Tiffany dictated her answer into her phone. “I had back-to-back lessons scheduled, and then I had to show a new bag boy around the club. I didn’t have a minute to eat lunch. I need to eat right now, or I’m going to pass out.”
Tiffany set her phone on the table, where it jittered, rattling the metal tabletop with their commentary until she had nuked a slice of leftover sausage pizza, folded it in half, and stuffed it into her mouth. The cumin and fennel in the sweet sausage unfurled over her tongue, and she moaned because she was alone in her kitchen and could do that.
When she looked down at her phone, next to her name was the sound, Unghghgh.
Oops, the dictation mic was still on.
Imani: LOL. What are you doing there, girl? Did you bring home that guy Latoya saw you talking to?
Newcastle might have a problem with late blight killing everyone’s tomato patch, but the gossip grapevine grew stronger every day. Latoya’s mom was Asia’s mom’s bestie. Tiffany dictated, “What did that little narc tell you?”
Asia: That a tall drink of water was chatting you up.
Imani: Spill the tea.
Tiffany sighed and swallowed her next bite of pizza before she mumbled into her phone, “He’s a new bag boy at the club. He’s a thirty-year-old bag boy. Can you imagine me trying to bring that kind of guy home to my father?”
LOLz filled the screen, plus a few skull emojis indicating that Asia and Imani had died of laughter.
Yeah, the thought of what her father would do to a slacker like Jericho Parr was more mortifying than funny, and Tiffany cringed.
Why should she cringe? Tiffany shouldn’t be cringing. She’d met a guy at work who’d evidently had a lot of spare time to spend at the gym. His slacking wasn’t her problem.
If he got his act together, then maybe someday he might be boyfriend material.
Asia: 30yo bagboi? I cannot imagine any circumstance where that would go well. What’s his name?
“Jericho Parr,” Tiffany said into the phone and then corrected par to Parr. Her phone spoke golf.
Asia sent back a line of skulls and then, Jericho *Parr.* All your life, you’ve been trying to get *under par.* Now’s your chance.
In golf, par meant the number of times a golfer should hit the golf ball from the tee to the hole for the entire eighteen holes in a truly great round. It’s the standard golfers measured their score against.
Tiffany routinely shot sub-par rounds of golf, but she didn’t need to tell Asia and Imani that. They weren’t golfers. “Yeah, that’s not what that means.”
Asia: I know that, dork. Latoya said he was hot.
“Latoya is sixteen years old. She thinks every guy is hot.” Tiffany said.
Imani: true. But Latoya said he was a white guy.
“Yeah,” Tiffany said into her phone and watched the words appear on the text screen. “He definitely appeared to be a white guy.”
Asia: Your dad okay with that?
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus. There’s no way I would bring Jericho home to meet my father. It wouldn’t matter if he was white, black, or plaid. My dad would march a guy like him down to the nearest Marine recruiter and sign him up. He would be on a bus to Parris Island within hours.”
Asia: he tried to do that to Scott.
Imani: he should have done that to Scott.
Tiffany wasn’t getting in the middle of that argument.
Asia: can we please quit discussing Scott?
Imani: sure. Tiff, has anybody bought that run-down golf course of yours yet?
Oh, jeez. Any topic but that.
She chewed her pizza, trying to figure out what to say.
Asia: Tiffany, are you there?
Imani: yeah, Tiff. Why aren’t you answering?
I’m chewing! She typed with one thumb sliding over the keyboard. It left a faint grease smear on her phone screen.
Asia: we’re waiting.
Tiffany swallowed the pizza. The middle of the slice was still a little cold, but she was too hungry to care. She composed her thoughts and then dictated them into her phone. “Loralinda didn’t have anything new to say this morning. She left about ten, so I don’t know if anything happened after that.”
Imani: did your paycheck bounce? I heard Dylan’s paycheck bounced.
Dylan Connor was one of the bag boys, one more typical of the breed. He’d just graduated from one of the local private schools and had been accepted to an Ivy League university for the fall. His father wanted him to “learn some responsibility” before he left for college by working at one job in his life not connected to his family’s business. Dylan had probably been smoking weed out behind the oleander hedge when Mrs. Lombardi had waited over half an hour to get her golf bag out of storage.
Nevertheless, Tiffany checked her bank account, and she saw that her paycheck had been deposited and then the same amount had been deducted from her account immediately afterward. “Dammit!”
She texted her cousins, OMG, my paycheck bounced. I’ve got to call people.
They commiserated and offered her loans, but Tiffany had enough money in the bank to cover a couple of weeks.
Her first call was to Coach Kowalski, who hadn’t noticed that his paycheck had bounced, too. He shouted some swear words that Tiffany had never heard out of him before, even on the golf course. He said, “I’ll make sure that senior staff, and that includes you, gets paid tomorrow. I’ve got to tell you, Tiffany, bouncing paychecks is a bad sign. If I were you, I’d apply over at Pequot Municipal and Safe Harbor Country Club before the other instructors do. You put down my number, and I’ll give you a good recommendation.”
“Thanks, Coach. What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to call Bob Russo right now. He’s the finance committee chair, and he should be able to move funds around to cover the paychecks. First thing tomorrow morning, though, I’ll tear the finance committee a new one. I don’t care what they have to do. Those assholes should not be letting people’s paychecks bounce, ever.”
“I mean, aren’t you going to need to find a job?” Tiffany asked.
Coach Kowalski sighed. “I don’t want to start over again at some new course. I was planning to retire within a few years. It looks like it’ll be a few years sooner than I anticipated. Do you need a loan to tide you over, Tiffany?”
“I’m okay for a few weeks.” Even though she was looking at her bank account with complete terror. She’d managed to save a little bit of money, but it was less than she was going to need.
“I guess you’ve always got your parents.”
Oh, now that would be mortifying. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow what happens with the finance committee.”
“Thanks so much, Coach. I really appreciate—”
And, of course, absolutely of course, Tiffany’s phone chose that moment to die.
“Ack!”
She pushed the button on the side, praying, but the stupid thing just showed her a graphic of a red, empty battery and refused to cooperate.
Tiffany grabbed her purse to dig her charging cord out, but a friend of hers at the club had borrowed it that morning because she was freaking out about a call from her boyfriend, and she hadn’t given it back yet.
Dammit.
She went to her bedroom and dug out her laptop, where she pinged Asia and Amani to move over to DM’s because her stupid phone had died so she couldn’t even scan the QR code to reply to texts over her computer.