Under Parr

by Blair Babylon

  And yet her heart fluttered in her chest, and a blush rose and warmed her skin the way his warm hands and the way he used to touch her once had.

  Jericho Parr looked up as she came around the corner. He took one long, scorching glance down her body, and she swore she could feel his eyes through her clothes on her stomach, and thighs, and all the way to her toes, which he had actually sucked that one time in his suite at the inn.

  She’d thought the toe-sucking thing would be weird right up until the warmth of his mouth had closed on them. It felt like when he’d kissed her fingertips. Nerve endings were nerve endings, and she’d already been panting from what his hands and mouth had done to her breasts and back. And then when he’d done that, wow, she’d gasped and almost screamed.

  Just looking at his mouth made her skin tingle, and her bra felt tight as her body reacted to his fingertips and mouth and tongue so close to her.

  Jericho said, “Hello, Tiffany.”

  The tee he was hitting from had been blocked from her line of sight by the beige shed, so she hadn’t seen him until she’d come around the corner. Of course, she was standing there gaping like an idiot, but she shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Of course, he was at Newcastle Country Club. It was his club. He literally owned it. Why wouldn’t he be there?

  Tiffany asked him, “What are you doing here?”

  She considered running away.

  His smile was warm and slow, and she felt that all along her skin, too. “Waiting for you.”

  “That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard, Jericho Parr. You were not waiting for me. And if you were waiting, you’re going to be waiting a lot longer because I am out of here.” She turned and flounced, and her heavy golf bag hanging on her back clattered as she did. One could not gracefully flounce while carrying golf clubs.

  “Did you see the NFA golf team on the other side?” he called after her.

  She stopped in her tracks. “What about them?”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “That they were practicing here. Is that true?”

  “Yes. The high school kids have more allotted range time and course time than before because we extended the driving range.”

  Tiffany turned back. “It’s a nice driving range.”

  “It was important for the community,” he said.

  Tiffany slung her clubs off her shoulders and planted them on the ground. “That’s great, Jericho, and it’ll be great for the next few years. But after that, all the new kids coming up on the NFA golf team will just be upper-middle-class kids who would’ve taken golf or tennis lessons somewhere anyway. The monthly dues here are so high that working-class families can’t afford a membership.”

  Jericho grinned, because of course, he did. He was always grinning. “We instituted a new pricing structure this month, and within the last few days, we reached out to all the members who resigned to invite them back. For people who live within the Township of Newcastle, membership dues will return to the levels they were at last year. New members outside of the township will pay the higher dues. Ninety-three percent of the lapsed members rejoined. Unfortunately, your father didn’t take us up on the offer. I suspect he’s pissed at the new management.”

  “But then it’s not sustainable. You said so yourself, that NGC went under because the dues weren’t enough to support it. I was a business major, Jericho. Just taking a look at everything you’ve done here, even doubling the membership with all the new members at the higher tier wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to pay for the changes you’re making. Even if every single person in Newcastle bought a membership, there aren’t enough people in Newcastle to support all this.”

  “I agree. We added a national membership level and sold memberships to people who live out of state. They cost a ridiculous amount of money for a partial membership, and the out-of-towners can play up to twenty rounds per year at NCC. Most will play half that or less. Those initiation fees covered a lot of the course renovations. The Newcastle Inn and Spa is booked solid with our out-of-town members, too, so that’s a bonus. The national memberships go a long way toward our net growth, and then, there’s our new installation.”

  She pointed to the arena on the horizon, grayed by the atmosphere between them. “Yeah, I saw. What is that monstrosity you’re building over there?”

  Jericho glanced at the stadium or whatever was being built. “Do you want to see?”

  “I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

  “Pick up your bag and come with me.” Jericho slid the golf club he’d been using into his bag and hoisted the straps over his shoulders.

  “I don’t even know if I want to,” she said, looking away from him.

  On the warm August afternoon, the range smelled like freshly mown grass and sunshine. Jericho was standing in front of her, a tower of maleness. When she turned back, she had to look up to stare at him in the eyes.

  He gestured to one of the new bag boys whom Tiffany didn’t know. “Do you want one of our new caddies to carry your bag?”

  “I don’t need a caddie. Wait, you have caddies now?”

  “We’re now one of the few courses in New England to employ actual, human caddies, and it’s one of the big draws for the national members.” He motioned to some kids over by the range hut. “Darius, could you please carry Miss Tiffany Jones’s bag to the new building?”

  She started, “I don’t need a—”

  A skinny, high school-looking kid with knobby elbows sticking out of the sleeves of his NCC Staff golf shirt trotted across the driving range, hoisted Tiffany’s bag on his shoulders, and took off for the monolith on the horizon.

  Tiffany turned back to Jericho. “I don’t even know that kid. When did you hire him?”

  “Darius is a member of our work-study program. He’s in high school now, but in addition to his hourly pay, he also gets playing lessons and instruction in golf course management. It’s probably too late for him to start golfing and get a sports scholarship to a university, but he will have an excellent resumé builder for his college application. We’re also funding five scholarships per year for the caddies. They’re not full-rides, but they’ll help. We’ve been recruiting kids from NFA and Newcastle Tech for the program.”

  Tiffany took a gander over at the other caddies, most of whom looked more like her high school graduating class than the Narragansett Club’s employees did. “Well, I guess that’s okay then.”

  Jericho asked her, “What did Asia tell you about NCC’s expansion plans?”

  Tiffany, ever suspicious, asked him, “What’s my cousin got to do with it?”

  Jericho paused for a moment before he answered, “She was standing behind you when you came around the corner, but she left when we started talking. I assumed she was here with you.”

  “Asia hasn’t said anything about this place.”

  Jericho smiled and adjusted his bag on his shoulders. “Good. Then I get to show you what we’re building.”

  They walked around the netting of the driving range and along its length toward the construction zone. Golf balls plunked into the net beside them as they strolled.

  Ahead, the enormous structure built on the cleared forest land rose, and kept rising, and became just damn huge. It did look like a football arena, but longer. “Holy cow, Jericho. What is this place?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Everyone thought this land was too wooded and hilly to build anything on. That’s why we never put in a third nine,” Tiffany told him.

  They stepped onto a vast cement courtyard between the new building and the driving range. “The architects and engineers fought for a week over whether it was possible or not, but it was.”

  “What was possible?”

  They’d reached the doors, which were glass and reflected the afternoon sunlight’s glare. “I hope you like it.”

  Tiffany’s bag of golf clubs was sitting beside the door. Darius was sprinting away and already halfway back to
the driving range. His dark legs were a blur as he ran.

  She turned back to Jericho. “Brave of you to put glass doors and big bay windows at the end of a driving range.”

  Jericho laughed as he unlocked the doors and held them open for her. “We tripled the thickness of the netting at the end of the range and added the extension at the top that leans in. Also, this is bulletproof glass. I’d be surprised if even you could drive a ball that would crack it.”

  She hauled her clubs around to her shoulders. “I will totally take you up on that bet.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been known to make stupid bets, but why don’t you drive a ball inside the building instead?”

  Tiffany walked through the doors in front of him. “Drive a golf ball inside a building? Jericho Parr, have you lost your mind? That would have all the ambiance of a shooting gallery.”

  “I’m not joking in the slightest.”

  The doors opened into a space that Tiffany assumed must be a lobby area because booths that appeared to be for selling tickets were lined up along the outside wall. “Is this a theater for concerts?”

  Jericho laughed, and she realized she’d missed the joy in his laugh. “I suppose it’s big enough for concerts, but it’s not set up that way.”

  Beyond the ticket windows and tiled entryway, a refreshment stand and café tables occupied most of the area, but the whole lobby was a narrow strip that seemed to go around the building on both sides, like there was a large central area in the middle for something else, like a stadium or a concert arena, like Asia had said. Staircases led up to narrower balconies above, at least four floors, and then pillars held the floors in between.

  Tiffany wandered closer to the low wall that separated the lobby from what must be the massive interior of the building. “Seriously, what is this place?”

  Jericho strolled behind her as she explored.

  Beyond the barrier, Tiffany stepped down into what appeared to be a living room with couches and chairs and a coffee table, careful not to smash anything with her golf bag and clubs that extended beyond her hips. She held onto the bottom of the bag with one hand and the tops of her clubs with the other, gauging their length so she wouldn’t break anything.

  The coffee table had some kind of monitor on it, but it was turned off.

  To the left and right of her on the balcony, more living room areas were staged with low walls between, like bookcases dividing each one from the next. The next three were complete, but beyond them were raw, unfinished concrete spaces that echoed her steps when she walked.

  Right near the edge of the balcony, a green, deep shag rug was set up with the little brown box to the side of it.

  Except it wasn’t carpeting. The rug was Astroturf, harsh green plastic grass under Tiffany’s gym shoes.

  She lowered her clubs to the floor and popped out the bag’s kickstand.

  The rear wall opened to an enormous expanse that was larger than a football field and spilled to the far white walls.

  Overhead, the roof appeared to be a giant skylight. The afternoon sun shone in, bathing the entire building in sunlight.

  The back walls weren’t merely white-painted sheetrock, though. Instead, heavy fabric rippled in the air conditioning’s breeze.

  The fact that they were standing on a balcony without a safety wall or even a railing was the weirdest part. The floor just continued out into the middle of the air and then stopped, like one more step and she would fall off a cliff.

  The void spun, and she reached out and grabbed the wall beside her that separated her from the next living room setup. “OSHA cannot have approved this.”

  Jericho laughed from behind her. “It’s safe.”

  When Tiffany inched closer and peered over the edge, a safety net extended ten feet out from the platform they stood on, presumably to catch anything or anybody who fell off. The safety net ringed the balcony’s edge all the way around like orange lace trim.

  Down on the floor of the huge building, probably thirty feet below where Tiffany stood, the bottom of the expanse was painted or carpeted green. Seven enormous pits that ranged from twenty to a hundred feet across interrupted the fairway-like surface. An oversized golf hole stick and flag stood in the middle of each cavity.

  Jericho stepped up to the edge and stood beside her. “I call it Pop Golf. Essentially, I’ve gamified golf even more than it is. You can come here with your family or friends for an hour or more. You can play against each other, and we’ll post the highest scores of the day, week, and month on the leaderboard at the back of each room.”

  Tiffany looked. Behind them, on the wall, there were indeed large flat screens that could serve as scoreboards.

  Jericho walked back and sat on the couch, turning on the monitor and typing commands into the terminal there. “This is how NCC is going to make money. Pop Golf will be open to the public. Members get a discount and members’ only hours during the winter. Because it’s enclosed, people can play golf here all year long. They can play the gamified version of golf in the late afternoons and evenings until midnight because we can light this place up. In addition, we’ve got geothermal to heat it in the winter and cool it in the summer. This is what it’s going to look like during the times it’s open to the public.”

  He tapped a few more keys, and the skylight that formed the roof and ceiling tinted blue, dimming the sunlight. The back wall and parts of the side walls glowed, and a simulation of a long driving range enclosed by trees projected on the screens that Tiffany had seen rippling in the breeze.

  The impression was that the driving range was eight hundred yards long and the forest beyond it went on forever. “Wow.”

  Jericho chuckled. “For nighttime or parties, things can be a little more psychedelic.”

  With a few more taps on his keyboard, the skylight turned completely opaque, filling the vast building with darkness.

  Down on the floor, however, the round pits that the flags stood in began undulating with neon colors, rainbows flashing in circles. Happy pop music blasted from speakers positioned all around.

  Tiffany cracked up. “My eyes, my eyes! This is insane!”

  “We got a liquor license, too, so this is going to be quite the party place.”

  The strobing lights shut off, and the skylight turned transparent again.

  The screens returned to showing a long fairway. “And then, during the school year in the winter, the NFA golf team and any other high school golf teams will have the use of the facility to practice for an hour or two right after school lets out. From six in the morning until four o’clock on weekdays, this place turns into an elite golf academy. I’ve already been in touch with Butch Harmon and Hank Haney. We’re talking about which of their instructors might want to move here. The building itself is over a hundred yards, but that back screen is a golf simulator. Go ahead and hit your driver.”

  Stunned, Tiffany retrieved her driver, her longest club, from her bag.

  A ball rolled out of the box at the end of the hitting mat, and she teed it up on a stumpy post embedded in the mat.

  With one long, round swing, Tiffany launched the ball toward the back of the building.

  The physical ball smacked the screen and dropped to the floor, where it rolled into a trench near the wall and disappeared into a hole.

  On the screen, however, a phantom version of her ball kept flying. It bounced onto the golf course’s fairway in the distance.

  From behind her, Jericho said, “Nice shot. Two hundred and eighty-three yards, four yards left of dead straight. I’ve got more statistics back here on the simulator’s monitor.”

  Tiffany dropped her club in her bag and walked around the couch to look at them. Every statistic she had been working on at the simulator at TSU and more was displayed on the screen. “Jericho, this is amazing.”

  “For the academy, we have hundreds of real courses programmed in the simulator. You can play Augusta National, Bethpage Black, or other courses where PGA and LPGA events are
held. Before tournaments, you can practice here on the course where the match will be held. On the ground floor, we have twenty simulator booths for individual lessons or private games, and you can play the courses in those, too.”

  “The NFA golf team is going to go nuts. They’re going to be in here every day in the winter, chipping balls into those psychedelic vortexes.”

  Jericho went on, “And because Pop Golf will be a year-round destination, it’ll provide full-time jobs for Newcastle. We’re going to need more than golf professionals working here. There will be jobs for people to run the concessions and ticket sales. There will be maintenance personnel, and we’ll need computer technicians to run the equipment. Plus, we’ll need management, human resources, public relations, and accountants to keep the place running. It’s part of my grand plan to not only make Newcastle Country Club profitable but also to make it an asset to the community.” He looked up at Tiffany, his clear blue eyes serious. “There will be more kids who get a chance to win golf scholarships to college from Newcastle, a lot more of them. You aren’t going to be the last professional golfer to come out of the city of Newcastle and Newcastle Country Club. I’ll make sure of that.”

  Tiffany’s throat unclenched.

  Worry about Latoya Miller and Newcastle and NFA and all the young golfers who might have been finally lifted from her mind.

  “You did all this for Newcastle?” Tiffany asked, looking at the extravagant building around them and meandering toward the edge of the platform. She couldn’t stop looking at the enormity of the golf complex, and the lights, and the balconies above them, and the vast swath of grass leading to the walls where the projections seemed to go on forever.

  “I did this for you,” Jericho said, his voice low.

  She turned back toward him, watching his eyes as he looked right back at her.

  He was leaning back on the couch, his arms resting on the back of it. He’d crossed his long legs. “You were right. Newcastle Golf Club has been a pillar of the community for decades. Not only would it be morally wrong to ruin it, but its status is one of its best assets. It’s not what you know around here; it’s who. And I know you.” His voice lowered further like he was gutting out what he had to say. “And I miss you.”