They chatted for a while longer, during which Asia received another report from her mother, via Latoya, about how Tiffany had strolled all over the golf course with the tall guy wearing the NGC uniform of a red club shirt and khaki golf pants that afternoon, going in the clubhouse, walking through the meadow, etc.
So Tiffany had to deny yet again that anything was going on because it wasn’t, but every one of her denials added fuel to the fire because evidently Latoya had taken a picture of them and that was making the rounds in her family.
When one of them sent it to her, she saw that she was laughing while Jericho was smirking down at her with one eyebrow raised and a devilish grin on his face, which made him look stunningly handsome.
Okay, Jericho Parr was already stunningly handsome, but it was a particularly good picture of him, too.
After more LOLz and skulls on her screen and some good-natured ribbing, Tiffany told her cousins to go screw themselves and closed the computer so she could go to bed.
The next morning, Tiffany dragged herself to work because she was a responsible girl who’d grown up in a good home, and that’s what she did even though her paycheck had bounced.
As always, she checked out her car as she walked toward it, making sure that both her taillights blinked on and off as she approached and noting for the thousandth time that her license plates were still valid and did not need to be renewed for another six months. Once she got in, she fastened her seat belt and made sure it clicked firmly. Then she inspected her surroundings to verify that nothing was loose to distract her or cause her to look away from the road, and nothing was hanging from her mirror either.
Thanks to Baby Jesus on a cracker, she found her old car charger under the seat while doing her pre-flight inspection and plugged her phone in so it could suck up at least a little juice while she drove. She tucked the connected phone in the tiny storage area in front of the gear shift because she did not even glance at her phone while she was driving, ever.
Once on the road, she drove carefully and precisely, just a few miles under the speed limit but not suspiciously slowly like she might be drunk. She rolled to a complete stop at every stop sign and exaggerated her movements as she turned her head first right, then left, then right again before she continued.
Her father had taught her the very specific rules for driving while Black because you never knew who was watching.
As she approached the golf club, she breathed a sigh of relief at once again making it to work where people knew her and would go to bat for her, but something was off.
The parking lot was full of cars.
Not just full. It was overflowing.
The Newcastle Golf Club parking lot was never full of cars at nine o’clock in the morning, especially on a Friday morning. For some of the weddings that rented out the club, the parking lot filled up and people had to park on the lawn in front of the clubhouse, but wedding receptions were never scheduled for nine in the morning. A few of the charity events that booked the golf course and the clubhouse could pull in this many people and cars, but those were always on Mondays and never in April. Ladies’ League was Wednesday, but the parking lot was usually only half-full for that. Wednesday afternoon Men’s League maybe filled the parking lot to three-quarters of its capacity.
Tiffany could not put together a reason for this swell of people, and she sent some bad vibes at her stupid phone for still being at two percent charge because she couldn’t call Coach and find out.
People were parking on the road outside of the club.
The cars out there weren’t luxury sedans or sports cars like if the club was hosting some massive charity outing she had forgotten about. Some of them were the middle-class sedans and SUVs that members drove, and the old jalopies and beaters were driven by the staff.
Tiffany parked by the side of the road and hiked down the driveway to the parking lot.
As she walked, she texted her cousins, At the club.
Good, they texted back.
A few people were hurrying toward the clubhouse. It looked like Tiffany was the last one to arrive for whatever this was.
Coach Kowalski was standing outside on the porch, and he started leaning over the railing and waving her up when he saw her. “Tiffany! I tried to call you! The meeting is starting right now. We need to get over there. Hurry!”
“What the heck happened?” she asked him as they trotted around the clubhouse and out to the back where a crowd larger than Sunday dawn service but smaller than Easter Sunday at the Methodist church stood around the putting green.
A podium had been set up on the back deck that overlooked the practice putting area.
Coach Kowalski took off his NGC hat and ran his fingers through the remnants of his hair. “When I called Bob Russo and the other finance committee members last night, all hell broke loose. There wasn’t any more money, anywhere, in the accounts. The club hasn’t paid invoices for the restaurant supplies or pro shop orders for the last month. In the wee hours of the morning, the committee decided to sell the club to that golf conglomerate, Croon Golf, that had put in a bid last month. But once Croon heard about the bounced paychecks, they backed out.”
Tiffany looked in horror at the gathered people. “Then, that’s it. The club is closing. It’s closing today, isn’t it?”
Kowalski shook his head. “One of the finance committee members heard about a guy who might be interested in investing, and he called him at three o’clock in the morning. He put in a lowball bid, and the finance committee accepted it on the spot. We’ve been bought.”
“No way,” Tiffany said to Coach Kowalski. “No freaking way. Who bought us? A condo developer? Are they going to bulldoze the course?”
Kowalski was saying something, but Tiffany was looking at the fairway and green of the eighteenth hole that spread over the land in back of the clubhouse. She’d lost her first tooth out there, playing golf with her dad when she was five. This patio, right there, was where golf coaches from the HBCUs and other universities came to sit and watch NFA’s varsity team every year and decide whom to offer scholarships to. Young golfers’ lives were changed right there on that green when they were offered those scholarships, when they were the first people in their families to ever go to college because tuition and upkeep and four years off from working were just inconceivable to their people.
It was where the recruiter from Tennessee State had offered Tiffany a full-tuition scholarship five years ago, and she’d accepted on the spot because she’d known there was no way her father could finance her college education on an enlisted person’s salary, even with the GI bill.
Dear Jesus, they couldn’t pave over the club. This was people’s hopes and dreams.
The door from the clubhouse opened.
Jericho Parr—Jericho freakin’ Parr—strode out of the clubhouse wearing a tailored suit and holding a cordless microphone.
The chair of the club’s finance committee, Bob Russo, scurried beside him, ducking his head obsequiously as he spoke to Jericho. Bob was practically cringing in front of Jericho like a naughty dog, making hand gestures that looked like he was offering gifts to placate a conquering general.
Tiffany had never seen Bob Russo act so beta. Loralinda and Tiffany called him Napoleon behind his back because he strutted around the golf course and made Coach Kowalski chew members out if they were playing too slowly in front of him. He bragged about his Sicilian Mafia connections so much that the other guys of his foursome called him The Tiny Godfather.