Page 9 of In the Safety's Zone
My father asked to come and play with me today in what I thought was a twisted way of wanting to hang out. When he started lobbing balls at full speed I knew this wasn’t a friendly game after all.
“What was that, Aphrodite?”
He was huffing, his light amber skin flushed from the exertion. He kept his loose curls in the same haircut he’d had since his heyday. Which inevitably made him look like a member of DeBarge. But I think that was the whole point.
“What do you mean? I got the ball.” I was still smiling hoping that he wouldn’t start his regular shit but I should’ve known better.
“Right but it was undisciplined and lacked finesse.” He was tapping his racket against his open hand like I’d truly disappointed him.
I stared at my father trying to understand what he was talking about. I had played hard the way he wanted me to but somehow he still found a way to be critical of me. And that’s what I got for thinking he was going to be a parent for once.
“Okay, Dad.”
There was never any use of arguing with him. It would only lead to more issues and lectures and now I was over this entire sparring session. When my father wanted to play against me I felt like the little girl wanting to show him her progress. Clinging to any words of praise or critique like they were gospel and doing everything I could to improve. But somewhere along the line, the praise stopped and all he had were negatives to say about me and my game.
Wordlessly, I reached into my bag and pulled out my water bottle, squirting the liquid into my mouth. I was sure my mother was watching us play from either the large back windows or the cameras inside the house thinking this was a magical moment. That lady was the definition of hope springs eternal.
“Are you just giving up? When did I ever teach you to be a quitter?”
“I’m not giving up. I played for over an hour before you came out here and we’ve been going at it for a while. It’s barely forty degrees out here and it’s almost time for me to refuel.”
“You don’t think that getting more practice in is what you need? Look at how you played last month. It wasn’t nearly as dominating as it needed to be. You’ve got to try harder if you can ever think about being ranked number one.”
I nodded silently keeping the stream of water coming into my mouth so that the vitriol I wanted to spill couldn’t. When thebottle was near empty, I put the cap back on and tossed it in my bag.
“I hear you.”
I gathered up my things feeling how he was staring a hole in the side of my head. He wanted a response so he could point to my outburst as an example of my lack of discipline. More than anything, he wanted me to either rebel or tell him he was right. Since I gave him the most noncommittal but still respectful response possible, he was at a loss for how to proceed.
I swung the bag over my shoulder forgoing throwing on the sweatshirt that went with the set. I’d worn leggings to help battle the cold but now I needed a shower because I’d worked up a sweat being out here so long. I turned to the house and could hear him behind me.
“You and I need to go over how you played in the last set in Australia, Aphrodite. Each round, I saw that there were several areas of your game that lacked the discipline I’d been preaching to you for years. It’s like as soon as I stopped training you, you forgot everything I’d ever taught you.”
I could grin since he was walking behind me and couldn’t see my face. He was right. As soon as I dropped him from my team I did my best to play in a way I thought best fit my strengths. I wasn’t as physically strong as some of my opponents but my stamina and agility made up for it. He didn’t like that I didn’t train like a man to pack on tons of extra muscle. Although according to his wife I was too damn manly as it was.
My parents were never on the same side of that issue.
We entered the house through the back door of the kitchen. The white stone of our exterior was a theme carried throughout the inside. My mother hated anything that was too bold thinking that a muted neutral palette was one to evoke a sense of peace inside her home.
She decorated according to her personality, obviously.
“You’ve got that photoshoot soon. Don’t forget. I wish you would take these things out of your head.” I didn’t even get a greeting of hello before she was running down my schedule like a drill sergeant.
My hand touched the sisterlocs that no one in my family could tolerate and knew I would never change my hair. Any other style would take a beating based on the amount of playing, running and lifting I did. My mother was concerned only with how I looked to everyone else. She thought locs were unkempt and that you needed to have flowing bouncy hair in order to catch a man. Call it a silent form of rebellion but I knew I made these look good so I damn sure wasn’t changing for them.
“I remember, Mom. I’ve already gotten a driver to take me into the city.”
Our family lived in New Jersey but the magazine office was in New York. I wasn’t interested in going through the traffic and getting frustrated especially when I had to put on a brave face and take pictures. The idea of the shoot was to gather athletes from famous families across all sports and I wasn’t sure who else was going to be there. Having to ride into the city with my father was going to be enough of a trial.
“Just make sure that you do whatever it is he asks. I don’t feel like hearing him complain for the rest of the night if you make him angry.” She whispered that to me since my father was across the room getting a bottle of water out of the fridge. I was sure he was still pissed that I wasn’t fawning all over him, asking how I could improve my game or staying outside until my feet swelled chasing after balls and doing things his way.
Learned that lesson a long time ago.
She had the nerve to be wringing her hands as if I were truly the problem. My mother was dressed in tennis whites that had never seen a drop of sweat and her hair was flowing down her back because my father told her he preferred it long. I doubt sheso much as had a trim in the twenty-five years I’d been alive if he didn’t think she needed one.
I bent over to pack my bag with the food I need for post-workout and muttered under my breath, “Like he’ll really be coming home afterward.
“What did you say, Dite?” I wanted to cringe at hearing the nickname because it was something my father only called me when he wanted to be manipulative. Normally in front of the press to show we had a far deeper relationship than we really did.
