Chapter 18
At the entrance to the park, Drew cuts in front of my father, jumps out of the car and starts to all but tear his hair out. I can’t stop driving because I am headed for the phone booth, deeper inside the park. And I can’t wait for Drew to get back in his car and follow me because I’ve got one minute to get there.
I can hear some of the argument because my mother has left the cell phone on though it seems to be in the car and Drew and my father are outside. He’s instructing them, ordering them, to go home and wait for the kids. My father is telling him to have a cop wait for them, and he wants to know why the park isn’t teeming with cops waiting to catch this guy.
I’m hoping Drew says they are hiding. He doesn’t.
The phone rings in the phone booth and I answer it.
“Get on the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway and take it to Exit 8. Get off at the park.”
“The Bethpage State Park?” I ask. He says yeah. “And then?”
“Go to the 9th hole.”
I’m not a golfer, but I’m the daughter of one, so I know that there are a lot of courses at the park. I ask which one. He tells me the one with the flag. I tell him every course has a flag at every hole.
“Then you’ve got a problem, don’t you?” he says. I think he’s going to hang up.
“I have the final piece you want,” I say. “The dragon. Just tell me where to meet you.”
“There’s a crop of trees,” he says. “The flag says 9.”
And then he’s gone.
I jump back in my car and head for the park exit. There is no sign of either Drew or my parents, but I can still hear my parents’ voices on the cell phone. My mother is telling my father how to drive and he is telling her he knows what he’s doing.
“You’re too close,” I hear her yelling at him. “Super Scoones will see us.”
My father says something about going up his rear end, and I don’t think he’s referring to Drew’s back bumper.
“Mom, tell me about Bethpage Golf Course,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me. I’m not sure they know where the phone is. “Mom!” I yell as I get on the on ramp to the Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway.
Nothing.
“Mom!”
“I’m losing my mind,” my mother says. “That, or I really am psychic. Do you think I could really be psychic?”
“I think it’s likelier you’re losing your mind,” my father says.
“Mom!” I shout again, merging into the traffic and heading for the State Park.
“I keep thinking I hear Teddi calling to me. She must be in danger. Drive faster.”
“Mom! I am calling you! I’m on the phone! Look for the phone!”
“I feel like Yoda,” she says. “Use the Force, Luke. . .Isn’t that what Jesse says? I hear her telling me to call her.”
“So call her,” my father says. “Just keep your hands off the goddamn wheel.”
I hear her asking him where the phone is, and like an idiot I’m shouting “Here! Follow my voice! Just follow my freakin’ voice, Mom!”
“Go straight ahead,” she tells my father. “She’s sending us messages.”
“Just call her,” my father says again.
My mother says she can’t find the phone. I shout that she should look under the seat.
Finally I hear her pressing buttons. “I’m here, Mom,” I say. “I’m on the phone.”
“Teddi?” she says. “I didn’t even finish dialing, Marty. It’s like a miracle.”
“It’s a freakin’ miracle,” I agree, only my miracle is different than hers. Mine involves the fact that they ever let her out of South Winds Psychiatric Center. “Tell me everything you know about Bethpage State Park Golf Course.”
“Collars are required,” she tells me.
“What?”
“No T-shirts. You have to wear those LaCoste kind of shirts,” she says. “It’s not just my opinion, Teddi. It’s the course rule.”
“Well, I hope the man threatening my family knows the rule,” I tell her, “because he’s meeting me on the 9th hole.”
“Of which course?” My father shouts toward the phone.
Ah, the crux of the matter. I tell him that the man didn’t seem to know, but that he said there is a crop of trees.
“Black Course,” my father says. “The ninth hole is the farthest from the club house, in case anyone is around.”
“Or the Green,” my mother says and my father agrees. And says that there may be more trees on the Green Course.
“It costs extra to play on the Black Course,” my mother says. I remind her that no one is playing here. “Okay,” she answers. “But is it likelier that anyone would be playing on the better course or the cheaper one in November?”
I signal to get off the Expressway as I ponder which course to try first. The day is cold, raw. Only someone who was truly dedicated to golf would consider playing. And that person, I’m guessing, would want to play the better course. So my guy would choose the one no one is on. I head for the Green Course, which, I’m told, does not permit carts.
I pick up a map from the display rack at the first hole and head off on foot to find the 9th hole.
I think I glimpse a cart by the trees as I hurry past the 8th hole. I still don’t have a plan. Or any breath left.
And, when I think about it, I don’t even have a dragon.
