Wild Raspberries

by Connie Chappell

  Callie walked Lucius back out. He went to the truck. She opened the Tahoe’s passenger door, so Lucius could place the four retrieved Pixar DVDs on the seat. He released them, and the slippery plastic cases fanned out, becoming a collage of images and color. At the same time, Callie noticed Lizbeth’s cell phone lying on the charcoal-gray floor mat. She leaned in to scoop up the phone. The device responded to her touch. With similar ease, an idea flashed through her mind.

  “Lucius, be my servant one more time.”

  “I’m yours to command, Oh Great One.” His tone was as sly as hers.

  She thumbed through the stored contact list. The two numbers she wanted came up back-to-back: Patrick, Lizbeth’s brother, followed by Ralph and Mildred, their Florida relatives.

  “This may take some time,” she said. “More than we’ve got before the party. But we’ll put it in motion anyway. Here’s what I need you to do.” He grinned through her entire explanation. As Beebe would receive a special gift, so would Lizbeth. A mural.

  She intended that he just take the phone numbers, but Lucius said, “I’ll just borrow this, then give it back at the party.” The cell phone dropped to the bottom of his jeans pocket.

  Callie just crossed the cabin’s threshold when she and the others heard his shout, reminiscent of a cavalry charge. “My beloved is coming!”

  Beebe took a step toward the window. “Is Willie out there?”

  “No,” Callie said, waving Beebe to a stop. “Lucius is just giddy with anticipation.”

  Across the room, Lizbeth stood at the sofa table where she arranged the movie DVDs. Arnett looked on. “They’re all Denzel Washington,” Arnett observed.

  “Must be a favorite of his,” Lizbeth assumed.

  Beebe’s idea was to take the day and see the countryside with a drive to Brier Hills. She wanted her first-ever golf lesson, which Callie agreed to give. Lizbeth was game, but Arnett declined for obvious reasons. She and golf never got along.

  Beebe climbed into the back seat of Callie’s Santa Fe. Lizbeth belted herself into the passenger’s seat. Callie motored the SUV past Sarah’s office and out to the turnpike. She couldn’t make out what Lizbeth muttered as she dug in her purse, but she knew the woman searched for her lifeline to the outside world. That lifeline—her cell phone—was in Lucius’s possession.

  “What are you looking for?” Beebe wondered. Her tone said she was exasperated on Lizbeth’s behalf.

  “My cell. Where is it? Oh, no.” Lizbeth’s chin came up. “I left it in the Tahoe. We’ve got to go back.”

  Callie, who knew the futility of that exercise, merely passed Lizbeth a glance. “I doubt there’ll be service at the course or anywhere along the way. If there is, my phone is charged. You’re welcome to use it, or you can call from a landline at Brier Hills.” Callie pressed the gas, and the SUV sped along the shady parkway. Lizbeth seemed appeased. The Godfrey’s Caper still ruled.

  After stops at two overlooks to appreciate the breath-taking views, Beebe and Lizbeth glimpsed the beauty of Brier Hills. Vivid color abounded. The scent of pine cleaned the air. The flag bearing Brier Hills’ dignified crest snapped with the wind, high on its flagpole.

  “Look how pretty,” Lizbeth said.

  “This is gorgeous,” Beebe added.

  The curved entry road gave the visitor a long look at Brier Hill’s chateau. The resort could sleep three hundred guests. Fairways of the two sister golf courses splayed out to the left. Only a few were visible from the entrance. Jack designed the rest to cut in, around, and over the foothills. Farther off in the distance, two stationary ski lifts rose to higher peaks. Abundant evergreens covered the grounds and the mountains.

  Callie drove around the main building to the clubhouse and parked. The clubhouse matched the chateau’s image, just a much smaller version. Jack laid out the area for the driving range next to the clubhouse. Beebe and Lizbeth received their first golf instruction there. The ladies met Eric, the young man with a thin face and stringy hair who stood inside the golf hut, behind a counter, dispensing yellow buckets of balls. With her bag of clubs over her shoulder, Callie walked her friends, each carrying a full bucket, past several groups of men warming up for their day on the course.

  The lesson got underway with the basics, of course. Each lady held a club. Soon golf balls were laid at feet positioned a shoulder-width apart, and the real action began. Beebe’s stance and her swing told Callie that somewhere in her past, she played softball. She swung so hard, she nearly fell down and always whiffed the ball.

  Callie corrected Beebe’s posture. “Keep your arms relaxed,” Callie told her. “When you tighten your muscles, that shortens your reach and you miss the ball.”

  Beebe nodded her understanding. She rolled her shoulders and let her head loll a moment on her neck, then addressed the ball again.

  “Oh,” Lizbeth exclaimed from next door. “Look what I did.”

  Callie stepped over. Lizbeth chewed her lip. Both she and Lizbeth stared at a gash in the ground caused by Lizbeth’s club head.

  “Well, yes,” Callie said, “that’s a little more than a divot. No matter. Golfers are required to repair all divots.”

  She traipsed ten feet out to where the fresh rip of sod lay and picked it up. She fit it back over the brown earth and instructed Lizbeth to tap it down with her club head. She did, still gnawing her lip. Callie moved Lizbeth away from Beebe and away from the repaired divot. Lizbeth would not want to be reminded of the damage she caused. Callie knew men thought absolutely nothing of it, but it was a proven fact in Callie’s book that there was something innately bred into amateur women golfers that made them not want to hurt the ground, to leave a mark. They wanted to play the course and leave it pretty and pristine. In time, they realized the divot is an important part of the game.

  A pure and uninhibited “Sweet Jesus” emitted from Beebe’s lips. Surprisingly, Lizbeth kept her focus on Callie. “Take some practice swings,” Callie suggested. “Skim the grass with your club head when you swing through. After you do that six or seven times in a row, step up and swing at the ball.” The ball was already in place on the grass.

  Sweet Jesus? Callie thought, giving Lizbeth and her six iron a wide berth. Beebe straightened her shirt. It hung over capris. Momentum from her hundred-mile-an-hour swing twisted the fabric around her hips.

  Callie faced Beebe. “It’s a rocking motion. A weight shift.” Callie demonstrated the foot movement Beebe’s should imitate. “No need to swing so hard. Let the loft of the club face do the work. Watch your balance,” Callie cautioned, studying Beebe’s set up. “Keep your feet under you, butt out.”

  “Butt out?” Beebe mixed the question with a confused expression.

  “Butt out,” Callie repeated. She faced away from the practice range, showed perfect form in profile. “Get your rear bumper out there. It will help anchor your weight.”

  Beebe gave her backside a wiggle. “Well, if that’s all it takes, I’ve got it licked.”

  Their neighbor from several yards away walked over and caught Callie’s eye. He wore a white Titleist hat and plaid golf shirt. The yellow bucket he carried was empty.

  When Callie closed within distance for a discreet conversation, he said, “Got a softballer and a tender-turf maiden there.”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Boy, this brings back memories. Couple years ago, I taught my wife how to hit the ball.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “She’s better. A lot better, really. Dumped my teaching abilities for the pro back home. Now, she finds it necessary to remind me— Wow!”

  Her back to the range, Callie heard a solid crack on the ball.

  “She got a
ll of that one,” the man said, his eyes following the ball’s upward flight.

  Which she? an excited Callie wanted to know. Before she turned, he told her. “She nearly fell. Watch it. Whoops. Whoops. Whoa. She’s down.”

  From the ground, Beebe turned a sheepish look on Callie. “Rear bumper out. I know.”

  Lizbeth rushed to help her up.

  While Beebe dusted herself off, she noticed the golf cart parked next to Eric’s hut. “Hey, I want to take a spin. That looks like so much fun.”

  “I want to call Pat and talk to Chad,” Lizbeth tacked on.

  “Maybe Eric will let us borrow his cart for a few minutes to drive around to the chateau.” Beebe tugged on Lizbeth’s arm.

  “What do you think?” Lizbeth asked Callie.

  “Let’s ask,” Beebe said.

  Callie trailed along. She knew how it must have looked to Reese Norton approaching in his own cart from the first dog-leg along the creek. Reese was the pro Callie played golf with earlier in the week. He witnessed an animated conversation by three women not dressed in golf attire—in fact, one of them wore pink clogs—and young Eric who craned his neck to view the symbolic “rear bumper” of the object drawing all the attention. The backend of the cart jutted out next to the teensy structure he worked from.

  The look on Eric’s face clearly said he was overwhelmed. His mouth hung open even as he took the ten-dollar bill Callie offered. At the same time, Beebe climbed behind the wheel and Lizbeth jumped in the other seat. Beebe sped off, a little recklessly at first.

  Eric still held the money. Callie said he should think of it as a tip. Reese redefined the transaction.

  “Taking bribes again, Eric?” Reese angled himself out of the cart. His white golf shirt billowed. His hands slipped into pants pockets.

  Although Callie knew Reese teased the painfully timid young man, all the color drained from Eric’s cheeks. “It’ll be okay, Eric. If everything goes my way, I’ll be your boss before summer is over. I can tell you now, you’ll always be my favorite.”

  “How do you figure that?” Reese no sooner spoke the words, then astonishment registered. “You’re taking the job!”

  Callie and Reese stepped away from Eric. On Tuesday, Reese detailed the job when he gave Callie the sales pitch for assistant pro. That day, she resisted his persuasive efforts. So the current circumstances begged the obvious question: What changed?

  Reese knew her connection to Jack Sebring, to Brier Hills, and since Tuesday, he knew her connection to the old woman who was Jack’s stepmother, none other than Adeline Peterson Sebring. Petey. Today, Callie rewrote the ending. Today, Reese learned of Petey’s recent and quiet death.

  “It’s time to start over.” She spoke around the thickness she felt lodged in her throat.

  Reese expressed his condolences. They set a realistic date for her first day on the job and shook hands. He took off in the cart, heading back out to the course.

  Callie went over to Eric. She pressed another ten spot into his palm. “Don’t say anything about what you heard to my friends.”

  He looked like he would rather throw up before he dared utter one word about Callie’s move to West Virginia.

  She forced Eric to take something other than an honest pledge. This was a sliver of the Godfrey’s Caper she gave to herself. And the secret would only be a secret for a short while.

  With time to spare before Beebe and Lizbeth returned, she went over to her golf bag and drew out her driver. She held the long shaft in the crook of her elbow and resting on her forearm while she worked her fingers into a leather glove. Her focus dropped past her hands, to the grass around her feet. She believed she stood on this very spot with Jack before Brier Hills existed, when the land was raw and the possibilities for created beauty lived only in Jack’s mind.

  She knew she stood here with Jack after the courses were complete. They made use of the practice range many times. She let her gaze out to a horizon that seemed so familiar. She would have traveled to that horizon with Jack. They would have held hands every inch of the way. Her consolation prize for that loss of companionship for that unachievable dream was Brier Hills and memories of Jack.

  She set one of the range balls up on a tee. With the club head resting on the ground, she curled her fingers around the grip. Her eyes never wavered from the ball while the golfer inside her executed a perfect swing. Contact was made. When she found the ball in flight, she watched it sail long and strong and straight, on its way toward that distant horizon. While she watched, she felt the shadow of Jack step up and stand beside her.

  The ladies returned to Heatherwood that afternoon on the fly. There was just time to change clothes, primp for two minutes, grab Arnett out of the middle of Denzel’s Training Day, and race back to the Santa Fe, which Lizbeth accomplished without searching the Tahoe’s floorboards for her cell phone. Callie now jumped that hurdle twice.

  Callie made a left turn from Bullwhip and steered through a border of trees that shielded Lucius’s and Willie’s cabin from the road. Once through the entrance, she pulled in beside Lucius’s red pickup and Willie’s black Lexus. In a shady clearing next to the cabin, Lucius had literally constructed an open and elegant dining-room scene. The overhead timbers of a wooden tent-like framework were draped with yards of white chiffon. The gauzy fabric spilled off at the corners, where it gathered into long folds that reached down to a grassy carpeting.

  Awed, Callie got out. She and Beebe rounded the rear bumper. They joined Arnett and Lizbeth who stood motionless, their gazes running the distance to the unique and stunning setting. A light breeze lifted the chiffon and caused the flames on tapered candles to wink off water and wine goblets.

  Lucius and Willie strolled gracefully out the cabin’s door and down the porch steps. Tall and thin, they sported wide smiles. They wore their comfort with each other as casually as old clothes, but were in fact clothed in stiff white dress shirts, open at the neck and tucked into belted trousers.

  Handsome Willie Thorne startled Arnett into a hushed comment. “Denzel Washington. I get it now.”

  Al Fresco

  Lucius watched Willie meet the ladies under the aged sycamore. Although the newcomer to the group, Willie handled the introductions. Callie, he knew. She turned her cheek up to receive his kiss. Willie apparently formed an accurate image in his mind of the other three after a week of Lucius’s nonstop stories.

  Wine and cheese were served without delay on the porch. Not a soul seemed inhibited. Conversation thrived. The atmosphere was carefree, light with laughter.

  Twenty minutes later, Lucius heard the kitchen timer ding. With a lady on each arm, he and Willie squired their guests to the table. The hosts went inside to put the meal on a serving tray. Lucius spent his afternoon slaving over New England pot roast and cat-head biscuits. An old, old woman in Baron supplied the biscuit recipe.

  “Cat head refers to size, not ingredients,” Lucius said, across the island counter, giving his beloved an ornery smile. “And we all know, size matters.”

  Willie’s ardent brown eyes twinkled. “Lucius, don’t even mention the lack of cat-head ingredients at the dinner table.”

  Coffee was served with dessert, a light peanut butter pie. Everyone cooed their compliments. So far, Lucius considered the al fresco evening a beaming success. They were an intimate group under the tissue-thin canopy. The candles danced with the laughter Willie eased out of the women clad in volumes of color.

  Sitting back in his chair, Lucius watched Willie. He teased their guests good-naturedly. From the first, they knew instant rapport. The conversation was animated and bright.

  For entertainment, Willie employed a version of comedic investment advice. Arnett starred as h
is intended patsy. With her hand layered between his brown pair, he gazed deeply into her eyes. Speaking with a French accent, he made wild financial claims. “Madam, you cannot lose money. No risk. None. I know this fund. For years, it has prospered.”

  Quickly, Lizbeth probed the financial education Lucius knew she owned. “No one, not even our handsome Monsieur Thorne, can make that claim, Arnett. Rates of return are based on account premiums, withdrawals, fees, and earnings.” She ticked the items off on her fingers. “Tell Monsieur Thorne you know past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

  “Monsieur Thorne, I know past performance is no guarantee of future results,” Arnett repeated dutifully.

  “Now, everybody.” Lizbeth looked down the table to the others. With her hands, she whipped Beebe, Callie, and Lucius into the chorus.

  “Monsieur Thorne, past performance is no guarantee of future results,” they sang out.

  “Oui, Madam Sebring, oui, that may be, but I can show you figures. Exact figures.” Willie patted his shirt’s breast pocket. “I don’t have them here, but trust me.”

  “Estimates.” Lizbeth leaned into the table, talking past Willie, directly to Arnett looking so serious, taking it all in. “He can show you estimates only. The term is dollar-weighted rates. One can make assumptions for estimation purposes only. Keep that in mind with this guy.” Lizbeth winked and tipped her head Willie’s way, then she called on her chorus. “Again, folks—”

  The trio repeated: “Monsieur Thorne, past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

  “On the other hand,” Lizbeth said, “future predictions—and only predictions—are based on past results.”

  Willie tugged Arnett’s attention his way. “With me and my company, madam, I will work hard for you. Daily. Oui, daily, I will make trades for you. Many times a day. No worries.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Lizbeth said, using a tsk-tsk tone. “Arnett, tell him you know reputable firms have excessive trading policies and monitor fund-transfer activity for the benefit of their valued clients.”