18. May the course be with you
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
may the course be with you
PRESENT
“Forrest, get up!” I call from the bedroom door as I fling a spare pillow at the plume of his hair peeking out of the top of his blanket. It bounces off what I assume is his face and lands on the floor.
An indecipherable bear grumble is the only response I get. It would seem Forrest is still slow to rise, and I expect he’ll blame it on staying out late line dancing, even though the man has never voluntarily gotten up early a day in his life, jet lag aside.
“Come on, Forrest,” I groan, sliding up to his bed and poking his shoulder hard.
He rocks to the side and the bed makes a whining screech at his movement.
“It’s Saturday. If we don’t get out to the range early, it’ll be packed.
Golf is an Arizona rite of passage, and it’s something I did a lot when I was here.
You said you wanted to see my life, right? ”
Neither of us has ever been particularly drawn to ball sports, but even I went to the driving range when I was out here.
It was repetitive and quiet in a therapeutic kind of way.
Ava and I would go to this small range near school when classes were stressful, and would always leave feeling loads better.
It turns out that wailing on golf balls is a great way to let go of pent-up frustration.
Who knew?
“Up!” I try one more time, picking up the launched pillow from the floor and smacking him in the head with it.
Forrest’s arm emerges from his bundle far enough to grab the pillow and draw it back under the blanket. Just like he used to do to me.
“Forrest…” I warn, unsure what I’m going to follow the threat up with. I’ll think of something if I have to.
“Ok, ok,” he rasps, flipping the blanket down from his head. “I’m getting up.”
“Great,” I chirp, skipping away from the bed to give him privacy to get ready. “We leave in five, so hop to it!”
Once I see more movement indicative of him really getting up—another whine of metal on metal from that damn bed—I quietly close myself in the bedroom. After such a great evening, I woke up in a fantastic mood today.
Forrest taps on the door a few moments later.
“You can come out now. I’m decent,” he says.
I bound out of the room, fixing my polo’s collar and brandishing a large bottle of sunscreen.
“You’re not going to fight me about this again today, right?” I ask, eyeing the lines on his skin that have finally faded to a comfortable tan.
“Hey now, I learned my lesson. I behaved when we went to Taliesin West,” he says, holding out his hand for the canister. “Hand it over.”
We take turns on the balcony spraying ourselves down with SPF, and then we’re off, headed to the golf course attached to our hotel to rent some clubs.
Since Forrest has never touched a golf club before, a college-aged man working in the pro shop helps him figure out the right equipment and gives him the fastest crash course in how to execute a golf swing while I get us two baskets of balls from the dispenser.
A set of clubs to rent and a glove are already waiting for me at the rental counter.
When I rejoin Forrest, he’s putting on a resort-branded visor, bright salmon just like his sweatshirt.
“Nice hat,” I say, flicking the brim.
“Don’t worry. You’ve got one too,” he answers, plopping a matching visor on my head. “Apparently the suite we’re in comes with a golf package, so we get the visors and a round of golf included. Do you want to go for it?”
I blink in surprise at Forrest and his seemingly newfound desire to try things like line dancing and golf.
“Are you sure? It took me hours at the range to even be able to hit the ball with a full swing. I want to make sure today is fun,” I say, wary that a round of golf might be too much for a first-timer, but also a little excited about the surprise perk of our upgrade.
“Calvin said we can jump ship if things go really badly,” Forrest says, nodding toward the employee who was helping him out. The young man gives an enthusiastic thumbs up from Forrest’s side.
“You want to?” I ask again, not wanting to push Forrest too far too fast with something new, but he gives me a why not shrug. I then turn to Calvin. “We don’t have a tee time booked. Is there availability?”
“We always keep a couple of spots for the suite guests, just in case. And you’re here early, so we can get you in, even if you want to hit the range first.” He turns to his computer and starts typing.
Forrest is looking at me expectantly, seeming more excited for this than I’d have expected, so…
“Why not,” I agree.
With Forrest in his pale blue polo and khaki-colored shorts, and me in my pink polo and white skort, we might look like golfers, but I expect that’s the extent of how well we’ll fit in out there. Hopefully it’s at least amusing.
Fifteen minutes into hitting balls, and I’m feeling my own frustration rising. Apparently playing golf is not like riding a bike, because I’m back to barely being able to hit the ball. When I do make contact, I’m not terrible, but if I miss, I get worse.
I should have been more worried about my own skill level than Forrest’s.
Because Forrest is at the next bay over, looking like Rory McIlroy as yet another of his perfectly hit balls goes sailing in a pristine arc.
I’m no expert, but he doesn’t look like an amateur at all, easily twisting at the waist in a way that felt entirely unnatural to me for months when I learned to golf.
It feels like I’m standing beside the golf equivalent of a pool shark. If I didn’t know Forrest as well as I do, I’d bet a limb he was lying to me about his experience with the sport.
What the actual fuck.
I wouldn’t describe myself as a competitive person.
I like doing well, but I’ve never felt a need to be the best, especially at sports, and I love when my friends succeed.
But something about this coming so easily to Forrest when I continue to look like somebody who’s never used her elbows before is making me a little grumpy.
Not because he’s good, but because I’m so embarrassingly bad.
I take a breath to clear my head. I’ve never been amazing, and there’s no reason I need to start caring about that today. Mind over matter.
When we start actually playing the course, things don’t get any better for me, and a couple holes in, Forrest does his best to distract me.
“I really like your friends—Melina, Cristian, Ava. I wasn’t so sure about line dancing, but they made it fun.
You all did,” he says as he drives us to where my ball is off to the side of the fairway, the golf cart bouncing us along.
His ball is about a hundred yards further ahead, right where it should be.
“They like you too. I can tell. Also, Melina told me outright,” I answer before whacking my ball down the way again. Not a bad shot, actually.
“If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to dance,” I add. I don’t want Forrest to do things he doesn’t want to do.
“I had a good time,” Forrest assures me. “I didn’t want to be the boring guy who sat out, and it turns out I was wrong about my expectations anyway.”
“I’ve never once thought you were boring, Forrest,” I say, remembering that others weren’t so kind to him when we were younger.
The look Forrest gives me tells me he’s not sure I’m telling the truth.
“Hey.” I stop walking and grab his wrist to stop him too. “I mean it.”
He nods, and we start walking again.
“You and Melina were…” Forrest trails off as he drops his club in the bag strapped to the back of the golf cart, but his implication is clear.
“Yeah, we dated for a while. It was serious and ended on friendly terms,” I confirm when I climb behind the wheel of the cart.
I look at Forrest, wondering how he’ll react. He seems unbothered. Melina is part of my past, part of who I am, and I’m relieved that it seems like he understands that.
“She was a good friend before and after,” I continue. “Like you.”
Forrest’s head snaps to me, and I wonder if I said something wrong.
“I don’t know. Maybe not so much like me,” he says softly after a moment’s hesitation, looking through the little windshield again.
I frown, deflating a little. I guess not. Melina and I never went no contact. I feel badly for making the comparison.
Forrest is quiet as I drive us the rest of the way to his ball. He has another perfect swing, and I kid you not, his ball delicately plunks down maybe six inches from the hole.
“Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” I ask, just the tiniest bit skeptical, but trying to play it off as joking. It also gives me an excuse to say something and move on from our prior conversation.
“Promise,” Forrest says, throwing me a grin over his shoulder. I guess he wants to move on too.
Once we’re both on the green, Forrest lines up the easiest putt ever before smacking his ball and sending it into the rough.
My head snaps to him, wide-eyed, but he’s smiling brightly at me.
“Whoops,” he says, laughing.
And I realize he’s trying to get me out of my head.
“Alright, alright,” I say, cracking a smile too.
We keep going. I tell him stories about college.
Good classes and bad ones. Quirky professors and late nights I regretted the next day.
The heat of summer and searching for scorpions with blacklights.
He’s interested in even the smallest detail, and I surprise myself by how much I like telling him about them.
We also make a game out of Forrest trying to make silly shots. Aim for that tiny sand trap and get yourself out of it in one try. Hit off the tee with a nine iron on a par 4. Putt with your eyes closed. Sometimes he gets it. Sometimes he’s wildly off. We always end up laughing.
I get no better, but I do start having fun.
When we get to the ninth hole, there’s a sizable lake between us and the green.
“Unless I become the Hulk in the next thirty seconds, there’s no way I’m going to make it over the lake. After your swing, we should just go to the drop spot,” I say, squinting to see what I’d even be aiming for.
“Why not just wail on it to see how far you can get? Call it practice, and maybe you’ll surprise yourself,” Forrest suggests, handing me a banged-up ball we picked up along the way so I don’t lose one of the new ones in a watery grave.
I should have saved a few more spares from the buckets I got for the driving range.
I shrug and take the rescued ball from Forrest. What’s the harm? Smacking golf balls always helped with school frustration, after all.
I swing with all my might and make good contact, my little yellow ball sailing straight and fast. But as expected, it plunks with a little splash a bit over halfway across the lake.
It does feel good to have such a nice shot, even if it went nowhere of use.
Forrest swings next, and his ball ends up somewhere on the other side of the lake.
As we drive over the little bridge that’ll take us to the rest of the hole, I start hearing soft chatter behind us. The next party back is putting at the eighth hole, so we need to make sure we keep moving.
I hurry to the drop zone as soon as we park the golf cart and release my ball from shoulder height. It bounces a little before it begins rolling. And before I can stop it, that sucker drops right into the lake.
“What gives?” I say, still staring at the water that gobbled up my perfect ball. “I thought drop spots were made specifically to avoid that?”
Forrest shrugs at me with a confused frown, but then glances back toward the eighth hole. No time to dawdle. I drop another ball, which thankfully stays on land. I line up, swing, and feel the head of my club roll right over the top of the ball.
Shit.
I look down just in time to see my ball pop backward… and sink into the lake.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I let my head fall back while I take a deep breath.
“Want to try again?” Forrest asks, looking very sorry for me when I finally turn to him.
But the next group is already waiting on us, so I shake my head.
“It’s fine. You finish up, and then let’s just move on.
Add like five swings for me or something on this one.
” It doesn’t feel fine. I feel irritable again, but I don’t want to take any longer here.
That’ll just make me feel worse. I want to get back to being silly and relaxed, so I want to put some space between us and the guys behind.
Forrest finishes the hole and then drives us around to the back nine, which double back on the course, so we’ll end near where we started. We finish the tenth hole quickly and without fuss, so I’m feeling better by the time we park near the eleventh hole’s tees.
Forrest goes first.
Then, I line up and look out toward the fairway, squinting as I spot a narrow creek cutting right across my path. It’s nothing compared to the lake. It’s such a small strip of water, that it’s incredibly unlikely I’ll hit it, so I clear my head, get ready, swing, and watch my ball soar.
Right. Into. The. Creek.
“Oh, Cam…” Forrest says in disbelief.
“Trust me, I know,” I quip back. I just want to get this over with.
From checking the weather before we flew here, I know it hasn’t rained in a few weeks, and the water level of the creek should be low.
It’s also filled with large rocks. I only bought a three-pack of the new balls, and that was my last one.
I know Forrest would share his, but I don’t want to have to ask. My pride is taking a beating already.
“Drive ahead. I’m just going to check real quick,” I say, before I take off jogging toward the creek.
“Wait, Cam! Check what?” Forrest calls after me, careful not to be too loud, but I’m already gone.
It’ll be fine. He worries too much.
I run right to where I saw my ball go in and peer into the crystal-clear water.
As expected, the water level is low, maybe a foot deep, if that, and it’s a very gentle-moving creek.
I can very easily see that pink ribbon on a bright white ball.
That one’s mine, and it’s right next to quite a large flat-topped rock. Maybe I could just…
I flip my club around and sharply jab the rock with the rubber grip. The rock doesn’t budge. I step right up to the edge of the grass beside the creek, bend my knees for stability, and quickly kick the rock with as much force as I can. Steady as can be.
This is going to work.
Before I can lose my nerve, I step onto the rock, planning to squat down quickly, scoop up the ball, and push back to shore.
But the second my weight is on the rock, it suddenly sinks several inches into the sandy bottom of the creek and tips aggressively to the side.
I only have a moment to gasp before I’m falling ass-first into that fucking creek.