Page 45 of It’s All in How You Fall
The smallest adult clubs at the rental shack are too big, and the kiddie-size ones are all checked out for some sort of mommy-and-me event on the other side of the links. This doesn’t concern Alex in the least, and I try to take that energy with me as I shoulder my driver and follow him in the direction of the driving range.
Our assigned tee box is at the end of a row, bracketed by a tree to one side. The sun is striking hard at an angle, the light white and intense, salmon streaks still at least an hour away.
Alex sets up the tees and balls and goes through a short introduction. The gist—let’s see if I even like the macro-level stuff before we try putting, etcetera. Makes sense. Next, he runs through the components of a golf swing: the address, backswing, downswing, impact, follow-through.
I mirror each component. Then he demonstrates what they look like put together. First without a ball, then with. He nails the poor thing and it goes flying past the 175-yard sign set up in the distance along with other markers, each at a twenty-five-yard interval. We stare after it as it falls to the nicely clipped grass.
Alex nods to me. “Okay, show me what you can do.”
I set my feet exactly as Alex did. Shoulder width. The club is too big, but I think I’ve got my hands in the right place. Not to brag, but I can mimic a body position super easily. Even in midair, because of course. But Alex is staring at me in a way that stops me cold. “What?”
There’s the hint of a smile on his face. “You look like you’re trying to strangle the metal.”
“I’m… just holding it?”
“Remind me never to wrestle you.”
“Wrestling was on the list,” I remind him.
“You’re right.” He discards his club and steps toe to toe with me, the ball sandwiched between us. My breath stalls as Alex places both hands on each of mine. I freeze, and I know he feels it. “Golf tonight. One sport at a time.”
“Yes. Golf.” I say the words but I can barely hear them outside my own head as he pries my grip off the club and reapplies it with gentle pressure.
When he removes his hands to sit back on his heels and check his handiwork, I’m immediately at a loss. It’s probably ninety-five out here in the sun, I’ve been sweating for at least a solid hour, and somehow I crave that heat.
Alex leans forward and taps my right kneecap. “A little softer.”
I’m good at taking this kind of direction and immediately adjust.
“Great, now the other side,” he says without touching my left knee.
Obedient, I bend the joint to mirror its companion. Years of practice making myself appear exactly as Olga requests means this is a reflex more than a choice.
Alex squints. He taps his lips with a forefinger. They are nice lips. “Given the size of the club, I think that’s okay.”
“Uh, can I try now?”
“Yes. Just the swing. Inch back to clear the ball.”
I move back and reset the same as before. When he doesn’t correct me, I swing, mindful of my body position—using all those years of practice to send a carbon copy of his swing into the space-time continuum.
When I freeze again on the follow-through, he nods in my periphery. “That’s a good imitation of a swing.”
“Itisa swing?”
“Yeah,myswing. Notyourswing.”
I…What?I glance up at him, and I know better than to look as confused as I feel. I mean, of course it’s his swing. I’m copying him. But I’m also the one doing it, so how can it be an imitation?
Something about my reaction makes his lips quirk. “Here, wait,” he says, popping up to his full height. “Stay still.”
Again I go rigid. He touches one hand, like someone tapping a fence post—there and it’s gone. But that renewed sense of loss I feel doesn’t last long, because now he’s come around behind me and his hands return. Just like during the fireworks display, his body is at a respectable distance—nothing touches me but his hands. Palms, fingertips, the heel of his hand fading into the supple turn of his wrists.
But his presence is everything.
Something new and heavy, and more tangible than last night, hangs in the charged sliver of air between us, its heft growing as my mind races to catalog everything. The general warmth of his body, the swell of his chest just inches from my back. He has to duck to line his hands up with mine, his chin almost level with my ear.
My heart contracts. My cheeks blaze. My breath stalls.
