Chapter 10

At ten o'clock I knocked on Mrs. Parsons door, wanting to tell her that I was leaving for my golf lesson. She didn't respond to me at all. I went downstairs, and found Hans in the kitchen with Gerta. I sat up front with Hans, in Mrs. Parsons car, for the trip over to the country club. I took my golf lesson, and we mostly worked on my mid irons. Dave kept trying to show me the difference between picking the ball cleanly from the rough, and hitting down on it from the fairway. I didn't get it, but after trying it each way, from each kind of lie, I had to agree that it worked better Dave's way.

The last fifteen minutes, we walked out to the back of the practice range, and Dave showed me how to hit off of uneven lies. That was fun, but I sprayed balls all around. The fun part was hitting balls up towards the clubhouse. It was a very relaxed lesson. I noticed that Dave didn't bear down as much with me when Mrs. Parsons wasn't there, watching everything he did. His language was saltier too. He never swore when she was anywhere around.

As soon as my lesson was over, I went to the pay telephone and called Brenda's house. That other lady answered again, but Brenda was still at home. I told her that Mrs. Parsons had something else to do, and wouldn't be golfing with me. I invited her to have lunch with me again in the club house restaurant. She told me to hang on, then went to ask her mother for permission.

"Mother says she can have me there at twelve forty five, Kenny. Will that be okay?"

"Perfect. I wanted to practice my putting for awhile anyway. Can you meet me over at the putting green? We can go to lunch from there."

"Did you bring your racquets too? We need to practice for next week. I already signed us up for the mixed next Sunday."

"You did?"

"Well, I figured you'd want to play again. Did I do something wrong? You don't have to play. I just thought we'd better sign up before all of the places were filled."

"I'll have to ask Mrs. Parsons. She normally plans out the schedule for me doing things. I don't think she'd like it much if I start telling her about plans I've already made. I'll ask her about it though, and let you know tonight, or maybe tomorrow. Is that okay?"

"I guess. If you cancel out on me, I'll have to try to sign up all over again. They probably will already have the sixteen teams by then."

"I think she'll let me play. She asked me last night if I enjoyed competing. She told me that she used to enjoy it."

"Could you call her after we hang up? The sooner I know for sure, the better chance I'll have for trying to sign up with someone else."

"No, she's too busy right now. I'll ask her at dinner tonight, then I'll phone you with the answer. I'll see you at the putting green, okay?"

I was starting to get more experienced at putting, plus I'd kind of learned the slope and the speed of the different greens. I just practiced my distance control, and tried to lag to within two or three feet of the cup. I was putting with four balls at each hole, playing a game with myself about getting at least three balls within that three foot radius out from the cup. After I was getting ready to finish up, I saw Brenda coming, and put my putter and the balls back in my bag and carried it over to the pro shop to be put away.

Brenda was wearing a pink tennis outfit. It looked a little funny, because of her hair color, but good funny, not just ha ha funny. She always looked pretty to me. I asked her if she wanted to go swimming after lunch, or if she wanted to go practice tennis first, and then we could go swimming.

"Let's decide at lunch. It's going to be very warm today. Maybe we should practice, go swimming, then practice again after we finish swimming."

"Whatever you want. Are you hungry? I'm going to get a steak sandwich, and an order of fried shrimp too. You can eat some of my shrimp if it makes me too full." Brenda smiled at me. She never said anything, but I could tell that me asking her to lunch again was a big thing to her. I was happy that I'd remembered to ask Mr. Parsons if it was all right for me to do.

"I told my dad what you said." When she said that to me, my heart almost stopped beating. I had to fight off the urge to look around me in panic. I never thought she'd tell either parent about anything like that.

"You're kidding?"

"About you not knowing anything about the business. What did you think I meant? You didn't think I told him about that other thing. Oh my God, Kenny! If you knew my father, you'd know I'd never say anything like that to him." My heart was still beating fast, and I think I'd nearly broken skin on the palms of both hands when my fingernails dug in so deeply.

"Well, I didn't know. I never had parents, remember? None that I can remember. What did he say?"

"He just said that you probably had been told to not say anything anyway. He said it was just a shot. If I found out that you knew and didn't warn us, I'd be very upset with you. Daddy says we'd be ruined."

"I asked Mr. Parsons. He said he doesn't discuss business with people who don't need to know. I think he meant for me to mind my own business."

"If you do find out anything, will you promise to tell me?"

"I can't Brenda. It would be like me asking you to tell me some secrets in your father's business. They wouldn't want me finding out or talking about their business in the first place, but if I did find anything out, it would be wrong for me to go out telling anyone."

"It would be wrong for you to know something that was going to make my family poor, and then not even warn me. I thought we were friends?"

"I'm sure Mr. Parsons wouldn't want to hurt your father. Not if he didn't have to. I thought they were friends."

"Friends? You're kidding, right? My father is so afraid of Mr. Parsons, afraid of all three of them. Didn't you see how he acted around them? You can't possibly think that friends would act like that?"

"See? That shows you that I don't know anything. To me, it seemed like all of them were friends. I know they do business together. Why do they do business if they aren't friends?"

"Never mind! I want the shrimp again too. Ask him if they have any fresh blueberry pie too, hot, with vanilla ice cream on the side. Can you afford all that?"

"I didn't ask Mr. Parsons about the cost. If it is too much, I still have money left over that he gave me before. I can pay it back to him. I don't think they care though. Mr. Chalmers said he had people that take care of all their bills and stuff. I don't think any of them even look at things like this."

"I want to be mad at you, Kenny, but then you make it so hard to be mad when you let me boss you around like this. I know you don't like me acting like this, so why do you let me?"

"Because I like you. I know you're worried. I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better, but I only know that Mr. Parsons seems to like your mother and father. I doubt he'd let them get hurt just to make a little more money. They already have a lot. I think your father is as wrong about this as he is about me being Mr. Chalmers real son."

"I hope you're right. My mother told me what happens to your future prospects when all your money gets lost. People don't respect failure."

We ordered our food. Brenda ate all of her own shrimp right away, and then was only toying with her French fries, waiting to see what I'd do with my order of shrimp. I had planned on waiting to offer her my shrimp until after I finished my steak sandwich. At first, I was planning to tease her, but instead, I just came right out and told her I wasn't going to be able to eat the shrimp too. She gave me a really big smile, then she ate the whole plate of shrimp. When she finished the last of the shrimp, she started eating some of the remaining orders of fries as well. She seemed a lot happier after eating all those shrimp.

"I'm full Brenda, just from eating my sandwich, and then watching you eat all those shrimp. I'd love to see you order some of that ice cream and pie on top of all the shrimp and fries."

"I could eat it, but I don't want to take advantage of you. Plus, we're supposed to practice after lunch. I need to be able to move around without getting sick in the heat. Can we come back after we practice and order our dessert then?"

"Sure, we can come back. Maybe we can practice some, then swim to cool off, then come back and have some pie before going out to practice some more. It will make for a nice little rest break."

"Kenny, in spite of what you say, you act just like you were rich. You don't seem to even care about money. My mom says that's how you know if someone is rich, because they don't act like they care what anything costs."

"That's how poor people act too. We don't care what anything costs, because we already know, however much it costs, we can't afford any of it. Don't start thinking that I'm rich again, because I'm not. The Parsons, and Mr. Chalmers, so far, they let me have whatever I want, but none of this is really mine. It comes from my being their guest. I'm not complaining. It's better than I ever could have hoped for. It just isn't anything that I expect to last too long. I always do something to make people mad at me. Sometimes it's what I won't do that makes them mad."

"I think you're rich, whether you admit to it or not. My mom has to drive me, and you have your own chauffeur. You get to sign for anything you want here at the club, but, sometimes, we have to stop coming here until my father gets caught up with his monthly expenses. This club is my mother's only extravagance. She has to fight every year to keep my father from selling off our membership."

"Think what you want to. I know the truth. If you don't want dessert now, let's go over and practice tennis. You can go on ahead and see if there's a free court. I need to sign for lunch, and then go change into my tennis clothes." I stood up then, and the waiter came over with the lunch check. I looked at it, and it was thirty five dollars. I added a seven dollar tip, twenty per cent, like Mrs. Parsons had told me to do, and signed at the bottom. That was it. To me, it wasn't like it was really spending money. Forty two dollars for lunch. If we came back later and had dessert, I was going to pay cash for it. I wondered how much money Bea made working for Mrs. Parsons. I wondered if it was as much as I spent out there at the country club. Probably not.

I changed into my tennis shorts, got my racquet bag, and headed over to the tennis courts. When I got there, Brenda was standing on the court we'd played our first match on the day before. I saw two other kids playing on one of the other hard courts, but I didn't recognize either of them. We wound up hitting the ball back and forth, with Brenda helping me learn how to anticipate faster, and move towards where the ball was going to be. It was warm out there, and we started playing a real game, keeping score. I was no match for Brenda, but I tried to keep her running for as long as I was able to. She was fast, and she seemed in a lot better shape than I was. When she moved on the court, it was as if she were gliding, rather than running. We were out there for over an hour, and I was so tired I wanted to lay down and rest, but I stuck with it. Finally, with the score 13-3, she asked if I needed to take a break.

"Do you mean just a short breather, or can we go swimming now?" I was hoping she meant the latter.

"We can quit and go swimming if you want to. Usually, I practice for another couple of hours, but it is warm out today, and I know you aren't used to this." While we had been out there, the other two boys had finished up and left. There wasn't anyone else there besides the two of us.

"Who do you practice with for so long? I'm about to fall over and die just from what we did so far."

"Usually, by myself. I hit off the wall, and do exercises to improve different parts of my game. I have a big bag of practice balls, so I practice hitting serves, and work on my ball placement. It is better when there is someone to practice with. Sometimes, I can pick up a game out here, but not too often when it's so hot."

We went and changed for the pool. When I came out of the men's locker room, Brenda was standing there waiting for me. She had on a two piece suit, and it showed off her body more than her other suit had. It must have been a new suit, because the tan on her stomach was a lot lighter than on her arms or legs. When she turned, I noticed the same thing for the lower part of her back, where her old one piece suit had covered it. I wore the same suit I'd worn the other two times. It was the only one we had bought on our trip to Springfield.