, which sent the Spanish woman hurtling back, trying and often failing to return it. Unsurprisingly, most onlookers saw Yoko win the first set 6-1, giving the Spanish woman only a single game.
It wasn’t till midway through the second set that everything changed.
