Break Point (10 page)
“Tuck that away somewhere until you get home, son,” he whispered. “In my considerable experience, sealed envelopes are best opened in private.”
Mom was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home. All the files and documents about the Tree were piled in front of her, but she wasn't reading them. She was drinking a cup of black coffee, an open bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream on the table beside her, and staring into space.
It looked like it hadn't been a good day.
“We lost at city hall,” she said.
“I'm sorry, Mom.”
“They're starting cutting tomorrow.” She wiped away a tear. I guessed from the redness around her eyes that it wasn't the first. “I can't talk about it, Connor. It makes me sick to my stomach.”
I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her. I set the Archibald Cross Memorial Cup on the table. The thing was too big to ignore.
“What's this?” she said.
“I won the tournament at the club today.”
“Oh yes, your tournament. I'm sorry, honey, I forgot. Congratulations.” She smiled at me. “It's a veryâ¦umâ¦handsome cup.”
“There's something else that went with it, Mom,” I said. I pulled the envelope out of my tennis bag. My fingers fumbled with the seal. I didn't want to rip the envelope. It didn't seem dignified. I finally had to get a knife from the cutlery drawer, lay the envelope flat on the table and run the knife under the seal. Mom looked on, curious.
I slid out a crisp piece of paper. I could tell by its size and feel that it was a check. Written on the back was
To be used for the Purposes of the Sport of Tennis
.
I turned it over.
One hundred thousand dollars.
I stared at it, my fingers tingling. My heart thumped faster than it had in my final game against Rex.
“A hundred thousand dollars,” Mom said.
“
For the Purposes of the Sport of Tennis
,” I said.
She shook her head. Mom couldn't imagine how anyone could spend $100,000 on a sport. That was more than a sports car. That was more than two years of her salary.
“What are you going to do with it, Connor?”
I put the check down on the table.
“I don't know, Mom.”
I thought about all the things I could buy with $100,000âlessons from the best pros, top-of-the-line gear, airfare to tournaments, training at winter camps in Florida. I thought about what Armand had said, that a year of touring on the international junior circuit would cost $100,000.
I thought about Maddy running into the clubhouse, crying.
“See, Mom,” I said, “it's really complicated.”
I told her then about the vandalism at the club, and how Maddy and I had figured out that Mr. Hunter was behind it. I told her about Quinte, and how we couldn't go to the police because Maddy didn't want him to go to jail. I told her how Mr. Hunter was going to take over the club if the $100,000 debt payment wasn't made by Monday.
I told her about Maddy trying to win the tournament so she could make the debt payment and save the club.
I told her about how I dreamed of playing on the international juniors circuit, and how hard it was to compete against the rich kids like Rex.
“The club pro says that touring internationally costs about a hundred grand a year. So this check”âI traced the printed numbers with my fingerâ“would get me one year of touring.”
“Then what?” Mom asked.
“Then I'd have to figure out if I was good enough to turn pro, if I could win enough prize money to keep it going. Or if I wasn't good enough, I'd have to drop out.”
“But if you're not good enough at the end of the year and you drop out, then you've thrown all that money away,” Mom said.
“I know,” I said. “Or I could use itâ”
She finished my thought. “To save the club.”
We sat there in silence, each thinking our way through it.
“You know I don't understand professional sports, Connor,” Mom said finally. “But is there any other way you can still play tennis without this money?”
I'd been thinking about that too.
“I need two thousand dollars to go to the nationals this summer,” I said.
“Let's say we could scrape that together.”
“Okay, then if I did well at the nationals, I might get a scholarship to an American college. Play the college circuit while I got a degree. And if I did well on the circuit, then maybe I could go from there to turning pro.”
“That sounds like a reasonable option,” said Mom. “And you'd get an education.”
I nodded. It wasn't exactly my dream come true. It wasn't jet-setting off to European tournaments and buying the latest top-end gear. And there was a chance that I would flop at the nationals and never win a scholarship. But apart from that, Mom was right. It was a reasonable option.
I wasn't sure I wanted to settle for the reasonable option. The idea of spending a hundred grand of free money on the international juniors circuit was way more appealing. But one thought held me back. Sure, I had won the tournament against Rex. But what would that victory be worth if I let his dad take over the club, bulldoze it and build condos? Who was the winner then? Blaine Hunter. The same guy who was going to cut down Mom's Tree. The same guy who'd sabotaged our fundraisers. The same guy who'd paid a bunch of teenagers to do his dirty work. The same guy who would never face justice because we couldn't prove anything against him without ratting out a frightened, mentally challenged kid.
Now, against all odds, I had a chance to stop Blaine Hunter. The hundred grand wouldn't solve all the club's debt problems, but it would at least give us enough breathing room to figure out what to do next. Was I going to let that chance slip away?
“Connor,” said Mom, “it's your money. You have to decide how to spend it. But I want to tell you something. I've lived in this town a long time. And I've seen a lot of changes. And I can tell you one thing. Look around at any park you walk through, any historical building you pass on the street. Chances are, some developer, at some point in time, has wanted to rip it up or tear it down and put up a mall or a high-rise or anything else he thinks will make him an almighty buck. And the only reason those parks and historical buildings and places like your tennis club are still there is because somebody fought for them. If something is important to you, you have to fight for it. You might not always win. But you have to fight for it.”
Mom was crying. I hugged her.
After she wiped away her tears, I picked up the check and tucked it in my back pocket.
I had a lot of thinking to do before the Monday deadline.
The special meeting for the club's board of directors was scheduled for ten o'clock Monday morning. I arrived to find a big boardroom-style table set up in the common room. Mrs. Sharma sat at the head of the table, with Mr. Hunter beside her. The directors sat around the table, and the ordinary club members were crowded into rows of chairs to one side.
Some heads turned when I walked into the room. Taking a cue from the executor, I had dressed in a suit and tie. Maddy looked at me but didn't smile. I took a seat at the table. No one said anything to stop me.
Mrs. Sharma opened the meeting. She laid out the club's financial troubles. She explained the vandalism. She said the police were still investigating but hadn't made any arrests. Then she turned the floor over to Mr. Hunter.
Mr. Hunter recapped the situation with the club's debt. He said he'd held discussions with his management team about extending the repayment date.
“Regrettably, in these troubled economic times, the decision was made that deferring the loan repayment is not a viable option,” he said. “This club means as much to me as it does to all of you. I'm very sorry. There's nothing I can do.”
The room was silent.
Mrs. Sharma cleared her throat and said, “Unfortunately, this leaves the club little choice but to declare bankruptcy. I'd like to put forward a motion to the boardâ”
“Excuse me!” I jumped out of my seat. My chair fell over with a clatter.
“Yes, Connor?” asked Mrs. Sharma. Everyone stared at me.
“I just wanted to knowâ¦I mean, exactly how much is the payment? I mean, the one that's due today?” My voice cracked. My heart hammered in my throat.
Mr. Hunter smiled his fake smile. It was amazing how the guy could smile so much on the outside and be so rotten on the inside.
“Certainly, Connor,” he said. He glanced down at a paper on the table in front of him. “The exact amount is ninety-nine thousand three hundred and fifty-six dollars and ninety-two cents.”
He smiled again. “Though we could waive the ninety-two cents.”
I reached inside my jacket pocket and pulled out the check. It seemed bigger than I remembered it, and somehow heavier. The number leapt out at meâ$100,000.00. My hand trembled as I slid it across the table to Mr. Hunter.
“I think this should cover it,” I said.
Mr. Hunter's smile froze for a second, then slowly collapsed. The fake-friendly twinkle dimmed from his eyes. He rose from his chair, took the check, sat down again and examined it.
Finally, he looked up.
“This appears to be in order,” he said.
Mrs. Sharma squealed. Someone shouted, “What? What's this about?” The directors swarmed around Mr. Hunter. Everybody started talking at once.
But then all the noise faded into the background. Suddenly, Maddy was in my arms, her warm body pressed against me, her face burrowed into my shoulder. I kissed her long, dark hair. I held her against me. And for once, I felt like the biggest winner in the world.
It's funny how a summer that started so badly could end so well.
The club paid for my trip to the nationals. Mrs. Sharma insisted on it after I gave my $100,000 check to Mr. Hunter. I didn't win the championship, but neither did Rex. That honor went to a hotshot from Calgary. One thing I realized at the tournament was how much my game needed to improve if I seriously hoped to compete internationally. So, as it turned out, going after a college scholarship wasn't such a bad decision after all.
I got lucky. A scout from Florida State University offered me a scholarship for the following September, provided I kept my marks up in my last year of high school. Maddy won her division at the nationals, and she got offered a scholarship to the University of Michigan. In the meantime, we'd be spending our senior year together at a special sports high school, where kids took regular classes in the morning and athletic training in the afternoon. It sounded as close to nirvana as high school could be.
When we got home from the nationals, there was more good news. The police had made a breakthrough in the vandalism case. The clue was a gold chain, which the cops had found in the grass after the outdoor stage was wrecked. The personalized engraving on the chain allowed them to trace it back to Mike Baron. When the cops confronted Mike, he didn't betray the other guys in his gang, not even Quinte. So it turned out there was some good in Mike after all. But he
did
rat out Mr. Hunter.
Of course, Rex's dad denied everything. But when Mrs. Sharma threatened to sue him, he agreed to settle out of court for $400,000. That was the amount the club still owed to his company. With the settlement, the debt was erased and the club no longer had to worry about bankruptcy. No developer would be coming to bulldoze our tennis courts.
The last week in August, the insurance check for the vandalism of the tennis auction finally came through. I was sitting with Maddy on the bench at the back of the club, overlooking the Rideau River, when Mrs. Sharma came up and placed the check in my hand.
“It's yours, Connor,” she said. “You deserve it. You deserve more than that.”
I looked at the check. It was for $20,000. I felt embarrassed, but she insisted I take it. I tucked it away safely in my tennis bag. The truth was, with Maddy beside me under the late-summer sun and the sounds of rackets hitting balls in the courts all around us, I felt as though I already had more than I deserved.
I didn't know where my tennis career would take me. First to Florida. After that, maybe all over the world. But I knew that whatever happened, I could always come back here, to this club by the river, and I would feel welcome.
I couldn't help thinking that if old Mr. Cross was looking down from the afterworld, he would be proud of what I had accomplished with his prize money. Not for myself, but for the Purposes of the Sport of Tennis.
I would like to thank Gabriela Dabrowski and her mother, Wanda, for taking the time to talk to me about Gabriela's experiences on the competitive tennis circuit. As of December 31, 2012, Gabriela was ranked 309 in the world for women's singles and 134 in the world for women's doubles. She and her mother helped me understand how young athletes work their way up the ranks as they aspire to become professional tennis players. Peter Sutcliffe, the club pro at the Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club, very graciously fielded all my questions about the sport and gave me insight into the financial challenges involved in playing at a national and international level. Peter and his son Michael (winner of the National Capital Tennis Association 2012 City Open Championships in Men's Singles and Doubles) read my manuscript and caught my technical errors before the book went to press. I owe them thanks for making me look more knowledgeable than I am. Finally, this book would never have been written without the support and inspiration of my husband, Mark, whose brainstorming over plot and character helped to shape the story. I promise to take him out for drinks with the first royalty check.
