Ell Donsaii 12: Impact! (7 page)

“Really? Can’t you just have them swallow a port and suck specimens out every so often as it passes through the bowel?”

Vanessa felt like her eyes wanted to cross. It seemed so obvious now that the kid had said it. She couldn’t believe that she and Dr. Turner hadn’t thought of using ports for that purpose. Probably, somebody, somewhere,
was
already doing such a study, but if no one was, a paper on it could be quite a coup. She smiled at the kid, figuring it wouldn’t do any harm to give him some praise. A three-year-old wasn’t going to come after them for stealing his idea, after all. “That’s a pretty good idea!” she said.

“How expensive is it?”

“How expensive is what?”

“Doing a microarray.”

“Oh, the microarrays themselves are pretty cheap nowadays. As long as you already have a reader for them, it only costs 1 to 2 dollars to run the test.”

The kid kept peppering her with questions, one after another. Perceptive questions that made her think
and
made her contemplate things she hadn’t considered until now.

By the time the kid’s dad came to pick him up Vanessa felt mentally exhausted.

As Shan’s little pickup truck pulled out onto the highway, he looked over and saw that Ell was wiping the bronzers off of her face. Her strawberry blond wig was laying in her lap. Shan frowned, “You’re playing as Ell? I told Ryan that ‘Raquel’ was playing with us.”

Ell shrugged, “So, when we get there tell him that Raquel couldn’t make it. Ell’s the one with the membership at the course. You can complain to Ryan that she invited herself along.”

“But why? Why not just play as Raquel?”

Ell looked at him a moment, then said, “Because I want to play
well
. It’s okay for Donsaii to play surprisingly well. It wouldn’t be okay for Raquel to do that.”

Shan narrowed his eyes, “Are you going to kick my ass at golf too?”

Ell shrugged, but said nothing.

Musingly he said, “Golf’s really easy for you too?”

Another little tiny shrug.

“But I thought you were just really fast? Golf isn’t a game where quickness should help you!”

She looked off into the distance, “Actually, it
is
pretty easy. After all, you’re hitting a ball that isn’t even moving.” She shrugged, “I think the reason most people have a hard time with it is that you’re swinging a long club, at a high speed, while trying to hit the ball exactly on a fairly small sweet spot, with the club face pointed exactly at your target. All those items added together make it pretty easy to actually hit the ball a little ways off the sweet spot, with the club face pointed a little bit the wrong direction. When that happens you wind up with a pretty bad shot.” She paused to calculate, “If your club face is off by five degrees at the time it strikes the ball on a 200 yard shot, you’re gonna be off target by nine yards.” She glanced wryly at Shan for a second then said, “But having really fast reaction times make it pretty easy to line the club up precisely and hit the sweet spot… quite well.”

Shan snorted, “Then, I suppose the ball goes pretty much where you want it to go, huh?”

“Yeah. So to keep from freaking people out, I over club, under club, or aim it to one side or another, making bad shots on purpose.”

Shan sighed.

Ryan Keller looked around as he opened the trunk of his car and lifted out his bag. It was nice of Donsaii to let them play on her membership, this club looked really high end.

He checked in at the clubhouse and went out to hit a bucket of balls. Finishing that up, he went over to the putting green. Suddenly he recognized Ell’s strawberry blond head bent over a putt. He hadn’t imagined that she might be there playing the same day that he, Shan and Raquel played. “Ell!” he said, walking up to her, “Are you playing today too?”

She looked up and grinned at him, “Yep. With you. Raquel couldn’t make it so I’m filling in.”

Ryan wasn’t quite sure how he felt about this turn of events. He’d been a little bit pissed that Shan was dragging his wife along on their golf outing in the first place. Of course, Donsaii was a girl too, but Ryan still had an infatuated crush on her. She acted friendly, but a little distant at work—as if she didn’t want him to think of her as possible girlfriend material. Besides, she lived with Bridget and he still dated Bridget occasionally.
Oh well, she’ll be nice to look at, even if it’ll be a pain in the ass waiting for her to play off the girls’ tees.

Tommy Wilson hurriedly put on his golf shoes and grabbed his bag. He hadn’t been able to believe it when Ell Donsaii joined the club where he worked as a pro. Tommy had dreamed of meeting her for many years. When she joined the club it began to seem like a possibility. Then this morning Debbie contacted him through his AI to tell them that Donsaii was about to tee off in a threesome! Tommy grabbed his clubs and headed out for the first tee box.

Pete wasn’t surprised to see Tommy Wilson heading down to the tee box at the same time as Ell Donsaii’s threesome approached. When she’d joined, everyone at the club had heard just how much Tommy wanted to meet Donsaii. Sure enough, Pete’s AI spoke in his ear, “Call from Tommy Wilson.”

Chuckling, Pete said, “I’ll take it, Tommy, what’cha need?”
As if I don’t know.

“Going out for a round Pete. Can I join that threesome?”

Pete snorted to himself. Trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, he said, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s Ell Donsaii. Don’t you think we should let her have her privacy here on the course?”

Tommy laughed, “Pete, I
know
you’re just bustin’ my chops! So I’m gonna call on you to enforce the club’s rules.”

Pete snickered, “Okay, even though I think it goes against all that’s right in the world.” He disconnected and turned to the threesome getting ready to tee off, “Ms. Donsaii? We have a single, do you mind if he joins your threesome?”

Tommy stepped up to the little group on the tee box, “Hi, Tommy Wilson, one of the pros here at the club, going out for a round to try to keep my game sharp.” He stuck his hand out shaking hands and carefully noting the names of the two men. He turned to Donsaii last.
Wow, just as good-looking in person as she is in pictures!
“Hello Ms. Donsaii, welcome to our club.”
Hopefully she’ll ask me for a few pointers.

The two guys teed off. Both had decent swings and hit reasonable drives in the 240-250 yard range, though the blonde guy’s shot tailed off into the rough on the right.

Tommy teed up and nervously addressed the ball. He was surprised to feel this way; after all he’d been playing for years and had a scratch handicap. He realized that he was just worried that he might blow his first shot in front of Donsaii. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and resisted the temptation to hit it really hard. He wanted a decent first shot, because he knew if he blew this first one, he’d play crappy the rest of the day.

With great relief he felt his swing run right in “the groove” and watched the ball shoot out down the middle of the fairway with a slight draw. It wasn’t a great drive, but blew past the other two guys and it was still something he could be proud of. He wasn’t a huge hitter for a pro, but it should be 280-290 yards.

Tommy went back and picked up his clubs to walk down to the ladies tee. When he turned around he saw with some embarrassment that Donsaii was teeing up on the men’s tee as well. From the glances they were giving one another, it appeared that the two other men had also expected her to tee up at the ladies tee.
So much for “ladies first.”

Her swing was beautiful.

The “craack” sound her club made hitting the ball sounded like someone fired a pistol!

Her ball sailed over his—still in the air!

Pete walked up to young Tommy Wilson after they’d finished their round. “Holy shit Tommy! I saw Donsaii’s drive on the first hole! How’d she play the rest of the round?”

Tommy looked a little glassy eyed. “She’s the best goddamned golfer I’ve ever seen,” he said in a flat tone, as if watching her play had drained all the amazement out of him. He turned to focus on Pete, “Do you know, she doesn’t even have a handicap?” He shook his head, “I spent the entire back nine trying to talk her into establishing a handicap and trying to qualify for the U.S. Open.”

Pete narrowed his eyes, “What did she shoot?”

“Sixty-four.”

Pete’s eyes widened, “That’s three below the course record!”

“The first goddamned time she’s ever played this course,” Tommy breathed, an expression of awe on his face.

“If she plays like that it shouldn’t be hard to establish a handicap that would get her into the women’s Open.”

“I was talking about the men’s! Women can play in it you know, it’s the ‘Open.’ But, she doesn’t think she ‘wants to play enough to establish a handicap.’”

“What?! Why not?”

“‘Doesn’t have
time
for it,’” Tommy said disgustedly. “Which is just so much bullshit! She played
one hell of a lot
to get this good, she could play a little bit more!”

***

Warren Dawson sat nervously, waiting to meet with Drs. Keller and Jenner. To his astonishment, he heard Stell Simsworth’s voice, “Hi Warren, how’re you doing?”

“St-Stell?” he asked. Like many blind people he was very good at recognizing voices, but it just seemed too much to believe that
Stell Simsworth
would be here at the same time as
his
doctor’s appointment!

“Yep!” she said. “I was due to have my eyes checked and when Dr. Keller said you had an appointment today, I thought I’d better reschedule mine for the same day. I figured I needed to be here to make sure you weren’t rude to my favorite doctors.”

Warren could tell from her tone that she was just teasing him. He fired back, “Boy, a poor blind man is a little overly sensitive
one
time and…”

“Oh, you’re a ‘man’ already?”

Warren let out a long suffering sigh, “I’m thinking back on how I used to really like you when I’d
only
heard you singing…”

Stell snorted, “You’d better be glad I
don’t
hit blind people!”

Warren cleared his throat, then sang a paraphrase of a couple lines from her most famous song,

But then you’d come to me

Asking for forgiveness

Stell laughed and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Oh that was a low blow. But now I
have
hit you on the shoulder, and I’m
not
planning to ask for forgiveness anytime soon.” She paused, then said, ponderingly “Besides, you have a
really
nice voice. I can’t be nice to you, you might go into my business and steal all my fans.”

The nurse called Warren’s name. Suddenly nervous, he said, “Can you go back to see the doctors with me?”

“Sure, I’ll just tell the nurse where I’ll be. You should know though, that Dr. Keller’s been standing here beside you just waiting for you to shut up long enough for him to get a word in edge wise.”

A small hand took his and put it on her arm so she could lead him. As they started off Warren said, “Hello Dr. Keller. I hope you’re not thinking too badly of Stell for the way she’s been treating me?”

Warren heard a man snort. He sounded much younger than Warren had expected. The man said, “I
had
been thinking you two were here for doctors’ appointments. I hadn’t realized it was actually a date until I heard all the flirting.”

Warren felt mortified.
Flirting?
He’d thought he was teasing Stell.
Are flirting and teasing the same thing?
“Um…” Warren said uncertainly.

“
Dr. Keller!”
Stell’s voice said sounding shocked, “We blind people have a great deal of difficulty with social interactions. I can’t believe you would put us on the spot like this!”

Keller sounded mortified as he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I, uh…”

Warren heard a smirk in Stell’s voice as she said, “Gotcha!” After a moment she continued, “But really,
I
was flirting with Warren because he’s such a hunk. He wasn’t flirting back, he’s just naturally rude.”

Warren’s train of thought derailed,
I’m a hunk??

***

Pete glanced at his HUD to see who was next on the tee time roster.
Donsaii!
He glanced back towards the clubhouse and saw her walking towards him with a couple of other men. “Hello Ms. Donsaii. Tommy Wilson told me a little bit about your game the other day.”

She gave him a beatific smile, “Yeah, I played pretty well that day.”

Pete snorted, “I guess you did at that. He said he was trying to talk you into establishing a handicap and trying to qualify for the U.S. Open. Are you considering it?”

She shrugged, “Who knows? Depends on whether I play enough rounds to have a handicap in time I guess. It’s not high on my agenda, but it might be fun.”

Pete walked out to the back of the tee box to watch her drive, holding a speed gun down by his hip. Her swing was beautiful, just like the last time he’d seen it. Smooth, accelerating rapidly and hitting the ball with that same whip cracking, pistol shot sound she’d made the last time she’d teed off in front of him. Even standing right behind the ball, Pete’s older eyes lost track of it, but it had certainly started right down the center of the fairway. The men in her foursome stared wide-eyed after it.

He waited until he got back to the starter’s shack to look at the radar gun.

Holy crap!
Her clubhead speed had been 142 mph and she didn’t even look like she was trying. He knew some of the big hitter pros got that kind of speed on their clubhead when they were participating in the long drive competition, but they were giving up on accuracy and throwing everything they could into it!