Alistair’s eyes light up. It is the look of a predator spotting a wounded gazelle.
“Never played? Marvellous! We’ll play for skins. Five hundred a hole?”
“Alistair, stop trying to bankrupt the staff,” Catherine snaps. She is sitting in a golf cart, wearing a visor large enough to block out the sun for a small village.
She turns her gaze on Luke.
“Dr. Silva,” she says. “So brave of you to join us. And in… shorts. How… athletic.”
“It’s hot, Mrs. York,” Luke says politely.
“Mmm. Harrison is wearing linen trousers,” she notes, gesturing to the putting green.
And there he is. Harrison Vane.
He is wearing beige. Beige pants. Beige shirt. Beige cap. He looks like a human band-aid. And yes, he is wearing a cape-like windbreaker draped over his shoulders.
“Preston!” Harrison calls out, waving a putter. “I was just telling your mother about the provenance of this club! It’s hickory! From 1910!”
“Kill me,” I whisper to Luke.
“He’s wearing a cape,” Luke whispers back. “You weren’t lying.”
“Let’s play!” Alistair yells. “Harrison, you’re with Preston. Dr. Silva, you’re with me. Try not to slow us down.”
The tragedy begins immediately.
Harrison Vane does not play golf. He performs golf. Every shot involves a three-minute monologue about wind resistance and "chi."
I am miserable. I am sweating. My lavender linen is wilting.
Luke, however, is annoying.
“It’s just physics,” Luke says on the third hole, looking at the ball. “Fulcrum. Lever. Velocity.”
He steps up. He swings.
It isn't a pretty swing. It’s brute force. But he connects. The ball rockets off the tee, soaring straight down the fairway, outdriving Alistair by fifty yards.
“Beginner’s luck!” Alistair shouts, his face turning red.
On the fifth hole, Luke sinks a twenty-foot putt.
“Geometry,” Luke shrugs. “Reading the slope.”
Alistair is vibrating. He hates losing. He especially hates losing to someone wearing off-the-rack chinos.
“The boy is a hustler!” Alistair hisses to me as we walk to the seventh tee. “He claimed he never played! He’s a shark, Preston! A sleeper agent!”
“He’s a trauma surgeon, Dad,” I say, watching Luke lean on his club, looking effortlessly cool. “He understands mechanics. And he’s not intimidated by you. He cuts people open for a living.”
“I don’t like it,” Alistair grumbles. “I’m going to use the Big Bertha.”
He pulls out a driver that looks illegal in forty-eight states.
We reach the ninth green. The clubhouse is in sight. Freedom is close.
“So,” Catherine says, pulling her cart up next to mine. She looks at Luke, who is helping Harrison find his ball in a sand trap.
