Chapter 22

No surprises. That had to be either Tess on the phone, or the National Security Agency.

"Yeah?"

"Can you come back here?"

It wasn't the NSA.

"To the RV?"

"Yeah."

I looked at the clock. "Something wrong?"

"I'm alone here," she said.

"What happened?"

"He's gone. Hal. He's gone back to Virginia."

"It's the middle of the night."

"I know."

"You'll need the car. You'll need a ride to the tournament. Don't worry. I'll be there to pick you up, first thing in the morning."

"Couldn't you come back now?"

"What for? So we can stay up all night talking about your love life?"

"I really need to talk about it," she said.

"All right. But you go on back to bed. Try to get some sleep. It'll take a little while for me to get things together and get over there."

Checking out in the middle of the night wasn't all that difficult. It wasn't one of those dumps where you had to wake up the manager. Less than an hour after Tess' call, I let myself into the RV -- quietly -- with my own key. The front portion of the interior was dark except for a nightlight on the oven. Evidently, Tess had taken my advice and gone back to bed.

I left my suitcase near the entrance, stripped down to my jockeys and climbed into "Kim's" bed.

Clean sheets, this time.

But I hadn't yet dropped off when Tess knocked lightly on my bedroom door. I said, "Come in," and she opened the door tentatively.

"I wasn't asleep," she said. "I was just waiting for you -- in bed."

"We can talk about this tomorrow," I said.

"I've got an early tee time. Nine sharp. It'll be -- there won't be enough time -- to talk about it in the morning."

I was, of course, pleased that Hal had disappeared -- and so soon. But, in my eyes, it hadn't been nearly soon enough. He'd spent Wednesday -- and Wednesday night -- with Tess, and, evidently, most of Thursday and Thursday night as well.

"So, OK," I said. "Tell me what happened."

"We had a fight," she said.

"I figured."

"It was pretty bad."

"Was it about -- us? You and me?" I asked.

"No. Yes. Well, indirectly."

For someone who insisted on this wee-hours confessional, she wasn't exactly spilling over with information.

"OK, so why did he leave?" I asked.

"I... did it with him," she said, quietly.

"That doesn't sound like much of a reason."

"No, he... No, I meant, I didn't want you to wonder whether we'd, y'know... done it. We did."

Well, yeah. Of course they'd "done it." Sure, for a little while, there, I had been hoping that maybe she was going to tell me that Hal had suffered a complete shutout.

But, hey, c'mon! The guy had been with her for most of two days. Who was I kidding?

You can only play Scrabble for so long.

"So are you going to tell me what happened, or not?"

"Oh, Will! Right away, when he got here; when I saw him, I knew I didn't want to... be with him, anymore."

"When he got here?... You mean, when he met you, at The Pines Club?"

"Yeah. And back here, that night."

"The night before last, you mean... But you did it, anyway." It wasn't a question.

"I just didn't know what to do! We'd been together, Hal and I, for -- for so long! He didn't know there was anything going on, with me and you. I just couldn't say anything. I mean, he just asked where you were, and I said I'd given you some time off, and that you'd be caddying for me Friday."

"But you knew, by then, you didn't want to sleep with him?"

"I knew right away I didn't love him anymore. I knew, probably, that I never had!"

"But. He was here -- with you -- Wednesday, right?"

"Yes."

"And you and him; you had sex that night -- right?"

Tess was starting up the waterworks again. "Yes," she said, so softly I wasn't certain she'd said it.

"What?"

"YES! Yes, yes, we did it on Wednesday night!"

"OK! I wasn't grilling you. I just couldn't hear you, is all."

"I'm sorry!" she said. She was crying now.

"You're sorry you slept with Hal?"

"I'm sorry I let him come up here at all! I'm sorry I didn't -- I didn't tell him about you. And me. Maybe he could tell, right away, that something had happened, but I never talked about you, with him."

"If you felt that way, why in God's name did you have to let him fuck you?"

She didn't answer right away. She just kept crying, harder, and wiping her nose on some tissue, and looking miserable.

"If you felt that way..." I began again.

"We were together for a long time," she said.

"Yeah. I heard. Friend of the family, and all."

"Don't start!" she said. "Don't go into your tough-guy, Clint Eastwood routine! I know you're mad, and disappointed in me. I get it! You've been rubbing my face in it for days!"

"OK. So tell me. Tell me what you were thinking, and I'll just shut up and listen."

"He... Hal... He was my very first guy."

"Really? I mean, I knew you went to college together, but..."

"We were virgins -- together."

"No kidding!... At UVA?"

"No. No! Years ago! I was only 14!"

"You've been with this guy all the time? Since you were 14?"

"No!... You said you were going to listen!"

"OK. I'm listening."

"We've only been -- a couple -- for the last three years. Exclusively, I mean. But we grew up together. And when we were just kids, we introduced each other to... to sex. It was clumsy and everything, because we were both too young and we were inexperienced. But it was... sweet and good, too."

"OK."

I had lots of things I wanted to say, but I was reminding myself, every ten seconds, to keep my mouth shut.

"So then we grew up, and, and we grew apart, and we both had other experiences and lovers and so forth. And that's about the time my folks moved to Chapel Hill, so I didn't see Hal as much... But we always stayed friends -- and Hal and Roy Jr. were friends, and... And then Hal and I got back together, at UVA."

I didn't say anything.

Tess' face was all blotchy, and I noticed it was now 3:47 a.m., but I just paid close attention and let her talk.

"He asked me to marry him -- several times. He talked about it a lot, when we were in school. His parents would talk about it. Hell, my parents would talk about it! I wouldn't ever -- I didn't ever -- commit to it. But I didn't, y'know, tell him 'Never, ' either."

"And you thought you might say yes, eventually?"

"That's right. I thought I might. I'd always loved Hal. Or, if I didn't love him, I'd always really liked him."

Well, I had promised to be quiet, but I felt at this point that I had a right to ask for some clarifications, here and now.

"All right. So. When you invited Hal to join you here, on the tour, you fully expected that you'd be sleeping with him."

"I -- yeah! Yes. I told you already, it was before you and I were together, when I invited him. I didn't even know you, then. And after I'd met you in Chapel Hill, at the club -- when I went back to UVA to graduate. We were together again, then -- Hal and me. I mean we... were still... intimate"

"Yeah, I got that. OK. But this trip -- when he visited you here. That was just supposed to be -- casual sex, right? Sort of like you and me?"

"No. That doesn't -- that doesn't feel like the right way to describe it. I think, to Hal, it was a lot more than that, and even to me, it was going to be a... a continuation of the status quo. I mean, I always liked having sex with Hal."

"Great, thanks. That's nice to know! But you hadn't minded, so much, cheating on him with me?"

"It's like I told you at the time, Will! Hal and I weren't engaged. When you came into the picture, I had just about decided, with my golfing career getting off the ground, that I was definitely going to just tell Hal that I... didn't want to marry him. Not now, and not later, either. So when I decided I wanted to -- sleep with you, I didn't really feel, so much, like I was cheating."

"But no news dispatches were sent to Good ol' Hal, right? You just kept him hanging."

"Yes."

"And when he let you know he was coming to see you in Morgantown, you didn't know how to tell him 'no.'"

"That's right."

"And, anyway, what we had been doing -- that was just sex."

"No! No, it wasn't! It was supposed to be, but that's not the way I was feeling."

"You're telling me, now, that it was... more than that? For you?"