He came back and handed down her drink. “Try that,” he said. “Terri liked her Campari with a little sweet vermouth. It’s called an Americano.”
She sipped the drink and nodded approval. Glancing back up the hall, she now noticed his black club carrier, propped against the wall in the dining room. The bag itself lay across the dining table.
“I see you unpacked your clubs.”
Sweeney looked and nodded. “They don’t owe me anything,” he said, still looking at the clubs. “I won a lot of money with those.”
“Are you what’s called a scratch golfer?”
“So they tell me.”
“I never played.” He turned to her and cocked his head in mock disbelief. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You just have to accept that such things are possible.”
“So I heard,” he said. “It’s just hard to believe. But don’t take it up. It’ll make you crazy, or turn into a religion.”
“Which is it for you?”
“Neither, now.” She saw he thought this answer might sound self-pitying, and he added, “Thanks to a twelve-step program.”
“You’re a recovering golfer.”
“You take it one day at a time,” Sweeney said. “No golf channel, no sports section. The ultimate acid test—” he looked back at the golf bag “—is seeing if you can play one last round and quit.”
He thought a moment, and now carried his drink into the dining room. She watched him set the glass on the table, reach into the golf bag and bring out a club. He changed his mind, re-slotted the club, and lifted the bag off the table. He shouldered it, then got his drink. “Come on,” he said and came toward her. “I’m going to pass along valuable information.”
“You’re falling off the twelve-step wagon.” She got up with her drink and followed him out, down to the pool deck. “We should call your support person.”
“Lost the number.”
He flicked a toggle switch, and floodlights came on outside. They were attached to the screen cage and sent two arcs out into the fairway. Sweeney held the door for her, then led the way along to the back. The ground here lay flat for twenty feet before sloping down into a shallow gully. Continuing up the opposite slope, the fairway stretched in a broad, grassy band. On the far side rose the dark outlines of large houses.
Sweeney tossed off his drink and dropped the glass. He slipped off the shoulder strap, drew out his driver, and lowered the bag. He stepped to the corner of the cage, reached up with the club and pushed the neck of a spotlight. The beam sliced out farther into the fairway. After repeating this with the second spotlight, Sweeney came back and zipped open a pouch on his bag. He tossed out a dozen or more golf balls. Quickly teeing up, he straightened and made ready to swing.
“Watch.”
It mattered to him, she could tell, and Brenda watched intently. Not just to see his swing, but all at once she wanted to get whatever it was that led so many people to order their lives around golf. Before now, Sweeney had looked defeated, drinking hard to get through the evening. Now, in the character of his stance, in the way his hands gripped the club, working his feet in some ritual formed long ago, she saw him for the moment as an undivided, unified self.
He looked once more to his left, drew back the club in a graceful arc, and without pause swung. A solid clink. For two beats she saw the ball’s trajectory in the wedge of light, rising incredibly fast, thrilling in its speed—and then she lost it. Sweeney was graceful. And how could she witness a man’s mastery of physical gesture without thinking of Charlie Schmidt? He taught you how to cast for pike, Brenda thought. Looking out on the brilliant wedge of green in the night, she remembered the remarkable conservation of energy in Charlie Schmidt’s fishing, sure then as now that watching him cast had blended somehow with her father surfcasting for bluefish in South Truro. With both men, only what was needed was ever used to send the spoon or Rapala lure to the exact point intended.
When she looked back, Sweeney had already teed up another ball. He swung again, very skilled—clink. The ball again sailed up, still rising when she lost it. He brought the club down and leaned on it to tee another ball. He straightened and held the club out to her.
“Come on, you’re up.”
“I feel foolish.”
“No, you feel self-conscious. Out of your element. Foolish is playing twenty-seven holes, teeing up on the same par three, and driving a two-iron into the same sand trap three times. Just see what happens.”
She tried to hold the club as Sweeney had. He stepped behind her and came in close. It was just like all the cop-a-feel golf lessons in movies. But it wasn’t. Firmly, even roughly, Sweeney realigned her hands on the club’s handgrip before tapping her left elbow. “Keep this straight,” he said. “When you swing, don’t look up, keep your head down. Nobody ever does, but try. Think of being able to move everything except the center of your body.”
He stepped away. How did you move everything but your center? “Take your time,” he said. “Don’t be in a hurry to get it over with.” Yes, that was what she was thinking, to swing and be done with it. Instead, she settled back a moment, thinking about her center. Brenda drew the club back and swung. She missed altogether.
“That’s fine,” he said. “You’re afraid of hurting it. Try again.”
With the second swing,
