Games We Play

by Ruthie Robinson

  “I have to go. Have a good life, Houston,” she said.

  “Fine, but don’t think you can come back,” he said.

  “I won’t. I don’t,” she said, hanging up.

  She exhaled, feeling the same sense of calm course through her soul that she’d felt after their breakup. It was more than just her body’s relief. They’d been apart for two weeks, and she still felt that it had been the right decision.

  She thought back to their first meeting; he had been on a panel of up-and-coming entrepreneurs, and she’d been the mediator. She’d been impressed and intrigued by his brain and what she’d perceived as a genuine interest and desire to serve and improve his community.

  He was a smart, an intellectual who’d once been cloaked in an NBA player’s garb. After the basketball fell through, all that had been left was the intellectual, which was more down her alley anyway. Like her, he had a mind and a heart for business. Shoot, throw in the rest of him—good looks, charm, and personality, with a light sprinkling of male swagger—and she’d fallen hard for a minute or three months. For a while there, she’d been just like the rest of the female population, lapping him up but good.

  She would miss a few things about him, particularly their debates. From the beginning, she’d been captivated by his ability to discuss a whole host of political and business topics. They’d argued over ethics, over sustainability issues, over the ways that businesses could better serve the world.

  He’d laughed at her altruistic notions of saving the planet, her suggestions that perhaps it was possible for companies, for him, to help the world and earn money—less of it perhaps, but how much money did one person really need? He would shake his head, a big ol’ smile on his face. “Making money was a game to be played, and riches were to be counted, locked up, and put away someplace safe, preferably offshore and tax-free,” he’d said, and she’d realized he was dead serious about his money and nowhere near the man for her.

  Nope, she’d had enough of that attitude to last a lifetime. She had her mother, Vivian, to thank for her sticky relationship with cash. She knew that money couldn’t be the sun that her world revolved around. Living with her mother had carved, etched, and engraved that one little fact deep into the recesses of her soul.

  She moved her thoughts over to the brighter side of life and put her shorts and T-shirts into one of the dresser drawers. Her career was her main bright spot now that her love life sat empty, staring back at her. She was successful and she loved her job, loved teaching business and ethics to college kids—fresh-faced and new to the world. She could get to them while their minds were open, just on the brink of their lives and careers. She could stuff their little heads full of information about choices and possibilities that could make the world a place where everyone could live out quality, useful lives.

  She was all done with one suitcase, so she unzipped her second one, lifting a stack of shirts from it.

  Yeah, she knew she was a Pollyanna sometimes, all hopeful and optimistic, but what was wrong with that? There were surely enough naysayers and dream squashers in the world to kill all the rays of light that thought to change the course of man. So a big-assed yes! for her for trying to make a difference.

  And how about another yes! for getting ahold of herself before she spent too much more time chasing after something she’d never wanted in the first place. “You’re the woman, Kendall,” she said out loud, with more force this time, mixed in with a little bit of sadness at the thought that she might never find the right man for her.

  Three

  The Coopersville Brewpub stood large and in charge on the corner of 1341 and Old Quarry Road, directly across the street from city hall, bigger and more modern than she’d envisioned. She planned to stop by sometime soon, but she wanted to settle in first, get acquainted with the town, before taking on one of its major players. LC had stopped there, so maybe it was his place of employment, which was another reason to stop by sooner rather than later. But not even the thought of LC helped her get excited about beer, a poor substitute for wine, in her opinion. She couldn’t understand the world population’s preference for it. Why choose beer when you could drink a nice merlot or chardonnay?

  Old Quarry Road was also the road that led to the golf course, her current destination. Her aunt had a knitting circle thing to go to this evening, followed by some kind of planning meeting for the Memorial Day festivities scheduled for Monday, so her first evening was free, and she was in search of a golf game.

  She spotted the sign for the Coopersville Golf Course just around the bend in the road. A plain state sign marked the entrance. The course was famous for two things: its lack of frills and its difficult playability. Only the most die-hard, experienced golfers ventured forth to play here, and it was at her disposal for the entire summer. God was certainly good.

  She made a left into the parking lot. It was empty of all but a few cars. She could see the clubhouse from here. She parked in one of the spaces close to the gravel path that led from the parking lot over to the clubhouse. The headquarters for one of the most revered golf courses in the state was a doublewide trailer, of all things, a nondescript beige color. So far she could attest to the no-frills part.

  She climbed out of her car and took a moment to look around the place. She was parked in the lot that faced the trailer. To her left, about thirty yards away, rows upon rows of golf carts sat behind an iron gate and beneath a tarp overhang. The gate access code and golf-cart keys could be found inside the clubhouse. She’d gotten those instructions from the website.

  About twenty yards to the right of the carts was a first-class practice facility, featuring separate putting and chipping greens as well as sand traps for greenside and short-range bunker play. As she headed to the clubhouse to check in, she could just make out the driving range—large, three hundred by one hundred yards, located just beyond the practice green, its visibility partially blocked by the trailer. The course’s layout was displayed on the website, and she’d remembered it well.

  Reaching the clubhouse, she climbed the steps to the plain metal door. A lockbox, wrapped around the door’s handle, stood between her and the inside. No worries, she knew the combination. She’d found it on the website. Zero-zero-five-nine was the answer to a question posed on the site, and the code that allowed one entry.

  “What did Stuart Applebee, Chip Beck, Al Geiberger, David Duval, Paul Goydos, and most recently, Jim Furyk have in common?” Add two zeros to the front of your answer and you could unlock the lock. Of course she knew. They’d all shot a 59, a rare feat even among the best the game had to offer, hence the short list of six men who’d accomplished it, and only one woman, Annika Sorenstam, one of the best in the LPGA before her retirement.

  She admired the setup here, even with the annoying secret code. This place functioned on the honor system. Golf was a gentleman’s game, and golfers were known for being honorable. It was one of the things she most admired about the sport and its players.

  The lock opened right up, and she walked inside—nice and clean was her first impression as she glanced around the room. If you liked simple and the plain, this was the right spot for you. To the right of the door, toward the back of the room, was a living room equipped with a flat-screen television, a large couch, and two armchairs. Golf magazines lay fanned out in an arc on the overlarge coffee table in the middle of it all. A card table and four chairs sat behind the living room.

  A small bar, the refrigerator stocked with all manner of drinks, sat behind it, and a counter lined with food in baskets and a coffeepot with all the fixings rounded out the mini-kitchen, located to the left of the door. Looks like the owners had all the bases covered. Bathrooms down the hall read the sign posted to the door, leading away from this room. Not quite the man cave she’d expected, more functional than fancy—and had she said clean? That was cool, as she liked her things clean. She walked over to the desk, where, according to the website, she could check in, pay, and pick up a scorecard and
yardage book. Arriving later in the day had its benefits, apparently. She only had to play twilight fees.

  Ten minutes later, she was headed to hole one, her clubs behind her in her cart, the sun slowly making its downward descent as it called it a day. A low breeze buffeted her as she followed the cart path leading her to the course. Life was good sometimes. Every now and then, a beautiful day would cross your path, and you found yourself alone, with only yourself for company, driving through the scenic fairways of a golf course, playing one of the oldest sports known to man. This was one of those moments, and Houston, her mother, her aunt Myra’s money, and every potentially troubling event could be safely tucked away, for four hours at least, and she could relax and enjoy herself.

  She pulled up to hole one and checked her card. It was a dogleg to the right. How far to the dogleg? she asked herself. About 180 yards from the women’s tee, she mused, sliding her glove on. Time to hit her big dog, she thought as she grabbed her driver, a new sleeve of golf balls, and a tee. She passed the junior and senior tee boxes to take her spot at the ladies’ tee. She took a couple of practice swings, picked out her target down the middle of the fairway, and addressed the ball.

  “Hello, ball,” she said out loud, laughing at her lame joke. Smooth and slow backswing, and through the ball, just as her junior golf coach had instructed her. She piked it straight down the fairway, and then posed—one of her favorite things to do was to end on a pose—watching her ball sail down the right center of the fairway with her usual small hint of a draw.

  Her mother had pushed her into the trifecta of country-club sports—golf, tennis, and swimming. She was marginal with the other two, did just well enough to represent herself, but golf was her passion, the one thing her mother never had to force her to play or practice.

  One could say that she even had a knack for it. Of course she’d never said that, only allowed others, usually men, to say it for her. She smiled at her memories of beating men who’d thought her all fluff.

  After she’d met her father, she’d learned that he had a knack for golf too. She had no childhood memories of playing him, of enjoying the sport together, all because Vivian, in her love of money and her quest for revenge, had placed her needs before her daughters’. No, of course Kendall didn’t harbor any resentment toward her mother.

  She traveled back to her cart, placed her club back into her bag, and took off. She drove down the fairway this time, parked three paces from her drive and, after taking one look at the yardage book, pulled out her range finder. It would be a 120-yard shot to the pin. She pulled out her eight iron, took a look at the danger around the green, and figured her miss would be long, not too much danger in front of the hole. She hit her eight iron, pin high, just to the right. The ball landed slightly long of the cut, about thirty feet from the hole. Not bad, she thought as she made her way back to the cart.

  She could forgive her mother for all the other stuff, the constant push into the path of the moneyed, and she could understand Vivian’s desire for her daughters to be taken care of, but doing what she’d done to her father, now that was another story. She hadn’t told her aunt the way she felt, but it was difficult not to make the leaving of Vivian a permanent one.

  She reached the green, took one glance at its contour from the yardage book, reached for her putter, and approached her ball. Kendall removed the pin from the cup and read her putt from both sides of the hole. She figured it was a two-foot break from right to left. She lined up and took two practice swings before squaring up to the ball. She stroked a deliberate putt that missed slightly on the high side and stopped two feet beyond the cup; then she tapped in her par, secured the pin back in the hole, and headed back to her cart. She replaced her putter in her bag, slid behind the wheel, and was off to hole two.

  #

  Cooper pulled up to the green—unobserved, he hoped. He was tailing the woman who was standing at the tee boxes of hole two, the one who was spending her Friday evening at a golf course. She wasn’t just any woman; she was the one he’d flirted with earlier, the one who had followed him into town.

  So this was Myra’s niece, aka the professor, the nickname he’d secretly given the woman Myra had told him about. This woman was her niece come to visit—to possibly steal money from her or maybe find her incompetent. She was the one with the supremely fine ass. This evening that supremely fine ass was clad in a cute little skirt, with a cute little matching top—both white trimmed in pink—and snowy white golf shoes on her feet, her hair in one of those perky ponytails that some women went for.

  Cute and perky weren’t the only adjectives that he attributed to the professor. Others, less innocent perhaps, came to mind, as well as images of them nude, sweaty, and entangled. His pulse increased as he thought of what he’d liked to do with her. His mind had returned to its one track, the one it’d been on since the first time he saw her.

  Now he knew she was a woman after his own heart, at least when it came to his love of golf. She was pretty good, and he knew that a person had to practice a lot to get that good, so she must love the game as much as he did.

  He was parked, sitting alone in the gator, which was club property, but since the club and the course belonged to him, the gator was his too. He’d found her finishing on the green of hole number one, and he’d followed her.

  He watched as she stepped out of her cart on hole two looking down at the paper in her hand—her yardage card, he guessed. This was a par four, about 410 yards, and he watched as she walked over to the ladies’ tees; most women played from them, since many didn’t have the swing speed to play the back tees.

  Hole number two featured a forced carry of 130 yards from the ladies’ tee and was well protected by fairway bunkers on both sides. He knew this course like the back of his hand, could probably play it in his sleep. He watched as she took a couple of practice swings. Good mechanics, she was addressing the ball correctly, her backswing smooth and balanced, her left arm straight, a nice pause at the top and solid hip rotation through the impact area, a high finish. The ball sailed thirty yards beyond the ravine, and had a nice right-to-left tailing draw, splitting the fairway and the protective traps. Pretty good stick, just as he’d thought.

  He followed her in his cart a few minutes later as she made her way to the fairway, keeping a respectable distance behind her, hopefully remaining undetected.

  She parked the cart, hopped out, and made her way to the fairway, striding purposefully and confidently toward her little white ball. He watched her set her body and swing again—nice shot, he thought as her ball landed on the green, just fifteen yards shy of the hole. He followed her back over to her cart, and then out onto the green.

  He drove closer, continuing to follow her in the gator, careful to stay hidden. He sat back and watched as she parked near the green, and walked over to her ball. She fell into the squat of most golfers as she attempted to read the green. She stood a few seconds later and prepared to putt. Nice, he thought again, taking in her stance. It was straight, her feet pressed together, her body still. She hit the ball with more force than she needed, clearly not used to the speed of the green. New greens could be tricky. It was a good putt otherwise, he thought admiringly. It rolled around the lip of the cup and out.

  He saw disappointment in the slump in her shoulders before she tapped the ball in for par. He watched her pull her pencil from its place behind her ear to record her score. She headed back to her cart, and a few minutes later she placed her putter into her bag and rolled away toward hole three. He didn’t follow her this time.

  He would give the professor one more hole, and then he’d meet up with her on number four’s green. See if she wanted to play seven, eight, and nine with him, because she wouldn’t be able to play the entire course. It would be too dark, he thought, looking around at the sky and the surrounding course. Good plan, and now it was on. It was time to start getting to know the professor to find out just what her plans were for her aunt.

  Myra had met wit
h her sister, Kendall’s mother, the Vivian Edwards, two months ago at the pub. Cooper had made sure he was the one to wait on them personally, wanting to get a sense of her. He’d found her to be just as he’d expected: an arrogant and entitled piece of work.

  Myra had assembled her crew together at the conclusion of their lunch. She’d needed advice and assistance regarding the professor’s upcoming summer visit. Given what they all knew of her mother, the renowned beauty and model who was a genius at parting men from their money, Myra was concerned that her niece might be following in mommy dearest’s footsteps.

  He’d starting mentally sketching together a plan for approaching the professor once she’d arrived. He’d decided on a simple approach—inviting her to the pub to talk. There he’d introduce her to Myra’s support system, the people living in town who had her back. He would then question her, and depending upon her responses, he would either hand her a get-out-of-town card or one of the welcome-to-the-neighborhood variety.

  But now, having run into her and having spent the entire morning thinking about her very lovely ass, all thoughts of his original plan had evaporated, and he’d hastily concocted this alternative. Hell yes, he’d felt the pull between them at the station—sexual, of course—and he wanted to take advantage of it. They could hook up first, and he would ask questions later. He’d let her be his guide, though, let her make the first move. But if the way she’d flirted with him earlier had been any indication, he was good. He smiled, put the gator in gear, and drove away, heading in the opposite direction of the professor…for now, at least.

  He was out here tonight checking the timer and the coverage on the sprinkler system, ’cause they’d just punched and fertilized the course. Not him, of course, he’d hired help, but he tried to follow up, make sure everything had been done according to his specifications. He never wanted anything he owned to grow so big that he couldn’t see to it personally.