Open: An Autobiography

Done, Bo says.

He reaches out to a guy who knows a guy who has a friend who has a cousin who works for the phone company. An hour later we have the records. The list of calls made from the house looks like the Pittsburgh white pages. Bo yells at his crew: I’m going to start keeping an eye on you mutts! No wonder my frigging phone bill is so high!

But there’s the number. I write it down in six different places, including my hand. I dial Stefanie, and she answers on the third ring. I tell her what I’ve been through tracking her down. She laughs.

We’re both playing near Los Angeles soon. Can we meet there? Maybe?

After your tournament, she says. Yes.

I FLY TO LOS ANGELES AND PLAY WELL. I meet Pete in the final. I lose 7:6, 7:6, and don’t care. Running off the court, I’m the happiest guy in the world.

I shower, shave, dress. I grab my tennis bag and head for the door - and there’s Brooke.

She heard I was in town and decided to come down and see me play. She gives me a head-to-toe.

Wow, she says. You’re all dressed up. Got a big date?

Actually, yes.

Oh. With who?

I don’t answer.

Gil, she says, who does he have a date with?

Brooke, I think you should probably ask Andre that.

She stares at me. I sigh.

I’m going out with Stefanie Graf.

Stefanie?

Steffi.

I know we’re both thinking of the photo on the refrigerator door. I say, Please don’t tell anybody, Brooke. She’s a private person, and she doesn’t like any attention.

I won’t tell a soul.

Thank you.

You look nice.

Really?

Uh-huh.

Thanks.

I hoist my tennis bag. She walks me into the tunnel under the stadium, where players park their cars.

Hello, Lily, she says, putting a hand on the gleaming white hood of the Cadillac. The top is already down. I throw my bag on the backseat.

Have a nice time, Brooke says. She kisses me on the cheek.

I pull away slowly, glancing at Brooke in the rearview mirror. Once more I drive away from her in Lily. But I know this time will be the last, and that we’ll never speak again.

ON THE WAY TO SAN DIEGO, where Stefanie is playing, I phone J.P., who gives me a pep talk. Don’t try too hard, he says. Don’t try to be perfect. Be yourself.

I think I know how to follow that advice on a tennis court, but on a date, I’m at a loss.

Andre, he says, some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in a room, you change it. So be confident, be yourself, take charge. Show her your essential self.

I think I can do that. Should I pick her up with the top up or down?

Up. Girls worry about their hair.

Don’t we all. But isn’t it cooler with the top down?

Her hair, Andre, her hair.

I keep the top down. I’d rather be cool than chivalrous.

STEFANIE IS RENTING A CONDO at a large resort. I find the resort but can’t find the condo, so I phone her for directions.

What kind of car are you driving?

A Cadillac as big as a Carnival cruise ship.

Ahh. Yes. I see you.

I look up. She’s standing on a tall grassy hill, waving.

She shouts: Wait there!

She comes running down the hill and makes as if to jump in my car.

Wait, I say. I have something I want to give you. Can I come up a minute?

Oh. Um.

Just a minute.

Reluctantly, she walks back up the hill. I drive around and park outside the front door of her condo.

I present her with a gift, a box of fancy candles I bought for her in Los Angeles. She seems to like them.

OK, she says. Ready?

I was hoping we could have a drink first.

A drink? Like what?

I don’t know. Wine?

She says she doesn’t have any wine.

We could order room service.

She sighs. She hands me a wine list and asks me to pick out a bottle.

When the room-service guy knocks at the door, she asks me to wait in the kitchen. She says she doesn’t want to be seen together. She feels uncomfortable about our date. Guilty.

She can imagine the room-service guy going back to tell his fellow room-service guys. She has a boyfriend, she reminds me.

But we’re just -

There’s no time to explain, she says. She pushes me into the kitchen.

I can hear the poor room-service guy, slightly enamored of Stefanie, who’s just as nervous, for very different reasons. She’s trying to rush him, he’s fumbling with the bottle, and of course he drops it. A 1989 Château Beychevelle.

When the guy leaves I help Stefanie pick up the pieces of broken glass.

I say, I think we’re off to a fine start, don’t you?

I’VE RESERVED A TABLE by the window at Georges on the Cove, overlooking the ocean. We both order chicken and vegetables on a bed of mashed potatoes. Stefanie eats faster than I and doesn’t touch her wine. I realize she’s not a foodie, not a three-course-meal-and-linger-over-coffee kind of girl. She’s also fidgeting, because someone she knows is sitting behind us.

We talk about my foundation. She’s fascinated to hear about the charter school I’m building; she has her own foundation, which gives psychological counseling to children scarred by war and violence in places like South Africa and Kosovo.