Tennis Lessons

I'm teaching Yahaira how to play tennis. I myself learned from an instructor at the public courts. He didn't know me or anything; I just hung around while he gave lessons to paying students. I also watch women's tennis. Frame-by-frame sometimes.

Yahaira doesn't lose well. When we play cards at a restaurant, she has no problem chucking breadsticks. One time we decided a bill with rock-paper-scissors and she stuck out one finger for dynamite.

So while I teach Yahaira the ropes -- er, net -- I take pains to be gentle. She is, after all, wielding a racquet.

My big fear in tennis isn't losing, but accidental flatulence. It's not like the ab room where you can just frown in other people's direction.

My regular partner actually crows when she plays, but she's on the DL with procreative swelling. So it goes.

At first Yahaira and I just rallied, free from the score. Sometimes I'd hit one over the fence and trot the bases like Kirk Gibson.

"I like tennis," said Yahaira. "It's like running around on a giant ping-pong table."

And that, children, is exactly why you should not take drugs.

We wore out two pairs of shoes just "hitting" until one day, when she was feelin' it, Yahaira asked to "play for real." It marked the end of an era.

It took an afternoon to cover scoring: "The first two points are worth 15, then the third point is for some reason worth 10. Ad-in is when you're one point ahead. Wait, no. Ad-out is when ..."

This is what happens when you let the French decide the rules. "Love," of course, means zero, which makes Jason Love an awful name for tennis.

Playing for real, I won the first set 6-0, and Yahaira did not threaten my person. She didn't even hurt the racquet. In return for her largess, I played the long balls and gave her all the close-enoughs.

The problem is that Yahaira, a Dominican, develops quickly. Seriously. She could be a boxer. And if I were her manager, the bouts would all coincide with menses.

Yahaira, who will punch me when she reads that, started to win points on her own and then, in a Roe versus Wade moment, asked to take a shot over.

"You mean like a mulligan?"

"I don't know. A doey overy."

She used her baby voice -- dirty politics indeed. I allowed the doey overy, and her horns grew a little bigger. Dominicans have a saying: "Give 'em your hand and they'll take your arm." Over the next few weeks, Yahaira took my arm and my shoulder and large portions of my sanity.

Here are just a few of her cases for doey overies:

"I had an itch on my foot" ... "My mind was on that other ball rolling in the corner" ... "My sunglasses came loose." She took one shot over because I had looked bored. And it concerned her.

Now before every serve, I go down a list: No leaves are blowing anywhere -- check. Her zipper is closed -- check. My zipper is closed -- check. She is completely set and 100% ready to play -- check, check, check.

Maybe it'll be a relief when it happens, when the student overtakes the teacher. Then we can stop with the doey overies and play each point just once. And when that time comes, I will definitely pelt her with breadsticks.