Chapter 23

DAWN ANSWERED THE DOOR IN A LOOSE, suggestive black evening dress, ending whatever modest doubts could have remained regarding her intentions. The smell of her perfume washed over David. He’d gotten a whiff of it at her house, but it was stronger now and more alluring. She’d added some color to her cheeks and lips, though they didn’t require any. Given her husband’s status and the age of their children, David judged her to be in her early forties, but she easily could have passed for thirty-five, and perhaps even thirty were she not betrayed by the weariness in her eyes. Her lustrous, strawberry blonde hair fell onto her open shoulders. Though it hung loosely, David had the clear sense that it was a practiced casualness and that she’d spent several hours getting ready for the evening.

Her coiffed appearance made David wonder whether Dawn had done this before. Did she stash the black dress in the back of a closet, a dirty secret from Walter that she returned to in moments of weakness, when she felt desperate for something to fill the void in her life? Did she feel fulfilled for a moment and then hate herself for having betrayed her husband for so fleeting a satisfaction? After each time, did swear off it forever, only to find herself craving the thrill again and repeating the pattern? Or had Dawn invested so much time getting ready because she

felt as nervous and conflicted as David did?

She held open the door with her left hand; the right rested on her hip.

“You look beautiful,” David said.

“As good as you remembered?”

“Better, and I remember it quite fondly.”

“I thought I might have caught your fancy,” she said playfully.

“You could say that.”

Dawn gestured for him to enter. David felt a momentary sense of relief. Whatever might be said of the enterprise, taking it out of the hallway had to be a positive step. As Dawn closed the door, her neck brushed against David’s face. He felt weak in his knees. She took his hand, sat him on the bed and kissed him on the lips with just enough familiarity to eliminate whatever barrier might have remained between them.

“I was starting to wonder if you would come.”

“I was late getting off the course.”

“I watched on TV. You played well.”

“I did my best. I didn’t really have it today.”

“Come on, you’re being modest. You just shot a 59.”

“That was Friday. You’d be amazed at how little one day has to do with the next.”

She sat down on the bed, well inside his personal space. Her knee grazed against his thigh. David marveled that such a narrow point of friction could produce such heat.

“What’s it like playing with Bobby Rancourt?” she asked.

Even people who couldn’t tell a three-wood from a three-iron were interested in Rancourt. His celebrity transcended golf. Still, David felt grateful. At least it wasn’t The Question.

“Nothing special,” he replied. “It’s just golf.”

“Everybody talks so much about him. What he’s like?

“I have no idea.”

“Oh, come on, you played an entire round of golf together. What did you talk about?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, you must have talked about your families.”

“Nope.”

“What about hobbies?”

“So far as I know, he doesn’t have any.”

“What about golf? You must have discussed your balls or the shafts on your drivers or whatever it is golfers talk about.”

David smiled. “Afraid not. Like I said, we didn’t speak at all.”

“Isn’t it weird to spend an entire day with someone and not speak?”

“Not really. It’s just like any other job.”

“Most people have conversation at work.”

“Maybe, but lots of people also don’t speak at work. I don’t think gardeners do or construction workers or most kinds of artists. I can’t imagine painters and writers speak all that much. They’re probably inside their own heads. Golf is like that.”

She nodded. “But aren’t you curious? I always look at someone successful like that and wonder what got them there. You know, what was his childhood like, what kind of parents did he have?”

David sighed. He wanted this to end. “I don’t know,” he said. “I imagine his parents put a lot of pressure on him. He probably felt they wouldn’t love him unless he played well.”

“Really? Wouldn’t that kind of pressure be crippling? Imagine if you thought that your parents would stop loving you if you hit a bad shot. You’d be paralyzed. No one motivated by fear can perform their best.”

“Playing professional golf is no different than being a virtuoso violinist or a sculptor. It takes thousands of hours to cultivate the skills and

countless more to keep those skills sharp. A kid’s not going to put in that kind of time unless he’s afraid of displeasing his parents. That pressure transforms something trivial into some meaningful. Whatever you play, to become truly great you have to believe that what you’re doing is the only thing in the world that matters.”

“Do you think golf’s the only thing that matters?”

“No. That’s why I’m not Bobby Rancourt.”

It would have been only natural for Dawn to have probed this issue further and to have asked about David’s own childhood. If she did so, David thought he would flee. The last thing in the world he needed was her to psychoanalyze him. But the look on Dawn’s face transformed from serious to seductive. She either sensed that she’d touched upon a sensitive area or her interest in Bobby Rancourt and How-to-Build-a-GreatGolfer had been merely a whim. Whatever the reason, she transitioned from the subject by touching him on the knee, pressing her lips against his ear and asking, “What say we make you forget about the office for a spell?”

David felt another charge surge through his body. “That sounds just fine,” he said.

She bounced off the bed and moved toward the courtesy phone.

“How about some champagne?

“That sounds nice.”

“Not too much, of course. The man has a golf tournament to win tomorrow.”

“It’s okay. I don’t tee off until three.” “That’s what I like to hear,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

“I could get used to late tee times.”

Dawn smiled and dialed room service. “Hi, this is Mrs. David Howard. I’d like to order a bottle of champagne and a bucket of ice.” She listened for

a moment, hung up and sat back down on the bed.

“They said it’ll be about half an hour.”

“You put the room in my name?”

“I couldn’t very well put it in the name of Charlie Price, the most famous proctologist in Alabama, now could I?”

“I suppose not.”

“Is this a problem?”

“No, it’s just funny, that’s all.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m staying in this hotel, but I have my room under an alias.”

Dawn laughed.

“You use an alias?”

“You’d be surprised at what fans will do to get close to the players— even second-rate players like me.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all.” Dawn smiled and extended her hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” she said in the voice of a Southern belle. “Dawn Price.”

He shook. “The name’s Morris. Tom Morris.”

“You golf a fine ball, Mr. Morris. Afraid we don’t get to see that kind of play too often in these parts.”

“Thank you kindly,” he responded, playing along.

“I imagine a big strong man like yourself gets mighty sore after a hard day.”

“Reckon I do.”

Dawn crawled behind David and began kneading his shoulders. They crossed boundaries so quickly they could only be seen receding into the distance, as if from a speeding train. It seemed only natural when her hands moved from his shoulders to his chest, and normal again—daresay obligatory—for him to reciprocate her massage. Remov-

ing clothes helped, and once one article had been discarded, dispensing with the next seemed only trivially more consequential.

People spoke of crossing lines as if they were black and white. Really, the difference between a flirtation and a consummated affair was one of degree, not kind. Only the first step down the slippery slope mattered. From that first stolen glance across the Knotts dinner table, it was only a matter of baby steps to the point where Dawn was whispering things in David’s ear that would have hurt Alabama’s most famous proctologist far more than his wife’s physical transgressions.

David had wondered whether he’d feel guilty, but in the moment, he felt peculiarly tolerant of himself. This deed seemed somehow inevitable. He’d lived so long under the disapproving scrutiny of others, could any more be expected of him? He was just a man after all, and what man didn’t crave unquestioning and complete affirmation? It had been so long since he had had this.

But his tolerance of himself didn’t equate with ecstasy. She was under him, screaming his name, but he felt no elation. It felt rather like having a bunion removed. There was relief, and a perversely pleasurable feeling in having something toxic excised from one’s body, but no euphoria.

Had it ever felt differently with Kristin? He couldn’t remember.

When he’d finished, she nuzzled his neck and praised him, but his desire evaporated and nothing filled the vacuum. No one offered a photograph or snow globe to remind you of your first affair. David felt nothing— not an afterglow, not shame, not confusion, nothing. As Dawn stroked his hair, he stared at the ceiling, wondering if this was all there was.

The bell rang.

“The champagne,” she said.

“I’ll get it,” he replied and put on his boxer shorts.

“Thanks, I need to go to the bathroom.” Suddenly modest, she gath-

ered a sheet around her and walked out of the room. David took tip money from his wallet, opened the door and mindlessly said, “You can just leave it on the table.”

It wasn’t room service. It was Kristin, with Scott in tow.

“I was about to give up,” she said, fluttering with excitement. “I checked all of your aliases that I could remember—Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet, Gene Sarazen, but none of them worked. I was going to give up and call you, which would have ruined the surprise, and then I thought I’d give your real name a shot and there it was, David Howard. So here we are. Surprise!”

David said nothing. Kristin moved forward and gave him a warm, enthusiastic hug, which he did not reciprocate. Over his wife’s shoulder he looked at Scott, who remained in place, trepidatious, as if he sensed something were wrong.

Kristin finished squeezing and stepped back. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It’s a lot of money to spend on last-minute tickets and a rental car, but I was able to get a good deal and my mother is able to watch Amy and I just figured, why not? We used to have so much fun together on the weekends, and the family hasn’t been able to spend as much time together as we should, and how many times does someone shoot a 59? We should celebrate. If you win tomorrow, Scott will get to see his father win a professional golf tournament. And even if not, he’ll get to see you in contention. One way or the other, this is the sort of moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life.”

As she finished her explanation, Kristin tussled Scott’s hair, but David could see that Scott didn’t share his mother’s enthusiasm for their plan. His right hand had drifted down his pant leg and he’d turned his foot slightly in, vestiges of infantile behavior to which he unconsciously returned when he felt uncomfortable or sensed trouble. Though he

couldn’t have articulated why, Scott sensed something wrong.

David understood that his son had inherited his own keen observational skills and intuitive sense of people. In that instant, he felt as proud of and attached to Scott as ever had before. He smiled at Scott, who returned a confused smile of his own, still clutching his pant leg.

From behind the bathroom door came the sound of Dawn’s voice calling, “Is that the champagne, sugar?”

David watched his family assess the situation. Though he didn’t know what to make of the information, Scott had already noticed the twenty-dollar bill in his hand and the fact that his boxers were on inside out. Kristin now processed the entirety of the data and her eyes, filled with hurt and terror, turned to David and asked for assurances that he could not offer. He stood at the door impassively, as he had since he’d opened it.

Dawn, still unseen, called again, “Did they bring extra ice? I asked them to bring extra ice.” She emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped about her suggestively, showing ample cleavage, which brushed against David as she stepped into view. Dawn looked cursorily at Kristin and Scott, somehow intuited nothing, and said, “Oh, it’s not the champagne.” As she retreated to the bed and let her towel drop, Kristin covered her son’s eyes and began leading him down the hall. At the same time, the bellhop emerged from around the corner, champagne and extra ice in tow. As Kristin and Scott passed his cart, Scott turned around to look at his father, who’d remained in the doorway watching the hallway traffic.

In moments that are immediately identifiable as life changing, one is flooded by possible responses. Indeed, all the obvious courses of action occurred to David: to run after his wife and son, to offer explanations, to say it meant nothing, to say they meant everything, to tell the truth, to lie. He knew that offering any excuse, no matter how feeble, would have

been evidence of contrition and would have allowed for the possibility of healing with time. David felt a powerful urge to do something. A situation like this impelled one to action.

But seeing Scott froze him. He recognized the look in his son’s eyes. He’d seen it before—in the eyes of his father, Kristin and the men and women who lined the fairways of golf tournaments: the look of abject disappointment. David had failed again, just as his father had predicted he would fail at everything he did. In a way, he’d fulfilled his destiny. So instead of chasing after his family, David handed the bellhop the twenty, took the champagne and closed the door. He slid off his boxers and slipped into the plush, satin sheets of the hotel bed and Dawn’s open arms.

“Who was that woman?” she asked, as she poured him a glass of champagne.

“Just someone who wanted an autograph for her son.”

Dawn nodded, stroked his head, and for a moment—just a moment—it soothed.