Chapter 9 Why Might an Older Man Recommend Lolita to His Much Younger Lover? #2
And instantly I understood. “Yes,” I told Mr. Barker. “I do. Kind of desperately.” And I raced from the conference room before anyone could stop me, still not sure why this mattered, but aware that my lawyer wanted to pause the deposition.
In the hallway, the conference room door shut behind us, Barker looked at me after I emerged from the ladies’ room. My parents had joined us. He said, his tone curt, “There was a target?”
“Yes.”
“You never told us.”
“I never thought about it.”
“When was it taken down?”
“I don’t know. A few days before the accident.”
“Did you take it down?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
“No idea. I’ve always assumed it was Harry,” I answered.
“The net was purchased by the club four years ago,” said Barker. “I want to confirm: the target was definitely there the last few years. It only came down last summer.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s be very, very clear here,” Barker continued. “You yourself never touched it, right?”
“Right.”
“How was it attached?”
A vapor of dread had enveloped our corner of the corridor. “I think it was sort of sewn onto the nylon mesh,” I answered. “That’s why I never touched it. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t take it down.”
“Even though you didn’t like it and were often the only person using that net for practice?”
“Yup.”
Barker turned to my father and said, “The company has two versions of that net, one with a target, one without. The company thought they’d sold the country club the one without the target.
That’s what they thought they’d shipped, and we’ve all been assuming that was the model that failed.
But, it seems, they shipped the one with the target. ”
“What did it look like?” my mother asked me. She’d never used the net. She’d barely thought about it until the day I killed Kenny Foster.
“The target? A dartboard.”
“How big was it?” asked our lawyer.
“Well, bigger than a dartboard. Maybe twice as big.”
“Why does this matter?” my mother asked.
“This is the first we’re hearing of a target,” Barker replied.
“And it matters because it’s possible someone affected the integrity of the mesh when they removed it—the target,” my father said to her.
Then he started to—and this word was not around in 1979, but it should have been—mansplain to her what he viewed as the nuances of the case.
He might have gone on for a long time, but his acquaintance from law school stopped him before he could.
“Duty. Breach. Causation. Damages,” said Barker, using his left index finger to touch a finger on his right hand with each word.
“Those are the four essential elements in a negligence claim. The country club is claiming the net company was negligent, and the net company is pinning it on the country club. Whatever manual the club used to assemble the net is long gone, and so we’ve all been reviewing the one the net company provided—which is for the model without a target.
The point? This is the first time we’re all hearing that there was a target and someone might have been screwing around with the net in ways that affected its structural integrity and made this sort of accident more likely. ”
“Has Harry Fallows been deposed?” my father asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well, his testimony just got a lot more interesting.”
“Why?” my mother asked.
“As Mira said, he was probably the one who took it down. He or maybe Curt Bolger,” my father said, referring to Harry’s assistant. “But Curt only would have done it if Harry told him to.”
He was probably right. Once again, I felt a wave of nausea, that feeling on the carnival ride when it spins too fast for too long.
One Saturday in July, I was pissed off that I had no tee time while all the men and their guests did, and thus had been exiled to the practice net.
On my way there, I’d complained to Harry about how much I hated the target, how it could ruin a person’s game, and how I just wished that ridiculous bull’s-eye was gone.
I hadn’t specifically asked him to take it down, but as the club’s promising golf star and the pied piper who led Mira’s Moppets—and, yes, as a member speaking to the pro—I knew my complaint would be viewed as a demand.
I knew.
Another summer Saturday afternoon, this one when I was fourteen, I went to the club to play eighteen holes all alone.
It was my first summer being coached by Heidi Romming, I was in the midst of a growth spurt, and I could feel almost weekly how much better my game was getting.
My tee time was two o’clock. I was in the box on the first hole, waiting to start.
There was a foursome of women putting on the first green, and so I waited.
Because I was alone, I figured they would let me play through by the third or fourth hole.
Harry Fallows saw me standing there, lingering with my driver across the back of my neck and shoulders like a yoke.
“Come on, Mira,” he said, “you can’t possibly believe even you can reach the green in one.”
The women’s tee was 317 yards from the pin.
No woman drives a ball that far, and, as I have admitted, my strength was never my long game.
Still, I was insulted that he thought I was either so overconfident or so stupid.
I had been playing this course since I was a little kid.
I knew it was always at least two shots to the green, and that assumed my second shot was perfect.
Often, it took three, the third being a difficult chip from nearby rough or a difficult blast from one of three bunkers.
So, there was something provocative and condescending about his remark, another indication of how our relationship had changed since I had started working with Heidi.
A part of it, I’m sure, was that he wished my father was paying him the not-insubstantial retainer he was paying this former LPGA golfer who was upping my game.
But another part of it was simple pride.
He was the club pro at Tallmadge, he gave the lessons.
Good Lord, he had been giving me lessons before Heidi.
I was undecided how caustic to be in my response.
I was still only fourteen, but that’s plenty old enough to be a mouthy teen.
Also, let’s not forget, I was impulsive when I felt challenged or wronged.
But, for a moment, I kept it together. The foursome on the green had now finished and started toward the second hole.
I placed my ball on the tee and lined up before it.
“I’ll give you a million dollars if you reach the green in one,” he said, laughing derisively.
“You don’t have a million dollars.”
What I had said was cutting and creepy and degrading, words that telegraphed my sense of entitlement and the class chasm between us.
“Okay, then,” he said calmly, leaning into my mean-spirited little dig. “How about this: you hit the green on this drive and I will be your caddy for the weekend.”
“Seriously?”