A Tight Grip: A Novel about Golf, Love Affairs, and Women of a Certain Age - Softcover

Rae Chomic, Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193831476X ISBN 13: 9781938314766

Publisher: She Writes Press, 2014

Synopsis

Some people might say that, at age 46, Jane “Par” Parker is too old to win golf tournaments; too old to fear her mother; and too old, after twenty years, to still feel heavy grief over the murder of her father. But Par has an obsessively tight grip on the past, and no one can tell her to live her life otherwise. Par is maniacally driven to win a golf tournament she hasn’t been able to win in ten years. Recent low-scoring rounds have strengthened her confidence. Distractions conspire against her: she spends a night in jail for a crime she blames on her husband; reads about her arrest on the front page; learns she has an enemy at the newspaper; and discovers shocking love affairs by those closest to her. A Tight Grip celebrates the bonds of female friendships as Par Parker processes her life with her three closest friends. She discovers the transformative power of adversity, and seizes options to evolve as a person, an athlete, and a best friend.

About this title

About the Author

Kay developed her writing skills by earning certificates in fiction and non-fiction writing from the University of Washington, being part of a writing group, and taking classes at the Hugo House in Seattle. Kay has a BA in marketing from Michigan State University, and a MBA in management from Golden Gate University. Much of the golf action in this novel was taken from Kay’s competitive golf experiences. When she’s not writing, or working on the business of writing, Kay loves to swim, travel, and promote literacy by working as a tutor.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Bad Cop

The countdown was nearly over. Four more days until the women’s match-play golf tournament.
Par Parker’s game was hot, her mental state positive. She’d been runner-up in the tournament the
last five years. A four handicap was not enough to beat her younger opponents, who made so
many birdies against her that she felt like a beginner again. Teenagers coached by country club
golf pros and college players home for the summer belted drives and smacked iron shots tight to
the pin. They scooped balls out of sand traps and made it look as easy as placing a napkin on a
table.

Par steered her Tahoe in and out of curves on Brown’s Lake Road with the nonthinking
ease of traveling the route home. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of
Aretha singing “Dancing in the Streets” and thought about her best friends at Carmen and
Blake’s twentieth-anniversary party, moments ago, hugging her good-bye and saying, “Good
luck. This is your year.”

The vacant road made her feel like she owned the night.

“Par, I’m gonna be sick.” The voice of Nick, the husband, in the backseat.

“Oh, hon, we’re almost home. Hang on for another mile.” Par sped up to forty-five, still
taking the curves smooth. She heard retching from the backseat, smelled vomit, remembered her
short irons were on the floor. “Nick! Don’t throw up on my grips. Please don’t ruin them for next
week.”

He mumbled, “No . . . I didn’t . . . got the metal.”

Par pressed hard on the button to open all the windows. Her gag reflex gave her little
respect for the last stop sign before home. She glanced left, saw no cars, turned right, and gunned
the engine.

A hundred yards later, a siren screamed.

“Damn,” Par said. Pulling over, she looked at her side mirror just as the cop’s searchlight
flicked on. She fished in her purse for lipstick to freshen the color. She pulled out a stick of Juicy
Fruit gum and quickly chewed the stiffness out of it. Smacking her lips twice, she said to Nick,
“I’ll get us out of this.”

Par stepped out of the car and saw a human hulk lumbering toward her. Blinded by the
wattage coming from the squad car, she looked away and leaned casually on the side of the
Tahoe.

“Get back in the car,” the hulk said as it morphed into a female deputy.

Par knew her lipstick and flirtation skills would not help. She tried a different approach.

“I’m only a block from home. Did I do something wrong?”

“Show me your driver’s license and registration.”

Par got in her car and retrieved what the deputy wanted.

“That your husband?” the deputy asked, with a flick of her head toward the backseat,
toward the lump of Nick Swink.

“Afraid so. You want him?” Par hoped levity might be effective.

“It smells awful here.” She grabbed Par’s arm. “Step away from your vehicle.”

“Anything you say.” Then Par hissed into the backseat’s window, “Nick. Sit up. I’ll be
right back.”

He moaned, “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you are.”
The deputy tightened her grip on Par’s arm. “Let’s go,” she ordered, and they walked the
thirty yards to her car.
Par breathed in the night air more deeply than ever before. She considered how much she
had drunk at the party. Two cocktails. How she loved the crisp tartness of a lime-rimmed glass
full of tonic laced with gin. It was a drink to cut through the heat and humidity. July was the
month in Michigan when eyes got stung by salt, the grip of a golf club was slick with palm
sweat, and clothes had to be changed at least twice a day.
“Stand here,” the deputy said.
Par stood erect between the squad car’s headlights. She thought she had eaten enough
chicken satay, chips with dip, and chocolate cake to keep her sober. Midparty, a toast to Carmen
and Blake had added a flute of champagne to the mix.
The searchlight switched off.
“Jane Parker-Swink. Class of ’72.”
Par whipped her head to face this comment, which felt like an accusation. Everyone
called her by the nickname Par.
The deputy faced her.
“Dee Dee,” Par said, with a hint of glee. Dee Dee Virgil had sat next to Par in tenth-grade
algebra class and had cheated off Par’s exams. She had buck teeth and bangs that were always
cut too short. The kids called her Doe-Doe Virgin. Her mother was a big-chested, big-hipped
waitress who worked at the Big Boy restaurant north of town. Pearl Virgil had a habit of sleeping
with her customers, and her reputation made Dee Dee a sullen, prudish loner.
Deputy Dee Dee smirked and removed a penlight from her shirt pocket. She pointed the
light into Par’s eyes and told her to track it as she moved it up, down, from side to side.
“Now pick up this dime.” Dee Dee dropped the coin.
Bending to retrieve it, Par skimmed her fingertips along the road’s surface, finding
gravel, leaves, and twigs, touching sticky lumps and rough ridges of who-knows-what, grasping
no tiny dime. “I need some light. I think it rolled under the car.”
“You’re taking too long.”
Par sighed and stood, waited for further instructions. Under Dee Dee’s too-short bangs,
her eyes were shifty Raisinets.
“Your fancy-foiled hair is the only thing changed about you.”
“You must need glasses,” Par chuckled.
“But you’re still wearing it in a sloppy braid.”
“It’s a French braid, and I like it loose. You’ve gone all gray.”
“Blow into this tube.”
“Dee Dee, you’re not going to arrest me, are you?”
“We’ll see.”
Par tongued her gum to the back of her molars. Lips around the plastic tube, she exhaled
and said a little prayer.
Dee Dee checked the reading on her portable device. “Just over the limit. And here,” she
smiled.
Par saw a flash of braces and noticed her buck teeth weren’t so buck anymore.
“I’ve busted a few of our classmates who were popular like you.”
“And it feels good to you, doesn’t it?” Stupid comment, Par knew.
Dee Dee’s expression soured. She spun Par around, slammed her torso onto the hood,
cuffed, and stuffed her into the backseat.
These actions took seconds. Dee Dee’s strength and swiftness knocked the wind out of
Par. The seat was hard plastic; a Plexiglas barricade separated the criminal from the law. The
tightly closed windows created a suffocating vibe. Sweat dripped down the sides of Par’s face.
She glared at the deputy’s back as Dee Dee walked toward the Tahoe, and sensed evil in her
swagger.
Dee Dee and Nick had a conversation. His brawn and height towered over the deputy. He
looked toward the squad car, shading his eyes from the lights. Par’s thoughts skipped around
from hoping Nick did not get arrested to resolving never to be his designated driver again to
planning to beg for a warning. That would be as low as she could stoop.
Dee Dee raised her arms high to his shoulders and turned him around. Nick began
walking west on Kimmel Road. Par’s front teeth bit into her lower lip, and she tasted sweat,
which somehow calmed her. She’s letting him go. Time to beg. Be honest with her. Par gave
herself instructions, like a coach.
“I sent your husband home,” Dee Dee said, after returning to the car.
“I hope he makes it. Dee Dee, I’m sorry. This will never happen again.”
Dee Dee shifted in her seat, tilted her head toward Par.
“Maybe I drank more and ate less at the party because today would have been my father’s
seventieth birthday. I still miss him so much.” She almost added, He was murdered, you
remember, but held back, knowing Dee Dee knew this; everyone in town knew what had
happened to her father. Henry Parker had been the benevolent owner of Parker Chevrolet—
handsome, prematurely gray, stocky and strong like a pickup truck. Par looked out the window.
She saw her father’s face. The one dimple on his left cheek winked at her as she envisioned him
talking about new Camaros he had on order.
Dee Dee twisted in the seat to look at Par. Her back cracked.
Par refocused. “Dee Dee, I did roll through the stop sign, but I was careful to look both
ways. Nick was sick. I had to get him home. Couldn’t you give me a break?”
Dee Dee sighed and looked at her notes. The effort showed consideration. Par felt
hopeful.
“No warning. This is my job.”
“No, this is your power trip.”
“Ha! And I hate that tan of yours,” Dee Dee yelled, and turned on her siren. She whipped
the steering wheel for a U-turn and drove downtown like a maniac.
After what seemed like three hours in the holding cell, Par Parker realized life as she knew it was
as over as yesterday. The cell’s hard surfaces reminded her of her new kitchen with the granite
countertop and Spanish-tile floor. Unforgiving surfaces. Any breakable container that was
dropped could not bounce for a second chance.
Par looked at her left hand, sans wedding ring. She hadn’t taken the ring off in twenty
years. In its place was a strip of go...

About this edition

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 193831476X
• ISBN 13: 9781938314766
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 225