Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto by Eric Luper Page B

just knocked in a forty-footer.
    Maybe longer.
    My hands shoot into the air like Rocky Balboa’s. It might be the longest putt I’ve ever sunk, and the only person who was here to see it was my no-good cheating father.
    That’s when Audrey bolts from the woods. Her hands pump in the air just like mine, and she rushes onto the green like it’s the final seconds of a college bowl game rather than a quiet golf twosome.
    I watch Audrey spin around on the green and jump into the air. I want to celebrate with her—to spin around and jump into the air, too—but no matter how happy Audrey seems and no matter how happy I feel, I can’t. All I can do is run through the conversation I just had with my father and wonder how much she overheard.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    â€œY ou’ve got to keep that back elbow pinned to your side.” I take a swing to show her and launch my ball straight and long.
    â€œMy elbow is pinned to my side,” Audrey insists. It’s after the round with my father, just after Audrey’s shift, and she and I have decided to hit a bucket or two. I can’t figure out how I got talked into it. I hate the golf range. And Audrey’s swing is terrible.
    I watch her hit a few more. Her elbow keeps coming up like a chicken wing, and every one of her shots slices off to the right.
    â€œBack elbow. Back elbow.”
    â€œShut up,” she says. “Maybe I’m trying to hit to the right. You ever think of that?”
    â€œYou’re full of it.” I stand behind her and hold her elbow against her right side to show her how to turn atthe hips. “I used to do the exact same thing,” I say. “Keep your head down and that elbow tight or you’ll be all over the course.”
    Audrey hits another. It pops straight into the air and lands about ten feet in front of us. “Maybe I like variety.”
    I press Audrey’s elbows against her sides and bend her arms. I turn her palms up and lay her club across her forearms. It’s an exercise my golf instructor showed me when I was eleven. “Turn at the hips and keep the club balanced,” I say. “Twist back and forth a bunch of times. Get used to how it feels.”
    She does as I ask, but after a few repetitions the club slides off her arms. “The range is so boring!”
    â€œIt’s only boring because you don’t know the right way to do it.” Did I just say that, or was it my father speaking through me?
    â€œSo what’s your big secret?” she asks.
    â€œOkay, my big secret is that I hate the range, too. I’d rather be out there playing, but if you give yourself goals, it becomes a lot more bearable. Most people just grab their driver and see if they can pound it against the back fence or hit the ball-collection truck.”
    â€œI’d love to hit that truck.”
    â€œIt makes an awesome clanging sound,” I say, “but the groundskeeper gets pissed off. Anyhow, if you want to get anything out of the driving range, start with your wedge or nine-iron and hit a few dozen balls, enough to get into a rhythm. Then slowly move to your longer clubs. I go in two-club increments: nine to seven to five to three.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThen I grab my wood.” Before the words finish coming out, I know what’s next.
    Audrey chuckles. “You said ‘grab my wood.’”
    My cheeks heat up. “You’re no different than Dimitri.”
    â€œOh, I’m different, all right.” She coils back with her iron in her hands and swings. Her ball rockets into the air and lands ninety yards straight out. It bounces another ten and curls around the back of the practice flag.
    â€œDo that again,” I say.
    Audrey hands me her club. “Do what again?”
    A horn honks behind us. A yellow Wrangler with a surfboard in the backseat pulls up, and Kevin hops out. He walks across the practice green to us. He’s lanky,