Brushes with fame can be inconsequential…and leave an indelible memory only one can appreciate.
And so it was with my brush with Mr April Love — Pat Boone.
For those less familiar with the music of the 1950s or 60s, Boone was a singing star and icon of the era —
Whom a small nine-year-old didn’t know and ended up shooting a few forehands with.
3 p.m.
At a local tennis club where grandad happened to be a coach. Practising forehand, not too happily, under Singapore’s rather scorching sun.
Grandad Charles abruptly squinted, paused mid-volley and pointed at the next court.
“That’s Pat Boone.”
“Who?” I grabbed my racket and hopped over.
“You’re too young to know him. He’s the tall American man in the next court. Get me his autograph.” He gestured discreetly.
I almost dramatically refused. What if he wasn’t who Grandad said he was? I was a nine-year-old being forced to play tennis under Singapore’s somewhat unforgivingly humid conditions.
Grandad continued his volleys. He knew better than to push a nine-year-old at risk of exploding in front of a favourite celebrity.
Add to that that I’ve never been much of a fangirl.
Grandad proceeded with his forehand volleys, and I proceeded to miss them, much to his awkward delight.
Then, a stray ball wandered into our court.
A name sewn on the side.
Pat.
It had rolled over from Pat Boone’s court. Or the man Grandad claimed was Pat Boone. I returned it with a forearm flourish.
Apparently, celebrity meet-ups begin with —
Stray balls.
Then —
The ball came back.
I sent it back, this time, with my racket.
So Pat Boone and I exchanged a few kiddish forehands, his identity still unconfirmed.
For a while, just the player in the next court.
He laughed at the exchange —
With a nine-year-old Singaporean girl.
No autograph —
But a little tennis.
Grandad showed me a set of casettes he had in his car on the drive home.
There he was.
Pat Boone.
He’d apparently been telling the truth. Of all his embellishments, this had been the one to believe.
I never did get the autograph.
Too surreal.
This random celebrity encounter became an engraved adulthood stamp.
He was a star.
It WAS extradordinary.
He, on the other hand, was merely visiting Singapore and playing tennis at the invitation of someone he knew.
Whether he remembered the encounter, I would never know.
And that was alright.
We had outdone one of Grandad’s embellishments —
And made this one real.
Far more important.
Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.
