| General Fiction posted October 13, 2023 | Chapters: |
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Kenny and E.J.'s return
A chapter in the book Saving Mr. Calvin
Saving Mr. Calvin - Ch. 41/42A
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.| Background A story about the origin and the future of the game of golf |
See Author Notes for the list of characters and unfamiliar terms.
Recap of the past few chapters: After the first day of the tournament, Abby is in second place behind her arch-enemy from her childhood, Dana Padgett, who she hasn’t seen in 20 years, but who has recently joined the club. They begin the final day paired together, and Dana is swinging unusually well, but even though the day is warming up, she stays bundled up. Kenny begins to get suspicious. Dana continues playing over her head plus she is sweating profusely now as it warms up. It becomes apparent to the whole family that it was she who had stolen the suit and is wearing it now. She fades badly at the end but just manages to maintain her lead and wins by a single stroke over Abby’s score. Abby has to convince Claire not to say anything now because she doesn’t want the suit to be debuted by saying Dana was cheating with it.
Later at home she calls Dana up and reveals to her that she had created the suit and wants it back. Dana is shocked by this and leaves the suit hanging on her door for Abby to pick up, not wanting a confrontation. Abby returns home with the suit and explains what happened to the family.
Chapter 41
I phoned E.J. this morning. “Hi, E.J. This is Kenny.”
“Yes, my good man. Tell me, how did Abby make out getting the suit back?”
“It’s now back in her possession. It wasn’t very difficult, either. I’ll tell you all about that later. Listen, E.J., I’d like to plan my own little award dinner for her since she won’t be receiving the award this year. You feel like coming down later this week, and we could play golf at the club, and while we’re at it, we can talk to the chef about holding it right here in a private room? It would just be a small party—mainly the design group and a few of our closest friends—but the chef here does a marvelous job, and I’d like to hold it here.”
“Sounds great. That’s such a shame she can’t receive the real award, though. She certainly deserves it.”
“Yeah, it was unfortunate she didn’t win, but she’s not that bothered by it. She was just so happy to get the suit back.”
“I’ll bet. She certainly has her priorities straight. I’ve got some time Thursday if that works for you for the golf.”
“Thursday works,” I said. “Why don’t you meet me here at the house at 1:00, and we can have lunch at the club then play afterwards?”
“I will, and thanks, Kenny. I’ll see you then.”
On Thursday, E.J. showed up a few minutes before 1:00. I hopped in his car, and he drove us over to Kettle Creek.
On the way, I told him the story of how Abby got the suit back from Dana.
E.J. said, “Seems like Dana’s getting off scot-free, and she gets a Club Championship out of it too.”
“Well, it would seem that way except that on Tuesday night, the night before the championship dinner, she calls Abby, and they talk for two hours. Apparently, Dana had been brooding about it for two days and had some sort of catharsis. She apologized to Abby for stealing the suit and said she was planning to go to the club, tell the truth about what happened, and resign her membership. Can you believe that?”
“Huh. Did she do it?”
“Abby talked her out of it. Dana revealed that she had been tortured by not only what she’d done but for how she’d treated Abby all through their school years together. Apologized for all of it and said Abby made her realize what a shitty person she’s been all her life. Abby said she sounded truly sorry. They even had lunch together on Wednesday to talk about it some more. Dana still said she thought she should set everyone straight and resign, but Abby convinced her not to. Said they should try to start over. You think someone can just change like that and turn into a good person after a lifetime of being a shit?”
E.J. took a few seconds to answer. “Speaking from experience, yes, I think it’s possible, but it isn’t easy. I can’t think of a better person to be on your side, though, than Abby.”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
“Man, I’m glad getting the suit back was as simple as that. The loss of it would have set us way back. I’ll bet Claire was pretty relieved.”
“That kid! She was hoping we’d forget about the punishment, but we weren’t about to let her off the hook.”
“Good for you. You know, that little episode proves there really is something to this suit. It was easy enough for Dana to figure out how to use it, and it seems to have made quite an improvement in her skills from what Abby told me about how she usually played. She was really hitting it great until she started fighting it. And Claire certainly seems to be improving since using it even without the suit on, which means she’s learning from it.”
“Abby and I said the same thing. I think Abby plans on using that tale of the stolen suit when we go talk to the money people next week to try to get the funds for ramping up the operation. We’ve still got more testing and tweaking to do, but I think we’re getting awfully close now to full-scale production. Eddie and I are really excited about producing them right here, and we’ve already devised the plans for upgrading our facilities to do that.”
By this time, we had arrived at the club. We dropped E.J.’s golf bag off at the bag drop, then we parked the car. I said, “Why don’t we go talk to the chef first before he leaves for the afternoon? He usually takes off after 1:30 and comes back for the dinner prep around 4:00.”
E.J. and I entered through the door to the kitchen then.
Chapter 42A
As we came back from under the trestle, there at the top of the bank were Paul and Art Calvin with expectant looks on their faces. “Well?” said Paul as we climbed the bank and joined them.
“I’m convinced,” said Ernie. “I don’t fully understand it, but you weren’t making it up.”
“I’ll tell you what, guys,” I said to them. “Why don’t we just finish this round, then we can have a few beers in the clubhouse and discuss this latest adventure?”
“Okay, Kev,” said Paul. But just tell us when and where you were.”
“Tell him, E.J…. uh, I mean Ern.”
“We were in Altoona, Pennsylvania about 30 years ago. We were there from 2002 to 2004.”
“Amazing,” said Paul, shaking his head. “You skipped ahead almost 600 years this time.”
The rest of the nine was uneventful, and we could all hardly wait to get back to the clubhouse to discuss the latest adventure. Plus, I still wanted to get Art Calvin’s take on all this as well as on the state of the game today in 2032.
We sat down at a table inside. “Is a pitcher of Coors alright with everyone?” They all agreed, and when the waitress came over, I gave her our order.
“So,” said Paul, “Altoona, Pennsylvania, huh? What’s so special golfwise about Altoona?”
Ernie said, “It wasn’t so much Altoona as the people we met there. Kevin ended up in a fellow named Kenny Payne, and I turned into a fellow computer guy named E.J. Budrowski. This is so weird. E.J. Budrowski—Ernie Dombrowski. Kenny Payne—Kevin Parsons.”
“Yeah, and don’t forget Kilian Prost and Kirk Pate. Omigod, Abby Payne, my wife in Altoona, and Aggie Pate once she married Kirk, and Arie Papin, who became Arie Prost when she married Kilian.”
“Was Abby Payne a beautiful redhead like Aggie was and Arie too?” asked Paul.
“Maybe not coincidentally, she was. And she was just like both of them in ways other than her looks. This is so weird. Art, what do you make of this?”
“You mean the fact that Arie, Aggie, and Abby were all beautiful redheads, or the similarity in everyone’s names, or just the entire time travel experience?”
“All of it,” Paul, Ernie, and I said simultaneously.
Right then, the waitress brought us the beer and set down the pitcher and three glasses. I looked up at her and said, “I think we’re one short. Do you think you could bring us another glass?”
She looked at me quizzically but went to retrieve another. When she returned with it, I poured everyone a glass, and I said, “Art, so what do you think about everything?”
(One more chapter before the end of Part 3 and Part 4 begins)
As most of you probably know by now, this part of the story is a jump into my novel Some Call It Luck. In that story, we got a much fuller picture of Dana's backstory and what made her the way she was. We also saw how she ended up repenting at the end and begging Abby's forgiveness. Her main role in that story was to serve as the opposite of Abby.
The way I originally wrote Saving Mr. Calvin, I revealed nothing about the aftermath for Dana, and it looked like she was getting off scot-free for what she had done. She got to win the club championship with no apparent ill effect. I thought readers would be disappointed that justice wasn't done. Nobody, including me, likes to see the villain get away with it. But how much of the aftermath should I include in this story to explain that she really didn't get away with it because her conscience tortured her? It really has nothing to do with the plot of this story. Also, this part of the story is told by Kenny, and he wouldn't have been privy to Dana and Abby's conversation about it.
Just a few days ago I solved the problem by having Kenny relate a brief version of this to E.J. I'm satisfied with that solution. I just wonder if my readers are? I'd be happy to hear your comments about it.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. The way I originally wrote Saving Mr. Calvin, I revealed nothing about the aftermath for Dana, and it looked like she was getting off scot-free for what she had done. She got to win the club championship with no apparent ill effect. I thought readers would be disappointed that justice wasn't done. Nobody, including me, likes to see the villain get away with it. But how much of the aftermath should I include in this story to explain that she really didn't get away with it because her conscience tortured her? It really has nothing to do with the plot of this story. Also, this part of the story is told by Kenny, and he wouldn't have been privy to Dana and Abby's conversation about it.
Just a few days ago I solved the problem by having Kenny relate a brief version of this to E.J. I'm satisfied with that solution. I just wonder if my readers are? I'd be happy to hear your comments about it.
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