Chapter 20

Tess' opening round Friday was just so-so. She finished the day one over and found herself back in the pack. One of the Tour's several talented Korean women was tearing up the Beaver Meadow course, and when we went back to the RV that night, Tess was a discouraging six strokes behind the leader, with a crowd of competitors ahead of her.

The bus was hot inside because we didn't leave the air on all day while we were gone; but the atmosphere inside was frigid all the same.

Kim had shot even par, so she wasn't exactly doing cartwheels, either.

My usual style in the RV was to be Gracious Host and all-purpose gofer, setting the table for our meals and preparing dinner for everyone. Preparing microwave dinners didn't exactly require the Iron Chef, but my efforts did take minor amounts of pressure off my two often-tense athletes.

Nothing wrong with a little coddling at the end of a hard day.

But I was sulking now. I made my own microwave dinner and went outside to eat it, seated some distance from our RV at an outdoor table thoughtfully provided by the park management.

Well. Big deal. Either woman could handle her own meal-preparations with little strain. But stiffing them like that made me feel better. Poor Kim hadn't fucked me over personally, but she was a member of the same tribe, so to hell with her, too!

My good novel, regrettably, had been finished, and I didn't have anything else on hand that I wanted to read. I did a lot of thinking, instead. It was more like 'stewing' than sober thought.

Guess what I was thinking about?

I kept re-running my best recollection of Tess' initial overtures: The conditions she had set out when we had first gotten together as lovers. What, exactly, was supposed to be our 'understanding?' It was easy enough to remember her "no commitments' spiel.

I knew I could never really fault her for misleading me about The Big Picture. It was the nuances, though, where The Deal, for me at least, had come apart at the seams. Sure, I had understood that in September, when the Futures Tour schedule ran out, we might be saying our goodbyes. My days as Tess' live-in lover might come to an abrupt end.

I had always understood that, although our high level of compatibility, in and out of the sack, had made me hopeful about a longer-term relationship.

But, evidently, Tess' "no commitments" understanding was radically different from mine. I had assumed that I had at least a month-to-month lease on her affections. Turns out it had been more like day-to-day. That wasn't just hard for me to take; it was shocking. Appalling.

Me, I'd always been a serial monogamist. If I was going to try to get into Girl B's panties, I had always made certain that Girl A was completely out of the picture first. I had naively assumed that Tess was operating from essentially the same set of values.

I guess I must have assumed wrong.

Adding to the humiliation was the fact that, when Prince Hal showed up the next week in Morgantown, I would be expected to act as if all I'd ever been to Tess was her caddie and bus driver. I couldn't even openly compete for my girl.

Double-bummer! I wasn't just emasculated, I was supposed to play the part of Will the Eunuch for the duration of Hal's little homecoming.

So then, what was supposed to happen after Boyfriend went back home to resume his own Graduation Summer? Would Tess expect the two of us to resume our formerly torrid pattern? Or would Prince Hal's visit have a sobering influence on Tess, so that she, thereafter, would refuse to "cheat on him" with me any longer?

And even if she wanted to start up with me again, what about my feelings?

A stiff prick, some wise guy once said, has no conscience. Well, there was, I knew, no greater truth than that. I knew that, if given the opportunity, I'd desperately want to make love to Tess again.

And again.

I wouldn't need any fucking little blue pills, either. And I'd try hard to find a way to rationalize a return to our status quo, ante-Hal.

But I wasn't at all certain that I actually could, or would, give in to that temptation again. Tess had disappointed me something terrible! Sure, she was an amazing young woman. Evidently, however, she was not quite the same woman I had thought she was.

I gave some thought to just picking up and taking off. After all, I wasn't an essential part of this little expedition. Tess had resources. If necessary, she could find another driver, temporary or permanent, for the RV. Caddies? Available in bulk quantities for a reasonable fee, everywhere she competed.

So who really needed Mr. Zoloft, for anything except maybe a warm body to get them through the night?

Hey! Maybe I could hire myself out!... Not as a male prostitute. I knew I wasn't that big a deal as a sex partner. No. Just hire out as a sleeping partner for tense, insomniacal women. Maybe I could run an ad:

WARM HANDS, WARM HEART. High-metabolism

male available for midnight cuddling,

all-purpose bed-warming. Coitus optional.

Gentle groping on request. Rates

reasonable. Ask for "W" at 1-800-S-L-U-M-B-E-R

[758-6237]. Females only, please.

Yeah, maybe I had a future in bed-partnering. The pay and benefits, probably, were pretty low, but you couldn't beat the working conditions.

We were still tip-toeing around each other on Saturday for Round Two. For the first time, Kim and Tess got assigned to the same grouping in a tournament, and both of them were pleased with that. In response, they shot twin 70s, two-under-par, both making the cut with ease.

Going into the final round Sunday, Kim was two under for the tournament and Tess one under. Neither of them looked like a prospect to win the big money.

They practiced for quite a while after the Saturday round, and when we left the course for the day, it felt like one of those nights when we'd all go together to a good restaurant for a change-of-pace Saturday night outing.

But The Big Chill was still in full effect. I said nothing about going out. Actually, I said nothing about anything. I worked on trying not to be affirmatively sullen, but I certainly wasn't coming off as Mr. Peace-and-Love.

After an hour of sitting around in the RV, Tess told me "Kim and I are going out for dinner in a half-hour."