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I follow Brooke home and spend days at her bedside while she recuperates. Her mother finds me one morning on the floor beside Brooke’s bed. She’s scandalized. Sleeping on the floor? It simply isn’t done. I tell her that I prefer sleeping on the floor. My back. She walks away in a huff.

I kiss Brooke good morning. Your mother and I are getting off on the wrong foot.

We look down at her feet. Poor choice of words.

I need to leave. I’m due in Scottsdale for my first tournament since the surgery.

See you in a few weeks, I tell her, kissing her again, holding her.

I HAVE AN EASY DRAW IN SCOTTSDALE, but this doesn’t make me any less fearful.

Here comes the first real test of my wrist—what if it’s not healed? What if it’s worse? I have a recurring nightmare about being in the middle of a match and my hand falling off. I’m in my hotel room, closing my eyes, trying to visualize the wrist being fine and the match going well, when there’s a knock at the door.

Who is it?

Brooke.

With two broken feet, she rallied to be here.

I win the tournament, feeling no pain.

WEEKS LATER, Pete and I agree to do a simultaneous interview with a magazine reporter. Pete comes to my hotel room, where the interview is to take place, and he’s shocked to meet Peaches.

What the hell? Pete says.

Pete, meet Peaches. She’s an old parrot I rescued from a Vegas pet store that was going out of business.

Nice bird, Pete says mockingly.

She is a nice bird, I say. She doesn’t bite. She imitates people.

Like who?

Like me. She sneezes like me, talks like me—except she has a better vocabulary. I crack up every time the phone rings. Peaches yells, Telephone! Tel-ephone!

I tell Pete that back in Vegas I have a whole menagerie. A cat named King, a rabbit named Buddy, whatever it takes to fend off the loneliness. No man is an island. He shakes his head. Apparently he doesn’t find tennis as lonely as I do.

We do the interview, and suddenly I feel as if I’m in the room with two parrots. At least when I bullshit a reporter, I do it with some flair, a little color. Pete sounds more robotic than Peaches.

I don’t bother telling Pete, but I consider Peaches an integral part of my team, which is ever growing, ever changing, a constant experiment. I lost Nick and Wendi, but I’ve added Brooke and Slim, a bright, sweet kid from Vegas. We went to grade school together. We were born a day apart—at the same hospital. Slim is a good guy, if a lost soul, so I put him to work as my personal assistant. He watches my house, lets in the pool guy and the various handy-men, sorts the mail, and answers fan requests for photos and autographs.

Now I think I might need to add a manager to the team. I pull Perry aside and ask him to take a look at my current management, see if they’re overcharging me. He reviews the contracts and says that indeed I could do better. I put my arms around him, thank him—then get an idea. Why don’t you be my manager, Perry? I need someone I trust.

I know he’s busy. He’s in his second year at the University of Arizona Law School, busting his ass. But I ask him to please consider taking this on, at least part-time.

I don’t need to ask twice. Perry wants the job, and he wants to start right away. He’ll work between classes, he says. Mornings, weekends, whenever. Aside from being a great opportunity, the job will enable him to whittle down what he owes me. I loaned Perry the money for law school because he didn’t want to ask his father. He sat before me one night, telling me how his father uses money to control people, especially Perry. I have to break free of my father, Perry said. I’ve got to break free, Andre, once and for all.

There are few pleas I could find more compelling. I wrote him a check on the spot.

As my new manager, Perry’s primary task is finding me a new coach, someone to replace Nick. He draws up a short list of candidates, and at the top of the list is a guy who’s just written a book about tennis: Winning Ugly.

Perry hands me the book, urges me to read it.

I shoot him a dirty look. Thanks, no thanks. No more school for me.

Besides, I don’t need to read the book. I know the author, Brad Gilbert. I know him well.

He’s a fellow player. I’ve faced him many times, including weeks ago. His game is the opposite of mine. He’s a junker, meaning he mixes speeds, uses change of pace, misdirection, guile. He has limited skills, and takes a conspicuous pride in this fact. If I’m the classic underachiever, Brad’s the consummate overachiever. Rather than overpowering opponents, he frustrates them, preys on their flaws. He’s preyed on me plenty. I’m intrigued, but it’s not feas-ible. Brad’s still playing. In fact, due to my surgery and my time away from the game, he’s ranked higher than I.

No, Perry says, Brad is nearing the end of his career. He’s thirty-two, and maybe he’s open to the idea of coaching. Perry repeats that he’s deeply impressed with Brad’s book and thinks it contains the kind of practical wisdom I need.

In March 1994, when we’re all in Key Biscayne for the tournament, Perry invites Brad to dinner at an Italian restaurant on Fisher Island. Café Porte Chervo. Right on the water. One of our favorites.

It’s early evening. The sun is just disappearing behind the masts and sails of the boats at the dock. Perry and I are early, Brad is right on time. I’d forgotten how distinctive looking he is. Dark, rugged, he’s certainly handsome, but not classically so. His features aren’t chiseled; they look molded. I can’t shake the idea that Brad looks like Early Man, that he just jumped from a time machine, slightly out of breath from discovering fire. Maybe it’s all his hair that makes me think this. His head, arms, biceps, shoulders, face are covered with black hair.

Brad has so much hair, I’m both horrified and jealous. His eyebrows alone are fascinating. I think: I could make a beautiful toupee out of just that left eyebrow.

The maître d’, Renato, says we can sit on the terrace overlooking the dock.

I say, Sounds great.

No, Brad says. Uh-uh. We have to sit inside.

Why?

Because of Manny.

Excuse me? Who’s Manny?

Manny Mosquito. Mosquitoes—yeah, I have a real thing about them, and trust me, Manny is here, Manny is out in force, and Manny likes me. Look at them all! Swarms! Look! No, I need to sit inside. Far from Manny!

He explains that mosquitoes are the reason he’s wearing jeans instead of shorts, even though it’s a hundred degrees and muggy. Manny, he says one last time, with a shudder.

Perry and I look at each other.

OK, Perry says. Inside it is.

Renato puts us at a table by the window. He hands us menus. Brad scans his and frowns.

Problem, he says.

What?

They don’t carry my beer. Bud Ice.

Maybe they have—

Got to have Bud Ice. It’s the only beer I drink.

He stands and says he’s going to the market next door to buy some Bud Ice.

Perry and I order a bottle of red wine and wait. We say nothing while Brad’s gone. He returns in five minutes with a six of Bud Ice, which he asks Renato to put on ice. Not the refrigerator, Brad says, because that’s not cold enough. On ice, or else in the freezer.

When Brad is finally settled, half a cold Bud Ice down his gullet, Perry starts.

So, listen, Brad, one reason we wanted to meet with you is, we want to get your take on Andre’s game.

Say what?

Andre’s game. We’d like you to tell us what you think.

What I think?

Yes.

You want to know what I think of his game?

That’s right.

You want me to be honest?

Please.

Brutally honest?

Don’t hold back.

He takes an enormous swallow of beer and commences a careful, thorough, brutal-as-advertised summary of my flaws as a tennis player.