by S Doyle
“Well, let’s go in and see your Grams. She’ll be fussing knowing you’re here and she hasn’t had a chance to look you over yet.”
“Five bucks says she tells me I’m too skinny.”
“I may be a fool, but I’m no sucker.”
Reilly chuckled and followed him out of the barn and back to the house. It was good to be home.
3
Wack!...splash.
Wack!...splash.
Wack!...splash.
Damn, she loved that sound.
Taking her seven iron back in a smooth seamless arc, Reilly fired again. The club hit the ball. The ball sailed high and straight into the air and landed about a hundred and forty yards away into an almost-frozen lake.
She’d brought her clubs with her because she never traveled anywhere without them, but not with any real intent to work out. This was supposed to be a break. But when she woke up this morning, the urge to come out to the lake and hit balls like she’d done on so many mornings with Pop was irresistible.
Reilly figured it was a good sign. The drive that made her who she was, what she was, was still there. Without it… well, the thought was too scary to contemplate.
Using her booted foot to roll a ball from the tipped bucket into place, she fired again at the white target she picked out in the center of the lake and watched it fly for a time. High shots, fades, draws, punch shots. She could spin it, stop it, lift it and all but cuddle it up next to a hole. Accuracy. It was her bread and butter on the tour after distance.
“Thought I would find you here.”
Reilly turned and smiled at her Pop who was carrying a nine iron over his shoulder.
“Just giving you something to collect this summer with your fancy new rake.”
She’d given him the electronic rake, designed for pulling balls out of water traps, for Christmas this past year.
“I can’t wait to use it.”
Without him asking, she kicked out a few more balls then stood back giving him room next to her to swing. A lefty, he faced her as they continued to hit.
She watched him hit a few balls and saw that his arc didn’t go as far back as it used to, and his arms weren’t as straight as they should be. It had been the hardest thing in the world to accept when Grams was diagnosed with a disease because it meant she was doing the unthinkable: getting old.
Now she could see the same happening to her Pop and it stabbed her deep in the heart.
“Promise me you won’t leave, Pop,” she blurted out.
He stopped his swing midflight and lowered the club. He smiled, but he was shaking his head.
“Can’t do that,” he answered, knowing what she was asking. “Everybody has got to leave in their time. Like your mother and father. It’s the way of things.”
It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but it was typical of him to give her nothing less than the truth.
“Is that why you’re here?”
The question startled her. “I’m here for a break. To visit and check up on Grams.”
“No. You’re not. Maybe that’s what you’re telling yourself, but it isn’t the truth.”
“It is,” she insisted. Nothing else made sense. Not for her.
Reilly didn’t stew or worry or analyze.
She acted. She played. She married.
“I think you might be looking for something.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t know. It’s not your swing, that’s for sure. So it must be something else. You know you can stay as long as you need until you find it. I can’t promise we’ll stay forever, but I’m pretty sure neither of us is going anywhere for a while.”
Reilly shook off his concern like drops of water. “Jeez, Pop, you sound like a shrink or a guy on a talk show. I had a few weeks off. I’m here for a break. Grams loves company and Kenny’s got a girlfriend. All is right in my world. I swear it.”
The minute the words were out of her mouth she regretted it. Pop took swears seriously. What if there was something wrong? What if the gnawing feeling that had been dogging her was the start of some kind of mental breakdown?
If that was the case it was going to tick her off. Therapy would interfere with her tour schedule.
“Oh, my God! Reilly! Reilly, you have got to see this.”
They both turned at the sound of Kenny shouting at the top of his lungs from the front porch. He was jumping up and down like a maniac.
“Reilly! You’ve got to see this. Now!”
“What in the hell has got him so worked up?”
“Please, Reilly, the language,” he admonished.
“Oh, sorry, Pop. Forgot.”
“It’s not that I haven’t heard worse, but it upsets your Grams so.”
“Reilly! You’re going to miss it!”
Miss what? Maybe Erica was here early. While she imagined her brother getting a little excited for her arrival, she couldn’t fathom what had stirred him to shouting and jumping. If this was his attempt to be a more committed boyfriend, he was carrying it way too far.
“Let’s go see what the fuss is about, shall we?”
Her Pop marched off and she shrugged. She left the balls on the ground and slid her seven iron back into the bag, knowing she would be back later. She made her way to the porch where Kenny was still waiting with an expression on his face she’d never seen before. Shock, excitement, happiness, and fear all rolled up into one.
“What?”
He shook his head and ran his hand through his ruffled hair.
“You’re not going to believe it.”
“Oh, my goodness!”
This was from Pop, who was already inside the house. Reilly followed him to the living room dominated by a new flat-screen, high-definition smart TV. Another Christmas gift. Although this was more for her and Kenny when they visited.
Reilly spotted two of the anchors from ESPN filling up the screen but it took her a few minutes to process what they were saying. Had something happened?
“It’s official and has been confirmed by several ranking members that sit on the PGA board.”
“This is for real, folks.” This from the female anchor with the high brow and deep voice. “The list is out and the host of what this might mean is truly groundbreaking news for the sport of golf.”
“The crazy thing is, Julie, the requirements of what qualified as a ranking point weren’t changed all that much. All this new system did was open up the field to allow statistics to play a larger role. Did anyone guess this would be the result?”
“I’m not sure, Sam. Last night there was some speculation as to how the numbers would pan out. I can tell you this. I sure would love a chance to call Reilly Carr and find out what she’s thinking right now.”
The words were no sooner out of the anchorwoman’s mouth when the phone in the kitchen rang. Her grandparents were probably the last two people in America to still have both a landline and one of those old fashioned answering machines to record missed calls.
“I’ll get it,” Grams sang out from the kitchen. Kenny’s fit hadn’t been enough to drag her away from the pie crust she’d been shaping.
“Don’t you get it?” Kenny asked. “Don’t you see?”
“Reilly, it’s for you,” Grams announced from the kitchen. “It’s a reporter.”
Reilly looked from Kenny to the kitchen doorway, back to the television, which was running a breaking news tag line along the bottom of the screen. She read it even as she listened to the commentator say it.
Breaking news… Golf Ranking System adjusted… Reilly Carr …number thirty-eight… will be the first woman eligible to play in the American Championship…
“I think the first and most obvious question, Julie, is going to be will she play in Georgia?”
“Absolutely, Sam. Not only would it be the first time a woman has played in a men’s major, but we’re talking about doing it on a course that is considered to be the most sacred golf course in the history of the sport.”
<
br /> “Holy shit! The American. The American!”
“Kenny!”
He cringed at Grams’ shocked tone. “Sorry, Grams. But it’s the fucking American!”
He went to dance with her to make up for his bad behavior, while Reilly remained glued to the set. In case she’d missed it the first time, the official list was posted again.
Thirty-eight.
Thirty-eight best in all the world.
All she had to do was be in the top fifty to qualify.
“What are you thinking?” Pop wanted to know.
Plopping down and hoping there would be a chair under her butt when she did — there was — she focused on breathing in and out.
“Is this for real?”
“It seems so, doesn’t it?”
“Pop, I’m number thirty-eight.”
“Seems low if you ask me,” he grumbled.
For whatever reason, that was just about the funniest thing she had ever heard. She stood and hugged him for saying it, but more for believing it was true.
“Yo, Reilly, this reporter is on the phone,” Kenny shouted with his hand over the speaker. “One guess what he wants to know.”
“Tell him ‘no comment’ and hang up. Then you better take the phone off the hook.”
“Oh, dear, should we do that?”
Grams stood behind Kenny with her walker in her hands. Her silver hair was neatly curled. Her makeup perfectly applied. She wore a pair of dark denim jeans and an oversize white oxford tied off at the waist, completing her outfit with a pair of slick, black, slip-on shoes. Seventy-three and she had all the style of someone a quarter of her age.
Reilly was happy to see the Parkinson’s hadn’t changed that.
“Trust me,” Reilly told her, taking the phone from Kenny and muttering “no comment” before she hung it up and removed the plug.
“This is going to get...” Reilly struggled for a word that would help her grandmother understand. She settled on, “Bothersome.”
“Oh. I thought this was a good thing happening.”
Reilly could hear the chirping from her cell phone all the way upstairs in her room. Since that was a private number, it was either a friend or her agent. Or Luke. He would call. He would know what this meant.
Reilly was betting on her agent to act the fastest. Gus was a seasoned veteran and would understand the ramifications of the list. A man with an overeating problem and high blood pressure, no doubt he was close to popping a vein in his head right about now.
“I can’t believe it. We’re going to Georgia! The American, baby!”
Kenny was still dancing about in wonderment, but Reilly choked up. The single greatest golf event — possibly sporting event — each year. The Super Bowl of golf.
The American.
The only major golf event to be played each year on the same stage. It was a course so well- known, golfers should have been immune to its dangers and yet each year the mightiest still fell. One wayward shot on Eleven. A dip into the water at Fifteen. A bunker on Eighteen.
Trouble, trouble everywhere. For men like Jack Nicklaus, Arnie Palmer and Tiger Woods.
So where did Reilly Carr fit in that picture? Fear gripped her insides. The thought of crumbling on such a scale, of failing on the altar of golf greatness was mind numbing.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she cautioned Pop and Kenny. Grams had already gone back to her pie.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Kenny!” Grams shouted from the kitchen. “I mean it this time.”
“Sorry,” he shouted back. Then in a softer voice. “What in the hell are you talking about.”
“I’m just saying it’s not a given.”
Kenny shook his head from side to side in cartoon fashion.
“Not a given? You’re telling me you have to think about whether or not you’re going to play in the American?”
“Of course I have to think about it, Kenny.”
“Think about what?” he shouted. “It’s the American.” “Exactly!”
Pop stepped in between them. His expression for his grandson was stern.
“Why don’t you give her some time to let this sink in?”
“I’ll give her time. I’ll give her ten seconds. This is a no-brainer, Pop. You know it and I know it. She is being too thickheaded to see it. This is it. This is what she’s worked for all these years. She earned this spot. She deserves to be there. This is the pinnacle.”
Grams shuffled her way into the living room with a tray attached to her walker. She set a plate of cookies down on the table in front of the TV and handed a glass of milk to Reilly. She clucked her tongue as was her habit when she heard something that didn’t sit well.
“Pinnacle? You ask me, forty-seven years of marriage is the pinnacle. Raising a daughter and then her children, that’s a pinnacle. Knowing those two grandchildren are happy and doing what they love….”
Kenny and Reilly bowed their heads as their grandmother’s wise words stilled all talk of what was in the end just a game.
“That is a pinnacle. That and a perfect pie crust.”
“Oh, Grams, you totally blew it with that last one,” Kenny lamented. “You had us for like two seconds and then boom.”
“Pie crust is important,” she muttered as she maneuvered her walker around. “You drink your milk, Reilly. And you stop cussing, Kenny. It will all work out. You’ll see.”
With that she shuffled back into the kitchen, taking with her all the tension and potential for anger.
“She’s right,” Pop followed. “At the end of the day it’s just another tournament.”
Reilly glanced up at her grandfather, stunned by his words, but she could see he was saying them to soothe her. He knew it was more than that. She did, too, which was why she was hesitating. Kenny, being Kenny, didn’t buy it at all.
He turned on her, his face as serious as she had ever seen it. More unforgiving than the time she’d walked in on him with his first girlfriend while he was making the move to second base.
“It’s not just another tournament. You both know it. I’m serious, Reilly. We are going. I’ll never make it there as a player so this is as much my chance as it is yours. We’re a team. That’s what you’ve always said. For thirteen years. Well, this half of the team wants to go and isn’t going to take no for an answer.”
He gave her one final glare for good measure then turned and stormed out the front door. A second later the door opened again. Kenny clomped back inside, took two cookies from the plate Grams had left on the coffee table and marched back out again.
It took something away from his first dramatic exit.
“I don’t know, Pop,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can do what he wants.”
“You take some time,” he said. “You think about it. It’s too soon to make any decisions.”
Her cell phone went off again upstairs and Reilly groaned.
“It’s going to be a long day. I better get that before Gus has a heart attack. My official comment will be ‘I’m honored to be ranked so highly among my golfing colleagues and while I appreciate the opportunities such a ranking affords me, I’m undecided on how this will impact my upcoming tournament schedule.’ Sound good?”
“Sounds… undecided.”
“Okay.” Reilly snatched three cookies off the plate and took the glass of milk with her upstairs to her bedroom.
She never saw her Pop’s fist pump behind her.
4
Little Creek, Nebraska, hadn’t changed in five years. Luke Nolan didn’t realize how thrilled he would be to find it so. He drove through the center of town even though it was out of his way and smiled at the drugstore window display. The ice cream parlor had a new pink awning over the door. He laughed when he saw the out-of-date movie on the lone movie theater’s marquee. He already owned it on DVD.
A sign over the center of Main Street announced Little Creek was the home to Reilly Carr, twelve-time LPGA m
ajor winner. The numbers looked to be interchangeable, like those used for baseball scoring. They must have figured it was cheaper than having to make a new sign each time she won.
Someone else had dangled a cruder sign over it, painted on what Luke was certain was a bedsheet. It read: Go for it, Reilly!
God bless small-town America.
There were a few more cars on the road than he remembered from last time. More pedestrians crowding the sidewalks, but that was to be expected. The circus, otherwise known as the media, had come to town.
Reilly, bless her heart, was doing everything she could to make this story as suspenseful as possible.
Will she or won’t she? had become the number-one question in America. Sports shows talked about it, political shows talked about it, Ellen talked about it – and if Ellen talked about it then everyone was talking about it.
It had gone beyond golf, beyond a single tournament, and had landed smack dab in the middle of the greatest and most enduring battle of all time: the battle between the sexes.
Some of the PGA golfers were handling the new ranking system with aplomb. Others were bitter. Basically, everyone from thirty-nine on down. Then there were the nasty fellows, who every time they found themselves in front of a microphone managed to make a dig at Reilly and her game. Many predicting total failure if she dared to play against the men in a major.
Knowing his girl, she was handling it like a champ. Stoic, resolute and above all quietly classy.
No, wait, that wasn’t his girl. She was throwing things at the TV any time someone said something she didn’t like.
Yes, that was more like her. He wondered how poor Grams was doing with all the cursing.
Luke turned around and found the road that would take him to the farmhouse. When he got there, he found a crew of ten cameras camped out at the edge of the dirt road that led to the house. It seemed the press had already been warned about where the property line began and they were careful to stay on the correct side of it.
Pop did carry a shotgun.
He started to slow down as he approached the throng of reporters, hoping to avoid hitting them, but not caring if he bumped a few along the way. One would have thought since he’d made the transition to color commentary he’d be more forgiving with his peers in the press.