Bouncing (2 page)

“Riding a cart these days?” Alex asked.

“It just makes it easier. They’re all paranoid about the pace of play in the league, so they encourage us to ride.”

“Fair enough.”

“Hey, nice sandals.” Sal looked down at Alex’s feet. “Does this mean your toe’s better?”

A rash on the second toe of her left foot had been the start of it all, back when Alex played on the high-school girls’ basketball team that had won Sal a state championship. The doctors had treated her for athlete’s foot, and then eczema, and then staph before finally admitting they had no idea what was causing the painful blisters that itched constantly. Through the years the rash had come and gone, sometimes forcing her into sneakers on the beach to protect it from the sun. Since she’d started her newest medication, though, it came less often.

“Yeah,” Alex said, wiggling them in proof. “They’re perfect.”

“Will I be seeing some nail polish this summer?”

Alex stopped and faced Sal, glaring at her. “If you ever see nail polish on my toes, you better start CPR.”

Sal didn’t crack a smile, but her eyes twinkled. “Chest compressions, maybe. But no mouth to mouth.”

They found their cart and Alex secured her clubs on the passenger side, then took a seat beside Sal. A scorecard was pinned to the steering wheel. “Who are we playing? Anyone I know?” Although Alex hadn’t played in the league before, over the years she’d made quite a few friends in Rehoboth, and many of them were golfers.

“I don’t think so.”

Alex glanced at the scorecard, noted their opponents’ high handicaps, and chuckled. “It looks like an easy victory tonight. How about a wager? Just to keep it interesting. Loser buys the first round.”

Sally shook her head. “Don’t be so cocky, Alex. The match will be challenging. Ann Marie Abbott tends to play a little better than her thirty handicap.”

“Sal, c’mon. A thirty? Does she use a driver on the par threes?” Alex couldn’t keep the smirk from her face.

Sal chuckled. “I don’t want to color your judgment, but I’ll say this—she’s never lost a round in the league. Her team has won the championship five years running.”

“With a thirty?”

Sal shrugged. “Like I said, she tends to play better than her handicap.”

“Hmm,” Alex said, and turned to look at Sal, hoping for more information. Before she could ask, the starter took his bullhorn and made the customary announcements about pace of play and sportsmanship. Then they were off. Because of the shotgun format, Alex and Sal headed to the eighth hole, a hundred-and-fifty-yard par three, nestled into a copse of trees and landscaped with a half dozen sand traps.

“This plays true, but the green breaks right,” Sal advised her as they exited their cart. Although Alex had played the course before, she wasn’t as familiar with the subtleties as Sal was. She appreciated the advice.

The twosome they were playing was already there, impeccably dressed in golf skirts and matching shirts, chatting as they took their practice swings. Alex suppressed a smile as she looked at her own rather plain black shorts and blue shirt, and Sal’s outfit, which was similar.

After introductions, Sal offered them the tee first. Alex looked to the blue sky and the late afternoon sun filtering through the stand of trees along the fairway and closed her eyes. She breathed in the fresh air, and felt her body relax. Then she opened her eyes and watched as Pearl Lennox hit a five wood left of the green into a trap and tried hard to keep a straight face as she listened to the series of expletives that followed. And then, to her surprise, Ann Marie Abbott, who tended to shoot lower than her handicap, approached the tee with an iron in her hand. Alex knew the average golfer with a high handicap would need a wood to reach that distance. Amazed, she watched the smooth swing and clean contact Ann Marie’s club made with the ball, sending it high into the air. It landed on the green, a few yards short and to the right of the flag.

“Nice ball,” Alex said. I bet that’s the best shot she’s ever hit, Alex mused.

A half smile appeared briefly on Ann Marie’s face as she headed back to her cart. Sal and Alex both used irons to put their balls on the green as well, and as they drove along the cart path, they assessed their next shots. Both had short birdie putts. Ann Marie’s putt was longer, but uphill, while Alex and Sal had to go down to the cup. After Pearl chipped on, Ann Marie lined up her ball and nailed the putt.

“Very nice,” Alex said with a nod.

The compliment was barely acknowledged as she pulled the ball from the cup and deposited it in her pocket, then stood back to watch as Sal and Alex finished the hole. Sal’s ball lipped the cup and fell out for a par. Alex’s putt ran true, and she pumped her fist as it fell in the hole for a birdie. She’d needed that putt to tie the hole, and it felt good to make it.

“Nice one,” Sal said, patting her back as they walked off the green toward their cart. “But Ann Marie gets a stroke. We lost the hole.”

“Ah, shit. I forgot about giving her strokes.”

Alex carried the lowest handicap in the group—one. It meant she scored the best but also that she had to give everyone else strokes to level the playing field. Because Ann Marie had a handicap of thirty, Alex had to give Ann Marie a stroke on every hole and, on the hardest holes, two strokes. That didn’t worry her, though. She’d never lost to someone with a thirty handicap, and she wasn’t planning to make this night the first.

“Lucky hole, Sal. No worries. We have eight more to make that up.”

The number-nine hole was a long par five, and all four of them approached the tee box with drivers in hand. Since their opponents had won the previous hole, they took the first shots, and Alex’s jaw dropped when Ann Marie whacked the ball two hundred yards down the middle of the fairway. She and Sal did the same, and as they climbed back into the cart, Alex squinted at her. “I smell a rat,” she said.

Sal’s expression was neutral as she looked into Alex’s sunglasses. “Much worse than a rat. A sandbagger.”

Alex sat up and took off her glasses, then slammed her hand onto the dashboard of the golf cart. “Well, we
cannot
have this! The integrity of the game is resting on our shoulders, Coach. Let’s kick some butt.”

Sal chuckled. “If anyone can bury her, it’s you.”

Ann Marie’s next shot was short of the green, and Alex’s was right. They both chipped on and two-putted for par, but Alex had to give Ann Marie two shots on that hole. Her team was two down through two holes.

Their third hole played out the same. “Fuck!” Alex said as she turned to Sal on their way to the number-two hole, a short par four. “We need to start playing as a team, Sal. You play conservatively for pars, and I’ll let loose and go for birdies. We need birdies to win.” Sal nodded, and after Pearl and Ann Marie both hit their drives in the first cut of rough, Sal put hers on the fairway. Alex put a little extra effort into her drive and found herself just short of the green. Their opponents’ shots missed the green, and everyone except Alex scored a bogie. She made a birdie, and they found themselves only two down.

Alex and Sal won the next hole and then split a few before winning again. As they stood on the tee box on the final hole, the score was tied. Before them, a short par four curved to the right around a tall stand of oaks. Sal hit a perfect iron shot into the landing zone but was still left with a hundred yards into the pin. “I’m going to try to slice this around the corner,” Alex told Sal.

Sal winked and Alex pulled her driver from the bag. She teed the ball higher than she normally would and pushed her hips through the ball a little faster, too. The resulting shot not only curved around the trees, but it flew over them as well, and although they couldn’t tell where the ball had finally come to rest, both of them knew it was a magnificent effort. “Wow,” Sal said as Alex sat down in the cart beside her.

Alex turned to her and grinned. “I couldn’t do that again in a million years!”

“Since this is the last hole, you won’t have to. Ties are final.”

“Well, then. Let’s see what Miss High Handicap can do with those trees,” Alex said, nodding in the direction of the formidable wall of timber blocking the path to the green.

Pearl put her drive in the fairway, close to Sal’s. Apparently thirty-handicappers could make four pars and a birdie in eight holes but couldn’t slice the ball over trees at will. Ann Marie’s effort to match Alex’s shot fell short, landing deep in the woods. Alex’s par was good enough to win the hole, and the match.

Later, on the patio where the members of the ladies’ league were enjoying sandwiches and drinks, several people approached their table to congratulate them on their win and invite them to play again.

A woman with short dark hair approached their table, and although they’d never met, Alex recognized her face, probably from the beach. Sal introduced her as Bree, and after they spent a few minutes rehashing their victory, Bree asked if Alex could play the following week. Coincidentally, Bree was scheduled to play Pearl and Ann Marie.

Normally, Alex wouldn’t have considered the invitation. She still had another week of classes, and to play she’d have to miss school. Besides, confrontation wasn’t normally on her agenda. She’d won, and she had every right to be happy and walk away. She was sure Sal and Bree and everyone else in the league would think well of her for simply putting the sandbagger in her place. But Alex hated cheaters, and clearly that label fit Ann Marie.

She’d purposely blown three holes when she realized she couldn’t beat Sal and Alex, hitting eights on every one, and Alex knew that was how she kept her handicap so high. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair, and after Ann Marie had walked off the green in a huff after losing the final hole, Alex wanted nothing more than to drive to Rehoboth the next week and beat her. Again.

“Okay,” Alex said as she looked up from her beer. “I’ll play.”

As the day faded so did the crowd, and as the stars began twinkling, Alex and Sal were still sitting in the same place. Other members of the league had said good-bye and left, but they stayed and talked until the workers began cleaning up around them, subtly hinting that they wanted to close the bar and go home.

They took the hint and walked toward their cars, but not before making dinner plans for the next night. Alex looked forward to their date as she drove back to her condo. Sal had been a part of her life for more than a decade, the first one Alex came out to, the one who’d taught her about basketball and winning and courage and commitment. Alex’s parents were amazing and wonderful people with whom she had pathetically little in common. Their love was unconditional and constant, but they lived in a world so far removed from hers that their ability to understand or appreciate her life was severely limited. Sal, though—she was Alex’s soul mate, and if she hadn’t been thirty years older and married to the most wonderful woman in the world, Alex might have been tempted to settle down.

Back in her room at the condo, Alex slept soundly and awoke to a bright sun shining through dented blinds. Stretching out the kinks in her back, she stared at the ceiling, wondering how many women she’d brought to this room over the years. Many. She was like the balls she loved so much—bouncing around from girl to girl, never content with one. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? She was just a normal girl—an athlete, a coach, a teacher, and a friend. A daughter and a sister. Never a girlfriend, though, and never a partner. As more of her friends settled down, the curve was shifting, and she found that her single status placed her squarely in the middle of abnormal. She didn’t like it one bit.

Climbing out of bed, she stretched yet again, then made her way to the bathroom. She removed a syringe hidden in her travel kit, loaded the drug into the chamber, and then leaned against the sink as she slowly delivered the poison into her body. Her eyes were closed and she could immediately feel the burn, followed by the inevitable calm and then a tremendous sense of relief. Carefully wrapping the syringe in tissue to conceal it, she placed it back into the bag and got ready for her day.

“Honey, I’m home!” Alex shouted twelve hours later as she walked through the door. She’d spent the day cleaning the house, readying it for the summer, then enjoyed another wonderful evening with Sal and her partner Sue. Her roommates had been vague about arrival times; beach traffic was always unpredictable. Alex had been delighted to see a car in the drive when she pulled in, eager to see her friends.

Like a dog set free of its leash, Tam came bounding from the living room, leaping into Alex’s arms and wrapping her arms and legs around her. She didn’t appear to notice Alex cringe. It was the great irony of her illness, Alex knew: inside, a deadly war was raging, but on the outside everything seemed perfectly calm. Alex was tall and in great shape and shouldn’t have given a second thought to the petite woman who tackled her, but she feared the jolt of Tam’s tackle would haunt her in the morning. Alex gingerly set her friend down and led her to the living room.

“I see you were expecting me,” Alex said, nodding to the ice chest full of beer sitting on the coffee table.

“Yep. Kim will be here shortly, too.”

Alex pulled one out and twisted off the cap. “So, tell me a story.”

Tam smiled at their ongoing joke. Alex, the English teacher, had the opportunity to read the classics, and Tam, the kindergarten teacher, was reading Dr. Seuss. Alex knew her friend loved her job as much as she did, though, and the teasing was all friendly.

“It’s almost a shame to even go back to work. I have school Tuesday and Wednesday and then I’m done. I should just stay here and have fun.”

“I’m coming back Wednesday. We can hang out.”

“To stay?”

“No, just for one night.” Alex explained the situation with the sandbagger as they put their feet up on the hassock and sipped their beers. Alex sipped, anyway. She’d had two beers with Sal and Sue and had already, in two nights, equaled her alcohol consumption for the prior month. It was time to slow down. Drugs and alcohol didn’t mix, and she needed her drugs much more than she needed the alcohol. Tam was unwinding, though, ready to open her second bottle.