"That's the same thing Mindy Snow used to say to me," Jake said. "I just don't see it happening in my lifetime."
"That's the truth," Celia said. "The only way to get ahead in this business is to stay popular enough through your first contract so that you can negotiate from strength for your second contract." She cast a knowing eye on Jake. "Kind of like someone I know, huh, Jake?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jake said, leaning over his ball so she couldn't retort. She kept her silence and Jake focused on his shot. He kept his eye on the ball and his swing smooth. The six iron hit with a resounding smack. It felt good but when Jake looked up he saw that he'd pulled it a bit. It was drifting to the right. Instead of landing on the green it landed in a sand bunker just to the right of the green.
"Good contact," Greg said analytically. "Just a little bit of a pull."
"Yeah," Jake said sourly.
"Remember," Greg reminded Jake as Celia mounted the tee (she refused to play from the ladies tees), "if you lose this hole you're three down and the press goes into play."
"I remember," Jake said, carefully keeping the irritation from his voice. Greg had felt the need to remind him of this on the last hole as well.
Celia, to her surprise and to Greg's, actually blasted her ball quite nicely over the canyon. Unfortunately it also went over the green. In a classic case of overcompensation she had decided to hit a four iron instead of a five or a six. Her ball was safe but it was also more than twenty yards off the green.
They got in their carts and drove across the wooden bridge to the other side. While Celia went after her ball Greg and Jake stood near the edge of the trap Jake's ball was located in.
"So how goes the wedding plans?" Jake asked. "Have you set a date yet?"
"We're thinking about late January," Greg said. "That way it will fall in her break between recording and going out on tour so we'll have some time to spend together before a long seperation."
"January huh?" Jake asked. "Are you gonna go somewhere warm for it?"
"Celia was thinking about Hawaii," he said. "We haven't started planning anything just yet though because she's still balking at the prenuptial agreement."
Jake nodded, remembering how bitterly she'd mentioned that particular sticking point in the past. "Women really don't like those things much, do they?"
"Yeah," said Greg with a sigh. "I've heard all the arguments against it. It's not romantic, it's saying that we're planning to fail, it means you don't trust me, so on and so forth." He shook his head. "I don't like to think of myself as a tight-ass or anything but I do like to deal in reality. I'm worth twenty million dollars and Celia has no net yearly income at all. We live in a community property state for God's sake. I can't risk half of my earnings like that. You understand, don't you, Jake?"
Jake nodded truthfully. "I surely do," he said. "If you were a cop or a fireman or some other kind of middle-class wage earner I'd tell you to get over yourself. But when you're talking about more than a million dollars... well... you're right. You have to protect yourself."
"Exactly," Greg said, clapping him on the back. "Hey, you like cigars? I got a couple of Cubans in my cart."
"You talked me into it," Jake said.
There was a crack as Celia chipped her ball. It bounced three times on the green and then rolled off the front edge, stopping just beyond the fringe. A profane and very unfeminine articulation came drifting over the ground to their ears.
"You might as well pop out of that trap now," Greg told Jake. "She's liable to hit that thing back and forth across the green two or three more times before she starts putting."
"Right," Jake said. He climbed into the trap and addressed the ball, careful to keep his club head from touching the sand until he actually made his shot. As he'd been taught, he hit two inches behind the ball, scooping it out of the trap on a cushion of sand. It bounced once on the grass and then dribbled slowly onto the green, stopping about eight feet from the pin.
"Nice out," Greg said, although it really hadn't been all that spectacular.
By the time Jake was done raking the sand bunker back to smoothness, Celia had chipped her ball onto the green, only rolling five feet past the pin this time. The three players mounted the green and Greg removed the pin and placed it on the ground.
"You're up, Jake," Greg said. "You get a stroke here but be sure not to miss this putt. I plan to get my bird."
Jake nodded and kneeled down behind his ball, looking at the slope of the green and trying to decide which way the ball was going to break. It appeared the slope was just a hair to the left so that meant if he aimed for the right edge of the cup it should, in theory, drop right into the center. He stood up and lined up, glancing from the ball to the cup a few times. He took a deep breath and struck the ball with his putter. His line had been just a little bit off but not enough to matter. The ball rolled smoothly across the green and dropped neatly into the cup.
"Nice sandy par," Greg said. "Now the pressure is on me to keep you from winning the hole."
Celia was further away from the cup than Greg was so she putted out, taking two strokes to do so and ending up with a five for the hole. Greg then stepped up to his ball and spent the better part of two minutes examining the green from three different angles.
"Come on," Celia said playfully. "Let's do it while we're young."
Jake laughed at her second reference of the day to Caddyshack but Greg didn't seem so amused. He shot her an irritated look before finally bending over his ball and making his stroke. His read was off. Instead of catching the center of the cup it hit the outside edge. For a second it looked like the ball was going to break loose and roll on by but it managed to hang on by the thinnest of margins. It swirled three times around the cup and dropped in.
"Yes!" Greg said, pumping his fist as if he'd just sunk the winning shot in the final round of The Masters and would soon be getting his green jacket.
He was once again jovial as they went back to their carts. He reached into his golf bag and produced two Cuban cigars and a cutting tool. He prepped them and handed one to Jake.
"What about Celia?" Jake asked. "Doesn't she get one?"
Greg acted as if this was a joke and gave a polite laugh. Jake glanced at Celia and saw she was shaking her head at him and giving a throat-cutting gesture with her finger. Jake nodded and brought up the subject no more.
The next hole was a long par five with a sharp dogleg right, a creek along the left side, and a green that was liberally guarded by lipped sand bunkers. Celia managed to hit her ball into every hazard there was and ended up with a ten. Jake and Greg both put their balls on the green in a regulation three strokes. Jake's ball was about thirty feet from the cup but he putted it close and then tapped in for a par. Greg's ball, on the other hand, was only about five feet from the cup. Eagerly anticipating another birdie he putted carelessly and missed long. He had to concentrate just to sink the next one for his own par. Since it was the number five handicap hole Jake got a stroke there and took the hole.
"All right," Greg said as he mounted the tee for the sixth hole. "I'm done screwing around. It's time to start kicking some rock star ass here."
"Bring it on," Jake said, puffing from his cigar and wishing for a beer.
It seemed that Greg was going to be true to his words. Though Jake shot a par on the next hole Greg got another birdie and won it. On the seventh, where Jake got a stroke, Greg was only able to pull off a par but Jake hit his second shot out of bounds and ended up with a six.
"All right now," Greg said as they wrote the scores down. "You are now three holes down for the nine, my friend. The automatic press has just kicked in."