The older man with the sinewy, grizzled body, baldheaded but with an abundance of salt and pepper body hair, and the younger man, barely more than a boy, tall and lanky and blond, met at the center of the net. The younger man, shirtless and in gym shorts and tennis shoes, looked wrung out and was hanging his head. He was covered in sweat and had a hangdog look about him. His hair was soaked and hanging down in his face. He obviously had been worked hard on the court.
In contrast, the old man, also shirtless and in gym shorts and tennis shoes, looked like he could go another couple of sets. He was lightly sweating too, but his body more glistened than melted under the burning Flushing Meadows sun. His body was hard, not massively muscled, but without an ounce of body fat on him. So hard that the bluish veins on his arms, legs and torso popped up just under the surface, there being no fat in his body for them to run through.
The older man was lecturing the younger man, demonstrating this and that with his tennis racket. The younger man was mimicking his moves and either nodding or shaking his head at the quiet instruction he was being given. After a bit, the older man reached across the net and cupped the back of the young blond's head and gave it a couple of pats.
They turned and walked toward the benches at the side of the tennis court, where their gym bags lay on the ground and various bits of tennis paraphernalia and backup tennis rackets were scattered along the benches. They were also walking toward a middle-aged man standing near the net post and just inside the wire gate to the corridor between this practice court and the one next to it. This third man, who was fifty, but a well-preserved, if slightly puffy, fifty, was wearing a light-green polo shirt over well-pressed khaki trousers. His brown-leather loafers looked like they'd cost a couple of hundred doors—each shoe—and, indeed they had. He was a handsome man with a full head of gray hair, but with darker eyebrows, a darker down on his forearms, and darker hair curling up from the V of his polo shirt, indicating that he once had been an auburn brunette. Twenty years the older man's junior, he hadn't sustained the hard body the older man had. He wasn't fat, but he was meatier and more pampered, treated more to massages than the blistering sun and the effect of pounding after tennis balls.
As the two tennis players reached the side post, the man who had been coaching the young player man reached over and slapped the younger man on the butt and muttered, "Get a shower, and then I'll see you in my office after I've had a chat with Mr. Sebastian here." His voice, a deep bass, was heavily accented. Either Russian or of some eastern European origin. In fact, it was Russian, retained despite fifty years residence in the States.
The young blond flashed Sebastian a look laced with curiosity, interest, and a hint of recognition. He then went over to the bench, scooped up his tennis gear, and sauntered off toward a long, low building set in the middle of a sea of practice courts.
The two older men watched him go, and then Sebastian turned to the older tennis player. "Wasn't that Gordy Patten, Grigor? Didn't he go out in the first round?"
"Yes it is Gordon Patten, and yes he did get beaten in the first round. You may remember him from the academy, although he was just a kid then. Took a set, though, which is better than last year."
"I heard you tell him to meet you in your office. They've given you your own office here?"
"Including your Stephanie, I have seven in the tournament, so I get my own office in the locker room here, yes."
The older tennis player and coach, Zhukov was standing close to Andrew Sebastian, and Andrew trembled at the sensation that the older man would reach out and touch him. The Russian tennis coach had always been the hands-on type. Andrew couldn't decide whether he would shrink from the touch or warm to it. The two men hadn't spoken in person for five years, and the parting had been somewhat volatile. And then the Russian did reach out and touch Andrew on the forearm, leaving his fingers there, as they continued to talk in somewhat strained tones. A chill went up Andrew's spine at the touch, and the sensation fought for his attention as they continued to talk in low tones, even though there wasn't another soul in sight.
"That was two weeks ago when Patten lost," Sebastian said. "First day of the Open. I'm surprised he's still here. So, he's still one of yours? I would have thought—"
"Yes, I have him at academy still—and it has been years, I think, since you have come to Boca. Even Stephanie notices that and remarks on it—somewhat bitterly, I might say. Not good; not smart. But on Patten. His backers won't release him from my academy 'til I say he's ready to go on his own. I told him second round at the U.S. Open this year or back to Boca Raton. So, is back to Boca Raton."
"But not last week?"
"No. He stay here and watch how others do it—others who can get past first round. And I work him every morning, here, until he ready to fall, until he look good enough to make it to second round in Melbourne in January."
"I'm glad you weren't that hard on the women players, Grigor." Sebastian said, with a somewhat nervous laugh.
"Stephanie never complains to you does she, Andy?"
"No, Stephanie never complained to me about you. She has always sung your praises."
"And now she in the women's finals, this afternoon."
"Yes, yes, she is. Against your own daughter. How do you feel having two of the women players you trained, including your own daughter, in the women's final of a major?"
"Is about time, don't you think?" Grigor Zhukov answered. "How do you think I feel? Proud, of course."
"But it means so much to you—what you want from me—to do this?"
Zhukov just gave Sebastian a hard look, and when he next spoke, he changed the subject altogether. "Must go now, Andy. I see you later. Instruction of Gordy not over yet."
Andrew Sebastian returned the hard look, started to say something, thought better of it, and then turned and walked to the open gate to the pathway between courts.
"I see you later, right?" Zhukov repeated, his voice a bit deeper and harder than the first time he'd said it.
Sebastian visibly sighed and answered, without turning back. "Yes, later." And then he left, walking in the opposite direction to that Gordy Patten was taking to the locker rooms. Going instead toward the main part of the tennis complex of Flushing Meadows, where his daughter and Grigor's would be battling it out later that afternoon for the women's tennis championship trophy at the U.S. Open.
