“Stanford,” Bill said.
I wasn’t the human U.S. News & World Report annual college ranking that Stan was, but I knew how to translate “played some” at Stanford. Bill was very good. Like heavily recruited in high school and nationally ranked good. John McEnroe had played some at Stanford.
“Were you there with Tiger Woods?” Richard asked, suddenly perking up. Richard wasn’t a member, but traditionally one of the senior pros sat on the membership committee, perhaps to make it seem like the process was more equitable. He and I were both in our mid-forties, but working under the blazing sun had prematurely aged him.
“In fact, I was,” Bill said. “I was just glad that he wasn’t on the tennis team as well.”
That’s it, I thought. Don’t ask him any more about Tiger. I was sure that at this point in his life, Bill must be tired of answering questions about Tiger just because they were vaguely alike.
“What was he like?” Stan asked. “Did you take any classes with him?”
“I didn’t. I was stuck in bio and chemistry.”
Bill and Valerie made the slightest eye contact.
“What did Tiger study?” I asked, wanting to turn the conversation away from whether Bill had known Tiger, toward Tiger alone. Somehow that seemed better.
“I’m not sure,” Bill said. “Econ maybe. He was only there for a couple of years. Clearly, he didn’t need to take any more classes. He figured out macroeconomics all on his own.”
I couldn’t contain my grin.
“So, did you both always want to go to medical school and become doctors?” I asked, moving us away from Tiger entirely. The main purpose of these brief interviews—some as short as ten minutes—was to let the prospective members talk so we could get some sense of them. The due diligence was performed in the letters and in whispers.
“I did,” Valerie said. “My father is a doctor, so it was assumed that I’d go into the family business. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I still can’t.”
“I thought about other things,” Bill said. “I flirted with law school, but it didn’t feel quite right.”
“As usual, Bill’s being a little modest,” Mark interjected. Throughout the interview, he’d sat there self-satisfied, like he’d brought the fatted calf to the banquet. “He decided to forgo the Tour to go to medical school.”
This bit of information dazzled the men in the room. They all seemed to lean in toward Bill at that moment. I suddenly felt sad about the state of both my game and my career. I had done just enough to get by at both. Bill, on the other hand, had excelled, and had the freedom to choose between two enviable options.
“That’s not exactly how it went,” Bill said. “I played in a few professional tournaments and lost in the early rounds. I couldn’t deal with the uncertainty of it all. But the fact is that I haven’t had much time in the past fifteen years to keep up with the game. Medical school and then residency and kids didn’t leave time for doubles. But I was thinking that I’d get out there a little more now. Get rid of the rust. At least if Mark doesn’t work me too hard at the hospital.”
Bill’s mention of work got me thinking about my own. I had papers to grade before the next morning. I’d grab a burger after this to soak up some of the wine swirling around in my head. And by the time I got home, I hoped, the kids would be asleep. I felt exhausted from all this talking and smiling.
Bill added, “It’ll take me some time to catch up with you all.”
I bit at my lower lip. I have a tendency to mouth words to myself before I actually say them, as a way of testing out the safety of what I’m about to say, something I’d learned from lecturing: sound out the joke before letting it loose. But this time—maybe because I was distracted, maybe because I was so desperate to show Bill that we could be on the same team, that I understood where he was coming from—as I mouthed the words, the complex mechanism that occurs between air and tongue and throat to create sound did its job, against my deepest wishes.
“Nigga, please.”
For a second after I said it, I thought it might be fine. That in a room with four other committee members and two other couples, all engaged in various conversations, no one had heard me. That maybe I hadn’t really said it at all.
But it became very clear that none of that was true. They all turned to me as if I’d suddenly caught on fire. And in many ways, I had.
As I sat there burning, I wondered just how bad this was going to be.
On those bus rides home in high school, I had teethed on the details and matters of black life. After some headbanging to Ozzy and Black Sabbath in middle school, listening to N.W.A for the first time felt like genuine rebellion. I certainly didn’t live in Compton. But I understood Ice Cube’s rage, and listening to it through cheap headphones in my bedroom gave voice to my confusion, my feeling that I was on the outside, unsure of how to get inside, of where inside would even be.
In college, I’d made a personal religion out of Ralph Ellison, the outward anger of N.W.A now replaced by a considered philosophical probing of not being seen. The first time I read the last line of Invisible Man, it brought me to tears. Who knows but that, on lower frequencies, I speak for you? You do, Ralph. Yes, you do. And maybe, on some other frequency, I speak for you, Bill? If Bill knew the invisibility that I’d felt, which I suspected he did, then I hoped that would mean he and I could see each other clearly. That he would know exactly what I meant—that I was nothing like the others on the committee, that I was reaching out to him, albeit in a stupid way.
I was staring down at my feet, and when I finally raised my head up, I noticed that Bill was running his thumb and index finger over each of the prayer beads he wore around his wrist. I couldn’t bring myself to turn away from the movement of those beads, hoping somehow they would bring me peace too.
The silence lasted somewhere between a few seconds and forever. My entire back was soaked in sweat; my ears were ringing. Outside, the last of the daylight was gone.
“No, honestly,” Bill said at last, flashing an absurdly handsome smile. “I’m that rusty. But let’s hit some balls soon, Raj. We can team up.”
It was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in a very long time. I now wanted desperately to be his friend, but I knew that the next time I saw him, he’d turn away and keep walking. I’d done something so stupid and wrong, made so much worse by the fact that I’d done it in front of this particular audience, forcing Bill and Valerie to choose between the anger that was their right and the compassion Bill had shown.
Suzanne said nothing. She just sat there horror-stricken, trying to figure out how to manage the situation and bring the interview to a close.
I don’t clearly remember the minutes that followed. It felt like I was underwater, that there was conversation going on above that I couldn’t piece together. But it seemed like everyone was trying hard to put the moment behind them.
“Those earrings are beautiful,” Valerie said to Suzanne.
“Really?” Suzanne said, fiddling with them. “I designed them myself. They’re inspired by a trip my family took to India. I so loved the place and the people. They’d look beautiful on you. I’ll send you some.”