Par for the Course

by Ray Blackston

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Charles “Ray” Blackston

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  FaithWords

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  First eBook Edition: February 2008

  FaithWords is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The FaithWords name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-446-51149-0

  Contents

  EPIGRAPH

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1: LESSON FOR TODAY

  2: LESSON FOR TODAY

  3: LESSON FOR TODAY

  4: LESSON FOR TODAY

  5: LESSON FOR TODAY

  6: LESSON FOR TODAY

  7: LESSON FOR TODAY

  8: LESSON FOR TODAY

  9: LESSON FOR TODAY

  10: LESSON FOR TODAY

  11: LESSON FOR TODAY

  12: LESSON FOR TODAY

  13: LESSON FOR TODAY

  14: LESSON FOR TODAY

  15: LESSON FOR TODAY

  16: LESSON FOR TODAY

  17: LESSON FOR TODAY

  18: LESSON FOR TODAY

  19: LESSON FOR TODAY

  20: LESSON FOR TODAY

  21: LESSON FOR TODAY

  22: LESSON FOR TODAY

  23: LESSON FOR TODAY

  24: LESSON FOR TODAY

  25: LESSON FOR TODAY

  26: LESSON FOR TODAY

  27: LESSON FOR TODAY

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  GLOSSARY

  CREDITS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  If a man digs a pit, he will fall into it.

  —Proverbs 26:27 (NIV)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to my excellent editor, Anne Goldsmith, for her insight, advice, and encouragement. And a very appreciative hug to my agent, Beth Jusino, for finding a home for this project.

  1

  LESSON FOR TODAY

  Par has many meanings, and the courses are often inside our heads.

  I stood behind her in raw sunlight, my hands at her waist, urging her to turn slightly to the right. Without protest she did so. Mrs. Dupree lacked flexibility, though that is not what I would remember. Nor was it the private acre of grass on which we met each Tuesday afternoon. Nor was it the warm smell of salt marsh blowing in from across the bay. It was the way she accepted instruction.

  “Like this?” she asked, and adjusted her stance.

  “Yes,” I replied. “For a beginner, you have an excellent golf swing. Just remember to turn fully and maintain a firm grip on the club.”

  Hack’s Golf Learning Center was where Charleston’s after-work crowd came to practice their technique. My sign hung above the entrance, and its wording was a natural offshoot of my last name: Hackett. Chris Hackett.

  Mrs. Dupree fingered her 5-wood and looked past me at the driving range, where some twenty other adults were swatting away on fake grass mats, the “hitting mats,” as customers referred to them. Striped range balls flew this way and that. Mrs. Dupree turned to face me. “I’ve been wondering something, Chris.”

  “About your grip?”

  “No, about you personally. You’re so patient and understanding with your students, especially us women. There’s no Mrs. Golfer on the horizon?”

  This question popped up at least twice a week, and always from a female client. My answer never varied. “Thanks for the concern, Mrs. Dupree. But my teaching schedule and running this business consume my time, while my social life has been a series of relational double bogeys.”

  I said it in my best low country monotone, as if reciting the pledge of allegiance.

  Fully half of my clientele were women, most of them beginners like Mrs. Dupree, who pounded three more balls at the 100-yard marker. Her stated goal was the same one pressing itself upon all my students—proficiency. She whacked her last ball, a slice that never rose more than three feet off the ground, and plunged her club back into her yellow golf bag. “Well, I just thought you might . . .” She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. “Oh, forget it. I’m intruding in your life.”

  I picked up the plastic range bucket and followed her along a sidewalk that curved behind the hitting mats. Several range hounds—my nickname for folks who showed up three or more times per week—paused from their practice and nodded their greetings as we passed. “You weren’t intruding, Mrs. Dupree,” I said in midstride. “It’s just that I have so little time.”

  All who entered or exited Hack’s had to walk across ten feet of green and white pea gravel. Maybe the fact that I followed Mrs. Dupree all the way through my golf shop and out across the gravel—crunch, crunch—to her Mercedes and loaded her golf bag into her trunk was a clue that I was interested in what she had to say.

  She pressed a remote lock and her car doors snapped to attention. She spoke over the roof. “What I was going to say, Chris, was that someone I know is teaching a class on understanding the opposite sex. I thought it might be of interest to you.”

  My instinct was to grasp for an excuse, and I grasped hard. “But I have to be here at the Learning Center all day. No time for any classes.”

  She got in the car and lowered the passenger window. “It’s a night class. The ad is in today’s paper. Bottom of page B3.”

  Then she winked at me. But it wasn’t a flirty wink, no, not at all; Mrs. Dupree was happily married. Her wink was the kind that says, “Listen to what I just told you. It might help.”

  Perhaps I needed help. In my experience there was something in the word “golf” or “golfer,” or in the phrase “I teach golf” that repelled Southern women. (I had yet to date a Northerner.) For women here in Charleston, South Carolina, it was as if the word “golf” triggered preprogrammed objections to me as a potential mate. He’ll always be away on Saturday, whacking that little white ball with his buddies or teaching others to whack the little white ball, all the while ignoring me and the children.

  After Mrs. Dupree drove away, I forgot about her invitation and hurried back through my pro shop and out to the range. The middle section was elevated some ten feet, which gave beginners the illusion they could get a ball airborne. There I gave fifteen-minute lessons to two kids, an eight-year-old girl and her ten-year-old brother. Their father had signed them up and, surprisingly, urged me to be honest with them about their abilities. So I was. At the end of the lessons, I told the ten-year-old that his little sister could outdrive him with one hand tied behind her back.

  The girl snickered. Their father told the boy to start pumping weights. The boy told his dad he preferred soccer. The kid even kicked a golf ball soccer-style and mumbled, “It ain’t a sport unless you have to run after the ball.”

  At 7:30 p.m. the last hacker left Hack’s. As was my habit at the end of a day, I stood behind the hitting mats and surveyed the acreage, looking for evidence of proficiency from my students. Then I noted the shot dispersion well right of the 100-yard and 150-yard markers. Slicers, so many slicers. Across the grass, thousands of golf balls lay scattered like summer hail refusing to melt.

  I left the balls out there; they could be gathered the next morning. Inside
my modest pro shop I counted the cash in the register and wrote out the next day’s instructions for my groundskeeper. Next to the register sat today’s paper, still rolled up and held with a rubber band. Curious, I pulled off the band and discarded all but section B. The ad centered on the bottom of page 3 read thusly:

  Would you like to understand the opposite sex and learn why men often fail at communicating? Join my eight-week course! First session free; course cost $100. Meet in Conference Room #4 at the Hyatt, on Rivers Avenue. Tuesdays, 8:00 p.m. First meeting 9/06, hosted by Lin Givens. Hope to see you there!

  I tore the ad from the page and tucked it into my shirt pocket, wondering if this Mr. Givens might be of help. I certainly had questions to bring; I wasn’t shy. Understanding the intricacies of women’s golf swings was one thing, but understanding women themselves . . . now this made my head hurt, a 5-iron to the skull.

  Then I looked again at the ad. September 6?

  Today was September 6.

  Another glance at the clock. 7:53 p.m.

  I locked the door to the pro shop, hurried to my truck, and sped for the Hyatt, pausing at stoplights to dab deodorant under each arm. My job entailed lots of sweating, and my spare container of Right Guard saved me on many occasions. My wardrobe check was even quicker. Soiled khakis will have to do, as will the purple golf shirt. Surely this meeting was informal. My effort at parking certainly was.

  Pen in hand—taking notes was a priority—I strode across the Hyatt’s lobby, thankful for good air-conditioning. A sign on the far wall shone in brass lettering:

  CONFERENCE ROOM #4

  I approached the door and noted an unusually sweet smell in the air. Even before I opened door number four and entered the room, I knew. My nostrils—soothed daily by the natural scent of Bermuda grass—told me that this evening I would be, no doubt, in the minority.

  This is okay, I assured myself and reached for the door handle. I’m thirty-one and single, a fairly confident guy. A room with a majority of nice-smelling women is fine, just fine.

  A woman’s amplified voice boomed from inside. I turned the handle and pushed open the door.

  Some sixty people, seated in eight rows of padded navy chairs, turned and stared.

  Face flushing, I hurried through awkward silence to the empty back row and took a seat in the middle. From what I could tell, the attendees were taking turns introducing themselves.

  I mouthed “sorry” to the two women who turned from row seven to eye me a second time. Then I checked my watch—8:19—and looked around for my fellow man.

  No other males in sight. I’m the only guy?

  At the front of the room sat a shallow stage carpeted in dark maroon. It supported a microphone stand, which supported a chrome mic, which the woman behind it gripped with great determination. She sported close-cropped hair and a gray pantsuit, and she looked positively peeved that someone had come late to her meeting.

  She pointed at someone in row one. A woman stood and said, “Carly Thompson, media rep, Charleston,” and sat down.

  The next woman in the row stood and said, “Fran Tatum, owner of the Tatum Gallery, Hilton Head,” and she too sat.

  On the stage, the short-haired woman in the pantsuit nodded and pulled the mic to her lips. I noted her nametag, which read simply LIN.

  “That should do it for our introductions,” she said, “I believe we’ve covered everyone.”

  From the back row I waved my right arm, but she didn’t see me. So I waved again. Her quick glance definitely was aimed my way, though it was only a glance. No nod. No “yes?” No “Your name, sir?” This woman downright ignored me.

  I waved my arm a third time. No response.

  If I had been a dog—spaniel or shepherd or poodle or labradoodle, it wouldn’t have mattered—I’m certain the hair on my back would have stood up. In fact, I should have yelped, turned tail, and bolted. But I did not.

  Sometimes it’s the things you don’t do that end up broadening your knowledge of the world, and what I didn’t do was leave the room. No, at this point I was just a bit ticked that Ms. Speakerwoman had intentionally disregarded my tan, waving right arm. My competitive nature alone convinced me to remain planted.

  “Okay, let’s get to the subject of our talk today,” Lin said next. “I assume you are all familiar with Eve and the fruit, are you not?” She peered back and forth at the first seven rows but never lifted her eyes to me.

  A thin woman in the second row raised her hand. “You mean Eve and Adam and that apple thing?”

  “Yes, Susan. That’s correct.”

  Briefly I wondered why they were putting Eve before Adam. But then I forgot about the order of things, waved my arm a fourth time, and spoke from behind it. “I know the basics of that story too.”

  A few giggles from row five, but nothing from Lin. Perhaps a reddening of the complexion, as if further peeved at my presence. But no way was I leaving now. The newspaper ad had not specified women only, and besides, maybe I could learn something.

  She gripped her mic again and gave it a slight twisting motion, as if to wrest it from its base. “Very well. Seems we are all versed in the storyline. You see, ladies, when Eve met the serpent—let’s call him a snake, since that’s what he was—she was already asserting her great power and independence.”

  “Tell it, sister,” sounded a voice of affirmation in the first row.

  Lin smiled around the side of her mic. “And the man, Adam—what was he doing? Genesis says the man was with her. Imagine that! Here is a man whose wife has been approached by a snake. And not just any snake, mind you, but a talking, manipulating snake! The man surely knows something is wrong, for he has never before encountered a verbose reptile.”

  “Neither have I,” said the voice in the first row.

  More giggles from row five.

  “Same here,” Lin said. “But back to our main issue. The man knows something is wrong, though he is apparently frozen with passivity. He simply leaves Eve to fend for herself. Can any of you relate?”

  Heads nodded.

  One whispered “amen.”

  Lin worked her audience, taking the time to make eye contact with many of the attendees. “I can certainly relate,” she said. “Adam ignores her! He’s a bystander, a mere spectator while this talking snake tries to con his wife. What should the man have done?”

  Offended but amused, I leaned back in my chair until my head rested against the wall. A man-hater quoting from the Bible? How weird is this?

  “Anyone?” Lin asked the room. “What should the man have done?”

  A woman stood in the fourth row. She turned, and I read her nametag: CECELIA.

  Obviously enthused about the subject matter, Cecelia put her hands on her ample hips and said, “What that man shoulda done, at a bare minimum, is hold up his hands to the snake and say, ‘Mister Snake, now you just hold on a second. Just zip your serpent lip, ’cause I need to talk to my wife.’ ”

  “That’s mostly correct, Cecelia,” Lin said from the stage. “If Adam had information that would have helped Eve, he should have told her beforehand, stepped away, and then allowed Eve to independently make the decision. She was fully capable of doing the right thing; she just needed a tad more info.”

  Cecilia waved her arm, which was immediately acknowledged. “But that man, Adam, he didn’t do nothin’! He just stood there and watched. Uh-huh, just stood there and watched it all fall apart.”

  Lin was by now grinning over the mic. “And then . . . THEN the man points the finger at the woman and tells God, ‘She did it!’ ”

  “Yep, just like a man.”

  “Bingo” and “Preach it, sister” emanated from the room.

  “Wait a second!” I interrupted. Heads turned, none smiling. “Are you saying the man, Adam, was merely a supplier of information to Eve, who would have not eaten the fruit if she’d had ‘just a tad more info’? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Ridiculous to you, perhaps.” And again Lin refused to lo
ok at me.

  Her ongoing effort to overlook me produced a certain boldness in me. Without so much as a raise of my hand I blurted, “Hey, Miss Lin Givens, you haven’t even let me introduce myself yet. Why the cold shoulder?”

  She shrugged with a kind of mock sympathy before sharing an embarrassed smile with women in the first two rows. “Okay then, sir, tell us. Tell us who you are.”

  “You mean you’re letting me introduce myself?”

  “Please.”

  I leaned forward and gripped the chair in front of me, unsure if I should stand. “I’m Chris Hackett, and I own and operate Hack’s Golf Learning Center, west of the Ashley River, here in Charleston.” Then I sensed the need to say more, to make them comfortable with my presence. “I appreciate y’all allowing a man in the class. I figure this male-female stuff is kinda like learning the golf swing. You have to grasp the fundamentals before you make meaningful progress.”

  Lin cocked her head to the side. Then her expression changed slowly from amusement to confusion to sarcastic nod.

  “Ah, yes . . . golf,” she said to her cohorts in the first row, “yet another example of male dominance. And what do we think our dear Eve would have done with the sport?”

  Women in seven rows looked at each other as if pondering the correct answer. I knew the correct answer, though I wanted to hear what the females might say. Lin scanned her congregation and repeated loudly, “Ladies, what do we think our dear Eve would have done with the sport?”

  “Bit the forbidden golf ball?” I asked. “Cracked a tooth?”

  Oh, the tension in that room. Oh, the turned heads and raised eyebrows. Oh, how Lin’s personality grated against mine. And oh, how I hoped she didn’t carry a concealed weapon.

  What she carried was a degree of arrogance that was rare for the genteel city of Charleston. “Are you a member of a country club, Mr. Hackett?” she inquired.

  “Yes, I am. Yeamans Hall Club.”

  Lin looked again to the first row, which I figured was filled with her yes-women. “You’ll notice, ladies, the root words of the country club to which Chris belongs—‘yeah’ and ‘man,’ as if that very name was invented to secretly cheer themselves on.”