Chapter 14

Thursday-Friday, May 24-25

I headed straight for the bathroom when I got home. I didn’t need another shower, but I did have a quick wash in the sink.

Kacie came in to brush her teeth as I toweled off. I informed her that Jed’s friends were supposed to be at the pool Saturday, but I hadn’t received confirmation yet from Eddie.

“It looks like were going to have everybody,” she said. “Keri’s softball team had to pull out of its tournament for some reason and Erin Bennett’s basketball team didn’t schedule anything this week because of the holiday. If Eddie shows up, you can still sign for one of the girls.”

We discussed our Friday plans — I was going to work out with Jed and help at the club again, Kacie was going to get more sun — and tried to figure out a schedule for Saturday. Mom said Kacie and her crew could have a cabana from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., which was probably later than most of the girls could stay. Kacie didn’t relish the idea of being there when the gates opened, but also didn’t want to make Mom mad by not using the time that had been paid for.

“Just let me know when to head that way,” I said. “Morgan sounds like she’s going to be feeling well enough to go, so we can all walk over together as long as your totes aren’t too big.”

I went into my room and turned on my radio to listen to the local Major League team finish up an 8-2 loss and slip back to 12 games under again. Considering it was 8-0 in the eighth inning, I got to listen to the best parts as far as the locals were concerned.

Mom gave me my marching orders at breakfast, telling me to be at the main building at 10. We’d be preparing sponsorship signs for the scramble and delivering them around the course. Most of the sponsoring businesses were owned by club members. It looked to me like they were just exchanging the same money back and forth.

I dutifully downed my glass of pineapple juice and headed over to Jed’s for another round of torture. I explained our assignment at the club while we stretched. He agreed there were worse jobs that we could have been given.

After we cooled down from our running, Jed decided we could skip the deep snapping for today and get an earlier start at the club. We stepped into the main office and Mr. Ferguson directed us to the golf pro shop. At the pro shop, Mr. Horton, the head pro, gave us our instructions and showed us how to put things together.

The process was pretty simple. Most of the signs were printed banners that were connected to a frame by zip ties. The frames were made of one-inch PVC pipe and the whole assembly was pretty light. The trick was that the signs were all different sizes and ranged from squares to long rectangles, thus requiring different lengths of pipe. The pipe had been cut to fit and was supposed to have been labeled as to which pieces went with which signs, but there was still some searching required to get everything properly matched. It was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle with only right angles.

I noticed there were signs for Dad’s company, Mr. Richards’ law firm and Dr. Ensberry’s practice. I thought it was kind of funny that they were going to be my playing partners on Monday.

There were signs for each teebox and green as well as the long-drive and closest-to-the-pin holes (one of each for each nine), giving us a total of 40 signs. Once we got each banner with its proper pieces of pipe, we had to get the PVC connectors for the corners and the required number of zip ties. Mr. Horton came out to help us with the first sign, a long rectangle that required two lengths of pipe and a connector to make the top of the frame, showed us how to cut off the excess length on the zip ties and left us to it.

Once we established a rhythm, the work went pretty quickly. We figured out that we’d be better off if we’d assemble the frame and attach the corners of its sign first, then move on to the next frame. Once we did that for all the signs, we’d come back and attach and trim all the zip ties. Some of the signs would be free-standing, requiring two more lengths of pipe to serve as feet and some wire anchors resembling croquet wickets that would be hammered into the ground. We would attach those pieces on site.

Now it was time for delivery and installation, which had to be done without interfering with the handful of golfers on the course. I don’t think there was a full foursome out at the moment, but there were several retired club members who played nearly every day during the week when it was less crowded.

The greenskeeper had provided us with a John Deere Gator and a little trailer to haul everything around. After a little debate, Jed and I decided to load the signs in the reverse order of unloading as much as possible. There were four long signs including the first one we’d assembled that we could place against the sidewall of the trailer. We loaded those last and started by stacking 18th green, 18th tee and so on so that the sign for the first tee was on top. With a little shifting around, we got the load to where it would ride and prepared to head out.

Jed called shotgun, leaving me to drive the few hundred feet to the first tee. We had to shut off the gas engine to avoid distracting the group putting out on 18, but had the first tee taken care of before they were off the green. We proceeded sedately around the course, sticking to the cart path and distributing the signage according to the list Mr. Horton had provided.

One that caught my attention was for the 14th hole, a par-3 way out on the back side of the course. In addition to the closest-to-the-pin prize, an area BMW dealership was offering a Z4 convertible to anyone who could ace the hole.

BMW had stopped production of the E89 with the retractable hard top a year or so ago and was coming out with G29 version later this year. The dealership had put up a leftover E89 for the prize. If Kacie had known, she would have been begging Dad to let her take my place in the scramble even though she’d never held a golf club before. She’d do damn near anything to get her convertible, even play sports.

A display area for the car, which would be delivered Sunday evening after most of the course was empty, had been set up behind and to the right of the green, out of the direct line of sight of the hole from the tee box. It’d be my luck to shank my tee shot and smash the windshield.

“That looks like a sweet ride,” Jed said, looking at the image of the Z4 on the banner. “No way I’d fit in it, though.”

Jed drove an old pickup that provided ample head and leg room.

“You could probably put it in your hip pocket and walk off with it,” I said. “You’d have to play with it like a Tonka Toy.”

We completed our task, making it back to the pro shop about 1 p.m., delivered the Gator and trailer to the cart shed and made our way to the 19th Hole for more steak sandwiches. We made sure the attendant knew Mr. Ferguson was comping us again today.

While Jed headed home after lunch, I hit the range, trying to envision myself hitting the perfect lob wedge on No. 14.

I got home a little after 3 to find Kacie curled up on the family room sofa, sulking away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling a strange sense of Déjà vu.

“Mom came home for lunch,” she said. “You were right about her making a surprise check. She caught me laying out in the bikini and threw a fit.”