32. Finn
Finn
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3RD
T his has been one of the longest weeks of my life. My daughter is full-on stonewalling me, my girlfriend and I aren’t speaking to each other, and Piper’s been giving me the stink eye every time I see her in the hallway.
The worst part, of course, is that I know I’ve been an asshole. But I don’t know how to fix it. I’m hoping that tonight gives me an opportunity to at least try.
The other two battles for War of the Wild Turkeys were on Saturday mornings, but this one is an early Friday evening to take advantage of Birdie in the Hole’s “Glowing Golf.” My fan base has noticeably thinned out, I’m sorry to see. And I mean literally, it’s not at all difficult to actually see it because Callie’s supporters have all shown up with bright purple streaks in their hair. At least three quarters of the attendees are sporting the new style, and probably a third of the ones who aren’t are wearing purple shirts in solidarity.
“Tough crowd.” Jonah’s hand slaps down on my shoulder. “Did you piss in everyone’s Cheerios or…?”
“Fuck off,” I mumble. Even though I should know better than to make an enemy out of one of the few friends I apparently have left.
“Finny, Finny, Finny,” Delilah’s voice chimes in. I resist the urge to tell her that she, too, can fuck off. “What did you do? Lily’s been talking shit about you all week in the salon.”
“I’m sure she has,” I groan. As if she can hear me, Lily flips me off from the crowd.
“No, you don’t understand, it’s bad . As in ‘I had to ask her to stop’ bad.”
I rub my face with my hands. “I’m going to fix it.”
My friends eye me skeptically.
“I am!”
“ Can you fix it?” Jonah asks.
“Of course I can fix it. I just…I just have to, you know…fix it.”
Jonah’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, now that’s brilliant. How long have you been working on that one?”
“You’re not helping,” I snap.
Delilah touches my shoulder. “A megaphone, Finn. I had to stop Lily when she showed up with a megaphone. And she was wearing a sandwich board with the words ‘Rallie for Callie’ painted on it. You’re gonna need an actual plan here.”
“I assume she’s responsible for the sea of purple out there?”
“Um…mostly,” Delilah hedges.
I glare at her. “Et tu, Brute?”
She offers me a small shrug. “I give the people what they want.”
Turning back out to the crowd, I see perpetually accident-prone Mr. Landon walking up to the front. I cringe, nervous that he’s going to end up tangled in the ribbon that’s being used to cordon off the course. He manages to avoid catastrophe, though, and removes his baseball cap to reveal a full head of very purple hair.
“Aw, poor Mr. Landon got caught up in this? Which one of you mixed up the dye on him?”
Delilah shakes her head. “No accident.”
It takes me a second to process her words. I turn back to her. “Wait, he wanted that hair on purpose? ”
Delilah answers by giving me a sympathetic nod. I look back towards him and he sends a searing scowl my way. “Yikes on bikes,” I mumble.
“Alllll right, Swallowers, listen up!” Piper’s voice rings through a megaphone with “Rallie for Callie” on the side in glitter glue. I assume she borrowed it from Lily. At least I hope she did. “We are here in the FINAAAAAL BATTTTTLLLLE!!” The crowd erupts in cheering and applause before they start chanting Callie’s name.
Where is she, anyway?
“I’m late! Sorry! I’m here, I’m here!” Her voice sounds tiny, but the sea of people part to let her through, and she ducks underneath the ribbon and jogs over to me and Piper at the first hole. This is the closest I’ve been to her in over a week. She’s wearing a purple shirt and tight jeans and holy shit, I miss touching her. I rub my chest.
Piper continues her announcement. “As you all know, the winner of this battle will be the winner of the War and crowned as our first annual Wild Turkey!”
As I stare at my girlfriend, all the thoughts I’m having muffle the cheering that follows. I have to tell her I’m sorry. I inch over until I’m standing beside her.
She smells so good. How does she always smell so good?
I reach for her hand, but she pulls away, making it look like she’s readjusting the hem of her shirt.
“A huge ‘thank you’ to all of you who voted this last week,” Piper calls. “After tallying up all the responses, The Bird is the Word can now officially announce that the Wild Turkey winner will get to dress the loser for the Homecoming dance and festival next weekend!”
“You rigged that, didn’t you?” I ask Callie, hoping to get a reaction from her.
All I get is a courtesy grin.
Piper waits for the crowd noise to die off a little before holding the megaphone up again. “This last round is easy enough, or at least it should be. Nothing too crazy, just a good old-fashioned putt-putt golf match.” With that, she turns to us. “If we can get a quick handshake for the cameras, please.” She lowers the megaphone and says, just loud enough for us to hear, “Play nice, you two.”
Callie squares her shoulders and extends her hand to me. The second I take it, I don’t want to let go.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I don’t want to fight.”
She sighs a little and grips my hand tighter. “I don’t either.”
“Can we please talk? After this?”
She gifts me with a genuine smile. “Yes. I’d like that.”
I take that as my cue to pull her into a hug and squeeze her tight.
I know better than to look around at the audience, so I just keep my eyes on Callie as we grab our clubs and start the final battle.
“Son of a bitch !” Callie yells after getting clocked over the head by the windmill at Hole Fifteen. “Sorry!” she calls out to the students watching. “Every time, I swear…”
“And at the end of Hole Sixteen, it’s Callie - 55 and Finn - 51!” Piper’s been keeping score throughout the game, which is really unfortunate, considering the audible difference in clamor when Callie does well versus when I do.
“Quite the fan club you’ve got here,” I say.
Callie’s still rubbing her head, but she smiles. “Isn’t it fun?”
“Not exactly the word I was thinking.” My club hits the ball and sends it over a long stretch of rolling green before circling up right by the hole.
“What does that mean?” she asks, as she drops her ball at the tee pad.
“No, nothing, it’s great. Just makes it hard to concentrate, that’s all.”
She putts the ball too lightly, and it rolls right back towards her. The crowd lets out a collective groan. Moving the ball back onto the tee pad with her foot, she lines up to shoot again. “You seem to be doing just fine, you’re still in the lead.”
Another putt and the ball travels farther than before, but still not far enough. It rolls back to her, and she snatches it up with her hand and slams it back on the tee.
“You’ve really got everyone under your spell.”
“Spell?” She whacks the ball this time. It rolls up and over the hills…and onto the walkway to the next hole. “Oh, come on!”
I jog over and grab the ball for her.
“Thank you.” She takes it and sets it down a third time. Her club smacks it with a satisfying clack , and it lands safely on the green.
We both tap our respective balls in, and I lean over to retrieve them both.
“Thank you again.”
Piper announces an update as we walk to the next obstacle. “That’s Callie - 61 and Finn - 54!”
“Rally for Callie!” The very noticeable voices of Lily and Kodi ring out, and the crowd follows suit with yelling, whistling, and applause.
I do my best to stay focused as I line up my putt; if I can make par or better on these last couple of holes, I’ll win the whole thing. Images fill my head…I’m wearing a crown, Lex cheers that I’m the world’s greatest dad, Callie lets me dip her and kiss her senseless. The taste of near-victory puts a little too much force in my stroke, but I don’t realize it until it’s too late. My ball zooms towards the “babbling brook” water feature with reckless abandon, banking off a rock and sailing into the crowd.
“OUCH!” Mr. Landon rubs the spot on his neck where my ball hit him and sends me a death glare. I wave and call out an apology. He just takes his “Rallie for Callie” poster board and holds it high above his head, causing another eruption in the mob.
Piper runs another ball over to me to try again.
“You’re gonna have one hell of a going away party,” I say to Callie after carefully putting.
She gives me a dirty look as she steps up to take her shot. “Seriously? You’re doing this now?”
“Doing what?” I ask. “Talking?”
She smacks the ball and says to me, without looking my way, “Jesus Christ, Finn, you know what I mean.”
I do know what she means. But her irritation stokes my own and I bristle. “I’m sorry,” I say in a decidedly not-sorry tone. “I didn’t mean to…I’m just trying to do the right thing here.”
“Well, maybe let’s start by sticking to the whole ‘talk afterwards’ plan, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course.”
“We’re at the final hole, ladies and gentlemen! The score is Callie - 63 and Finn - 58. This is a par three, it’s down to the wire like never before!”
I look at Callie. “Piper’s really upping her flare for the dramatic, I guess.”
“Yes I am!” Piper yells into the megaphone. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Coach!”
Like most mini golf courses, the 18 th hole is deliberately difficult. This one with three potential trails the ball can go, only one leading to the final destination. All are impossibly narrow, of course.
“Kick his ass, Callie!” Lily screams before adding, “No offense, Lex!”
“We’re good!” my daughter calls back.
“Can you at least arrange to have me protected from Lily when you’re gone?” I ask.
Callie smacks her ball, and it sails down the path to the right, weaving down and back around to the start of the course. She glares at me. “Are you shoving me out now?”
“What? No.”
“Really? Because you seem pretty confident that I’m leaving.”
I line up to take my shot. “I didn’t say?—”
“So…what?” she interrupts. “If it’s not an immediate ‘yes’, then it must be an immediate ‘no?’”
I putt the ball and it follows the same trail as hers did, rolling out and connecting with her ball in front of us.
“I’m thinking , Finn! Okay? I’m allowed to think. I’m allowed to take time to weigh out this major life decision.”
“Are you, though? Are you weighing it out? Or are you just buying time until you come up with a good enough reason to bail?”
Three minutes ago, the atmosphere was deafening. But you can hear a pin drop now. Callie and I have dropped all pretense of playing the game and are toe to toe.
“What do you mean bail?” she asks softly.
Fuck. I can see the hurt on her face. I know what she’s thinking. I didn’t mean to say “bail,” it’s just the first thing that came out of my mouth.
She must mistake my silence for something other than regret because her shoulders square and her expression goes cold. “So if I decide to leave in May…to do the thing I’d planned to do before I ever laid eyes on you or even knew who you were… the thing I thought we were both very clear about from the beginning…then to you that means I’m bailing ? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Are you honestly saying that nothing’s changed? That you leaving is the same now as it was before?”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“I shouldn’t have…that’s not…Look, let’s just finish this hole and we can talk about it.”
“No, no. No, I think we should talk about it now. Because that’s what you want, right? Just like dinner the other night. You can’t keep your sarcastic commentary to yourself, I’m just supposed to deal with it until some undetermined time later when you’re ready to have a serious conversation?”
Indignation pours out of me, and everything else falls away. “Fine,” I snap.
“Fine,” she snaps back.
“Not fine,” Piper intervenes, quietly and without her megaphone. “Not at all fine. We’ve got one hole left, can you two seriously just take thirty seconds to finish this and then deal with your shit somewhere else?”
I look out at the town and spot Lexie staring at us in confusion.
“He wins,” Callie declares. All Piper and I can do is stare at her. “I won’t be able to catch up, this is just a formality.” She turns to face me. “Congratulations.”
Piper touches Callie’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”
She nods and holds out her hand for a shake. I hesitantly take it as Piper announces to everyone that I am officially the winner of the First Annual War of the Wild Turkeys. There is at least some faint applause and a couple of whistles as people disperse, but all I can focus on is Callie’s retreating frame as she heads toward her bike.
“Wait!” I run over to her, grateful when she stops and turns around. “It’s changed for me . That’s what I was trying to say. I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t supposed to. And I realize that I said I was sorry for being an asshole and then I turned into an asshole again, I’m sorry about that, too.”
She crosses her arms. “I offered to stay away, Finn. More than once, I told you that if you didn’t want us to get involved in order to spare Lexie’s feelings that I would do it.”
“Lex is fine.”
“I know she is. Your kid kicks ass. And I will tell you yet again that I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But I had to protect her. I had to protect myself.” I gently pull her arms apart and hold her hands. “Athena, I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you since the day I saw you on the floor, negotiating with a hamster. You brought a light into our lives that I didn’t know was missing. I didn’t even know it existed . I can’t handle the thought that Lex and I are just another stamp on your passport.”
She pulls her hands away from me and wipes an errant tear from her eye. The rest of the town is giving us a wide berth, but I’m not stupid enough to think that they aren’t watching every move we make.
“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers.
“I have a few ideas, if you’re really at a loss.”
She looks around at everyone and back up at me. “I love you, too.”
For the first time in two months, I feel like I might be able to draw a full breath.
“But that’s the problem,” she cries.
“Problem? What are you talking about?”
“Love makes everything harder. You loved Scarlett, my mom loved my dad. Love is nothing but…pain in a…in a fancy dress. And when I think about you, and Lex, and everyone here, all I can see is the inevitable disappointment and hurt that you’ll have because of something I said or did or, or didn’t say or didn’t do. Or just the black hole that I’d want to jump into if I lost any of you. I’m not…I don’t know that I have the strength for that kind of suffering. And I don’t know if it’s worth it.”
Well, that relief that flowed in just disintegrated. “I’m sorry, you don’t know if we’re worth it? ”
“No! God, no, that’s not what I meant! I’m not worth it, okay? I’m not worth it!”
“What the hell? I’ve put our relationship on display here, I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone else, I’ve let you into the life of my daughter. Do you really think I’d do all that if I didn’t think you were worth it?”
She looks around helplessly and raises her hands to a near shrug before letting them fall to her thighs.
This is it. That moment everyone talks about, but no one prepares you for. That moment when you realize you are hopelessly in love with someone you can’t fix.
This sucks.
“I’m sorry you were raised by a woman who was so fucked up she couldn’t handle any kind of pain. But for Christ’s sake, she’s gone and we’re all here. If this is seriously sending you into an existential crisis, then I can’t help you. Let me know what you decide, I guess. I’ll be on the edge of my seat.”
I turn away from her and stalk towards the entrance where there are a handful of townspeople still milling about.
“Dad!” Lexie runs up to me. “Dad, what happened? What did you do?”
I open my mouth to answer her and pause. “What do you mean, what did I do? ”
She shrugs, but her expression is still concerned. From the corner of my eye, I can see Callie getting on her bike.
I sigh. “She’s just got a lot to work through, honey.”
I put my arm around Lex’s shoulder, and we trudge to the parking lot.
“It’ll be okay,” Lex decides. “Don’t worry.”
My heart drops out and I stop to squeeze her in my arms. I can’t even find the words to tell her how much I love her.
“Dad. Dad, too tight. I can’t breathe.”
“Sorry. You want to stop for some ice cream?”
“Slay.”
As we get into the car, I look at the campground entrance, where Callie’s riding her bike down the dirt trail into the cluster of trees. Why is she going there instead of back to town? I stare long enough that Lex gives me shit about being old and slow until I finally decide that it’s time to get going.
There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.