Six Strokes Under (10 page)

 
When
I stepped out of the shower, I heard both the alarms I'd set the night before buzzing. Then the phone rang with my backup wake-up call. Alice MacPherson had put the fear of God into me two days earlier: I wasn't taking any chances about missing the mandatory eight o'clock players' meeting.

Gary Rupert had me steamed. As Kaitlin's on-again, off-again caddie, he had to know the dangers of introducing chaos into the fragile mind of a golfer right before a tournament. Unless he found me so irresistible he could not hold himself back. Ha! Anyway, if he was so overcome with desire, what was the deal with the one snowflake-light kiss, then scram routine? More likely, Kaitlin was using him as her secret weapon—she'd commissioned him to rattle the competition so we would deteriorate and knock ourselves out of the contest. In which case, Gary would have several very busy nights, necking, even briefly, with over a hundred girls. I listened to my new phone messages before leaving the motel. The first was from Mom. I remembered, with the usual surge of guilt, that I hadn't called her since arriving in Florida.

No greeting, just a tremulous voice. "Max Harding came into the restaurant for lunch yesterday. He's so handsome. He asked how the week was going for you. I told him he would have to call you himself, because even though I'm your mother I would certainly have no idea. Love you." And she hung up. The second message was not much better.

"This is Pate. I'm busy at the office today and can't get out to the club. Stop by the sheriff's department when you're finished this afternoon. Take 41 toward downtown Venice, turn at State Road 776, we're on the left." Great, just what I needed, a command appearance from the grand buffoon. I left the motel in a nasty funk.

I grabbed a banana and a cheese Danish as I entered the dining area at the country club, then found a seat at a table with Mary Morrison and Eve Darling. Mary pointed out Julie Atwater, who chatted with Kaitlin several tables in front of us. I would not have guessed from Julie's perfectly made up face and cheerful facade that she had a major feud going on with her dad and the Bible study group. Not to even mention inner conflict.

The deputy commissioner of the LPGA started the meeting off by introducing Alice and the other LPGA staff in attendance, then the head honcho of the Plantation Country Club. We clapped politely for each of them.

"There will be two waves of tee times on both courses tomorrow and Wednesday, at seven-thirty and eleven a.m.," the commissioner explained. "As you know, a random draw will determine your pairings. After Wednesday, half the field will be cut, with the remaining golfers arranged  in  threesomes  according  to  their cumulative scores." The dreaded cut. Slamming the trunk, the players on the PGA Tour called it. Over the last year, Mike and I had gotten very familiar with the concept. Nothing else could bleed the air out of a dream quite so fast.

"You must be physically inside the roped area around the tee at your group's starting time. Otherwise, you will be assessed a two-stroke penalty. When you physically leave the roped area around the scoring tent, your card is ours. You will not be allowed to return to sign the card or change a score at that point." All the girls competing in the tournament were familiar with these rules. Still, even on the professional Tour, it was amazing how many top players had disqualified themselves with some dumb blunder over the course of their careers.

"We have a relatively small field this year," the commissioner continued. "Slow play will not be tolerated." I noticed Mary rolling her eyes in Kaitlin's direction. "You have lots of running room, so move smartly. If you see an official in a rules cart, you can assume you are being timed. Any player who shoots eighty-eight or higher will be automatically withdrawn from the tournament." I didn't even want to think about that hideous possibility. Eighty-eight might sound acceptable to an eighteen hand-icapper in the qualifying round of her club championship, but oh, my God, what a humiliating way to end the Q-school experience.

"Just a couple more friendly reminders," said the commissioner. "Each threesome will be assigned two carts. At no time may you and your caddie ride in the cart together during the play of a hole. However, both of you may ride from the green to the next tee. Second, volunteers with radios will be posted on holes three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen. They can call a rules official for you if needed. Please, ladies, remember that it's a bad idea to accept rulings from spectators." The players around me laughed. That seemed an obvious and gratuitous reminder, but I knew how common sense could completely evaporate in tense tournament conditions.

"Third, a list of nonconforming equipment is posted on the bulletin board. The use of one of these drivers in USGA competitions is the grounds for disqualification. Finally, your practice balls are provided courtesy of Ti-tleist. They'll be donated to junior girls' golf programs after this week. They're very nice balls, but please don't take them home. We get very upset if they disappear into your bag." The girls at my table laughed again.

"Only thirty of you will go on to the final round of the LPGA Q-school As far as we're concerned, you're all winners. Play your best and good luck." The tears that sprang to my eyes surprised me. It was really happening. I was no longer lying home on that gingham bedspread, looking at the posters of Nancy Lopez and Freddie Couples holding their trophies, dreaming that one day I'd be there, too. This was my chance: I promised myself to enjoy every minute of it. Okay, at least some of them, I bargained.

Before heading over to the Bobcat course, I called Dr. Turner's office. His receptionist was delighted to offer me an appointment the same afternoon at five p.m. She was probably afraid she wouldn't get a paycheck this month if she didn't book a few more suckers into his schedule. I'd have time to pick Laura up at the airport and still make my pseudo-session with Turner.

"May I ask your chief complaint?" the receptionist said. "You certainly aren't required to tell me this on the phone, but it does help the doctor prepare for you."

I vacillated for a moment about how much to say. I already regretted having given my real name. "I'd rather not.... I'm not really comfortable...."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice trembling with concern. "But don't worry. You've done just right. He's very good with that problem." She said
that problem
in the same tone I'd heard TV announcers use when they talked about feminine hygiene products. I wondered what she thought my problem was. I wondered how much it would cost me to get Laura to pose for an hour as the possibly traumatized Cassandra Burdette.

I hung up and hurried over to pick up a cart for my 9:15 practice round. At the tournament office, I learned I had been assigned to play with Jessica Anderson and Julie Atwater. This was good news and bad. Maybe I'd have the chance to casually inquire about her problems with her father—if it were possible to casually inquire about such problems. On the other hand, the golf course had to be my primary focus. If all went well, I'd be playing three rounds on the Bobcat course this week, and I needed to feel comfortable and prepared. I lugged my bag to the cart barn and spotted my playing partners.

"I'm Cassie," I said, reaching out to shake hands. Julie was a big-boned girl with big boobs and wide hips. She wore a turquoise straw hat and pearls, and a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her shirt gapped open between buttons just enough to show a flash of purple lace as she returned my handshake.

"Howdy," she said. "Good luck today. I guess we'll be sharing a cart."

"Great to meet you," said Jessica, stepping up next to Julie. She was dwarfed beside Julie, small and slight with a big smile and quick, birdlike hand movements. "That's my dad, Harvey." A balding, middle-aged man with a prominent potbelly, thin legs, and knobby knees waved to us from Jessica's golf cart. I hoped he wouldn't slow play down by having a heart attack on the course tomorrow. Pure sour grapes, I scolded myself. So my own father hadn't expressed the slightest interest in caddying, probably wasn't even aware I was competing at Q-school. Buck up. It could be worse. He could be Leviticus.

"Aren't you from Myrtle Beach?" asked Julie on the ride over to the first tee. I nodded. "Kaitlin's mentioned you."

"I don't like the sound of that," I said. "Whatever she said, puh-leeze give me the benefit of the doubt."

"It's not that bad," she said with a smile that struck me as sincere. "She doesn't have me brainwashed or anything." She pointed to the players in front of us reaching the first green. "Looks like we're good to go here."

I watched as the other two players hit their drives, Jessica's long and straight, Julie's a wicked slice that dribbled into a bunker on the right side of the fairway.

"Damn it," she said. "I must be swinging over the top."

I hit a pop-up fly straight down the middle, though barely past the hundred-and-fifty-yard marker. I joined Julie in the cart for the ride to my ball. Next I skimmed a seven-iron low and ugly down the fairway. Julie stepped on the gas when I'd barely sat down and we lurched toward the green. Once there, Jessica sank a three-footer for birdie and slapped hands with her father. Julie and I both three-putted for bogeys.

"Number two's a beast," I heard Jessica tell her father as she got into the cart. "With my draw, I'm either in the mounds or the trap. The approach to the green's even worse."

"You gotta love it, though, honey," said her father, replacing her putter in the bag. "Just being here—what a dream come true." She hugged him before he trotted off toward the next hole. It was going to take every bit of mental toughness I owned to finish this round without feeling pathetic. Julie patted me on the back. "You'll be fine once you settle down into a rhythm."

The rhythm would have to wait. All three of the players in front of us knocked their approach shots into the pond to the right of the green, promising at least a short delay. Julie and I chatted about her year on the Futures Tour and her disastrous experience at Q-school last year.

"You already look a hundred times more comfortable than I did," she said. "I never broke eighty either day."

"Yikes," I said. We watched the girls ahead of us fish multiple balls out of the water. Given the friendly tone of Julie's comments so far, I decided to blunder ahead. "This must be a hard time for you," I offered. "All the extra pressure with your dad, on top of just being here."

"It is."

"I don't know if you heard this, but I'm the one who found Dr. Bencher last week."

"You're joking." Now her face looked genuinely shocked. "That must have been horrible."

"It was. This is awkward, but I hoped you'd talk to me about your experience with him. The sheriff's office seems to think that I'm somehow involved."

"Get out! They don't think you killed him?"

I shrugged. "Either that, or I know something that I don't realize I know about who the murderer was."

"I'll help if I can," said Julie. "What do you need?"

"Tell me whatever you feel comfortable saying. I guess my biggest question is who would have wanted the guy dead?"

"Since you're asking me, I assume my father has already come to your mind," said Julie. "I wouldn't have pictured him as a killer, but one never knows. I've found a lot out about him in the past year, all of it news and none of it good."

I got out of the cart to stretch. "Bencher helped you figure some stuff out?"

"I only saw the doctor once," said Julie. She wiped the perspiration off her forehead with her golf towel, then waved it in the direction of the clubhouse. "Those idiots with placards want you to believe that there's no such thing as an honest memory. Evil and persuasive shrinks plant thoughts into the weak shells of the women who come for help. In my case, Bencher barely said a word. It was like all this garbage had been bubbling inside me and it took fifty minutes of spewing it out in his office to figure out what I'd been thinking and feeling. You know what I mean?"

"I think so. Just having someone listen sometimes helps you put words to what's in the back of your mind."

Julie nodded. "I knew for a long time that there was something wrong with my relationship with my father. Some of the things he did ..." She looked first as though she might cry, then she pulled her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes. "But I didn't want to see this too clearly—who wants to think their father is a lech?"

"Obviously, I don't know you very well, but you seem so different from him."

"He and Mom split up when I was eight so I've seen very little of him since then. Trust me, there was a good reason Mom dumped him. The better question is why she married him in the first place."

"So Bencher didn't suggest he'd abused you?"

"No. The only thing he commented on specifically was how my father had hurt me emotionally. Dr. Bencher was quite clear about that."

I glanced up toward the green. Two of the three players ahead had dropped their balls outside the hazard and were preparing to chip on. "Do you mind saying how?"

"He said a good father should start out as the sun in his daughter's life. Then, to allow her to grow into a woman, he has to step back and give her room to connect with other men. He moves from sun to moon." Her laugh was harsh and mirthless. "My father scored oh for two."

"He said all that in the first hour?" She nodded. I'd droned on for what seemed like months before Baxter offered any comments on the trouble I had with my father.