Chapter 25

We left in the RV for New Rochelle, New York on Saturday, July 19. It was a medium-sized city on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound, and a part of the megalopolis that was Greater New York.

We still hadn't fulfilled the ambition we all had of showing Kim The City. But we didn't come up early to get that accomplished. It would have to wait. Wait for the off-season, when tensions were low. Getting close to a big event, my girls weren't comfortable unless they were either resting, to gather their strength, or practicing, to hone their skills.

Practice rounds weren't a problem at Wykagyl Country Club, because the Match Play tournament participants were being treated as honored guests, right from the weekend to the tournament's start. And, since there were only 64 golfers in the field (instead of the usual 140-plus), the difficulty of getting adequate course time for practice rounds was greatly reduced.

The top-ranked players in the world were seeded, 1 through 10, and Tess, despite her rookie status, was the tournament's seventh seed.

Positions 11 through 64 were also, in general, seeded by player rank, but several unranked veteran players who had been invited to participate in the HSBC were scattered-in among the other players, beginning with the woman ranked number eleven.

As the seventh seed, Tess would play the woman seeded number 58. Kim was listed as the tournament's 21^st seed, so she'd be matched up against the 44^th seeded woman.

On paper, at least, Kim was facing the tougher first-round opponent. The 44^th seed turned out to be a thin, smallish veteran of four years on the LPGA Tour named Constance McKinley. I didn't think I'd ever heard of her.

Tess was scheduled to meet one Iona Singletary. I hadn't heard of her, either, although Tess said that she had. Singletary was a rookie on the tour, but, like Tess and Kim, she had won sufficient money during the current year to qualify for the tournament, albeit as a low seed.

During the week, there were lots of conversations with other players, caddies -- anybody who knew anything -- trying to learn a little something about the first-round match-ups. As the seeding would suggest, Kim's opponent, McKinley, had a reputation as a tough competitor. She'd won two events in her four years on the tour, but had garnered plenty of top-ten finishes as well. She was a longer hitter than Kim, we were told, and she wasn't afraid of anybody.

Singletary was less well-known. She'd only had two finishes in the top ten during the current season -- her first -- and she had made the field at New Rochelle largely by virtue of seldom missing a cut, playing every week, and picking up a small check, with perhaps little flair, but with great regularity. She was a grinder.

To her credit, Tess took even her first-round opponent seriously, and worked hard, all week. Tess liked the course. She was pleased to be back in a tournament again, after our mental health layoff. Everything looked just great.

But Tess managed to get in only 16 holes of golf on the tournament's opening day. She lost the first match, 3 and 2.

Kim required two extra holes -- 20 holes of play -- before she finally won, one up, against the tenacious Ms. McKinley.

Tess, as was to be expected, was not pleased. "Fuck!" she said, on our way back to the RV after the day's rounds were completed. "That little-bittie girl just whipped my ass! I was two-under for the round! I was in it, all day! But she beat me, anyway!... Fuck!"

Match play can be brutal. It's one thing, in a tournament, to miss the cut after the first two days of competition. But to be sent packing on Day One, without so much as getting a look at the last two holes -- that was just plain humiliating.

We let Tess rave on. She was entitled.

Later, we went out, found a pleasant restaurant overlooking the Sound, and mellowed out. Tomorrow would be a big day for Kim. Possibly two rounds, if she was successful in the first match of the day. Tess, on the other hand, would be walking the course with Kim's gallery.

When Tess calmed down, she suggested to Kim that I caddy for her in the next day's matches. "What about my guy?" Kim asked. She had a local caddy, signed on to accompany her for the entire week.

"Pay him for the full show," Tess said. "Promise him the standard extra out of your final check. You don't have to pay old Will, right, Will-ard? He can take it out in trade."

"You want to do that, Will?" Kim asked.

"It's not clear whether I can be any more help -- or even as much help -- to you as the local guy," I said, "but if you want me, I'm all yours."

"Let's do it!" she said. "I've got my caddy's phone number. I'll call him."

So, Tess was out of it, but I was still carrying a bag. Who says you can't change horses in mid-stream?

Even though Tess wasn't playing on Friday, I gave her the usual pre-match inspection back in the RV. I didn't want to confront any Commandos in the gallery, any more than I did on the course.

I lifted up Tess' skirt -- a long, colorful summer-weight job that came down well below her knees -- and was relieved to see a pair of standard-issue white cottons covering her cute little hairless cunny.

"You just want to check, see if it's still there," Tess said. "Jeez, Will, what does this inspection business accomplish, anyway? I can always go into a restroom somewhere and whip these off. Your checking me out here in the bus accomplishes absolutely nothing."

"When we finish up this morning, I'm checking again," I told her. "These little white cottons better still be right there, doing the job that the manufacturer intended."

"Yes, sir!" she said, with a smart salute and mock military bearing.

Kim totally wiped out her second-round opponent on Friday morning, 6 and 5 -- meaning that the match was called with Kim leading by six holes, with only five left to play. It was a tremendous break. Kim would have adequate time, between morning and afternoon matches, to rest, gather herself, take a shower, change clothes, have a calm lunch -- anything she wanted.

Tess had been a one-woman cheering section for Kim all morning long. She was always in the gallery, whooping it up, being a fan. She even yelled that impossibly ridiculous cry of "You 'd Man!" one time -- causing her fellow spectators to stare at her as if she were demented.

But she behaved herself, in the exhibitionism department. Once, I saw her seated high on a bluff overlooking the 8^th green. Her skirt was decorously arranged over her uplifted knees and the material was ample enough to cover her, thighs and calves alike, completely.

But I had the angle on her, at one point, and our eyes met. At that moment, I was mortally afraid that Tess would suddenly spread her knees open, revealing to me (and to anyone in the gallery behind me) that she had, indeed, removed the white cottons.

But she just smiled at me and kept her knees together.

I was grateful, although there was just a little twinge of regret mixed up in there, too. The setting was almost perfect. Even the sun was at a perfect angle. It would have been a most memorable flash.

Before the start of the afternoon round, we had lunch together in the clubhouse restaurant. It was quiet and unhurried in there. The sixty-four women who'd started this tournament the day before were already being rapidly reduced to only sixteen. Most of the women who'd already been beaten weren't hanging around for lunch. They were packing their bags, and heading out. This was an expensive area. Some of these women were going to try to escape their hotels by check-out time, and maybe save a day's rent.

"You want to do another one of your panty checks?" Tess asked me as we sat at the table in the dining room.

"Not here, no," I said. But I knew I was going to get the inspection opportunity, anyway. It would have been great -- a nice, erotic little sidelight, if we had gone off together -- just the two of us -- to a dark little corridor somewhere and she'd given me a quick look -- just for laughs.

But, no. This was a nice room. It wasn't crowded, but it wasn't empty of people, either. All the tables had white tablecloths. Tess was gathering her long skirt, and slowly crumpling the thin summer-weight material in one had, tugging it upward -- over one leg -- the leg nearest to my side of the table.

Slowly.

"I'll take your word for it, Tess," I said. But I already knew it wouldn't do any good.

Up. Slowly.

The hand kept tugging the skirt upward, gathering more material. It was still covering her leg, on the side, and, presumably, it still covered her other leg, hidden from me, under the tablecloth.

But "my" leg -- Tess' right leg, it was -- was bare halfway up now, way past her knee, and slowly, slowly, getting barer all the time. She was a big girl. It was a long way, from the knee to her... to her... where we were going.

I looked around, both sides, behind me, to see if anyone, besides me, was taking in the sights. There were several people who were well-positioned to do so, but I couldn't see anyone who was actually noticing Tess.

Yet.

Kim, on the opposite side of the table, could see nothing of this, but she knew what was happening, either because of my having said "I'll take your word for it, Tess," or because my face was probably turning a deep shade of crimson about then.

The skirt was just a bunch of wadded-up cloth, now, held in Tess' hand, still protecting Tess' crotch. Her entire right leg was bare.

"Tess," I said, "... please... !"

"Well -- since you said 'please, ' she said, and snapped up her hand at the wrist -- just for maybe a slow count of four -- but demonstrating to me that the white cotton panties were -- probably in her purse.

But it was just the briefest little flesh-flash that I saw. Anybody else, anybody behind me, probably wouldn't have had time to really focus, time to actually see... anything.

Probably. Nobody behind me gasped, or moaned. That was certainly a good sign. If it had been me, I'd sure as hell have gasped. Or moaned. Maybe both. So, I'm pretty sure, nobody saw it.

But I saw it. Probably more importantly to Tess, there was at least a chance that somebody else -- some stranger -- had seen it, too.

I just sighed and let it go. I said something to Kim -- something neutral, something about her upcoming second match of the day. I let the blood drain back out of my blushing face. I tried to ignore Tess completely. But I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that the skirt, now, was back down where it belonged.

The show was over. At least for the moment.

Tess' face hadn't turned red, from blushing, like mine had. But her eyes were squeezed tight shut, and her face, momentarily, was straining, as if she were gritting her teeth.

Surely she wasn't... ? Surely, she hadn't... ? No... No, surely not!

Kim's afternoon match was with Lorena Ochoa, the number three seed in the tournament and the highest ranking player still alive in the competition. Tess' first-round whipping hadn't been the only major upset.

It was Kim's first time to play a round with Ochoa, and the Mexican star was as courteous and gracious to my rookie golfer as anyone could hope for her to be.

"Don't be nervous," I whispered to Kim. "She puts her panties on, one leg at a time, just like everybody else."

"Yeah," Kim said. "Everybody except Tess, anyway."

We both giggled about that one all the way to the first tee. Ochoa must have thought Kim was some kind of airhead rookie.

She found out differently, however. Kim beat her, one up, on the final hole. It had been a grim, debilitating battle, with few birds, few bogeys, lots and lots of plodding pars put up by both golfers. Kim holed one of the long, long putts for which she was becoming justifiably famous, and shut Ochoa out on the final hole.

Eight players left, now, for Saturday's fourth round of eliminations.

It had been a grinding, serious round of competition. Tess had been with us, in the gallery, for the entire afternoon. I don't know whether the white cottons were back in place or not -- probably not -- but Tess behaved herself all afternoon. She knew this was no time for fooling around.

That night, we were all very good to each other. When we got back to the RV, before I could even put on a late pot of coffee, Tess was trying to bite off my left ear. In the car, driving back, the conversation had been all about the round, Kim's glorious victory over one of the Tour's finest competitors. Tess had been effusive in her compliments, praising Kim's golf game to the skies. Nothing sexy going on.