Kearn Davis was hosting the Asian Technology Conference, which officially began tomorrow on Sunday after a sunrise breakfast. Yet the clients who wanted to play eighteen holes had come in that morning. Tee time was in thirty minutes.
Casey had tagged along, taking off a weekend from Sabine’s since the latter two weeks of April were expected to be slow, with hardly any commissions worth sticking around for. The boys—as she called the men she assisted on the desk—hadn’t known that she golfed, but when she’d mentioned in passing that she did, they’d shouted, Why the hell didn’t you say so before? Frankly, it had never occurred to her in her nearly three years of working at the desk to go away on a golfing trip with them when she herself wasn’t a broker. She didn’t even know she was allowed, and certainly no one had ever asked. When she popped up at La Guardia with her sweet Ping clubs that Jay had bought her with his first paycheck at Kearn Davis, Hugh widened his dark brown eyes.
“And I thought you were smoking us for a free vacation.”
“Maybe I am,” Casey retorted.
The panoramic view from the pro shop window was dazzling. The grounds below were carpeted with kelly green grass, and the sky above the horizon was half silver and lavender. From where she stood, she could see a couple of foursomes playing—spotless white carts lolling there waiting to ferry them to their next hole. Acres upon acres of nature manicured and coiffed like a rich second wife for the enjoyment of a few entitled individuals. She’d played at the great private clubs with Jay and his eating club friends whose fathers and mothers were members—Baltusrol, Winged Foot, Rockaway Hunt, Westchester. Virginia’s game was tennis, and Casey could keep up a modest rally, but without the precision and engagement she freakishly possessed in her golf game. Virginia said even her dull father thought golf was a snoozer. To the contrary, Casey wanted to say. There was a kind of geometry and physics in the game that she perceived visually yet could hardly articulate. She respected the game’s difficulty—its aesthetic design.
She’d learned by playing mostly on New Jersey public courses with Jay. When they’d first started to date, they’d cut classes in the afternoons just to play. Golf and sex: That had been their thing. Sometimes before and after. When she asked herself why she never told the boys about golf, the answer hit her. She missed him still. Golf was something Jay had taught her from scratch. He was a very fine teacher. After they broke up, giving the clubs away had crossed her mind. But he’d been so proud to buy them for her with the money he’d made from his first Wall Street job, his face bright with the surprise. Right away she had kissed him, because the gift had moved her. And seeing his happiness, she’d kissed him two more times, and they had ended up in bed, being late for a dinner with friends. It was such a curious thing when you thought back to someone you loved: It was possible to remember the unspoiled things, and doing so lit up a bit of the sober darkness in your heart, and all the while the memory of the hurting cast its own shadow, dimming your head with the nagging questions of ifs and why-nots.
The clerk returned and said they were out of the large-size vests. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” Hugh replied. “You tried.”
He made a face at the ladies’ racks of polo shirts and madras pants. Hugh disliked preppy clothing on women. It made them look like square, flat-chested little men. Women should be soft to touch, curvy in the waist and hips, and delicious smelling. Skinny, small-boned blondes who sailed and were sun-wizened in their twenties were not his cup of tea. He didn’t give two bits if that was old-fashioned. He liked a slim-waisted girl in a billowy dress, pearls on her throat; a little leg showing was fantastic. Matching bra and panties in a bad-girl color, even better. While her head was turned, Hugh checked Casey out. She was exceptionally feminine in her clothing. Her speech, however, was something else.
“The worst thing about women playing golf is the clothing,” Hugh pronounced.
“Does that mean you’re not getting me a shirt?”
“What? You want one?” he asked, irritated that Casey could disagree.
“You offering?” Casey raised an eyebrow.
“It all depends.” He smiled suggestively. Hugh was an alchemist: He could transform any comment into sex.
She never took his innuendos seriously, and it took about a hot second for her to come up with a sassy rebuttal.
“I hope I price out better than”—Casey read the tag—“fifty-seven fifty.”