CHOI E
RUIZ +3
Mei-Lin walked between the holes with her chin level and her eyes on the ground, the walk of a girl who had decided that silence could be a kind of swing thought. On the fourteenth tee she said to Zuri, "My mother closed the shop today. First time in four years. She's somewhere behind the fifteenth green with a camera she doesn't know how to use."
"That's huge," Zuri said.
"She's going to take forty pictures of the wrong green." Mei-Lin's voice softened. "I don't care. I just wanted her here once when it mattered."
Zuri thought of Patrice's text. *Play your game.* She thought of the empty chair Patrice could not fill and the stool Pop never abandoned. "She's here," Zuri said. "Even if the camera's pointed at a tree."
Mei-Lin laughed once, surprised. "You're not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who'd fold when Clifford opened his mouth." Mei-Lin glanced toward the ropes, where Clifford was now standing with his arms crossed, performing patience. "I folded last year. Not on the scorecard. In my head. I let him live rent-free for six holes." She paused. "Don't."
"I won't," Zuri said, and meant it as a promise to both of them.
XI.
Brayden Haskins was not his father. That sentence sat in Zuri's mind like a provisional truth she was willing to test.
On the fourteenth fairway, after Zuri's ball and Brayden's ball finished within ten yards of each other, Brayden waited until the adults were distracted by Sebastian's search for a provisional and said, low, "I'm sorry about him."
Zuri looked at him. Really looked. He had his father's height and none of his father's ease. His ears were red. His hands flexed on the grip of his iron as if the club might run away.
"You didn't say it," she said.
"I didn't stop it either."
"You're fifteen. Stopping Clifford Haskins is a full-time job."
Brayden almost smiled, then didn't. "He thinks if I lose to you, it means something about him. About the Cup. About the club." He swallowed. "I just want to beat you because you're good. Not because of any of that."