Chapter 18

Bailey and I walked up the beach for a few minutes to a carnival-type game center. Bailey had returned to her former exuberance and she seemed happy. I was enjoying myself, too.

When she saw the games, she grabbed my hand and dragged me to one where you have to throw a football through a toilet seat.

"Win me something," she said.

I tried to explain that these were not games of skill.

"I'll try," I told her, but Bailey wasn't letting me off the hook.

She asked the carnie the rules.

"You get two balls for a dollar," he said. "If you get one in, you get a prize."

"What happens if you get two in?" she asked.

The carnie told her she'd get a bigger prize.

Bailey spied a huge pink bear wrapped in plastic on the top shelf.

"How many for the bear?" she asked.

The guy told her if she got 10 in a row, she got the bear.

Bailey popped $5 on the table and started feeding me footballs.

I had to admit, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I hit the first three with no problem before Bailey made me stop.

"What prize do I have now?" she asked and guy pointed to the second row.

Then she handed me a couple of more footballs. The next two went through, too. The sixth ball was a little off target but it rattled through and the next three were dead center. By this time we had a huge crowd gathered around and people were placing side bets on my accuracy. Bailey was right at the center of it.

The 10th toss was dead on and Bailey was the proud owner of a bear almost four feet tall covered in plastic with a thick layer of dust on it. That bear had been sitting on that shelf for a while.

The owner of the carnival had to come over to get the bear down and didn't seem too pleased at giving it away. Bailey popped $5 down and started making bets with the owner.

"Ten bucks on the next throw," she said and the owner took her up on it. They went double or nothing on the next three throws and by the time I'd put the 14th ball through the seat, Bailey was up $80 and a large bear.

She had me back up 10 yards and bet the guy double or nothing again. He took her up on it and was down $160 in a couple of seconds. She backed me up five more yards and soon he was $320 in the hole. I was pretty sure I had reached the range where we were pressing our luck, but Bailey backed me up 5 more yards.

"One throw, $1,000," she said. I could tell the owner was considering it. But he just handed over the $300 he owed and headed off.

"Easy money," she said as we headed for the putting green for our next game. The owner was by our side in an instant, and I thought, "It's your funeral, buddy."

"How does this game work," I asked.

The owner said you get two putts for a dollar. If you make one, you get a prize.

"What do we get when she makes both?" I asked.

He laughed and said it was rare for anyone to make both. I glanced at Bailey and she gave a slight nod.

"Fifty bucks says she makes both putts," I said. I only had $50 in my wallet, but I wanted to show Bailey I had faith in her, too, I guess.

I actually had to borrow a buck from Bailey to pay for the putts.

"I was watching while you were dickering," she said. "It's tricky but I can do it."

The green was about 35 feet long and undulated wildly. It also rose slightly just before the hole making it an almost impossible shot.

But she was dead on. She pulled her dress up a little bit, bent her knees — adjusted for the crooked putter blade — and dropped the first putt. It was all academic from there, but I tried to up the ante.

"You wanna double the bet?" I asked.

The owner replied he wanted her to make the damned putt and for us to get the hell out his life.

"You two grifters just cost me anything I could have made this evening," he lamented.

Bailey had already dropped the second putt, but I don't think she felt sorry for him.

"Look around," she said. "You should be paying us to come back here. Every guy in the place is lining up trying to win something for his girlfriend. And it's a good bet they won't. Now, all the girls are lining up here because I made this look so easy. Hell, you'll make more money tonight than you did last week — even after we take your $400."

He looked around and saw she was right. But we still beat feet, laughing all the way back down the beach, holding hands.

"This is one big-assed bear," I told Bailey. "Let's go back and change clothes and find some more trouble to get into."

Bailey's eyes clouded a little.

"Maybe we should just leave it like this, R.J.," she said. "It was a perfect evening. I can't remember having so much fun."

I told her that's all the more reason we should do it again.

"I don't date much," she said. "But I've had enough first dates to know how this is going to go. When you show up to visit again, my dad will pull you aside. If you thought earlier was awkward, you ain't seen nothing yet.

"You'll get what I call the 'insemination' speech. My dad will tell you how bright my future is and how much damage it would cause if we were to get over-heated and I become pregnant."

Bailey saw the look on my face because she just said, "Exactly."

"After the speech, the few boys who stuck around to actually take me on a second date usually made sure it was a short one," she said. "It's embarrassing. It's humiliating."

I started to laugh, which made Bailey mad.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I can just picture the scene. 'I hope you have no plans to inseminate my daughter.'

"Tell you what," I continued. "I had a lot of fun this evening and it's early. You go back to change clothes and I'll head to my hotel to change clothes. I really don't think I'll be getting a lecture, but I've been forewarned, so let me deal with your dad.

"And even if I get the speech, we'll still have a great time. Deal?"

I'll be damned if Mr. Stenstrom didn't ask if he could speak to me on the balcony when I called on Bailey at their suite. As soon as we moved to the balcony, Bailey shot into her room followed closely by her mother.

"My daughter has a very bright future," he started, but I cut him off.

"Mr. Stenstrom, I am very aware of how bright your daughter's future is," I said sincerely. "In fact, Bailey told me you'd be speaking to me about things."

I pulled a condom out of my pocket.

"I promise, I won't knock up your daughter," I told him. If I weren't 6-4 and 215 pounds, I think he would have taken a swing at me.

"Mr. Stenstrom, you are embarrassing your daughter every time you do this," I said. "And you're doing her a disservice. I've been to two colleges that are as different as any two colleges can be, but they had one thing in common: girls like your daughter. They have a bright future to look forward to as well."

Mr. Stenstrom thought he knew where I was going, but he was wrong.

"I see girls like Bailey almost every week. You can recognize them easily — they're the ones by the keg, with their pants down, drunk, getting felt up by a frat boy. Or they are the ones who show up at my door in the middle of the night, half-dressed, because someone dared them to have sex with a football player. It's because they never got the chance to make a single important decision in their life. When it came time to make one, they had no idea how.

"They never got the chance to learn from mistakes because someone protected them to the point they never got the chance to make any.

"I'm going to mention a few names to you. See if you recognize what they have in common."

I reeled off the names of two young golfers — one male and one female — a female tennis player, a male basketball player, and a male football player. They were all phenoms who spent their 20s in rehab or in jail.

"They all have parents who protected them so much they resented it and rebelled against it. I'm not putting Bailey into that class because you know your daughter far better than I do.

"But I know a lot more about 18-year-old girls than you do. At some point in the next couple of years, Bailey is going to want to drink. She is going to want to smoke a cigarette. She might even want to try drugs. And, yes, she is going to have sex.