I said yes, though in fact it had been years.

The Racquet Club of Retreat was a coconut-white building on the west side, hidden up a long driveway and fronted by huge agave. As I approached, I could hear the hollow pop of tennis balls, and found a series of courts along the cliffside. For the fourth or fifth day now, the sky was pregnant with cloud, but the Gulf was still a gorgeous churning blue and breaking white. It made me want to stop and launch tennis ball after tennis ball into the expanse.

Dr. Kriss looked like a pro in her pressed whites and purple Huskies headband, but she wore a busted pair of sneakers so I could borrow her new Nikes. They cramped my toes a little and ground my Achilles, but I appreciated her sacrifice. As we made our way to the rubico clay courts, she offered me a pair of goggles with those aquamarine lenses that make the ball look like a neon meteor, then she unsheathed her Prince racquet and gave it to me too, opting for an old Wilson with an unraveling grip.

She cracked the lid on a fresh can of balls and took a whiff of petroleum. “I’ve always been crazy for that smell,” she said. “Rally for serve?”

I sensed doom from the start. For someone who’d traveled from Colorado the night before, Dr. Kriss got loose in a hurry, ranging along the baseline without gravity and hooking the ball crosscourt. Back in New York, I was on a low-key exercise regimen, which basically meant I’d do crunches when I wanted a tune-up, or go for a jog when I felt, in a panic after a night of drinking, that I was prematurely dying.

None of this prepared me for Dr. Kriss. As she ran me around with impunity, I felt my knees stress, my hamstrings yank. Sweat blackened my gray T-shirt, and when she had her back turned, I hawked a prickly hunk of phlegm. Meanwhile she covered the court in one or two strides and sent winners up the lines with maddening topspin, clay wheeling off the ball.

We took a break after the first set, which she’d won 6–0. My bottle of water disappeared before I even registered wetness.

“You good?” she said.

I did what I could to nod.

“I’m sorry I had to leave for Colorado like that,” she said. “It couldn’t be helped. But Arcade was brilliant. I pulled incredible data, just what I need to finish the report for Inland. I’m excited for you to see it.”

I still needed a minute.