Chapter 11
“Feet apart, DJ. You got your ankles kissing. Back up.” Meadow fussed with a gentleness that her kids never responded to well.
“I am backed up,” DJ grumbled.
Meadow snapped her fingers twice. “DJ, if you don’t spread them feet, I’m sending you to go pick up balls the whole class.”
The little group snickered. Eight kids in total, four boys and four girls. All between eight and twelve and all over it already.
“This is boring,” Karter announced, dragging his club through the grass. “Can’t we play football or something?”
Meadow cut her eyes at him. “You were late, you talk too much and your stance is ugly so you’re not qualified to make suggestions right now.”
The girls hollered.
Mya covered her mouth, laughing. “Miss Meadow, you wrong.”
“Wrong but right,” another girl mumbled.
“I heard that, Lay.” Meadow turned to her. “Hands up a little higher on the grip. There you go. Relax those shoulders. You look like you tryna fight the club and y’all on the same team.”
They were set up across the little practice area Ray had carved out behind the main green.
Bright cones. A bucket of range balls. Old clubs lined up for kids who didn’t own their own.
There was a speaker near Meadow’s feet, playing clean versions of whatever playlist she decided the kids could handle.
“This feel like punishment,” DJ whined, adjusting his grip.
“Everything that makes you better feel like punishment at first,” Meadow told him. “Now line up and look where you want the ball to go.”
He sighed big. “I wanna go home.”
“Then hit it clean so you can go home proud instead of pouting.”
DJ swung. The ball barely rolled past the cone.
The whole line groaned.
“Oh my God,” Karter yelled. “Nah, put me back on Roblox. This not for me.”
Meadow pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t laugh. “First of all, the fact that y’all would rather be hunched over a screen than out here with this nice breeze and free lessons is crazy to me. Second, golf builds discipline. Discipline builds money. Y’all like money, don’t you?”
Every hand shot up.
“Alright then.” Meadow clapped her hands. “We gon’ learn today.”
Mya raised her hand. “Miss Meadow?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Why we gotta learn golf though? They don’t be putting nobody like us on TV.”
Meadow opened her mouth to answer, but a familiar voice came from behind them.
“They will.”
Every head turned.
Zaire walked across the grass with his club bag slung across his shoulder, blue L.A. hat pulled down low, sweatpants and a fitted tee on. He looked rested. He looked calm. He looked like the kind of man kids clocked even when they pretended not to.
DJ squinted. “Hold on. Ain’t you that one dude?”
Meadow gave them homework every now and then and it always involved watching a tournament so the kids were familiar with Zaire Cooks.
“That one dude?” Karter stepped forward. “That’s him! That’s him for real. You the golfer that be on my Daddy TV.”
“Oh, now y’all like golf,” Meadow mumbled under her breath.
Zaire stopped beside her, giving the group a nod. “What’s up, lil homies?”
The kids gathered around him without waiting for permission. Mya stared, eyes wide. “You famous?”
Zaire shrugged. “Something like that.”
“You rich?” Karter asked.
“Karter,” Meadow called, warning in her tone.
“What?” he protested. “Rich people golf. My uncle said that.”
Zaire chuckled. “Your uncle halfway right, but we changing that. This a rich sport, but it belong to y’all too if you want it.”
Mya frowned. “But they don’t put us on commercials.”
“He was on a Nike commercial,” DJ boasted like he was the one posing for it.
“They will,” Zaire repeated, looking out at the range. “They don’t do it till it make them money. So you beat they kids, beat they favorites, win they trophies…they gon’ have to look at you then.”
The boys stared like he’d just explained something nobody ever had.
Meadow watched him from the side, her chest pulling tight. She’d been trying to tell them the same thing for months. Somehow it sounded different coming from him. It sounded better to her too.
She bumped him with her elbow. “You done hijackin’ my class?”
“You was struggling anyway,” he replied.
The kids oohed.
Meadow put a hand to her chest. “Wow.”
“I’m lying?” he asked, fighting a grin. “Half them kids holding the club like a broom, the other half ready to swing at each other.”
“Because they’re children,” she defended. “You wanna help, Crescent Park, or you wanna stand here and critique from the sidelines?”
Zaire adjusted his bag on his shoulder. “What you need me to do?”
She lifted her chin, trying not to smile. “Pick up a nine iron and get in rotation. Since you outside, you working.”
DJ gasped. “He gon’ teach us for real?”
“You heard her,” Zaire told him. “I work here now.”
Meadow smirked. “You on probation. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
He rolled his eyes and moved to the rack, grabbing a club. The kids followed him like he was God’s gift to Black kids. Meadow took a slow breath. Watching him move so easily among them did something she didn’t want to name.
He lined them up again. “Alright, we gon’ reset. Everybody spread out. If you close enough to hit somebody, you too close.”
They shuffled around.
“Feet shoulder width,” he continued. “Y’all know shoulders, right? Y’all be actin’ like y’all don’t know what parts of your body is till it’s time to dance on TikTok.”
The girls cracked up.
Mya followed along, sliding her feet to match his example. “Like this?”
“A little wider,” Zaire told her. “There you go. You hoop?”
“I used to,” she answered.
“I can tell. You stand like a guard.”
He moved down the line, adjusting hands, nudging elbows. No baby voices. No talking down. He treated them like real students.
Meadow watched from behind, arms folded across her chest even though her heart felt wide open. She had always loved this program. Loved seeing kids from their side of town hold clubs like they belonged here. But this moment nudged the whole thing into another lane.
“You came out here just to be nosey?” she asked once he circled back around.
He glanced at her. “Came to hit. Stayed for the dysfunction.”
She laughed. “Wow. Say you hate children without saying it.”
“I don’t hate them.” He paused. “They just loud as hell.”
Mya spun around, offended. “We right here.”
Zaire didn’t flinch. “Y’all know y’all loud.”
They all shrugged.
Meadow stepped up beside him. “Alright, listen up, cuh.” That had them cracking up and Zaire smirking. “Today we gon’ do team teaching. Y’all lucky, because Mr. Cooks here is a professional.”
Karter turned around quick. “He your husband?”
The kids erupted.
“Boyfriend?” Mya piled on.
“They definitely like each other,” DJ added, all-knowing.
Meadow choked. “Why do y’all talk so much?”
Zaire grinned. “I’m nobody’s husband,” he told them. “I’m just crashing the party.”
Mya eyed him anyway. “You kinda look like her type…or my Mama’s.”
Zaire choked on his laugh.
“Yeah, cause you don’t have a Daddy,” DJ teased, taking off running before Mya could catch him.
“Girl, swing your club,” Meadow ordered. “Too grown for me.”
The laughter simmered as they all turned back to their spots.
“Alright,” Meadow called out. “Here’s how this gon’ work. I’m gon’ give y’all the basics. Mr. Cooks is gon’ fix whatever y’all mess up. Deal?”
“It’s Zaire,” he added. “Y’all can call me Z or Coach Z. Mr. Cooks make me feel old as hell.”
“Coach Z,” DJ tried. “That sound kinda fye.”
Meadow bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling too hard. Zaire shook his head and gave her a sideways glance like, see, this your crowd.
As the kids reset their stances, Zaire took them in…
the jokes, the crooked visors, the uneven socks, the excitement they tried to hide under fake attitudes.
A warmth moved through him. He remembered being their age, running wild with boys who didn’t have places like this to land.
Nobody pulled them aside to teach patience.
Nobody put a club in their hands. Nobody told them they belonged anywhere outside of their hood.
Watching Meadow pour into these kids made his soul smile and his spirit. She wasn’t just teaching them golf. She was building a small world for them. A soft place. A place where they could be loud and messy and brilliant without anyone calling it too much.
He swallowed, eyes tracking the little group.
Black kids were magic. Not the kind people romanticized. The real kind - loud, goofy, stubborn, brilliant, and fighting the world before they even understood why. Kids who deserved room to grow without being crushed by expectation or fear.
Black kids didn’t need saving. They just needed space to shine.
And Meadow was out here making that space look easy.
He tightened his grip on the club and looked back at the group.
Yeah, this mattered…more than they even realized yet.
She lifted her chin. “Okay, line up again. Remember what I told y’all last week. Eyes on the ball. Grip firm but don’t choke the club. Pull it back smoothly and follow through.”
DJ pulled back and swung. The ball actually lifted this time, rolling farther than before.
He jumped. “Yo!”
“I told you,” Meadow called. “When you listen, good things happen.”
Zaire walked over and tapped DJ’s shoulder. “Next time, turn those hips a little more. You got power, but you leaving it on the table.”
DJ tried again, turning just like he showed him. The ball took off higher, rolling past his previous mark. He let out a yell that probably woke half the neighborhood.
Mya stared. “Okay, superstar.”
“That was all me,” DJ bragged.
“That was both your coaches,” Meadow corrected. “Be clear.”
They worked through the line. Mya’s form was clean, but she held tension in her shoulders. Karter swung hard with no control. Lay wanted to talk more than listen. One of the younger boys kept trying to hit like he was at a batting cage.
Zaire broke it down in ways they understood.