Excerpt – Chapter 2
Excerpt
Chapter Two
Wayne Winter surveyed his fellow club members from his traditional seat by the fireplace. As club champion for several years running, he got first choice of seating by unwritten rule and had taken possession of the big round table next to the fire. The location had many benefits, including a view out the window to the parking lot and driveway. Wayne always made it a point to know who or what was coming.
Wayne loved Squak Valley. Since childhood, it had been the one constant in his life. An accomplished golfer with an impeccable swing, he’d turned down countless invitations from exclusive clubs. Those courses held no interest for him. Squak Valley had soul.
Everyone was seated in the men’s club’s well-established pecking order: players with low handicaps got the better tables near Wayne, while middle-handicaps favored bar stools or the small tables surrounding the coin-operated pool table. Those with high handicaps settled for whatever was left on the perimeter and got the worst view of the television.
“How come we got no doctors here at the club?”
Wayne eyed the speaker, a twelve-handicap seated at the bar wearing blue jeans and a gray hoodie stained with ketchup. There was no dress code at Squak Valley.
“Doctors love golf, you know,” the twelve continued. “But we ain’t got a single one on the roster. If we’re going to class this place up, we got to recruit some doctors.”
“What are you talking about? Squak Valley has plenty of doctors,” this from an eight at the table adjacent to Wayne’s. “Hell, we’ve got a Muffler Doctor and a Glass Doctor here with us now!”
Several men laughed.
“Those guys aren’t doctors,” the twelve snapped.
“How about Don?” asked a ten, also seated at the bar. “You know, the guy who runs Doctor Don’s Automotive out on the highway? Didn’t he fix up that piece of shit you bought from Rudy last year?”
“Quit trying to be funny. I mean medical doctors.”
Across the room, a group of twenty-somethings sat hunched at one of the rickety tables next to the rental clubs. A head popped up cautiously, a wary prairie dog surveying the landscape.
“What about Dr. Panda?” asked the prairie dog. A landscaper, strong but clumsy, he played to a woeful twenty-eight handicap despite years of practice.
It was no use, of course. Nobody listened or cared about the opinion of a twenty-eight.
“You all know what I’m talking about,” continued the twelve. “I mean guys that do their doctoring on people. We ain’t got a single medico here in the club. Not one. Now, I’m thinking that’s how we could boost membership. Maybe we could put up some flyers where doctors would see them. Where do doctors hang out, anyway?”
“Dr. Panda is a podiatrist,” persisted the twenty-eight.
“Hospitals!” a fourteen cried out, already on his third Bloody Mary. “Doctors hang out in hospitals!”
“Doctors don’t hang out in hospitals, you dipwad,” said the twelve. “Doctors work in hospitals. Nobody hangs out where they work.”
“Nick does.” This from another eight, poised over a shot at the pool table. “Nick hangs out here all the time, and this is where he works.”
“That’s different, Nick’s the pro. And besides, he owns the place. Or at least his folks do.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway, because nobody’d let us put up flyers in hospitals,” said a sixteen. “It’s unhygienic.”
“Dr. Panda took care of my wife,” insisted the twenty-eight. “She was having all kinds of pain, and he wrote her a prescription on one of those doctor pads for some cushiony things for her shoes. She loves them.”
“So where are we going to find doctors if we can’t go to hospitals?” asked the twelve. “Where do doctors go when they aren’t working on people?”
“They play golf.” the fourteen said. “I got it: let’s put up some flyers at golf courses!”
“That’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Like some golf course is going to let us put up a flyer that says hey, doctors, come play over at our golf course.”
Wayne smiled. To his right sat Dr. Panda, his regular playing partner along with Harvey Wall and Rudy Vega. Dr. Panda was drinking Irish coffee laced with Bailey’s; the mocha-colored beverage perfectly matched the East Indian’s creamy dark complexion. Pudgy and quiet, like his namesake bear, Dr. Panda appeared lost in thought, gazing at the one-eyed moose head above the bar.
The performance wasn’t fooling Wayne. Nor was it fooling Rudy, seated across the table. Rudy’s dark eyes and dour expression—made worse by an old-fashioned downturned mustache—belied a biting sense of humor. Rudy had the tenacity of a used-car-salesman, which he was, and took delight in needling everybody, his friends in particular. “Hey Doc, ain’t you got something to say about this?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Panda said, addressing the moose.
Rudy grinned. “Sure you do, Doc. Come on, man, come out of your shell. Imagine what a comfort it would be to everyone, knowing there’s a doctor in the house.”
“My profession is my own business. We do not dignify this silly chitchat with a response.”
“You know how Doc likes to keep a low profile,” said Wayne.
“Word gets out you’re a doctor, everyone wants advice,” said Dr. Panda, lowering his gaze to Rudy. “People want my opinion, they can make an appointment. You expect me to look at feet over breakfast?”
“But gosh, Doc, what if there’s an emergency?”
“There’s never an emergency around here.”
A short and enormously round man in a stained apron lumbered through the kitchen door. A cross between Super Mario and the Michelin Man, Anthony Fusilli—a.k.a. Ant—was Squak Valley’s head chef, bartender, waiter, and dishwasher.
Ant waddled toward the three men, depositing plates of food at the tables en route.
“You guys ready?” he asked, pulling pad and pen from his apron.
“Not yet, Ant,” said Wayne, gesturing at two empty chairs. “We’ll wait for Harvey. He’s bringing a guest.”
“His daughter finally arrived, huh?” Ant said. “Be nice to have somebody successful in here, for a change.” He slid the pad into his apron pocket and shambled back toward the kitchen. “Don’t wait too long if you want bacon,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re almost out.”
Hannah’s pending arrival had been the talk of the clubhouse for weeks. As Harvey explained it, after quickly making a big name for herself on Wall Street, now she wanted to make a splash in the Seattle high-tech scene. She’d be a director at Microsoft or Amazon before you knew it. Everyone thought it was wonderful. Everyone but Wayne.
Wayne had never met Hannah. He knew her only from a years-old photo that Harvey kept in his trailer: an awkward teenager in braces, already showing an unfortunate resemblance to her paunchy father.
Harvey had supported his daughter for as long as Wayne knew him, sending her every dollar he scraped up through his odd assortment of part-time jobs while subsisting in a broken-down trailer. And now, having skated through school on Daddy’s free ride, little Ms. Perfect was going to keep mooching off him while taking her own sweet time exploring her ideal career path.
It was wrong. Harvey was a saint, and any kid of his ought to be grateful.
As if on cue, the far door opened and in came Harvey wearing a big grin and his lucky sweater. Wayne’s spirits rose. He and Harvey were separated by a generation and had little in common, and yet somehow they had become fast friends. Harvey was a simple fellow, and some might say a fool. Yet just like his father’s relationship with Lenny, something about Harvey appealed to Wayne’s better nature.
Both Lenny and Harvey had hearts of gold, but outwardly they couldn’t have been more different. His father’s old friend was perpetually sour, a bitter curmudgeon until you drilled beneath the surface. Harvey, by contrast, wore his golden heart on his sleeve. While others might look at his life as a failure, Harvey saw only great fortune and happiness—happiness that he shared with others at every opportunity. This joy for living was what endeared Harvey to Wayne. It was a trait missing in everyone else he knew, including himself.
Harvey’s appearance normally elicited loud greetings—as the premier goofball in a club of goofballs, he was universally loved. But when a second individual followed him through the door, the room fell silent.
Hannah looked nothing like Harvey’s old photograph. She was more like something out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog—put her in bra and panties, add a couple wings, and she’d fit right in. Tall and sleek with auburn hair, she seemed oblivious to the stares of every man in the clubhouse as she glided behind her father. She was a vision of perfection but for one muddy shoe. Wayne felt a thrill run down his spine.
It was her eyes that grabbed Wayne: they were brown and half-closed, making her seem uninterested and unobtainable. Wayne felt an overwhelming urge to give her something to be interested in.
