Chapter 18

We'd made good time on Sunday and our drive to New Hampshire would take us very close to New York City. Tess asked Kim if she wanted to go into the city, and spend half a day there, and perhaps the night, as well.

"What would we have time to do?" Kim wanted to know.

"A good dinner," Tess said.

"A good hotel," I said.

"We could see a play."

"Or a ballgame."

"But then we would arrive at the tournament very late on Tuesday, correct?" Kim said.

"True," I said. "We'd have to leave the bus out here in the boonies somewhere -- you're not going to catch me driving this thing in Manhattan! And we'd have to drive back here to get it again, on Tuesday morning. Just to Boston, from New York, is over 200 miles, and Boston ain't Concord, New Hampshire."

"I would like to see the city," Kim said, "but I'd like to see more of it, and stay in it for longer. If you don't mind, I'd rather go ahead to the tournament."

"OK by me," Tess said. "I've been to New York. It's a great place, Kim. You really should see it when you can, but you're right -- a half day isn't nearly enough."

So we forged on. As we had planned, we stopped again on Monday evening, still short of Concord. But Tuesday morning's finishing run would require less than two hours. We agreed that, on arrival, I would simply drop the two women off, with their gear, at the host club. Then I would tend to the set-up in our next RV Park by myself. The expectation was that by the time I had us settled in and had came back with the car to pick them up, they'd have done all the preliminary practicing they wanted to do on our early-arrival day.

Well, I was trapped by my own efficiency, because the RV Park was reasonably convenient (for a change) to Concord's Beaver Meadow Golf Course, where the tournament was to be staged. My registration at the park and the set-up process for our vehicle was accomplished in short order, and when I parked the liberated Scion at Beaver Meadow, the two women had been there for less than two hours.

They were easy to find, each with a large bucket of balls, firing away on the Club's driving range. I made sure Tess saw me, and then retreated, looking for some shade.

They had registered for the tournament, had demurred on participating in Thursday's pro-am event, and had made arrangements to practice, Thursday, at another club in town to avoid the pro-am congestion the day before the tournament was to begin.

They would, of course, still play a practice round at Beaver Meadow on Wednesday.

"You probably will have to stop calling me 'Kim' here," Kim Young Sun told Tess, laughing. There are many, many Korean women on the Tour, and quite a few of us have 'Kim' as part of our name. I even met a girl, on the tour, from somewhere in South America, and her name was 'Maria Kim.'"

"I noticed there were lots of Korean women," Tess agreed. "Why have so many come over?"

"The same as you," Kim told her. "Opportunity. There are few golf tours in all the world, for women. It is difficult to make one's way to the LPGA tour. This is one of the best places for us to begin, the same as you."

"Did you notice," Tess said, "a Korean woman won here, last year?"

"Kyeong Bae," Kim said. "Yes! I know her. She has an excellent game, even if her name isn't 'Kim'!"

Our Tuesday "brief visit" to the host course ended up requiring four hours, but if Tess and Kim weren't tired, physically or emotionally, then why not? I made Tess promise to take it slow and easy on Wednesday. We agreed that the three of us would come back at daybreak to walk the entire course together, and then break for breakfast, returning in the late morning for their practice round.

Expecting to come back sooner, I had left the air conditioning on in the RV, and both women gratefully slumped in the coolness of the interior while I set about preparing us a late lunch.

"I am going to miss this bus!" Kim exclaimed, kicking off her shoes and lifting her skirt, repeatedly, allowing the cool air to be fanned underneath.

It sounded very much like a hint for Tess to offer an extension of her hospitality. But Kim quickly realized this, and spoke up again. "I have plans to travel to Morgantown, and to the next two events after that, with three other women from Korea," she said. "We have agreed to share expenses, and will rent a minivan to travel together. If I were to change our plan, they would be trapped into a more expensive trip, or forced to alter their own plans."

I sighed inwardly. Kim Young Sun had a lot of class. She knew how to bow out gracefully.

And I, although feeling a little guilty about it, would be happy to have Tess all to myself again.

"That's fine," Tess told her. "I was going to offer you a ride on to Morgantown, but after that, there would have been a problem, because my -- my boyfriend from school is going to come to see me play there. He's going to be a law student at UVA, and he's still in Charlottesville. Morgantown will be the easiest place for him to get to, from there, for a quick visit."

Oh, shit! On second thought, I'd rather have had Kim stay on with us.

I said nothing at all, but this news about Tess' boyfriend (the faceless guy that I'd been thinking of as 'Tess' old boyfriend') was, for me, a crushing blow.

Oh, sure, we'd agreed that we were going to have 'no strings' sex together. I hadn't forgotten that. And I was already aware that I had been serving as a Tour-Tension Reducer. Seven inches of instant Zoloft, that was me. Available on demand, take as needed.