Even Todd must have noticed the murderous look on Mr Silver’s face, because he rushed on. ‘Don’t worry for a minute: Charlie’s entire focus will be on tennis, perfecting both her physical and her mental game. I’ve got good ideas for the image stuff – the clothes, hair, publicity, that kind of bullshit – but I’ll make certain Charlie will expend only the bare minimum of energy on it. I’ll get people lined up to take care of it all. She’ll only have to think pace, accuracy, intimidation. And winning.’

It felt like the entire table was deeply relieved when the waitress came by holding a plate of chocolate cake with a lit candle in it. Her father and Jake began to sing, but Charlie, feeling embarrassed in front of Todd, waved them off.

Usually she liked to take a minute and think, really will her wish into existence, and then blow out the candle with her eyes clenched shut to ensure it would come true, but she could feel Todd’s impatience. She blew out the candle without wishing for anything at all and turned to Jake.

‘We should really get going,’ she said, and Jake understood immediately that she wanted dinner to be over.

‘No time for coffee, I’m afraid,’ Jake announced. ‘Mandatory player party already started and Charlie needs to put in some face time before lights-out.’ Jake accepted the check, signed the receipt, and slipped the corporate card into his wallet.

‘Thank you for dinner, Silvers. It was enlightening as always,’ Todd said, rising before anyone else. ‘Charlotte, meet me in the lobby tomorrow morning at eight. I’ll send breakfast to your room at seven-thirty. Light practice for two hours and an early lunch. Get some sleep.’

Charlie nodded, making a mental note to be ready for breakfast by seven and in the lobby by seven-thirty as Todd strode out. Her father came around the table to embrace her.

‘Trust me, Dad. I know what I’m doing, and Todd is the best. He really is,’ she said into his chest.

‘Of course I trust you. I just don’t like how tough he is on you. I know I’m only your old man, and admittedly I’m a little biased, but I happen to think you’re pretty great just the way you are.’

‘He’s going to get me where I need to be,’ Charlie said fiercely, hoping more than anything it was true. ‘Marcy couldn’t do that.’

‘Marcy got you to twenty-three. I would say that’s doing it.’

‘But she was a pushover! And as a result, I was a pushover. Not to even mention the fact that I lost at Wimbledon because she screwed up on the clothing details.’

‘Everyone screws up, Charlie. God knows I did in every imaginable way all those years I was raising you two. You don’t fire good people for one mistake,’ he said softly, reaching for her hand.

Charlie yanked it away. ‘I can’t possibly be the best there is with a coach who isn’t pushing me every minute of every day.’

‘Well, it looks like you’ve chosen the right guy for that. I don’t claim to know much about professional tennis anymore, but common sense says that it’s great strokes, fitness, and dedication that wins tournaments. Not outfits or endorsements. Or intimidation, for that matter, which sounds to me like a different word for being a jerk.’

‘Yeah, well, when five of the guys you’ve coached win Grand Slams, then I guess you can tell me what you think. But until then I’d say Todd knows what he’s doing.’

Her father recoiled like he’d been slapped.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

It was her father’s turn to pull away his hand. ‘No, you’re right. It’s not my place.’

‘Of course it is, Dad. I shouldn’t have said that. No one has done more for me than—’

Jake clapped a hand on each of their shoulders, looking like he’d just returned from winning the lottery. ‘Ready, Charlie? Let’s do a quick drive-by at the player party. Dad, I called a taxi to take you back to the hotel.’

‘Wait, can we talk about this for just a minute? Dad, I really didn’t mean—’

‘Come on, guys. It’s after eight. Lights-out at ten doesn’t leave us a lot of time.’ Jake ushered them both toward the door, and Charlie tried not to notice that people in the restaurant were watching her.

Mr Silver leaned in to kiss Charlie’s cheek. ‘Happy birthday, Charlie. I’m sorry for butting in. It’s just your old man looking out for you. But you don’t need it. You’ve always made the best decisions for yourself, and I know you will now, too.’

As their car pulled away, Charlie turned around to see her father watching them through the back window. She distinctly remembered his unabashed delight when, at four years old, she seemed to have a knack for the game. In the first couple of years, he had actually brought her to the clay courts where he’d taught since age twenty-two and pushed her. When Charlie wanted to spend afternoons with her classmates swimming at the town pool or climbing on their swing sets instead of at the club, Mr Silver would lecture her on the rare gift she was receiving by starting so early. She had her whole life for pools and playdates, he’d say, but you only ever got one chance to learn the fundamentals, to develop your swing and game at such a young age that it all became second nature, that once you had honed those skills, neither time nor competition could take them away. Over and over he said, ‘You have a talent. You must see where it takes you.’ And although there were times when young Charlie grew weary of more hours spent on the court, she also loved hearing the admiration in her father’s voice. He never said it to Jake, and he never talked about the other kids he coached at the club with anywhere near the level of respect with which he spoke about Charlie. She loved the way he examined her form and shopped with her for equipment and spent hours devising drills and lessons to best teach the skills he thought she most needed.

In elementary school, his demands grew greater: first he required one, then two, then three hours a day of practice. Charlie rarely played with friends after school, never took ballet or joined a soccer team. She loved tennis, she truly did, but the monotony of it began to wear on her. Charlie’s mother often tried to intervene – and sometimes even went around her father’s back, inviting two or three of Charlie’s classmates over to play with her in the basement or watch movies in the family room – but Mr Silver always found a way to get her back to the court. It went on like this for years, this strange arrangement where he continually pushed her to practice and Charlie both loved and resented him for it, and it might have continued straight into her adolescence if it hadn’t been for her mother playing the ultimate trump card: her deathbed plea to Charlie’s father that he take a step back and offer more support and less instruction. Her mother had requested it and made her father repeat it: Charlie, and Charlie alone, would decide if she wanted to play tennis. That late-October afternoon when she was eleven, with its Indian summer heat and heartbreakingly blue skies, was not only the day Charlie lost her mother: it was the day her father stopped pushing her once and for all.