Page 14 of Putting Out
Trouble, trouble everywhere. For men like Jack Nicklaus, Arnie Palmer and Tiger Woods.
So where did Reilly Carr fit in that picture? Fear gripped her insides. The thought of crumbling on such a scale, of failing on the altar of golf greatness was mind numbing.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she cautioned Pop and Kenny. Grams had already gone back to her pie.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Kenny!” Grams shouted from the kitchen. “I mean it this time.”
“Sorry,” he shouted back. Then in a softer voice. “What in thehellare you talking about.”
“I’m just saying it’s not a given.”
Kenny shook his head from side to side in cartoon fashion.
“Not a given? You’re telling me you have to think about whether or not you’re going to play in the American?”
“Of course I have to think about it, Kenny.”
“Think about what?” he shouted. “It’s the American.” “Exactly!”
Pop stepped in between them. His expression for his grandson was stern.
“Why don’t you give her some time to let this sink in?”
“I’ll give her time. I’ll give her ten seconds. This is a no-brainer, Pop. You know it and I know it. She is being too thickheaded to see it. This is it. This is what she’s worked for all these years. She earned this spot. She deserves to be there. This is the pinnacle.”
Grams shuffled her way into the living room with a tray attached to her walker. She set a plate of cookies down on the table in front of the TV and handed a glass of milk to Reilly. She clucked her tongue as was her habit when she heard something that didn’t sit well.
“Pinnacle? You ask me, forty-seven years of marriage is the pinnacle. Raising a daughter and then her children, that’s a pinnacle. Knowing those two grandchildren are happy and doing what they love….”
Kenny and Reilly bowed their heads as their grandmother’s wise words stilled all talk of what was in the end just a game.
“That is a pinnacle. That and a perfect pie crust.”
“Oh, Grams, you totally blew it with that last one,” Kenny lamented. “You had us for like two seconds and then boom.”
“Pie crust is important,” she muttered as she maneuvered her walker around. “You drink your milk, Reilly. And you stop cussing, Kenny. It will all work out. You’ll see.”
With that she shuffled back into the kitchen, taking with her all the tension and potential for anger.
“She’s right,” Pop followed. “At the end of the day it’s just another tournament.”
Reilly glanced up at her grandfather, stunned by his words, but she could see he was saying them to soothe her. He knew it was more than that. She did, too, which was why she was hesitating. Kenny, being Kenny, didn’t buy it at all.
He turned on her, his face as serious as she had ever seen it. More unforgiving than the time she’d walked in on him with his first girlfriend while he was making the move to second base.
“It’s not just another tournament. You both know it. I’m serious, Reilly. We are going. I’ll never make it there as a player so this is as much my chance as it is yours. We’re a team. That’s what you’ve always said. For thirteen years. Well, this half of the team wants to go and isn’t going to take no for an answer.”
He gave her one final glare for good measure then turned and stormed out the front door. A second later the door opened again. Kenny clomped back inside, took two cookies from the plate Grams had left on the coffee table and marched back out again.
It took something away from his first dramatic exit.
“I don’t know, Pop,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can do what he wants.”
“You take some time,” he said. “You think about it. It’s too soon to make any decisions.”
Her cell phone went off again upstairs and Reilly groaned.
“It’s going to be a long day. I better get that before Gus has a heart attack. My official comment will be ‘I’m honored to be ranked so highly among my golfing colleagues and while I appreciate the opportunities such a ranking affords me, I’m undecided on how this will impact my upcoming tournament schedule.’ Sound good?”
“Sounds… undecided.”
“Okay.” Reilly snatched three cookies off the plate and took the glass of milk with her upstairs to her bedroom.
She never saw her Pop’s fist pump behind her.
