"I'll take the trial," I say.
"Good. I'll draft the agreement tonight. Arizona. Private course. Thursday."
She hangs up. I pick up the wine glass, finally, and drink half of it in one swallow.
On my desk, the fourth Tala notebook is open to a page I wrote six months ago. The notes are in my handwriting — small, precise, slanting slightly left.
Sarmiento attempts impossible recovery shots not because she believes they will succeed, but because attempting them is less frightening than choosing the safe option and watching itfail. The aggression is not confidence. It is a terror response dressed in confidence's clothes.
She needs someone who can distinguish between the two.
She will resist anyone who tries.
I close the notebook. Finish the wine. Go to bed.
I do not think about the way she moves through a swing — the hips clearing, the compact power, the follow-through that extends past her left shoulder like she's reaching for something just out of range.
I don't think about it for nearly twenty minutes.
•
Thursday morning. Scottsdale. A private course owned by a resort group that rents practice time to touring professionals who want to work without cameras. The first tee is empty. The range is empty. The air is already warm at seven fifteen, carrying the mineral smell of desert irrigation.
I arrive at six forty-five because I have never been late for anything in my life and I am not going to begin with this.
I walk the range. Check the practice green. Review my notes on Tala's tendencies — the grip pressure increase before long putts, the tempo acceleration under emotional load, the way she pulls her right foot back a quarter inch before committing to an aggressive line, a tell so consistent I cannot believe no one has mentioned it to her.
Perhaps they have. Perhaps she fired them.
I position myself at the far end of the range with my notebook and a bottle of water and I wait.
She is eleven minutes late.
The car is a black SUV, rental plates, and she emerges from the driver's side in a cropped linen jacket over a dark green tank top, loose jeans, white sneakers that cost more than the monthly lease on my Charleston office. Her hair is down — black, thick,falling just past her collarbones. She's wearing gold studs in both ears and sunglasses that she pushes onto her head as she walks toward me.
She moves like an athlete who has been photographed constantly since adolescence and has absorbed the camera's gaze into her skeleton. Every motion is efficient, aware, and very slightly angled toward an audience that may or may not be present.
She's smaller than I expected from the footage. Five-six, maybe five-seven in the sneakers. Compact through the shoulders and waist. Strong legs. The kind of build that generates extraordinary clubhead speed from rotational power rather than height or wingspan.
She's also — and I note this with the clinical detachment of a woman who has successfully compartmentalized physical attraction for the better part of four decades — exceptionally beautiful.
Bronze skin. Dark eyes that appear amber in the morning light. A small scar bisecting the left side of her lower lip, the kind of imperfection that prevents prettiness from becoming generic. When she gets close enough for me to see the fine muscles in her jaw, I understand that the photographs do not capture the most important thing about her face, which is that it never stops moving. Emotion crosses her features the way weather crosses open ground — visible, fast, impossible to ignore.
"Nerys Quillan," she says, extending her hand.
I take it. Her hand is warm, smaller than mine, grip firm in a way that is clearly deliberate. She's testing me. Establishing that she is not intimidated.
Her pulse is visible at her throat.
I hold her hand for one beat longer than professional. Not to flirt — to observe. She doesn't pull away, but her fingers tighten,and something shifts behind her eyes that I catalogue underinterestingand file for later.
I release her hand.
"Thank you for coming," I say.
"Bisi didn't leave me a lot of options."
"You always have options. You're here because you chose to be."
