Then he says, What are we doing about Wimbledon? Time to start thinking about getting ourselves overseas. Time to throw down, Andre. It’s on.
I can barely hold the phone, let alone a tennis racket. Still, I want to go. I could use the distraction. I could use some time on the road with Gil, working on a common goal. Also, I’m defending champion. I have no choice. Right before our flight Gil arranges for a doctor in Seattle, who’s supposed to be the best, to give me a shot of cortisone. The shot works. I arrive in Europe wiggling the wrist, pain-free.
We go first to Halle, Germany, for a tune-up tournament. Nick meets us there and immediately puts the touch on me for money. He sold the Bollettieri Academy, because he got himself into debt, and it was the biggest mistake of his life. He let it go for too little. Now he needs cash. He’s not himself—or maybe he’s more himself. He says he’s not getting paid what he’s worth. He says I’ve been an unsound investment. He’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing me, and he’s entitled to hundreds of thousands above the hundreds of thousands I’ve already given him. I ask if we can please talk about this back home. I have a few things weighing on my mind right now.
Of course, he says. When we get back.
I’m so shaken by the confrontation that in the Halle tournament I fall on my face in my first-round match against Steeb. He beats me in three sets. So much for the tune-up.
I’ve barely played in the last year, and when I’ve played, I’ve played badly, so I’m the lowest-seeded defending champ in Wimbledon history. My first match on center court is against Bernd Karbacher, a German whose thick hair always looks the same, from the beginning of the match to the end, which irks me, for obvious reasons. Everything about Karbacher seems designed to distract. Apart from his enviable locks, he’s bowlegged. He walks as if he not only sits on a horse all day, but as if he just dismounted, and it’s been a long ride, and his ass is chapped. Befitting his appearance, he plays a very odd game. His backhand is huge, one of the game’s best, but he uses it to avoid running. He hates running. Hates moving. At times he doesn’t care much for serving, either. He has an aggressive first serve, but not much of a second serve.
With my numbed wrist I have my own serve issues. I’ll have to alter my motion, taking only a small backswing, limiting sudden movements. Naturally this causes problems. I fall behind quickly in the first set, 2–5. I’m about to become the first defending champion in decades to get knocked out in the first round. But I collect myself, force myself to make peace with my new serve, and tough out the win. Karbacher hops on his horse and rides away.
British fans are kind. They cheer, they roar, they appreciate the effort it’s taken to get my wrist ready. British tabloids, however, are another matter. They’re filled with venom. They carry strange stories about, of all things, my chest, which I’ve recently shaved. Just a bit of innocent manscaping, but you’d think I’d cut off a limb. My wrist is broken, and they talk only about my chest. My news conferences turn into Monty Python skits, every other question about my newly smooth pectorals. British reporters are hair obsessed—if they only knew the truth about the hair on my head. Several tabloids also say I’m fat, and writers take malicious joy in calling me Burger King. Gil tries to blame my appearance on the cortisone injection in my wrist, which can cause bloating, but no one is buying it.
Nothing, however, fascinates the Brits quite like Barbra Streisand. She arrives at Centre Court to watch me play and there is practically a flurry of trumpets. Celebrities attend Wimbledon all the time, but Barbra’s appearance causes a stir like none I’ve seen. Reporters harass her, then later pester me about her, and the tabloids take great pains to dissect and belittle our relationship, which is nothing more than a passionate friendship.
They want to know how we met. I refuse to tell them, because Barbra is the shyest, most private person I know.
It began with Steve Wynn, the casino impresario, whom I’d known since I was a kid. He and I were playing golf one day, and I mentioned that I enjoyed Barbra Streisand’s music. He said she was a good friend. Thus began a series of phone calls, during which Barbra and I connected. When I won Wimbledon, she sent a sweet telegram, congratulating me, telling me, sarcastically, it was nice to put a face with the voice.
She invited me weeks later to a small get-together at her ranch in Malibu. David Foster would be there, she said, and a few other friends. Finally we’d meet.
Her ranch was dotted with cottages, one of which was a movie theater. After a luncheon we wandered down there for a sneak preview of The Joy Luck Club, a quintessential chick flick, during which I thought I might expire of boredom. Then we all wandered over to another cottage, a music salon, with a grand piano under a window. We stood around eating and talking while David sat at the piano, playing a medley of torch songs. He made several attempts to get Barbra to sing. She wouldn’t. He persisted. She refused. He kept after her until it became awkward. I wished he would stop. Barbra’s elbows were resting on the piano, and her back was to me. I saw her stiffen. She was clearly petrified about performing in front of other people.
Not five minutes later, however, she let fly a few bars. The sound filled the room from the rafters to the floorboards. Everyone stopped talking. Glasses shook. Flatware rattled. The bones in my ribs and wrist vibrated. I briefly thought someone had put one of Barbra’s albums on a Bose sound system and turned the volume up full blast. I couldn’t believe that a human being was capable of producing that much sound, that a human voice could pervade every square inch of a room.
From that moment I was even more intrigued by Barbra. The idea that she possessed such a devastating instrument, such a powerful talent, and couldn’t use it freely, for pleasure, was fascinating. And familiar. And depressing. We met soon after that day. She invited me to the ranch. We shared a pizza and talked for hours, discovering many things in common. She was a tortured perfectionist who hated doing something at which she excelled. And yet, despite years of semiretirement, despite all her self-doubts and nagging fears, she admitted that she was pondering a comeback to the concert stage. I urged her to do it. I told her it was wrong to deprive the world of that voice, that astonishing voice. Above all, I told her that it would be dangerous to surrender to fear. Fears are like gateway drugs, I said. You give in to a small one, and soon you’re giving in to bigger ones. So what if she didn’t want to perform? She had to.
Naturally I felt like a hypocrite every time I said this to Barbra. In my own struggles with fear and perfectionism, I was losing more than I won. I talked to her the way I talked to reporters: I told her things I knew to be true, and things I hoped to be true, most of which I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe and act on.
After we’d spent one long spring afternoon playing tennis, I told Barbra about a new singer I’d seen in Vegas, a woman with a big voice not unlike Barbra’s. I asked, Do you want to hear her?
Sure.
I brought her out to my car and put in a CD by this new sensation, a Canadian named Céline Dion. Barbra listened closely, biting her thumbnail. I could tell she was thinking: I can do that. She was picturing herself back in the game. Again, I felt helpful, but also like a raging hypocrite.
My sense of hypocrisy reached a crescendo when Barbra finally did push herself to perform. There I was, front row—wearing a black baseball cap. My hairpiece was malfunctioning again, and I feared what people would think and say. Beyond being a hypocrite that night, I felt a slave to fear.
More often than not, Barbra and I laugh at the shock and scandal our dates cause. We agree that we’re good for each other, and so what if she’s twenty-eight years older? We’re simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo—another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava.
Still, if I’m fatigued, if I’m not in the right mood, as is the case at Wimbledon, then the public belittling can sting. And Barbra plays into the hands of the beli
ttlers by telling a reporter that I’m a Zen master. Newspapers have a field day with this comment. I begin to hear the Zen master quote constantly; it briefly replaces Image Is Everything. I don’t understand the reaction, maybe because I don’t know what a Zen master is. I can only assume it’s a good thing, since Barbra’s a friend.
BRUSHING ASIDE THE SUBJECT OF BARBRA, avoiding newspapers and TV, I stay on task at the 1993 Wimbledon. After surviving Karbacher, I beat João Cunha-Silva, from Portugal, Patrick Rafter, from Australia, then Richard Krajicek, from the Netherlands. I’m in the quarters, facing Pete. As always, it’s Pete. I wonder how my wrist can possibly hold up against his serve, which he’s developed into a force. But Pete’s suffering his own aches and pains. His shoulder is sore, his game is a tad off. Or so they say. You’d never know it the way he comes out against me. He wins the first set in less time than I spent getting dressed for the match. He wins the second set just as fast.
Going to be a short day, I tell myself. I look up at my box, and there’s Barbra, flashes going off around her. I think: Is this really my life?
As the third set begins, Pete stumbles. I get a second wind. The set falls to me, as does the fourth. The wheel clicks in my direction. I see fear creep into Pete’s face. We’re tied, two sets apiece, and doubt, unmistakable doubt, is trailing him like the long afternoon shadows on the Wimbledon grass. For once, it’s not me but Pete yelling and cursing at himself.
In the fifth set, Pete’s wincing, kneading his shoulder. He asks for a trainer. During the delay, while he’s being worked on, I tell myself this match is mine. Two Wimbledons in a row—won’t that be something? We’ll see what the tabloids have to say then. Or what I’ll say. How do you like your Burger King now?
When we resume play, however, Pete is a different person. Not revived, not reenergized—wholly different. He’s done it again, sloughed off that other doubt-ridden Pete as a snake sheds its skin. And now he’s in the process of shedding me. Leading 5–4, he starts the tenth game of the set by blasting three straight aces. But not just any aces. They even have a different sound about them. Like Civil War cannons. Triple match point.
Suddenly he’s walking toward the net, extending his hand, the victor once again. The handshake physically hurts, and it has nothing to do with my tender wrist.
· · ·
BACK AT THE BACHELOR PAD, days after losing to Pete, I have one simple goal. I want to avoid thinking about tennis for seven days. I just need a break. I’m heart sore, wrist sore, bone tired. I need to do nothing for one week—just sit and be quiet. No pain, no drama, no serves, no tabloids, no singers, no match points. I’m sipping my first cup of coffee, flipping through USA Today, when a headline catches my eye. Because my name is in it. Bollettieri Parts Ways with Agassi. Nick tells the newspaper he’s done with me. He wants to spend more time with his family. After ten years, this is how he lets me know. Not even a panda ass-up in my chair.
Minutes later a FedEx envelope arrives with a letter from Nick. It says no more than the newspaper story. I read it a few dozen times before putting it in a shoe box. I go to the mirror. I don’t feel all that bad. I don’t feel anything. Numb. As if the cortisone has spread from my wrist to engulf my being.
I drive over to Gil’s and sit with him in the gym. He listens and feels bad and angry right along with me.
Well, I say, I guess it’s Break-Up-With-Andre time. First Wendi, now Nick.
My entourage is thinning faster than my hair.
THOUGH IT MAKES NO SENSE, I’d like to get on the court again. I want the pain that only tennis provides.
But not this much pain. The cortisone has completely worn off, and the needle-razor feeling in my wrist is simply too much. I see a new doctor, who says the wrist needs surgery. I see another doctor, who says more resting might do the trick. I side with the rest doctor. After four weeks of rest, however, I step on a court and realize with one swing that surgery is my only option.
I just don’t trust surgeons. I trust very few people, and I especially dislike the notion of trusting one perfect stranger, surrendering all control to one person whom I’ve only just met. I cringe at the thought of lying on a table, unconscious, while someone slices open the wrist with which I make my living. What if he’s distracted that day? What if he’s off? I see it happening on the court all the time—half the time it’s happening to me. I’m in the top ten, but some days you’d think I was a rank amateur. What if my surgeon is the Andre Agassi of medicine? What if he doesn’t have his A game that day? What if he’s drunk or on drugs?
I ask Gil to be there in the operating room during my surgery. I want him to act as sentry, monitor, backstop, witness. In other words, I want him to do what he always does. Stand guard. But this time wearing a gown and mask.
He frowns. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know.
Gil has several endearingly dainty qualities, like his horror of the sun, but the most endearing is his squeamish streak. He can’t abide the sight of needles. He gets the willies when he has to have a flu shot.
For me, however, he’ll rally. He says, I’ll tough it out.
I owe you, I tell him.
Never, he says. No such thing as debts between us.
On December 19, 1993, Gil and I fly to Santa Barbara and check into the hospital. As nurses flutter about, prepping me, I tell Gil that I feel so nervous, I might pass out.
Then they won’t need to give you the gas.
This could be it, Gil, the end of my tennis career.
No.
Then what? What will I do?
They put a mask over my nose and mouth. Breathe deeply, they say. My eyelids are heavy. I fight to keep them open, fight against the loss of control. Don’t go away, Gil. Don’t leave me. I stare at Gil’s black eyes, above his surgical mask, watching, unblinking. Gil is here, I tell myself. Gil’s got this. Gil’s on duty. Everything’s going to be all right. I let my eyes close, let a kind of mist swallow me, and a half second later I’m waking and Gil is leaning over me, saying the wrist was worse than they thought. Much worse. But they cleaned it out, Andre, and we’ll hope for the best. That’s all we can do, right? Hope for the best.
I TAKE UP RESIDENCE on the green chenille double-stuffed goose-down couch, remote in one hand, phone in the other. The surgeon says I must keep my wrist elevated for several days, so I lie with it propped on a large, hard pillow. Though I’m on powerful pain pills, I still feel wounded, worried, vulnerable. At least I have something to distract me. A woman. A friend of Kenny G’s wife, Lyndie.
I met Kenny G through Michael Bolton, whom I met while playing Davis Cup. We were all at the same hotel. Then, out of the blue, Lyndie phoned me and said she’d met the perfect woman.
Well, I like perfect.
I think you two will really hit it off.
Why?
She’s beautiful, brilliant, sophisticated, funny.
I don’t think so. I’m still trying to get over Wendi. Plus, I don’t do setups.
You’ll do this setup. Her name is Brooke Shields.
I’ve heard of her.
What have you got to lose?
Plenty.
Andre.
I’ll think about it. What’s her number?
You can’t phone her. She’s in South Africa, doing a film.
She must have a phone.
Nope. She’s in the middle of nowhere. She’s in a tent, or a hut, in the bush. You can only reach her by fax.
She gave me Brooke’s fax number and asked for mine.
I don’t have a fax. It’s the only gadget I don’t have in the house.
I gave her Philly’s fax number.
Then, just before my surgery, I got a call from Philly.
You have a fax here at my house—from Brooke Shields?
And so it began. Faxes back and forth, a long-distance correspondence with a woman I’d never met. What began oddly became progressively more odd. The pace of the conversation was outrageously slow, and this suited us both—neithe
r of us was in any hurry. But the enormous geographical distance also led us to quickly let down our guard. We segued within a few faxes from innocent flirting to innermost secrets. Within a few days our faxes took on a tone of fondness, then intimacy. I felt as if I were going steady with this woman I’d never met or spoken to.
I stopped phoning Barbra.
Now, immobilized, my bandaged wrist propped on the pillow, I have nothing to do but obsess about the next fax to Brooke. Gil comes over some days and helps me work through several drafts. I’m intimidated by the fact that Brooke graduated from Princeton with a degree in French literature, whereas I dropped out of ninth grade. Gil brushes aside such talk, pumps up my confidence.
Besides, he says, don’t worry about whether she likes you. Worry about whether you like her.
Yeah, I say. Yeah. You’re right.
So I ask him to rent the collected works of Brooke Shields, and we have a two-man film festival. We make popcorn, dim the lights, and Gil puts in the first movie. The Blue Lagoon. Brooke as a prepubescent mermaid, stranded with a boy on an island paradise. A retelling of Adam and Eve. We rewind, fast-forward, freeze-frame, debate if Brooke Shields is my type.
Not bad, Gil says. Not bad at all. She’s definitely worth another fax.
The courtship via fax continues for weeks, until Brooke sends a short fax saying she’s finished filming her movie and she’s coming back to the U.S. She’ll be here in two weeks. She lands at LAX. By coincidence I have to be in Los Angeles the day after she arrives. I’m filming an interview with Jim Rome.
WE MEET AT HER HOUSE. I race there straight from the studio, still wearing the heavy TV makeup from my interview with Rome. She throws open the door, looking very much the movie star, wearing a flowing scarfy thing around her neck. And no makeup. (Or at least less than I.) But her hair is chopped short, which gives me a jolt. All this time I’ve been picturing her with long, flowing hair.