Robert.
“I guess I’m playing tennis,” Tom said.
nine
Tom hadn’t played much tennis, but he had been a professional athlete, and Robert must have figured Tom could help him win a doubles match against two of his actor friends, Mickey Carlson and Trip Calloway. Contrary to what his name and his portly frame might imply, Trip was agile, and seemed to have endless energy. He raced around the court, even taking shots that should have been Mickey’s. Tom, on the other hand, was playing almost as badly as I used to.
I sat on the sidelines and watched as the game went from friendly to fiercely competitive.
In the first set, Mickey and Trip trounced Robert and Tom, six games to one. Tom’s timing and footwork were off, and although Robert kept saying, “That’s okay, we’ll get this next point,” I could tell he was thinking that he should have pawned Tom off on Mickey and partnered with Trip instead. However, by the end of the second set, Tom’s game had come together, and his shots were landing just inside the lines instead of just outside them. After they won the second set on an ace by Tom, Robert looked completely charged-up, focused, and determined to win the deciding third set. They’d already been playing for over an hour when Mickey tossed up a tennis ball and whacked it to Tom’s side of the court to begin the last set.
Unlike the previous two sets, every point was a furious battle by the four men. And unlike the previous two sets, when Tom had checked in with me every once in a while to see how I was doing, in the last set his mind was totally on the game.
There were long rounds of volleys, and slowly the score crept up to five games all.
Then something horrible happened: Robert hit a great shot to win a point and give Tom and him a six-five advantage—and Tom high-fived him! Could it be that, through a tennis match, Robert had made a pal of Tom?
Robert served the next ball to Trip, who stroked it directly to Tom’s feet. Tom managed to lob it to the other side of the court, and Mickey smashed it back down the line where Robert was positioned.
Please let him miss it! No more high fives!
But Robert didn’t miss it. He dove, extending his entire body as far as it could reach, getting his racket on the ball and sending it back over the net, then tumbling out of bounds. This left Tom all by himself to chase down the ball when Mickey countered Robert’s shot with a long lob to the back of the court. Tom hit the ball while running away from the net and somehow knocked it right between Mickey and Trip. Their rackets met each other instead of the ball, which bounced fairly on the back line.
I wanted to get to Tom before Robert could high-five him.
“That was amazing!” I said to Tom, who was huffing and puffing in exhaustion. Robert, equally thrashed, came up to Tom and gave him the dreaded high five. “Great game,” he panted.
As they continued to congratulate each other I decided it was time to tell Tom what I’d wanted to share since I’d seen him looking at his father’s name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
The next morning, as soon as we’d settled into the writing room, I said it:
“I think there’s a chance my father might be alive.”
“What?” Tom said, taken off guard.
“I think my dad might be alive, and I think Robert has been hiding it from me.”
“That’s a curve,” Tom said, leaning back in his chair.
“And you have trouble with curves,” I said brashly. I guess I was still a little upset about the way Tom seemed to have bonded with Robert.
“Touché,” Tom replied, leaning forward. “Okay, I get that Robert might have overreacted to this Vladimir guy, but how does that add up to your dad being alive? I mean, I’m sorry, Joe, but how could that be?”
“Someone made a mistake,” I said.
After Vladimir Petrovic crashed my eleventh birthday party, I became extremely curious about my family and whether I might have relatives in Croatia who were
“I guess I’m playing tennis,” Tom said.
nine
Tom hadn’t played much tennis, but he had been a professional athlete, and Robert must have figured Tom could help him win a doubles match against two of his actor friends, Mickey Carlson and Trip Calloway. Contrary to what his name and his portly frame might imply, Trip was agile, and seemed to have endless energy. He raced around the court, even taking shots that should have been Mickey’s. Tom, on the other hand, was playing almost as badly as I used to.
I sat on the sidelines and watched as the game went from friendly to fiercely competitive.
In the first set, Mickey and Trip trounced Robert and Tom, six games to one. Tom’s timing and footwork were off, and although Robert kept saying, “That’s okay, we’ll get this next point,” I could tell he was thinking that he should have pawned Tom off on Mickey and partnered with Trip instead. However, by the end of the second set, Tom’s game had come together, and his shots were landing just inside the lines instead of just outside them. After they won the second set on an ace by Tom, Robert looked completely charged-up, focused, and determined to win the deciding third set. They’d already been playing for over an hour when Mickey tossed up a tennis ball and whacked it to Tom’s side of the court to begin the last set.
Unlike the previous two sets, every point was a furious battle by the four men. And unlike the previous two sets, when Tom had checked in with me every once in a while to see how I was doing, in the last set his mind was totally on the game.
There were long rounds of volleys, and slowly the score crept up to five games all.
Then something horrible happened: Robert hit a great shot to win a point and give Tom and him a six-five advantage—and Tom high-fived him! Could it be that, through a tennis match, Robert had made a pal of Tom?
Robert served the next ball to Trip, who stroked it directly to Tom’s feet. Tom managed to lob it to the other side of the court, and Mickey smashed it back down the line where Robert was positioned.
Please let him miss it! No more high fives!
But Robert didn’t miss it. He dove, extending his entire body as far as it could reach, getting his racket on the ball and sending it back over the net, then tumbling out of bounds. This left Tom all by himself to chase down the ball when Mickey countered Robert’s shot with a long lob to the back of the court. Tom hit the ball while running away from the net and somehow knocked it right between Mickey and Trip. Their rackets met each other instead of the ball, which bounced fairly on the back line.
I wanted to get to Tom before Robert could high-five him.
“That was amazing!” I said to Tom, who was huffing and puffing in exhaustion. Robert, equally thrashed, came up to Tom and gave him the dreaded high five. “Great game,” he panted.
As they continued to congratulate each other I decided it was time to tell Tom what I’d wanted to share since I’d seen him looking at his father’s name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
The next morning, as soon as we’d settled into the writing room, I said it:
“I think there’s a chance my father might be alive.”
“What?” Tom said, taken off guard.
“I think my dad might be alive, and I think Robert has been hiding it from me.”
“That’s a curve,” Tom said, leaning back in his chair.
“And you have trouble with curves,” I said brashly. I guess I was still a little upset about the way Tom seemed to have bonded with Robert.
“Touché,” Tom replied, leaning forward. “Okay, I get that Robert might have overreacted to this Vladimir guy, but how does that add up to your dad being alive? I mean, I’m sorry, Joe, but how could that be?”
“Someone made a mistake,” I said.
After Vladimir Petrovic crashed my eleventh birthday party, I became extremely curious about my family and whether I might have relatives in Croatia who were
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