Fore Play

by Julie Cannon

Peyton slowly turned her head and looked at her. At least Leigh thought she was. The lenses of Peyton’s Ray Bans were too dark to be sure exactly where she was looking.

  “Everything?”

  Leigh could feel the heat from Peyton’s look and the innuendo in just that one word. “Well, they do…tell me everything, that is.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “No.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, first of all, it’s none of their business,” Leigh said, then clamped her mouth shut when she realized what she was about to say.

  Peyton cocked her head and lifted her eyebrows, her expression clearly saying, and…

  Leigh didn’t want to say anything, but her thought never made it to her mouth. “And there’s nothing to talk about.”

  Peyton slid her sunglasses down her nose, just far enough that Leigh could see her eyes. “Nothing?”

  Peyton’s eyes were dark and piercing, and as much as Leigh wanted to look away, she couldn’t. Their intensity hypnotized her, and she felt drawn into another place. A place she’d never been before and, for some reason, wasn’t afraid to go now.

  “Well, not for a while,” she managed to croak out.

  Peyton’s eyes flashed with desire before she slid her sunglasses back up her nose, effectively creating a wall between them. She stepped away.

  Leigh was shaken by her reaction to the power of Peyton’s eyes and the way her inhibitions slipped away as her arousal soared. She wanted to get lost in their depth, with Peyton leading the way out, or leading her anywhere. But they held a sadness and wariness that she couldn’t mask, and Leigh wanted to reach in and soothe it.

  “Leigh,” Stark called out from the side of the beverage cart. “If you want something to drink, you’d better get over here.”

  Stark’s coarse voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard, and Leigh hurried over just so he wouldn’t call her again. She wasn’t surprised when Stark didn’t offer to pay for her bottle of water and was shocked at what she heard him say to the man standing beside him.

  “God damn bitch. She thought she knew what club I should use. Who does she think she is, Nancy Lopez?”

  Leigh recognized the name of the LPGA Hall of Fame inductee who had won forty-eight tournaments and several majors during her thirty years on the tour.

  “No. That’s not right,” Stark said with a smirk. “Lopez wasn’t a dyke. This chick is.” The men around him snickered.

  Leigh’s bottle of water slipped out of her hand and hit the ground with a thud. Water splashed on her shoes and Stark’s right pant leg.

  “What the hell?” Stark turned around as quickly as his big body could.

  Leigh was still more than a little stunned with the vulgarity that had spewed out of her coworker’s mouth. It was one thing for him to think like that, but to say it front of a crowd of complete strangers? What an idiot.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, all eyes on her. “It just slipped out of my hand.”

  Peyton came out of nowhere, stepped forward, and picked up her bottle. She gave some cash to the beverage attendant and handed her a fresh bottle of water. The tension in the air was thick. The men who had been chuckling a moment ago suddenly had nothing to say and didn’t find things quite so funny anymore. At least they had the good sense to turn away like they’d been caught doing something wrong, which they definitely had.

  “Come on, Mike. Let’s go. We’re up next,” one of the men said, smacking his buddy on the arm. They jumped at the opportunity to leave a suddenly very awkward situation.

  “Here you go, Mr. Stark.” The beverage attendant with a Copperwind name tag that read Heidi sitting prominently on top of her left breast handed Stark a red Solo cup. “Scotch and water, heavy on the scotch, light on the water, and no ice.”

  Stark looked at Peyton, then fumbled in his pocket and pulled out some cash. Was that asshole going to make Peyton pay for his drink?

  “So, Leigh,” Stark said. “How is that project going, the one your group is working on?”

  It was a weak attempt to change the subject, and before Leigh had a chance to tell him so, he quickly said, “I’m going over to talk with the State Farm guy and see if he can get me a discount on my car insurance.” It was a feeble excuse and he slithered away.

  “Must be a challenge working with him,” Peyton said through clenched teeth.

  “I don’t, at least not very much, thank God.”

  “Were you aware of his…” Peyton put both palms up as if asking Leigh to finish the sentence for her.

  “Chauvinistic, homophobic attitude?” Leigh asked, frowning and shaking her head in disgust. “Yes to the former, no to the latter. I shouldn’t be surprised. They usually go together.”

  “Like scotch and water?”

  “Like assholes and bullshit,” Leigh replied with as much distaste in her voice as if she were spitting out both. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill, fully intending to hand it to Peyton, who put her hand up. “No, take it, please. Unlike some people, I don’t expect you to buy my drinks.”

  “It’s a bottle of water, and it’s my pleasure.”

  Peyton stepped away before Leigh could say anything else, but she didn’t know what that anything else would have been. She was sick to her stomach, a wave of nausea hitting her, so powerful she looked around for a place to toss her breakfast in private. The nausea disappeared as quickly as it came, as well as the opportunity to apologize to Peyton.

  * * *

  Peyton was furious, fuming so much she had to concentrate on her breathing instead of throwing a right hook to the jowls of that asshole Stark. It would definitely be a sucker punch. The fat old man couldn’t defend his way out of a speeding ticket, let alone against someone who’d spent nine years in a maximum-security penitentiary.

  And then there was Leigh. Stark’s comment had obviously surprised her. Her body had stiffened, she’d lost all color in her face, and her bottle of water had slid out of her hand. Peyton had seen red in front of her when she heard his comment and had stepped forward fully intending to do something that would probably cost her her job, if not more. But as soon as she stepped close to Leigh, her anger had subsided, and she was more concerned with Leigh instead of her desire to pummel this ignorant asshole.

  Finally, it was Leigh’s turn on the tee, and she hit her first shot out of bounds. Her second and third were equally bad, and she three-putted before they mercifully moved to the next hole.

  The next two holes were repeats of the one before, and by the time they arrived at the sixteenth tee box, the State Farm guys were bored, Stark had started making snide comments three strokes earlier, and Leigh was a mess.

  Peyton knew immediately what had caused Leigh’s downward spiral, but it wasn’t her place to say anything, and Leigh hadn’t asked. As it was, she had to stand on the proverbial sidelines and watch Leigh’s game, and her confidence, fall apart. The eighteenth hole couldn’t come soon enough, for all of them.

  Peyton set Stark’s clubs in the designated area by the front door, where the valet would load them into his car after bringing it around. He’d tried to tip her but she’d refused, making up a story about club policy, when in fact, she wanted nothing to do with him or his stinky money. She kept her eye out for Leigh the rest of the afternoon but didn’t see her until it was almost time to start the dinner and awards. She was headed out the side door toward the self-service parking lot, and Peyton ran to catch up.

  “Leigh. Leigh,” she repeated when Leigh didn’t acknowledge her. “Leigh, wait.” Peyton ran the last few steps. She finally caught up with her next to a red Audi. The lights blinked and the horn honked as she unlocked the doors, so it was obviously Leigh’s.

  “Are you okay?” She wasn’t expecting Leigh to spin around so quickly or for the pain on her face to be so visible.

  “Okay? Am I okay? Of course I’m not okay. I embarrassed myself in front of a senior leader in my company, one who has a direct lin
e to the CEO, and you ask if I’m okay?”

  “I…uh…it wasn’t that bad.”

  “Wasn’t that bad?” Leigh jumped in. “Do you have any idea what this means?”

  “No.”

  “If Stark talks about this afternoon, and believe me, he will, I’ll be the laughing stock of the company. Shit!”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Peyton asked. How could a bad round of golf be as life-altering as Leigh was making it?

  What was life-altering had been the last ten years of her life. Peyton had prepared herself for prison as best as she could, watching endless documentaries of life behind locked doors, thick walls, bars, and razor wire. Most were informative, and some scared the holy shit out of her, but she needed to do it. Watching them was like looking at a train wreck. She knew she should stop because she was making herself crazy, but she needed to know as much about her next fifteen years as she could. She was going to a place she never thought she would, even in her worst nightmares. There she’d no longer be Peyton Broader but Inmate #78562.

  But Peyton couldn’t prepare herself for the emotional impact of being in prison. It consisted of a series of endless routines. Every day was the same as the day before. Up at seven, followed by breakfast, cleaning, and showering. Cells were inspected for damage, and mandatory inmate counts occurred ten times a day. Once a week she could attend a parenting class, an anger-management session, or tutoring for inmates completing their high school degree. There were AA, NA, and prayer meetings every day. Inmates spent most of their time in the day room watching TV, playing cards, or reading outdated magazines brought in by visitors or guards. The only thing that separated Sunday from Tuesday was the nondenominational church services in the morning and visiting day in the afternoon.

  No words could describe what it felt like to lose her freedom. Peyton quickly realized she could make herself crazy wondering what her family and friends were doing without her. Did they think about her as much as she thought about them, or did they go on with their lives as if she were just away at school or someplace equally temporary? Did she matter to them less and less every day she was locked up in a cage like an animal?

  Before she went to prison, Peyton had been a pre-med student, and somehow, between her classes, golf practice, and her part-time job at Vans Golf Shop, she had managed to get her Emergency Medical Technician certificate. Inmates were given jobs, and Peyton was assigned to the infirmary.

  Day in and day out she treated cuts and scrapes, dispensed aspirin for headaches, ibuprofen for cramps, and handed out the never-ending array of pharmaceuticals prescribed for depression, anxiety, and a variety of mental illnesses. The prison psychiatrist did his best to help the women, but the long-term effects of physical, mental, and substance abuse, lack of education, and God knew what else the women had experienced in their history often won the war. And then there were the all-too-frequent effects of prison violence. A physician came into Nelson three times a week for the more serious cases.

  For that work, Peyton received a whopping twenty-eight cents an hour, which went directly into her commissary account, and by the time she was released from Nelson she had seventy-two dollars and fifty-five cents. She was issued the amount in cash as well as the clothes she had arrived in before she was escorted out the front door.

  Peyton shook her head to rid her mind of those thoughts. It was no good to compare then to now or her life to anyone else’s. Everything is relative. Leigh was looking at her like she’d lost her mind by asking the question.

  “No. I’m not kidding. Never mind.” Leigh tossed her golf bag into her trunk and shut it. The slamming of the driver’s door was equally loud.

  Chapter Eight

  “So, how are things?” Lori asked after the waiter took their drink order and left. Lori had remained her friend during the long ordeal while Peyton’s attorney was negotiating her plea and her years inside. Lori wrote to her every week, keeping her up to date on the happenings of the world and often enclosing comic strips from her home-town paper or a copy of a crossword puzzle. Peyton had written to Lori after the first letter arrived, telling her to forget about her and get on with her life. But every time a letter arrived it reminded her that Lori didn’t listen.

  Peyton hated that question. She had the choice of saying that everything was fine or that she was doing all right. She could also say that the job was good, she’d met some interesting people and some assholes, but for the most part it was okay.

  Lori was her only remaining friend from what Peyton referred to as BN, before Nelson. She and Lori had been on the golf team when they won the NCAA Championship her freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. Her last year they beat Washington, the year before that, Stanford.

  The tournament consisted of four rounds of eighteen holes over the course of four days. It was a team event, low score at the end of the seventy-two holes, and the player with the lowest individual score also received a trophy for winning the entire event

  Lori had stuck by Peyton, attending every hearing, visiting her in jail when it was allowed, and making the three-hour trip on the weekends her parents didn’t. In the intervening years she’d married Kyle, a pharmacist, and they had two kids, but Lori still made time to see Peyton.

  Lori was standing beside her parents the day she was released. She helped her get acclimated back into society but without the overprotectiveness of her parents. One of the terms of her parole was that she couldn’t enter any establishment that served liquor unless it sold food as well for a period of twelve months. Lori had hosted several parties and dragged Peyton to those where she had been invited to help Peyton meet new friends and occasionally get laid.

  “I have news you might be interested in. Actually, I think you might gloat over it.”

  Peyton didn’t like gossip. It had been rampant at Nelson and was nothing but trouble. Unrest was always brewing, either from the guards or the inmates. Peyton tried to ignore it, keep her nose clean, and stay out of it.

  “You know I’m not into gossip.”

  “This isn’t gossip. This is fact. It’s about Jolene.”

  The name of Peyton’s former girlfriend used to cause her crippling pain, then rages of anger. Now, all she felt was disgust as to how she could have become involved with someone so shallow.

  It was a Sunday, and Peyton waited to be called to the visitors’ center. Her parents were always the first to arrive when visiting hours began at one, and they spoke with her for a few minutes before handing the phone to Jolene. This had been the routine every week since Peyton was incarcerated at Nelson four months earlier. Her mother always brought news of her siblings and extended family, while her father sat quietly beside her. Before entering Nelson, Peyton had made it clear she did not want to see anyone in her family while she was there. She wanted to spare them the pain of seeing her in the surroundings she knew would be dreary, depressing, and miserable. But she’d lost the argument with her parents when they explained if they didn’t see her, they’d be sick with worry.

  They sent photos and cards and well wishes, and Peyton read them, then placed them in the trash. They were heartbreaking reminders of what she was missing, and she needed to detach herself from any thoughts of outside. She needed to focus on where she was, not where she wasn’t. As a result, her side of the two-woman cell was bare. Nothing adorned her walls. No picture frames sat on the shelf, nothing that gave any indication she had anyone or anything on the outside. She did, however, check books out of the library and had read dozens, catching up on all the fiction she’d missed while she’d buried her nose in textbooks and played golf every day.

  It was the third Sunday in her fifth month at Nelson when her girlfriend Jolene had failed to arrive. She and Jolene had met when they were sophomores in college and Peyton answered Jolene’s ad for a chemistry tutor. Sparks flew immediately, and despite Jolene’s persistence, Peyton never allowed anything to happen between them until after her tutoring duties were over. The evening after Jolene�
�s final, they skipped dinner and went directly to dessert. They’d been inseparable for the next two years.

  Jolene was pre-law to Peyton’s pre-med, and they would lie awake after making love and talk about what their life would be like after they finished their education. Jolene had become withdrawn and distant the week before Peyton was scheduled to report to Nelson. Peyton knew it would be difficult for Jolene while she was gone and had gone so far as to tell Jolene it would be best for them to end their relationship. Jolene, however, had continued to declare her love for Peyton and insisted she’d wait for her. But today she didn’t come.

  Peyton glanced at the large, plain, institutional clock high on the wall in the visitors’ room for the third time. It was ten minutes after one, and Jolene was always there promptly when visiting hours began. Her parents noticed her clock-watching.

  “She might have got hung up in traffic,” her mother offered.

  “Or maybe something came up in one of her cases.” That was her father’s attempt at a justification as to Jolene’s no-show status.

  Jolene was a first-year associate at Barker and Hayes, one of the premier law firms in town. Jolene had told Peyton that as a rookie, she was expected to produce, at a minimum, sixty hours of client-billable hours per week. Last week she’d looked tired but excited as she talked about her cases and the people at the firm.

  Peyton didn’t believe either parent, and as the weeks turned into months, not only did Jolene not visit, but she stopped writing, the message clear. Hurt, but realistic enough to realize that Jolene wouldn’t wait fifteen years for her, Peyton logged Jolene as another casualty of her actions.

  “Your girl find available pussy?”

  Peyton kept walking, not acknowledging the disgusting question from Ruth, the resident gossip on B-wing. Nothing was a secret in Nelson. Nothing was private either. Everyone knew who came to visit and who didn’t, and when Jolene had stopped coming, everyone in the wing knew it. A few of the women offered their sympathy, while several others tried to muscle their way into her cot. Peyton wasn’t interested in having a prison wife before Jolene dumped her, and she wouldn’t be anyone’s bitch afterward. She’d spent sixty days in solitary when one woman wouldn’t take no for an answer and ninety for the same offense a month later.