Break Point Down Read online

  “I see. And here I thought I'd been helping out all this time.”

  Jeff slammed his fist on the steering wheel, his jaw set in a grim, taut line. His voice came in tense, measured syllables.

  “Kitt, this can't be it. You can't dump it all just like that.”

  “How often can I say it? I want to quit the tour. I've been number one for eight years and I have four Golden Slams to my name. Call me stupid but I have this notion that perhaps there is more to life than hitting balls. I have spent most of my life playing tennis. It's a game.”

  Jeff recovered himself.

  “Kitt, think about what you're saying. You're twenty-four! You could have another eight, ten years at the top. We're talking thirty, forty mil per year!”

  “How much does it take to make you happy, Jeff? You've made a few bucks yourself over the past ten years. Twenty-five per cent off the top isn't petty cash. You can't make ends meet on that? It's never enough, is it?”

  “It isn't just the money—”

  “Oh, isn't it.”

  “You can't quit now, not when everybody—”

  “—depends on me,” Kitt shrugged and started walking away. “Try a new one.”

  For a moment, he wondered if he was thrilled at his own burst of independence or terrified at the finality of his announcement. Why be so hard on Jeff?

  He turned, halfway repentant. The motor ground into a roar, and Kitt had to jump back as the Ferrari screamed past him, the red taillights rapidly blending into the traffic kaleidoscope.

  From his cell phone he called Danny in Florida. The voice on the other end was reassuringly cheerful, and he felt relieved. Danny didn't sound hurt.

  “I knew it was coming, but—you're on top, man. What brought it on right now?”

  “Just a lot of stuff. Talk to you about it in a few days, when I get back. I'm going into the mountains a bit, let it all blow over.”

  “ I'll miss you, man. You're, well, the most real guy on the tour. We need you there.”

  “Thanks. I've thought about it a long time. It's just not working for me anymore. I need to try other things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Lots,” he said somewhat uncertainly. His goals seemed suddenly vague and undefined, and if he couldn't explain them to Danny, how was he going to hold his own against the biting sarcasm of his brother or Wynne, or against the pressures from the rest of Camp Buchanan?

  “I haven't got it all together yet, but I will. To begin with, I am going back to school. That'll be hard enough. Haven't been in school since I was thirteen.”

  “Where you going?”

  “I'm thinking Montrado U. It's a top school and it's at home. I'd like to stay put for once. It's hard to get into, but I'm hoping they'll make some allowances.”

  “Won't you miss the tour?”

  “Sure. But I know what I'm doing. Of course, I expect to hit a couple of balls with you now and then.”

  “Count on it. How did Jeff take it?”

  “He's steamed. He wants to think this is about Mateo, but it isn't. Mateo— well, it helped me put it together. He couldn't have known, but he waited too long to live his dream. First he had to have more money, and more this and more that. I've heard him talk a thousand times about that ranch in Argentina. Have a bunch more kids. And none of it's going to happen. But I'm not doing it because of Mateo. We can't all quit work and go live it up because tomorrow we may die.”

  “Can you make Jeff understand?”

  “I thought so, but now I'm not so sure. He wanted to talk but he's wound pretty tight. No way was I going to get into it tonight. So I'll see him in the morning before I go. Wish me luck.”

  “I want to keep in touch, Kitt.”

  “Me too.”

  He shivered in the muggy evening. It was done. He was Kitt Buchanan, civilian. Not Kitt Buchanan, star of the ATP tour. Not Kitt Buchanan, champion. Just Kitt Buchanan. Not even a student yet. Not a professional anything. The only identity he'd ever had, ace tennis player, and he'd tossed it out, just like that. And here he was—no coach to plan his strategy and scope out the opposition; no trainer or hitting partner to prepare him, no agent to represent him, no stringer to take care of his tools, no business manager to take care of decisions. Probably not even Jeff.

  He felt suddenly terribly alone.

  Their talk the next morning did nothing to dispel his misgivings. Jeff looked as though he hadn't slept all night, and his greed and hostility bewildered Kitt. Jeff's net income as business manager had exceeded his own, and apart from his other business ventures, his personal worth must run into the scores of millions. Something else going on here? Status, most likely, his connections as manager of the world's number one. Well, there were more charismatic players on the tour than Kitt. Players with more camera presence, with more commercial pull, with show business qualities Kitt had always lacked. He could have his pick.

  A power struggle? Big brother was being bumped from the driver's seat. It's always about control—my career, my money, my life.

  Jeff spat out the bitterness.

  “You've got no idea what you've just done. No clue whatsoever!”

  “I have thought it through, Jeff. I know what I'm doing.”

  “Soak this up, you fool! You're a jock. Thinking is my job. You can think your way through a tennis match. That's it!”

  “So why are we having this discussion?”

  Jeff cursed.

  “You know nothing except tennis. You've got a long-distance diploma—a bone they tossed you. You're nothing but a jock.”

  “Thank you. Meanwhile, as you're so fond of telling me, I've managed to support a few people, and I can keep doing it long enough to give them a new start. What I do with the rest of my life is my business.”

  “You're going to keep supporting them, right? With your sponsors backing out and no money coming in. Great demonstration of these thought processes of yours.”

  “So you don't like it. I can live with that.”

  “You're going to have to recant. It's going to make you look like an idiot. Can you imagine how the sponsors are going to take this?” ”

  “Why should I recant?”

  “Because you can't quit! And is it too much to ask that you discuss your cute little impulses with the rest of us before you broadcast the good news on worldwide television?”

  “If you recall,” Kitt replied coolly, “I have brought it up a time or two. A year ago I told you one more year on the circuit would be it. I reminded you at Wimbledon, last month in Cincinnati, and two days ago.”

  “You've always rambled about the great things you wanted to do in life. That's supposed to tell me you're going to quit at the height of your career? It was never serious.”

  “You were never serious. I was.”

  “What are you on? You blow everything for an adolescent rush and the rest of us are just going to have to suck it up, is that it?”

  “I want to make a severance agreement with everybody. I owe them something, but I don't owe them a job for life. You can get new clients, get into more player management, whatever. Or take a vacation.”

  “So now you're an expert on my life. You think you did it all, don't you? Without me, you'd have been a professional hiker and a two-bit flunkie ball boy. I made a champion out of you. I ran my butt ragged to get guarantees, endorsements, exhibitions, money for training!”

  “And to think that I ever won a match without you there.”

  “Listen to me, you idiot. You can play tennis, that's all. You think that's all it takes to make a champion? I'll tell you what it takes. It takes brains and it takes a guy behind the scenes who knows something about business. It takes someone who can manage that talent and turn it into cash.”

  “Ah yes, cash. I wondered when we'd get back to that.”

  “Somebody should keep his head on straight. And it doesn't look like it's going to be you.”

  Kitt didn't reply. The moment of silence was like a walkabou
t between points, when opponents tried to slow each other down or take some deep breaths, to review strategy or to keep from collapsing on the spot. Finally, Jeff heaved a sigh.

  “Here's what we're going to do. I'll make a statement today, this morning. We can say you were exhausted or burned out or something. Other pros unretire themselves all the time.”

  Kitt got up.

  “You don't get it. I have retired. I've made a lot of money, and I don't need the job.”

  “You owe me time to prepare!”

  “Prepare for what?”

  “For a change in my lifestyle. For the gigantic loss of income, for starters!”

  “You've made wads of money and you knew for more than a year this was coming.”

  “Stupid! You don't know the first thing about business.”

  “Don't tell me you didn't have a plan B, in case I blew a knee or a shoulder.”

  The magnitude of his decision weighed heavily upon Kitt, and his anger at the turn the conversation was taking wiped out every trace of sympathy. Jeff's hands clasped the edge of his desk.

  “Wait! Wait just a little,” he pleaded. “Give yourself a few days. You may not have a clear idea of what would happen if you went through with this. Talk it over with Rick. Sit down and see what you'd be looking at if you quit. Maybe we haven't paid enough attention. I'm sorry. Give us a chance to make it up to you.”

  “What, put you out again, after all the years you've been doing my thinking for me?”

  “Kitt, I didn't mean that. But you don't know the world as I do. This is not going to work.”

  Kitt shook his head. He felt incredibly weary.

  “I can't talk about it any more right now. I'm sorry if I have upset your life. I'll do what I can to make it right. For now, I need to get out of Dodge. I'll call you in a week.”

  The next day he flew home and hours later drove his jeep high into the mountains. There would be time enough to wind up the unfinished business of the old life. The future was at his feet.

  He parked the jeep and tramped through the coarse mountain grasses to a high outcropping where he could see the whole world. For a few minutes he let it saturate him, and then he went back and unloaded his backpack. Moments later he was on his way, breathing in deeply the solitude of the mountains. The sky was bright, with sharply defined clouds drifting frivolously with the gentle winds. He loved the rhythm of his feet on the trail, the sounds of the wilderness, the wildlife he was so familiar with. At these higher elevations his most frequent encounters were with perky little ground squirrels, sitting erect and motionless or chattering at companions from under the dense undergrowth. They never failed to enchant Kitt, and he stood still to watch a particularly brazen one as it stood its ground only a few feet from him.

  After a few hours he sat down by a small, crystalline pond reflecting the intense blue of the sky. He shed the backpack and explored the banks and the capricious rock formations on the other side. The crisp air sent shivers of elation down his spine. Tingling with anticipation, he mapped out in thought the days and weeks and months ahead. No more entourage steering him this way and that, cheering him as he went through the moves they had charted. He was laying out the strategy, scoping out the obstacles, and filling in the calendar.

  Early on the second day he met a few other hikers, but other than that he was alone. It wasn't till two days later that it dawned on him that he'd neglected to share with Wynne the upheaval in his life. When the thought struck him, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  He stood at the edge of a clearing in the dense woods in the foothills of Mount Rawley. The evening sun shimmered through the trees. Entranced, he stared at the play of rosy light and shadow.

  Wynne. She'd skipped the Open for an important business engagement. Out of character for Wynne, come to think of it. She didn't opt out of spectacular occasions. She liked what he hated about it. Strange, actually, to have pursued with such intensity a profession that constantly placed him in the limelight he detested.

  Be interesting to see Wynne's face when she heard about this shocker. He'd sort of forgotten about her—a Freudian slip, no doubt. Arguing with Wynne was draining.

  He shrugged. Their lives had often touched, but they'd never moved together in any direction. She did not explain to him her activities, and he owed her no accounting of his.

  A rabbit frolicked across the clearing, and he heard the call of wild geese overhead. Here and there, an angled shaft of sunlight speared the gathering gloom of the woods beyond. Chuckling, he emerged from the woods and began to climb the rising trail, zigzagging through heavy underbrush and along a tiny mountain stream, leaving behind the world of competition and conflict.

  What he needed was a dog. A sturdy dog, who would go on hikes with him and sleep by his bed. Having a pet hadn't been compatible with his traveling career, but now! He'd gone to dog shows and looked hard at several breeds, the kind he thought would keep up with him on rugged hikes. Playing with the thought, he weighed the pros and cons of breeds, of male dogs and females, large and small, puppy and grown dog. In the silence of the cliffs above the timberline he tried out a few names, aloud.

  At the turn of the trail he stopped to watch the last blazing brilliance of the day splashing across the horizon, bleeding out into a purple-streaked peach and pearl that stirred in Kitt feelings of deep nostalgia. He'd never drunk in the evening sky without yearning to look beyond the fierce farewells of sunset.

  He looked up in the sky, trying to penetrate the vast stillness. So much to see, to hear, to know, to do. He shivered with the excitement of it. Life without fame, just blessed anonymity. What would it be like, being a person, not a talk show topic?

  Some day he'd finish the dream for Mateo.

  He came back from his weeklong hike refreshed and eager to start his new life. Messages were everywhere—taped phone inquiries, faxes, e-mails, letters. He frowned as he contemplated the barrage. For a moment he was tempted to chuck the lot, but he thought better of it.

  “Later.”

  He couldn't walk by the piano without drumming out a few chords and he frowned at a false note. A few books lay on the piano bench and he leafed through them. He felt rusty as he sat down to play one of his favorites from memory.

  As on call the memories surfaced of Dad at the piano, notes bouncing off the timbered ceilings of the old converted farmhouse in Vermont, sparkling on the leaded windows that framed heavy trees across the lawn, muted and softened by beams and rafters. Dad had a way of caressing the keys that brought out a flow of tones of pure jubilation. He lost himself for a while in the cascade of sounds his fingers drew from the instrument. In the end he came back to the classics, tentative at first, and then, as the rhythm limbered his fingers, swift and exhilarating.

  It was more than an hour before he settled himself in a lounging chair with a newspaper and pushed a button. Requests from reporters, from Sports Magazine, from tennis commentators. Tennis Journal had called three times, Dave and Zack twice. Rick topped them all with five attempts.

  Wynne's call came in as he was deciding whose message to return first. Her voice sounded icy.

  “Nice of you to call.”

  “I've had a few things on my mind.”

  “So I read in the paper.”

  Lost a few points as an ordinary citizen. For a second he thought of apologizing.

  “I'm sorry it upsets you. But I'm still the same guy. I'll just be lugging around books instead of rackets.”

  “Sounds glamorous.”

  “I guess I've had all the glamor I need.”

  “And you didn't think to talk to me before you made a decision?”

  He frowned into the telephone.

  “Do you consult me about your plans? You walk in and out of my life every six months or so. I've never complained. It's your life. And this one's mine.”

  “You must understand how hard this is.”

  “I guess I don't. I haven't changed. And if you want to see tennis, go to a tournam
ent.”

  “A lot of people will be devastated. Your fans, the sponsors, the whole tennis world. It's a slap in the face.”

  “Get real, Wynne.”

  “What about the people who work for you—your brother, your coaches, and all the others? You're putting them out of work.”

  “The people who worked for me could retire comfortably today. I owe no one lifetime employment. And I doubt that this is about your concern for anybody's economic health.”

  “It was a shock to the people who care about you.”

  Care—ah, yes. The prevailing sentiment from those who'd responded to his announcement.

  “Maybe that accounts for the selfless concern I seem to provoke in all these caring people.”

  “You owe something to the people who paid good money to see you play. “

  “They got their money's worth.”

  “Look at what you're turning your back on. A spectacular career, publicity, a fortune in prizes and contracts.”

  “You're getting predictable. It's not about the devastated people who love me. It's about money and spotlights.”

  “Oh really, Kitt. It isn't the same without you there. You know the thrill of holding up that trophy, knowing you're the greatest player tennis ever had. You've got four Golden Slams and you could get six or seven! You're throwing it all away to become obscure.”

  “To become educated.”

  “Don't you know how pathetic this is? You want people to think of you as a quitter?”

  “I should worry about what people think?”

  The conversation went nowhere and he was relieved to hang up.

  To get his new life on track, he concluded his dealings with the media through several short interviews, then went to lunch with Delaney and MacPhie, two TV commentators who had followed his career.

  “Thanks for the warning,” said Delaney, putting down his glass. “You saved us from a stroke. And it made that last match that much more memorable. I'm keeping the tape.”