A Theory of Relativity (13 page)

“The last thing my sister said to me might sound dumb,” Gordon finally continued, “but it was something our mother always said, like, give me a kiss . . . that doesn’t matter. Basically, she was saying if you take the time to love someone when you should, you won’t miss that person so much. I think we will miss Georgia all our lives, though, because she was one of the mainstays of our lives, as was Ray. And what I want to ask from all of you is for you to help all of us raise Keefer Kathryn Nye to remember her mother and her father, too.” Tim hated himself for thinking something like this in the middle of his best friend’s total breakdown, but he could not stop looking at Lindsay.

Lindsay Snow was so fucking hot, Tim Upchurch would have tip-toed over new tar on the Fourth of July to put his hand on the small of her back and walk out onto a dance floor with her. He would have been willing to be fired from his job, just to touch his lips to the palm of her hand, would gratefully have dislocated a knee to unsnap her bra and release the smell of her contained breasts. He spent whole hours at his desk imagining leaning over a tub, rinsing Lindsay’s long red hair with lavender water spilled from a pitcher. He would bring her herbal tea when she had her period. He would cue up the CD in his car to her Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 78

78

JACQUELYN MITCHARD

favorite Abba song—he knew what it was, too—every time she slid in next to him. He would worship her. He would never make her get up and get him a beer.

And there she was staring up at Gordon like Gordon was Tom Cruise crossed with Jesus Christ. Even crying made her look fucking beautiful. She was just this red-haired goddess, was all, and he had to act like a brother to her because she was his best friend’s girl,
although
she was only his best friend’s girl when his best friend wasn’t on the tail trail of some gymnastics instructor or rocket scientist or folk-dancing kindergarten teacher or flagger on the highway who would be looking at him in exactly the same way within twelve hours.

Being Gordon McKenna’s best friend was an exercise in masochism.

In any normal situation, Tim was no slouch. He’d had his share, from blasted gropes and insti-fucks in senior year to the long, symphonic tango with Cara, that exchange student from Italy, with whom he’d done stuff he thought people ended up in jail for; but walking into the Wild Rose with Gordon was like being the invisible man. Have you met my friend, he wanted to ask women between sixteen and forty, and then try to talk to the ones who were left over. They went to a strip joint in Madison—were they even eighteen? And the cutest girl of all leaned over, stark naked except for an American flag vest, and dropped a note in Gordo’s lap; she got off work at ten. What was it about Gordo? It wasn’t just looks, though Gordon’s looks were gleaming. Gordo could get the same effect from sticking his head out the window when he drove that took Tim twenty minutes in front of the mirror. Gordo could only bench one-eighty, and Tim could bench two-twenty, but Gordo was built like an equilateral triangle and Tim like a life preserver.

Gordo, blond as a Viking, tanned; Tim got freckles bigger than chicken pox. When Gordon danced, he went into a trance like the beat was being poured into his head; he danced away from the women he was with, and they followed him.

Was that it? The general what-the-fuckness of Gordon, the aphro-disiac quality that he would be totally happy whether anyone else was there or not? The offhand way Gordo stayed right in the moment, while Tim was already worrying, as he got dressed for the first date, how it Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 79

A Theory of Relativity

79

was going to affect his job next week or next month when he realized that the woman didn’t like him as much as he liked her? Tim didn’t ordinarily mind. Gordon was the readiest friend he ever had. He had the best ideas. Gordo figured out how to mount a camcorder in the vent above the girls’ shower and record a solid four hours of great nudity, and when Tim suggested maybe they were perverts, Gordo told him, “Church, this isn’t voyeurism, it’s pornography. Voyeurism is a mental illness, but pornography is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

Calling Gordo was like checking in with some force of nature.

There was always something absurd to do, like the six weeks shearing Christmas trees down in Wautoma, hot as hell and caked with sticky sap, playing softball with the migrant kids who worked on the potato farms and all the other kids who came by bus from miles around to shear trees—a keg at second, which meant you had to chug whenever you rounded the bases, and after that they’d go back to work, with goddamn machetes no less! Streaking with Jessica and Libby Dickensen in the woods behind Fidelis Hill—Gordon had the gift for clothing removal with women—and the Colorado camping trip when they’d jumped eighty feet into the river like Sundance and the Kid, the spring-break nights in Florida, blasted on ganj like no other dope he’d ever had, bumping down the beach in Jurgen’s umpty-million-dollar convertible, he wouldn’t have traded his adventures with Gordo. He loved the McKennas. It was a goddamned wickedness, what had happened to Georgia, the sister that Tim, afflicted with four brothers, had never had.

She was as good as any guy to talk to.

If only he didn’t have it so bad for Lindsay. Worse since Gordo had come home and gotten back together with her and Tim had to spend time with the new Lin, this sharp-dressed, peaceful, curvy woman that Tim could no longer even pretend was the skinny-legged girl who’d grown up practically in his backyard, so shy she’d always worn a big Tshirt over her bathing suit.

Sweet Christ, Tim prayed, let me stop feeling like I want to burst my pants around Lindsay Snow. Let me be a good friend to my buddy when he needs me.

Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 80

80

JACQUELYN MITCHARD

*

*

*

In the few moments that remained before he would need to raise himself from this pew and speak, Ray Nye, Sr., was attempting to compose himself. A pulse in his neck was pounding as if it would tear through the cloth of his shirt. He was thinking of his child’s hands, those magnificent hands, he now imagined, closed softly over Raymond, Jr., huge chest beneath that shiny lid. He was thinking of Raymond at seven, so brawny he’d outgrown the cut-down set of clubs his father had given him at kindergarten graduation. Even at seven, the Vaden grip, which took most youngsters years to master, was as natural to him as breathing.

He had not been in favor of the marriage. He would admit it. They were too young, and Raymond’s game too fragile. When they had come to him, he’d tried to suggest they get established first, even offered to stake Georgia in that business idea she’d had, a service that would redecorate people’s houses with the furnishings they already had. He’d reminded them that life wasn’t a big race. But he remembered also that he and Diane, the two of them all of nineteen years old, wouldn’t be talked out of it either. And though there had been a moment, long ago, when that had seemed a mistake, he could not imagine life without his Diane sparkling at his side.

Just before the two of them moved, Big Ray had come upon Georgia sitting on a hill behind the house at Sandpiper, watching Raymond hit two-irons, then five-irons. He hadn’t been surprised five hours later, coming home from the office to grab a bite, to see Raymond still at it: His son’s zone had been astonishing. Even as a baby, when they’d laid him down to sleep, he’d fallen asleep in less than a minute, and slept twelve hours. He’d come down late to the Christmas tree once, because he’d wanted to finish his Hardy Boys book.

What was astonishing, that day at Sandpiper, was that Georgia was still there, too, and when Big Ray had come closer, he’d seen she was crying. It was on his lips to ask, What’s wrong, honey? Is the baby all right?

But then Georgia had whispered to him, she was not sad, she was just moved. By Raymond’s hands. That he had the hands of a Michelangelo.

Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 81

A Theory of Relativity

81

And Big Ray had known then that the girl understood. That she was the best wife his son could have found, and that he was a fool to doubt his son’s judgment, which had never been anything but on the nose.

Stiffly, the blood roaring in his ears, Raymond Nye, Sr., lifted his feet and made himself walk to the lectern. He touched Gordon lightly on the shoulder and took Gordon’s place at the lectern.

“I’m not much at Bible quoting, not since Sunday school. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t quite get it all right. But this,” said Ray, opening his big hand as if to sprinkle something soft over the domed sheen of the coffin, “is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” He rattled a sheaf of papers and held up a copy of
Life
magazine, with Katie Couric on the cover. “Perhaps some of you read, just a few months ago, about Ray in this publication. I don’t have it here because I’m full of myself, but because I’m full of pride for my son, who brought us much joy in his short life.

“My son played golf. Oh, he did a lot of other things, too. He majored in mathematics. He could figure out and make sense of things I couldn’t even read without getting a headache. He had a ton of friends, some of them, like Carl Jurgen right here and Gordie, they were like sons to us, too. Our house was always full of boys and cleats and golf clubs; they ate like condemned men . . .” Big Ray paused, and swallowed. “But in golf, my son was among the top young players of his generation. Now, you can say that Ray Nye, Junior, was not Davis Love, the third. He was not Phil Mickelson. And I would say to you, yes, he was not those men, who are prodigies. But if you can imagine several hundred men who, out of all the men who love the game in America, have the hands and the heart to become touring pros, then our son was among that tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a percent . . .” Ray sighed and scraped his hair. “And he was coming on. Last year, and this year, he was this close in winnings to that six days of torture at Doral, the qualifying school, to earn one of those slots on the biggest, richest golf tour in the world. He was coming on, but slowly. You see, our son did everything very slowly. You would hear about it in the stories written about it. ‘Slow but Sure, but Nye Will Not Be Denied,’ they would say. His Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 82

82

JACQUELYN MITCHARD

backswing was so slow you would think he’d forgotten in the middle what he was doing. But he never forgot.

“Now, I don’t know how much you Northerners”—there was a soft burble of laughter—“really know about golf. But there is no such thing as a perfect game. Arnold Palmer played a perfect game once, he says, but then he woke up.” Laughter stopped him again. “Only three times in the history of the PGA has a player broken sixty. David Duval did it.

Al Geiberger did it. But you just can’t be perfect. There’s going to be a mistake. You’re not going to have five pars and thirteen birdies. It’s not human.

“Nonetheless, all players are striving for that perfect game. And I believe that my son did achieve a perfect game. It was during the event recounted in this publication, in
Life
magazine, under the headline

‘Georgia on His Mind.’ At the end of the day last April, my son, Ray, was tied for the lead at six under in the . . . well, in the most important event of his career, when he learned from the McKennas here that his wife, who was terribly ill, had had a seizure. And Ray knew what that meant. It meant that if he waited, even another day, his wife might not be, she might not be . . . conscious to see him again.

“And so he left Coachman’s Hill in Charlotte, North Carolina, my friends. He laid down his club and went to the airport, and he told the reporters that there would be many rounds of golf to play, but only once could he play the most important role in his life, as a husband in need and as a father . . . it says it all here in this magazine. But it doesn’t really express what it meant for a young man who played golf to give up that moment, which was the biggest moment in his professional life.

He didn’t even think about it. That was Ray.

“Georgia got better. But not very much better. It turned out that Ray didn’t really need to make that sacrifice, giving up what would have been a tremendous amount of money he could have used to care for his baby, giving up the certainty of making that next step. But I stand here today to tell you that I am glad he did it. Even though it meant . . . it meant this . . . it finally meant that he would not have those other days to reach for medal play. Even though coming back here, and of course Theory[001-112] 6/5/01 11:58 AM Page 83

A Theory of Relativity

83

his mother and his sisters and I are brokenhearted that Ray lies here today, instead of sitting beside us, beside the little girl it was his right and his joy to raise . . .”

Lorraine had to look away. Big Ray was chewing on his sorrow, trying hard to swallow. She looked down at sleeping Keefer, her four limbs confidently sprawled, and observed how little time she had really spent watching her granddaughter sleep. Asleep, her blue eyes hidden, she looked exactly like Georgia.

As Big Ray cleared his throat once, then again, Lorraine heard Mark wince. “So,” Ray finally went on, “no matter what has happened, I am glad Raymond, Junior, did this, because he achieved in life what no player of golf can ever achieve on the course. He achieved a perfect game. And I am proud of him. And I thank you for being proud of him, too.” Diane cried out and stretched out her hands.

They all bent their heads and tried to be still and tried to ignore the tumult of suppressed coughs and cries that rose on the left, on the right, from the rear of the church, as if instruments in an orchestra were being hastily tuned. Those who were Catholic placed a finger to their foreheads, wings, and hearts; those who were not gathered their sport coats and purses and the printed programs they did not want to keep but could not bear to leave behind, programs that would end up on kitchen counters and telephone stands throughout the town and throughout the state for weeks, finally scribbled on with times for baseball registrations, dates of dental appointments, and baby-sitters’ telephone numbers. They turned in hundreds as one body.