'Teddy!'
'-but don't worry about it. My social studies project is due next week, and I've got something so awesome planned that Miss Pearson's going to give me about a million A-pluses and beg me to stay
in the class. Gerry said-'
'Oh, Teddy. We have to talk about this.'
He grabbed his backpack. 'I've got to go or I'll be late.'
Before she could stop him, he had raced out of the kitchen and she heard the slam of the front door.
She wanted to climb back into bed and pull the covers over her head so she could think, but she had a meeting scheduled in an hour. She couldn't do anything about Teddy at the moment, but if she hurried she would have time for a quick stop at the studio where 'China Colt' was being shot to make certain Teddy had understood Holly Grace's message correctly. Was Dallie really playing in the Classic? Had
her words actually touched him?
Holly Grace had already filmed the first scene of the day when Francesca got there. In addition to a carefully positioned rip on the front of her dress that revealed the top of her left breast, she had a fake bruise on her forehead. 'Rough day?' Francesca said, coming toward her.
Holly Grace looked up from the script she was studying. 'I got attacked by this demented hooker who turns out to be a transvestite psychopath. They're doing this great Bonnie and Clyde slow-motion shot
at the end where I plug this guy with two bullets right through his silicone implants.'
Francesca barely heard her. 'Holly Grace, is it true that Dallie's playing in the Classic?'
'He told me he was, and I'm not too happy with you right now.' She tossed her script down on the
chair. 'Dallie didn't give me any details, but I gather that you handed him his walking papers.'
'You might say that,' Francesca replied cautiously.
A look of disapproval crossed Holly Grace's face. 'Your timing stinks, you know that? Would it have been too much for you to wait until after the Classic before you did your number on him? If you'd set your mind to it, I don't think you could have found a better way to screw him up.'
Francesca began to explain, but then, with a sense of shock, she realized that she understood Dallie
better than Holly Grace did. The idea was so startling, so new to her, that she could barely take it in. She made a few noncommittal comments, knowing that if she tried to explain herself, Holly Grace would never understand. Then she made a production out of looking at her watch and rushing off.
As she left the studio, her thoughts were in a turmoil. Holly Grace was Dallie's best friend, his first love, his soul mate, but the two of them were so much alike that they had become blind to each other's faults. Whenever Dallie lost a tournament, Holly Grace made excuses for him, sympathized with him, and in general treated him like a child. As well as Holly Grace knew him, she didn't understand how his fear of failure was screwing up his golf. And if she didn't understand that, she would never understand how that same fear was ruining his life.
Chapter 32
Once it was first played in 1935, the United States Classic had grown in prestige until it was now considered the 'fifth major'-right along with the Masters, the British Open, the PGA, and the U.S. Open. The course where the Classic was held had become legendary, a place to be mentioned in the
same breath as Augusta, Cypress Point, and Merion. Golfers called it the Old Testament and for good reason. The course was one of the most beautiful in the South, lush with pines and ancient magnolias. Beards of Spanish moss draped the oaks that served as a backdrop to the small, perfectly manicured greens, and oyster-white sand, soft as powder, filled the bunkers. When the day was still and the sun warm, the fairways glistened with light so pure it seemed heavenly. But the natural beauty of the course was part of its treachery. While it warmed the heart, it could also lull the senses, so that the bedazzled player didn't realize until a fraction of a second too late that the Old Testament forgave no sins.
Golfers snarled at it and cursed it and swore they would never play it again, but the best of them always came back, because those heroic eighteen holes provided something that life itself could never deliver. They provided perfect justice. The good shot was always rewarded, the bad met with swift, terrible punishment. Those eighteen holes provided no second chance, no time for jury-rigging, no opportunity to plea-bargain. The Old Testament vanquished the weak, while on the strong it bestowed glory and honor forever. Or at least until the next day.
Dallie hated the Classic. Before he'd given up drinking and his game had improved, he hadn't always qualified for it. The last few years, however, he'd played well enough to find himself on the roster. Most of the time he wished he'd stayed home. The Old Testament was a golf course that demanded perfection, and Dallie damned well knew he was too imperfect to live up to that kind of expectation. He told himself that the Classic was a tournament like any other, but when this course defeated him, it seemed to shrink his very soul.
Every part of him wished that Francesca had chosen another tournament when she'd issued her challenge. Not that he was taking her seriously. No way. As far as he was concerned, she had kissed him good-bye when she'd thrown that little tantrum. Still, someone else was in the announcers' booth when Dallie teed up at the first hole, taking a few seconds to shoot a grin at a pretty little blonde who was smiling at him from the front row of the gallery. He'd told the network honchos they were going to have to wait a little bit longer for him and handed back their contract unsigned. He just hadn't been able to sit this one out. Not this year. Not after what Francesca had said to him.
The grip on his driver felt good in his hand as he addressed the ball, solid and comforting. He felt loose. He felt fine. And he was damned well going to show Francesca that she didn't know what she was talking about. He hit a big booming drive that shot out into the sky-rocket-driven, a NASA special. The gallery applauded. The ball sped through space on its way to eternity. And then, at the very last instant before it descended, it drifted ever so slightly… just enough so that it missed the edge of the fairway and landed in a clump of magnolias.
Francesca bypassed her secretary and dialed her contact in the sports department directly, making her fourth call to him that afternoon. 'How's he doing now?' she asked when the male voice answered.
'Sorry, Francesca, but he lost another shot on the seventeenth hole, which puts him at three over par.
It's only the first round, so-assuming he survives the cut-he has three more rounds to go, but this isn't the best way to start a tournament.' She pressed her eyes shut as he continued. 'Of course, this isn't his kind of tournament anyway, you know that. The Classic is high pressure, high voltage. I remember when Jack Nicklaus owned the place.' She barely listened as he went on, reminiscing about his favorite game. 'Nicklaus is the only golfer in history who could regularly bring the Old Testament to its knees. Year
after year, all through the seventies and even into the early eighties, he'd come into the Classic and blow everybody away, walking those fairways like he owned them, making those tiny little greens beg for mercy with those superhuman putts of his…'
By the end of the day, Dallie was four over par. Francesca felt heartsick. Why had she done this to
him? Why had she issued such a ridiculous challenge? At home that night, she tried to read, but nothing held her attention. She started to clean out the hall closet, but she couldn't concentrate. At ten o'clock
that night, she began phoning the airlines trying to find a late flight. Then she gently awakened Teddy
and told him the two of them were taking a trip.
Holly Grace banged on the door of Francesca's motel room early the next morning. Teddy had just gotten up, but since dawn Francesca had been pacing the perimeters of the shabby little room that was the best accommodation she could find in a town bursting at the seams with golfers and their fans. She nearly threw herself into Holly Grace's arms. 'Thank God you're here! I was afraid something had happened.'
Holly Grace deposited her suitcase just inside the door and sagged wearily into the nearest chair. 'I don't know why I let you talk me into this. We didn't finish shooting until nearly midnight, and I had to take a six a.m. flight. I barely got an hour's sleep on the plane coming down here.'
'I'm sorry, Holly Grace. I know this is an absolutely miserable thing to do to you. If I didn't think it was so important, I'd never have asked.' She hoisted Holly Grace's suitcase to the foot of the bed and opened the latches.
'While you're taking a shower, I'll get some fresh clothes out and Teddy can pick up some breakfast for you at the coffee shop. I know it's dreadful of me to rush you like this, but Dallie tees off in an hour. I've got the passes
