I look like a woman who feels capable.
I shower at the gym. Dress. Walk to the practice green.
And I wait for Tala to arrive, fully prepared for the version of her that Keoni warned me about — the charming, satisfied, slightly dismissive version that treats completed conquests as closed accounts.
She arrives at six thirty-eight. Two minutes early. In practice clothes — fitted polo, dark trousers, golf shoes. Her hair is up. No jewelry except the gold studs. She looks professional and rested and not at all like a woman who intends to discuss last night in salacious detail or leverage it into something transactional.
She walks to the practice green. Sets her bag down. Looks at me.
"What do you need to keep this separate from work?"
The question is so far from what I expected that I don't respond for three full seconds.
I expected teasing. Negotiation. A playful renegotiation of last night's boundary around reciprocation. I expected charm —the specific, high-wattage Tala charm that Keoni described, the kind designed to make the recipient feel so valued that they don't notice the conversation has been redirected away from accountability.
Instead, she's asking me what I need.
"Can you be more specific?" I say, because I want to hear her articulate it. Because specificity is how Tala proves she's thinking rather than reacting.
"The contract protects us professionally. But contracts don't cover what happens when you're reading a green and I'm thinking about last night instead of the slope. Or when I disagree with a club selection and I can't tell if I'm disagreeing with my caddie or my —" She pauses. Searches. "Whatever you are to me now."
"What rules would help?"
She's thought about this. I can tell because the answer comes structured rather than improvised.
"No sexual contact during active rounds or official practice. Professional disagreements stay on the course and never follow us into a bedroom. Neither of us uses sex to settle a strategy argument. Either of us can ask for separate hotels without it meaning anything about the relationship. The contracts stay enforceable no matter what. And we tell Bisi, Phaedra, and Dr. Oona. Nobody else."
I absorb each point. They're sound. More than sound — they're precisely the boundaries I would have proposed, which means she's either an excellent strategic thinker or she anticipated what I'd want and built it before I could ask.
Either explanation is attractive.
"Agreed on all points," I say. "I have one addition. We disclose professional conflicts to each other before they become resentment. I have a history of—" I stop. Choose the precise language. "I have a pattern of storing dissatisfactionprivately and then withdrawing when the accumulation becomes unmanageable. It cost me a marriage. I won't repeat it."
Tala watches me. The mention of Saskia — implied, not named — lands visibly. Her expression shifts into something attentive and careful.
"Okay. And I have one more. Mine." She straightens. "If I do something on the course that pisses you off, tell me on the course. Don't save it for private and punish me by going cold. I'd rather you yell at me over a 7-iron than freeze me out at dinner."
The request hits a nerve I did not expect to be exposed this early.
Saskia said nearly the same thing. Not in these words — Saskia's version was quieter, more exhausted, delivered during the final months of a marriage that was dying of silence rather than conflict.I'd rather you fight with me than disappear,she said.At least a fight means you're still in the room.
I didn't stay in the room.
"Agreed," I say. My voice is steadier than the memory deserves.
Tala nods. She picks up a wedge. Walks to the practice area.
"The tee time is at eight forty," she says. "Walk me through the front nine strategy while I warm up."
I open my course notebook. We work.
•
Tala shoots sixty-nine. Solid, smart, disciplined golf in suffocating humidity. She follows the strategy. She consults me before every approach shot. She argues with one club selection — the fifth hole, a long par-3, where she wants a 4-iron and I recommend a smooth 3 — and she argues with data rather than instinct, citing her carry numbers in similar humidity, and she's right. I adjust.
She makes birdie with the 4-iron.
"Nice club selection," I tell her walking off the green.
