The Caddie Read online

  I showed her into what the realtor called “the great room.” She sat on the sofa next to my chair. I flipped off the television.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I saw a slight change in her expression, and I knew what she was thinking. Pointing to my glass, I said, “I’m having juice.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I figured you’d still be celebrating.”

  I looked down sheepishly. “Yeah, well, I don’t really drink anymore.”

  She smiled ever so slightly. “I noticed that you were drinking tea at dinner tonight.”

  I nodded slowly. “A friend of mine made me realize that I was better off without all that stuff.”

  “Was that Stewart?”

  I jerked my head in surprise. “You know about Stewart?”

  Betsy reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a wrinkled envelope. “He sent me this.”

  She handed it to me. I took it, not knowing what to do. My eyes grew wide when I saw the handwriting on the envelope. It was Stewart’s.

  Seeing my reaction, Betsy said, “I’ve had it for over a week. Probably read it a hundred times. It’s made me angry and then sad … and then a lot of other feelings as well.”

  She bit her lip again. It was that clear she was becoming agitated. Walking over to a window, she said, “Look, maybe you ought to read it before I say anything more.”

  I opened the envelope. There, in Stewart’s distinctive hand, was the following:

  Dear Betsy,

  Although we’ve never met, I feel that I know you. Over the past year, I have become very close to Bobby Reeves. So close, in fact, that I dare say I know him as well as anyone on this earth.

  My work with Bobby is nearly finished, and I will be leaving soon. In fact, I will probably be gone by the time you receive this. But I could not leave without telling you that Bobby is a very different man now than when I first met him.

  You should also know that you remain the one and only love of his life. You loved him when he was nothing, so he trusts you. He knows that he betrayed that trust. I can’t imagine that he would do so again.

  Bobby now has much to give you, and I don’t mean money. He has more of himself to give. And he needs you to complete himself.

  I suspect that your love for Bobby remains as strong as his does for you. If so, I thought you should know this.

  I have only two favors to request.

  First, I never told Bobby who paid his $4,000 entry fee for Q-School last year and thus made all of his good fortune possible. It was his friend Boo. Make sure he knows.

  Second, you will shortly receive a set of golf clubs, shipped by parcel post. Please see to it that Bobby gets them. They have historical value, and he’ll know what to do with them.

  Yours truly,

  Stewart Jones

  When I was through reading it, I continued to stare at the paper. My eyes became wet with tears, and I was hoping to blink them away before Betsy noticed. Damn that Stewart, I thought. I had never told him that I still loved Betsy, and I had never told him that I wanted her back in my life. But, just like everything else Stewart ever said, it was true.

  I grabbed my drink and stood up. “Did you say you wanted anything?”

  Betsy rolled her eyes. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “N–no,” I stammered. I searched about for words, but nothing that seemed right came up. Frustrated, I said, “Damn it, Betsy, I wasn’t this nervous at Pebble Beach.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Well, how do you think I feel? Who is this guy anyway?”

  “There’s no simple answer to that question,” I said. “He was my caddie, but he was much more than that. He was the best friend I ever had, and he changed my life.… It’s a long story after that.”

  She was understandably confused. “Well, why would he send me this letter?”

  “Stewart is … was a very spiritual person. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “What do you mean ‘was’?”

  I felt another pang of grief. “He was killed at Pebble Beach.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Good God!… When?”

  “On Sunday, the day he left. He wrote me a letter, too, saying that his work was done. Got hit by a bus leaving town.”

  Betsy placed her hand on a nearby chair to steady herself. Speaking slowly, she said, “Then he must have sent this letter right before he died.” She looked around the room before speaking again. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Finally, she said, “Those clubs he mentioned are out in the car. I guess he sent them to me to make sure I came to see you.”

  We both stayed quiet for a while. Betsy was biting her lip again. I was waiting for her to draw blood. Finally, she said, “That man I was with tonight—don’t tell me you didn’t notice him, because I saw you looking at our table—has asked me to marry him. He’s a lawyer with the biggest firm in town. We met awhile back when I worked on a project with him. I had just about talked myself into believing I was in love with him, when…” She pointed at the letter I was still holding, “when that thing arrived.”

  She walked past me, pacing across the room. She seemed to be talking to herself as much as to me. “I mean, this guy is everything any woman could want: He’s handsome, considerate, successful…” Here she paused, as if loading a gun. “Good in bed…”

  I felt like I had just been hit by Mike Tyson. Obviously, Betsy hadn’t quite worked out all of her anger over my infidelities. In fact, it suddenly seemed like she was every bit as mad as she had been the day she dumped all of my clothes on the front lawn. Still, while it may have been fair for her to hit back like that, her counterpunch hurt like hell.

  “I really don’t want to hear about that…,” I said weakly.

  She continued to walk back and forth across the room, like a lioness pacing in her cage. “Yeah, well,” she shot back, “I heard much the same thing from that bimbo who called me. You should know how it feels.”

  I found myself confused. “Well, is that what you came here to tell me?”

  She shook her head. “Frankly, I don’t know what I came here to tell you. Maybe I should have thrown that letter away the minute I got it, but I didn’t. Something made me keep it, if for no other reason than to let you know what Boo did for you. In fact, when I saw you tonight, the only reason I walked over was to tell you about Boo.” She paused. “And, I guess, to tell you I had some golf clubs for you.…” She arched her eyebrows in a sarcastic way. “As if you don’t already have enough of those.”

  She had been talking fast, in a rambling sort of way, and stopped to catch her breath. “Anyway, when I got to your table…” Her voice trailed off. After a moment, as if she was thinking out loud, she continued. “Now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I really love this guy.” She stopped pacing and turned to face me. “Or whether I still love you.” Her eyes scanned my face, looking intently for my reaction. When I didn’t say anything right away, she added, “It really hurts to love someone like you, Bobby.”

  I still couldn’t speak, but she demanded a response. “Well?”

  “Well,” I said slowly. “I’ve been hurt, too, you know, even though I deserved it. And, believe me, I don’t want to ever be hurt like that again.”

  She shook her head, as if to rid herself of her anger. “I just don’t know if I can ever let myself love like that again.”

  I didn’t know how to explain it, but I felt the same way. The risk of losing was part of loving, though. There was no getting around it. We were both standing on the brink, each afraid to cross over.

  When she spoke again, her tone had softened. “So how do I know you won’t hurt me again?”

  I looked directly at her, wishing I could find the perfect words that would answer that question in a convincing way. But what can you say when you’ve screwed up as much as I had?

  Although it scared me to reach for her hands, I did, and she let me take them. Her touch must have inspired me (it sure as hell turned me on). Looking dire
ctly into her eyes, I said, “Betsy, if I guaranteed you a perfect life, you wouldn’t believe me anyway. All I can tell you is that I still love you and that I’m a very different person than I was before. You have to decide what you feel.”

  She didn’t say anything but just looked back at me for a few seconds, as if she was trying to find something in my eyes that would show whether or not I was telling the truth. I don’t know what she saw (she later said she saw Stewart), but she then put her arms around me and slowly kissed me.

  We spent the rest of the night together. By the time the sun came up, I had talked her into coming to Chicago with me. She ran home, threw her things together, and we made the flight just in time.

  Right now, neither one of us is sure what’s going to happen next, but we figure that we’re a lot happier together than we were apart.

  As for Boo, well, let’s just say that he’s the only insurance agent I know who has television commercials featuring an endorsement from the reigning U.S. Open champion. And thanks to him, I’ve got a retirement plan and insurance for Betsy. But Boo says the best part is that his driving range is the only one in America with a U.S. Open trophy on display in the pro shop. He tells me that business has been booming since I put it there. I’m glad.

  It took me a little longer to figure out what to do with Stewart’s irons. I thought about putting them back in my bag, but Stewart was right: I didn’t need his clubs anymore. Besides, they belonged in a museum.

  You can see them now, if you want. Just go to the USGA’s Golf House in Far Hills, New Jersey, where they’re on display. Underneath the clubs is a list of all the major championships that were won with them. It’s an odd list, containing Bobby Jones’s major championships from 1926 (when he got the clubs) to 1930 and then my U.S. Open some three-quarters of a century later. Golf magazine even did a piece on the whole thing, including a picture of me standing next to the display.

  My brother Mark’s back, too. I had to make amends with him as well. It’s all part of the process, you know. Anyway, it feels good to have him carrying my bag again. Something tells me that’s exactly what Stewart had in mind.

  Speaking of Stewart, none of this would have happened, of course, were it not for him. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, when he taught me to conquer fear on the golf course, he was teaching me how to overcome it in the rest of life as well. And he managed to do the same for Betsy, without ever even meeting her. Because of him, the world is a lot friendlier place for both of us.

  Naturally, I still miss Stewart. A lot. Little things remind me of him every day. I can’t touch a golf club without thinking of something he said. And I can’t look at Betsy without feeling so very grateful. But letting go of Stewart, for now, is all part of it, too. Somehow, I know that he and I will play again one day, just as he promised. And if the day comes when Betsy and I are blessed with a son, his name will be Stewart. Betsy insists.

  As for who Stewart really was, I’m not sure it’s all that important. Personally, I believe he was Bobby Jones. He certainly knew things that only Jones could have known. And I learned the other day that Jones’s first (and most influential) golf teacher was a Scottish golf professional at East Lake Country Club named Stewart Maiden. Maybe that’s where he got his first name. One thing’s for sure: If God wanted to send an angel to a golfer, he couldn’t do any better than that.

  I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never figure the whole story out. Like how my name got on that lease at Tiger Town. I have the feeling that Ms. Garbarino wasn’t telling me the whole truth. Frankly, I think Stewart had her clean his stuff out while we were in California, and I’ll bet he told her to change the lease to my name and deny she ever knew him. Any guy who could get us on at Augusta could talk anybody into doing anything. Anyway, Ms. Garbarino seemed a little uncomfortable talking to me the first time, but I see no point in going back and trying to get her to admit the truth.

  The way I see it, life’s kind of like those jigsaw puzzles that Betsy likes. There’s always a piece or two that gets lost under the sofa or just doesn’t fit right. It never fits together perfectly.

  You can believe what you want about all this. All I know is that Stewart saved my life. After all, isn’t that what angels are supposed to do?

  Also by J. Michael Veron

  The Greatest Player Who Never Lived

  The Greatest Course That Never Was

  This book is a work of fiction. Although the story is set in the context of actual events and individuals, the principal characters in this story are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual persons is purely coincidental.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  THE CADDIE. Copyright © 2004 by J. Michael Veron. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Veron, J. Michael.

  The caddie / J. Michael Veron.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-32561-4 (hc)

  ISBN 0-312-32562-2 (pbk)

  EAN 978-0312-32562-6

  1. Golfers—Fiction. 2. Caddies—Fiction. 3. Bail bond agents—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3572.E763C33 2004

  813'.54—dc22

  2004041756

  eISBN 9781466853041

  First eBook edition: August 2013