CHAPTER SIX #2
"That you've taken the trial. That Tala played well at Kiawah. That there may be a personal component developing." A pause. "Bisi is a diplomat. She uses phrases like 'personal component' when she means 'my client wants to have sex with her caddie and I need you to not leak this to the press.'"
I almost laugh. The almost is notable. I don't almost-laugh frequently.
"I'm not calling to warn you off," he says. "If that's what you're expecting. I think you're good for her game. The Kiawah footage was the best I've seen her play in two years."
"But."
"But." He exhales. It's the sound of a man organizing a truth he's told before.
"Tala is most impressive right after being told no.
When you set the boundary at the hotel — and I don't know the details, Bisi was vague, but I know Tala well enough to read between the lines — she responded exactly the way she responds to every obstacle.
She threw everything at it. Charm, urgency, effort.
She contacted Bisi immediately. She's probably working on the contract revision like it's the most important project of her life. "
"She is."
"And for the next few weeks, she'll be perfect. She'll listen. She'll follow your strategy. She'll be attentive and thoughtful and present, and you'll think you've found the version of her that everyone talks about — the Tala who could be the best in the world if she'd just commit."
"And then?"
"Then the challenge is over. She's won you.
The contract is signed, the relationship is established, the obstacle has been removed.
And the moment the obstacle is gone, the urgency leaves with it.
She doesn't do it on purpose. She's not cruel.
She just — her engine runs on the gap between wanting and having.
Once the gap closes, she doesn't know what to do with the having. "
I listen. The marsh hums outside. The tea is getting cold.
"Is that what happened with you?"
Keoni is quiet for a moment. "She didn't fire me.
I want to be clear about that. I quit. But the reason I quit is that she treated me like I existed only when she was losing.
When she was winning, I was furniture. When she was struggling, I was essential — her strategist, her confidant, her family.
And then she'd start winning again and I'd feel myself disappearing. "
He pauses. I hear something in the pause that isn't anger. It's the residue of love that was never properly used.
"The worst part wasn't being ignored. The worst part was the press conference after the Open. She blamed me publicly for a shot I told her not to hit. She stood in front of cameras and said the caddie read was wrong. I was standing twenty feet away. She didn't look at me once."
I close my eyes. I think about the parking lot in Phoenix. Tala's apology — the slow one, the one that cost her. The hands at her sides.
"She apologized to me," Keoni says, as if he can hear me thinking. "Afterwards. She always apologizes. She's very good at apologizing. She is less good at changing the behavior that makes the apology necessary."
"So what are you telling me?"
"I'm telling you to judge her at week four, not week one. Anyone can be disciplined for twenty-one days. The test is whether she's still listening when the newness fades and the work becomes ordinary."
"And if she isn't?"
"Then you'll know what I knew. That she loves the idea of someone standing beside her more than she loves the practice of letting someone stay."
He's quiet again. I let the silence hold. Outside, an egret crosses the marsh in low, purposeful flight.
"I hope she's different with you," he says. "I mean that. She deserves someone she can't bulldoze, and from what I've seen, you don't bulldoze."
"I don't."
"Then give her a chance to prove me wrong. I want to be wrong about this. She's my family. I want her to figure it out."
"Thank you, Keoni."
"Ms. Quillan — one more thing."
"Nerys."
"Nerys. She told Bisi she wants to restructure the entire professional agreement so that you're protected.
She didn't just agree to revisions — she initiated them.
In twelve years of knowing Tala, I've never seen her restructure anything to protect someone else's interests.
She restructures things to protect her own.
So either she's changed, or you've changed her, and either way, that matters. "
He hangs up. I set the phone on the porch railing.
Week four.
I count the days. The Kiawah tournament ended five days ago. The kiss was five days ago. That means I'm at day five of Keoni's three-week window. Sixteen days until the charm is expected to expire and the real Tala — the one who disappears when the chase is over — either appears or doesn't.
Singapore is in three days. The third tournament. The halfway point of the trial.
I think about the corridor again. Tala's face when I kissed her — the shock of receiving something she'd asked for, the rapid recalibration from pursuit to response, the way her fingers gripped my waist with a strength that surprised me because her hands are small and her grip was anything but.
I think about the sound she made. That half-gasp.
I think about what Keoni said: Her engine runs on the gap between wanting and having.
And I think: what if I'm wrong? What if this is not the beginning of something real but the opening act of a pattern I'm too attracted to see clearly?
The contract sits on my kitchen table. I retrieved a copy from Phaedra's office on the way home. Thirty-one pages. I've read it twice. Every clause is solid. Every protection is real. Phaedra has done what Phaedra always does — she's built a structure strong enough to survive the earthquake.
But contracts protect against professional damage. They don't protect against the specific kind of devastation that occurs when you open a door you've kept locked for five years and the person who walks through it turns out to be passing through.
I pick up my pen.
I sign.
Every page. Every initial. Every clause. My handwriting is small, precise, and steady.
I photograph the signature page and send it to Phaedra. Then I pick up my phone.
I text Tala.
Signed.
The response is immediate. Under three seconds. She was waiting.
When can I see you?
I look at the marsh. The light is fading. The egret is gone. The tea is cold and the evening is warm and my body is carrying an anticipation that feels like standing over a putt I know I can make but cannot bring myself to rush.
Singapore. Hotel. After day one.
Three days. Three days of preparation and travel and professional focus and the kind of deliberate, structured waiting that I have spent my entire career teaching players to endure.
That's cruel.
I smile. The expression feels unfamiliar on my face at this hour, in this chair, alone on this porch. I have smiled professionally and strategically and socially for years. This smile is none of those things. It belongs to no audience.
That's patience. You should practice.
I set the phone down. The marsh darkens. The insects multiply their song.
Three days.
I have waited five years to feel this particular kind of terrified. Three more days is nothing.
Three more days is also, possibly, everything.