by Mindi Scott
I got out and stood next to the Mustang, looking around. There was a lot to take in: grass everywhere—green and bright like it had been spray-painted—and all these ponds, fountains, and white buildings so fancy they looked like they belonged on postcards or something. I’d driven past this golf course tons of times, but the property is surrounded by such tall, thick evergreens that I’d never had any idea all this was going on.
Finding Rosetta was going to be harder than Vicki had made it sound. I could see from here that with all the trees on these hilly grounds, it could end up taking hours. I wasn’t sure I was up for it, but figured I might as well get started.
As I made my way across the parking lot, I passed some old guy getting out of his Jag and three women—probably in their fifties—wearing cheesy visors as they wheeled bags of golf clubs behind them. I don’t know what I expected, but there was something weirdly normal about these people. Like they were hanging out in this unreal place and were unfazed by all of it. That’s what it’s like when you have this kind of money, I guessed. The only way I’d ever know is if I wound up in a super-successful band or won the lottery someday. I figured my chances for either were about one in fifty million. Approximately.
I was about to start up a hill, but just then I caught sight of a girl standing about fifty feet ahead of me. She was wearing dark pants and a red jacket, and her black ponytail kind of moved with her as she hit golf balls into the distance.
Rosetta.
Seeing her now, I wasn’t entirely stoked anymore about this plan to bust over and save the day. Maybe she’d think I was some kind of stalker. Maybe leaving her alone had been my best choice all along. I mean, she was okay. I could see that from here. Maybe I should go home without her ever knowing I’d come.
Home: the place where my unemployed brother and dropout friend had been sitting around all day waiting to rip me a new one. Home: where nothing but good, good times were waiting.
I sighed. Screw that.
I made my way over to Rosetta, trying to ignore my crazy-fast heartbeat. I didn’t even know what I was so nervous about. As I got close, I noticed a wire bucket of golf balls tipped over on the ground beside her. One by one she was sliding the balls forward with her club and thwacking them hard to join the hundreds of other balls that dotted the grass in front of us.
“Looks like a strong swing,” I said. The truth was, all I knew about golf was that watching it on TV was the best insomnia remedy I’d ever found.
Rosetta whirled around, looking the exact opposite of happy to see me. “What are you doing here?”
The girl had made an excellent point. I should turn and walk away. Maybe if I was fast enough, she’d forget I’d been there at all.
So I did.
“Wait!” Rosetta came running after me and touched my arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so rude. You appeared out of nowhere, and it kind of scared me.”
I glanced back at where she’d been standing before. She’d actually thrown her club down to chase after me.
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry for scaring you.”
We stood there watching each other. Her face was pale and her nostrils were kind of red, but she wasn’t anywhere near as wrecked as she’d been in the stairwell. She bit her lip. “Um. So what are you doing here?”
I went straight for the truth. “You weren’t in IC class, so I thought I’d see if you’re okay.”
She opened her eyes wide, and I could tell she hadn’t expected me to say that. Then she smiled and pointed to a bench about six feet back from where her spilled golf balls were lying. “You want to sit for a minute?”
As I followed her over, she said, “I’m fine, actually. I bombed a physics quiz this morning and had to get out of there.”
I didn’t believe her—no one gets that worked up over science—but there was no way I was going to let on that I’d seen her crying if she was going to try to play the whole thing off.
“What did I miss in IC today?” she asked as we sat on the bench. “Did you have to hang upside down and communicate like bats?”
“No, no bat stuff. Just empathy. Alex and I were empathy-practicing fools.”
She laughed. “I’ll bet you were. I can totally picture that disaster.”
“Hey. My mad empathy skills worked on Vicki. She told me that you come here every day.”
Except, she hadn’t said it because of my empathy. But whatever.
“Actually, I’m not here every day,” Rosetta said. “I boycott this place on Wednesdays.”
“Why?”
She waved her hand toward the white buildings behind us. “Oh, they have this stupid thing where men can play on the actual golf course on Wednesdays, but the women are confined to playing at the driving and putting ranges only. The whole deal is such old-boys’ club sexism. Basically they’re saying we aren’t good enough, that we get in their way. It makes me so mad that I boycott every Wednesday to make a statement.”
The way she saw herself as this nonconformist statement-maker while playing golf at a country club was hilarious, but also pretty cute.
“So you play here all the time except the one day a week you aren’t allowed,” I said. “What kind of statement are you making? ‘I’ll show you guys! If you don’t want me here on Wednesdays, I just . . . won’t come!’”
She looked at me, shocked that I was making fun of her, I guess, but then she burst out laughing. “When you say it like that, it makes me sound ridiculous!”
“Sorry,” I said, still messing with her. “You’re a total rebel. A revolutionary. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.”
“Shut up!” She was so adorably embarrassed and just so pretty that when she gave my arm a playful push, my head and my entire body started tingling like I was high.
Rosetta shifted on the bench and brought her arms over her head to stretch. “I have to say, I’m glad this isn’t weird,” she said, popping one of her shoulders. “I was afraid of what it would be like to see you again after we skipped from level two to, like, level four and a half on the self-disclosure scale the other day.”
“The what scale?”
“We learned about it in class, remember?”
I shrugged. Did she really think I memorized—or even listened to—everything that went on in there?
“The self-disclosure scale,” she said. “It has five levels, and the more people tell about themselves to one another, the higher their relationship moves. It says in the textbook that skipping or moving through levels too quickly can make things uncomfortable. So I was saying that I’m glad it isn’t like that with us.”
“Gotcha,” I said, feeling kind of . . . uncomfortable, actually.
“Oh, no.” She put her hands on her now-red cheeks. “I just ruined everything by talking about it, didn’t I? Forget I said any of that and let’s”—she jumped up, grabbed a golf club, and held it out for me—“hit balls until the awkward moment has passed!”
I took the club from her, but only because she looked like she wanted me to so badly. “Golf isn’t my thing,” I said as I stood.
“You’ve played?”
I shook my head. “It seems boring. No offense.”
“None taken.” She started rushing around to set out some balls for me. “I think everyone thinks that way before they try it. It reminds me of something someone once said to me about coffee. You know, the idea of it might not appeal, but if you give it a try, you might find that it’s tolerable. And then one day when you’ve stopped paying attention, you’ll realize you’re hooked.”
It was weird having my own idea thrown at me like this. Somehow she’d made it sound kind of smart.
“So golf is like coffee. I had no idea.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” she said with mock seriousness. “Nowhere near as horrible as you expect. Of course, I still think coffee’s gross, but that fact shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of golf in any way. Go ahead and give it a try.”
I stepped up, raised the cl
ub behind me, and brought it back down to the ball as hard as I could. Instead of popping up and sailing through the air like Rosetta’s, it kind of rolled along the grass in a diagonal line.
“You connected with the ball on your first try,” she said, clapping her hands. “That’s really good!”
But she’d gotten excited too soon, because then I missed on my second try. Swung again. Missed. Swung. Missed. “I suck,” I said.
“Maybe it will help if you watch me a few times so you can see how you should be moving. Then I’ll come over and help you, okay?”
I stood behind her—far enough back not to get hit—and watched her square her shoulders, bend her knees a little, wiggle her ass, and then swing. Her ball sailed off, and then seemed to disappear. “Do you see what I’m doing?” she asked. “With my hips and keeping my head down?”
Oh, I saw, all right. “So whose head are you imagining hitting when you do that?”
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Dick, I’d have to have a good imagination to picture a ball this size as a human head.”
I started cracking up.
Just then some middle-age dude came rolling up behind us in a golf cart and about scared the hell out of me. He was eyeing me in a way no one would call friendly. “Rosetta,” he said in this voice that sounded so polite he had to be putting on an act. “I’m here to remind you that your guests need to follow the dress policy when they’re with you, and that includes on the driving range. If he needs a change of clothes, we have plenty of choices available for purchase in the pro shop.”
Rosetta had turned to look at him, then me, then back at him. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. We’ll leave now.”
He gave a quick nod. “Have a nice afternoon,” he said, shooting me another dirty look as he turned to drive away.
After he was out of earshot, I asked, “Is that guy the country club fashion police?”
“Kind of. He’s one of the pros here, so I guess he thought he needed to talk to me before one of the other members complained and turned your dress-code violation into a thing.”
“I hate it when people turn stuff into ‘things.’”
“Me too,” she said, giggling. “The big rule is that you can’t wear denim. You’re also supposed to wear a shirt with a collar and golf shoes. So your jeans, hoodie, and Chucks look is every kind of rule breaking.”
“That’s what I’m good at.” I stuck the club I was holding back in her golf bag. “You know, you don’t have to quit because of me. I was only stopping in to make sure you hadn’t run away from home.”
She shook her head and knelt to put the rest of the golf balls back in the bucket. “It’s okay. I’ve been here for hours and my wrists are sore.”
I bent to help her. We weren’t much closer than we’d been before, but the wind was blowing around a few strands that had come loose from her ponytail, and everything felt different somehow. I breathed in her flowery shampoo until we’d dropped all the balls in. Then I reluctantly stood and helped her up.
“You’ll have to come here again sometime,” she said, grabbing her bulky bag of clubs. “I’ll teach you how to play. I think you’re going to be great.”
I doubted it, but it was cool that she’d asked, that she seemed to be kind of into me maybe? “I might be up for that. But only if we can make a real statement and do it on a Wednesday.”
“Ha!”
We got to the parking lot, and I was struck by how run-down the Mustang looked. I can safely say it was the biggest—and only—piece of junk in the lot. “Three guesses which one’s mine.”
She nudged my arm. “I know your car very well since you almost ran me over with it.”
“How could I have forgotten?”
I leaned on the driver’s-side door while Rosetta propped her bag up. “It was sweet of you to come here for me,” she said. “It means a lot.”
The look on her face—a mix of shy and adoring—made me feel unworthy. Especially since she didn’t know I’d seen her crying at school. “I’m sure most people would have done the same,” I said, shrugging. “You need a ride home?”
As soon as the words were out, I felt like an asshole. But Rosetta smiled. “I’d love that, but I didn’t manage to cure myself of my wacky phobia yet. Rain check?”
“For sure. Is it a short walk to your house at least?”
She gestured back toward the golf course. “I live up by the tenth hole, and it isn’t far at all. But, you know, I like walking. I get in anywhere between three and ten miles a day. And—bonus!—I don’t contribute to air pollution.”
I made a face and opened my door. “Okay, that’s enough sexy talk.”
She laughed. “Are you sure? Because if you want we can take it back to self-disclosure level three and discuss our thoughts about global warming. Or ‘climate change’ as the cool kids are calling it these days.”
I covered my ears like I couldn’t take any more, but she was kind of hot when she was nerdy. “See you tomorrow. Unless you’re going to flunk more tests and skip out again?”
“I’ll definitely be there, Dick.”
I don’t know why, but I didn’t want her to call me Dick anymore. It was feeling kind of fake. “Maybe we should use our real names outside class. Yours is Rosetta, right?”
“Yes. Rosetta Vaughn.”
“All right,” I said. “Well, mine is—”
“Seth McCoy. I know.” She kind of wrapped her arms around herself like she was getting cold. “I’ve known since February fourteenth, actually.”
She’d memorized the date she found out my name? What the hell?
She laughed. “Don’t freak out! I only remember because it was Valentine’s Day.”
As if that explained it. “And why do you remember learning my name on Valentine’s Day?”
“Kendall Eckman was running after you in the hall screaming, ‘Seth McCoy, if you don’t buy a rose from me, I’ll kill you!’ She was doing that Valentine’s drama club fund-raiser. Remember?”
“Actually, yes.”
What I was remembering was getting stoned with Isaac before school, and Kendall harshing my mellow the minute we walked in the door.
Rosetta was looking at me like there was more to this story. “And after she kept asking, you bought a red one?”
“Right. And I passed it off to—” I’d been about to say “some chick,” but with how intently she was watching me, I was getting a different idea. “—you, right?”
She extended her arm to pass me an imaginary rose in the same way I must have handed her the real one. Then she imitated the corny voice I must have used. “Here, beautiful. Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day.”
Oh, Christ. The stupid shit I said sometimes. “No wonder you thought I was such a loser.”
“I didn’t think that at all.”
She was smiling and looking like maybe she had more to add. My heart started knocking around again while I waited. But she didn’t say whatever it was, and after too many seconds of silence, I couldn’t take it anymore. “All right, I’m out of here for real now.”
“Me too,” she said.
She grabbed her bag and moved to the sidewalk while I got in the car and started it up. I kind of fiddled around with the radio and pretended to adjust my mirrors so I could hang around and watch her leave. She didn’t go anywhere, though; she just stood in that same spot redoing her hair and digging through a pocket in her bag.
Finally it got too weird and I had to drive away.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
2:28 P.M.
Three days later. Mrs. Dalloway was in the hall, blocking the classroom door. “Hi there, Dick. Are you prone to seizures?”
“Uh, no.”
Thirty minutes later I was wishing I’d said “Uh, yes,” because then she’d have had to turn off the strobe light. Then again, it might not have made a difference; the loud electronic music and Mrs. D.’s yelling probably would have been enough to do me in anyway.
The cl
assroom theme was “rave party,” and Mrs. Dalloway had gone all out covering the windows for maximum darkness, setting up black lights along with the strobe, passing out multicolored neon glow bracelets and necklaces, and arranging the tables to make a nine-by-nine dance floor where we all had to stand because there was “No sitting allowed!” for the whole period. The only detail she’d missed was the hallucinogens, but what can you do, right?
From what I could figure out, the point of this torture was to show that you can’t learn to communicate properly at a party. I think most of us could have figured it out on our own—and if not, a five-minute demonstration would have done the trick—but Mrs. D. was getting a kick out of driving her point home. Three people had asked her to turn the music down, but she’d just smiled and pretended she couldn’t hear them.
The twelve of us students were standing together in a close, uncomfortable bunch. With all the noise going on, I’d managed to make out only about half the lecture—which, come to think of it, was probably more than I heard on a regular day, when I was able to sit and zone out.
“I have a new project for you all!” Mrs. D. shouted over the music after wrapping up her talk. “Your homework for tonight is to make a list in your journal of things that are outside your comfort zone. I’d really like to see you dig deep. This is going to be an ongoing project where you’ll be challenging yourselves to try things you never thought you could or would want to do. Have fun, but remember none of it should be easy for you. If you don’t feel un comfortable about putting something on your list, it doesn’t belong there!”
I couldn’t help glancing toward Rosetta—who was standing about five feet away from me, the yellow and orange necklaces she was wearing on top of her head glowing like a halo—and I wasn’t surprised to see that she was looking right back at me. We were probably both thinking about the thing she’d be putting on her list.
Rosetta had been on my mind pretty much nonstop since our conversation at the golf course. Every time I’d have myself convinced that I was a dumbass for thinking this could lead to something, she’d show up smiling or saying hi or whatever, and I’d get even more distracted.