Mustang pulled open the door of the locker room and marched purposefully inside. Whilst he’d been prepared for spirits to still be rather low amongst the Pirates following their earlier rout at the hands of the Sharks, upon taking in the atmosphere of the locker room, Mustang quickly realized that things had degraded even further in the time he’d been out in the parking lot. Though all five Pirates were actually present and accounted for – a minor win – they were all scattered around the locker room and looking as though they’d rather be anywhere else than on the cusp of going toe-to-toe, yet again, with the Sharks. Even Fr. Breen, much to Mustang’s amazement, seemed out of sorts. In a situation like this, Mustang would have thought there was no better environment for someone like Fr. Breen to shine, what with his bubbly demeanour and boundless positivity. Yet, as opposed to being up on his feet attempting to rally the Pirates for the challenge of the afternoon foursomes, Mustang, instead, found the principal of St. Nick’s sitting on a chair with his head hanging down into his chest and his hands clasped together as if he were praying.
“Uh … Father?” Mustang said, keeping his voice low so as to not overtly pierce the stony silence inside the locker room.
Lifting his head slowly back up from staring straight down at the ground, a tired-looking Fr. Breen peered through the gloom at Mustang. “Ah, Mustang, good, you’re here …” he said, forcing his mouth into forming a weak, unconvincing smile. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Yeah, no, I was just talking to Ray …” Mustang replied, distractedly, as the scale of the task ahead of him grew all the larger with each passing second he had to endure the oppressively negative atmosphere suffocating the locker room. “Sorry, you weren’t, like … praying or anything there, right?”
“No, no, not at all,” replied Fr. Breen, livening himself up as he waved off the concerned note in Mustang’s voice that he’d somehow interrupted him mid-petition. “Though, given how things are going, that may not actually be the worst idea in the world.”
“Still that bad, huh?” Mustang asked, disappointed to learn his temperature-check of the locker room had, indeed, been accurate.
“You could say that,” Fr. Breen sighed, pushing himself up off the chair and back onto his feet. “I tried talking to them earlier and … well, I’ll put it this way, they didn’t have much interest in what I had to say. This whole ‘Cody business’ has just knocked them for six, unfortunately; and, to be honest, I’m not sure there’s any way of getting them back – well, at least not in the thirty minutes we have before the foursomes start anyway.”
With Fr. Breen taking to wearily rubbing his eyes with his two hands as if hoping he’d, somehow, be able to wake himself up from the nightmare the day had turned into, Mustang decided there was no time like the present to put his plan into action. “Do you mind if I try talking to them?” he asked.
“Really?” replied Fr. Breen, revealing a slightly surprised expression as he brought his hands back down from his face.
“Yeah …” said Mustang, trying hard to not have his confidence knocked by Fr. Breen’s inadvertent skepticism. “Is that a problem?”
“Problem? Goodness, no!” said Fr. Breen, the surprised expression quickly vanishing from his face. “If you wanna take a swing at getting through to them, have at it – at this stage, I’ll try anything! Though, fair warning? …” Stealing a moment to peer around the corner of the row of lockers just behind him, Fr. Breen checked to make sure all five Pirates were still gathered on the opposite side of the locker room and firmly out of earshot. When he saw that they were, he promptly turned back to Mustang, an earnest look colouring his faintly bloodshot eyes. “I wouldn’t be expecting any miracles …” he whispered.
Leaving him with an encouraging slap on the shoulder, Fr. Breen stood aside and cleared the stage for Mustang. Feeling a touch more nervous about his plan than what he had done on the walk back from the parking lot, Mustang swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat and walked the few steps needed to reach the area of the locker room where the rest of the Pirates were congregated.
“Uh … can I … *ahem* … can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Mustang announced, clearing his throat midway through in order to sufficiently steel his voice.
Taken aback at this rather unexpected interruption, all five Pirates – including even Layla – looked up from where they were sitting and focused their attention, albeit reluctantly, onto Mustang.
“Now, there’s not much I want to say, really …” said Mustang, feeling it best to launch straight into his speech whilst he still had a tenuous grasp on the attention of the Pirates. “But, uh … well, the thing is …” Mustang shifted his gaze from off of the floor and looked around the room at the Pirates. “Cody’s not that good.”
Having been expecting Mustang to come out with something entirely different to what they’d just heard, the Pirates all took to glancing around at each other as if to verify that they had, indeed, heard him correctly. Even Fr. Breen, who’d had every intention of standing back and letting him do his thing, couldn’t help but take a few steps closer to where Mustang was standing and lean his shoulder up against the row of lockers – he wanted to listen to where he was going with this.
“What are you talking about, man?” Donny asked, taking it upon himself to voice the question everybody else inside the locker room was thinking.
“Cody. He’s not that good.” Mustang repeated, unperturbed at the bemused reaction he’d evoked from the Pirates.
Looking thoroughly lost for words, Donny could only glance helplessly in Indie’s direction, as if silently passing the responsibility for trying to make sense of what Mustang was talking about over to her.
“But you’ve only played 18-holes with him,” Indie argued, surprising even herself that she was trying to be fair to Cody of all people.
“I know …” replied Mustang flatly. “But I saw everything I needed to. Now, don’t get me wrong, he is good – really good, in fact –like, I’m not saying he’s bad or anything. He’s just not as good as you made him out to be. I mean, just take this morning, for example, I beat him by two shots and didn’t even have to try all that hard.”
“Alright …” said Indie, realizing she’d have to do a little more digging to unearth the clarity everyone was still looking for. “But why are you telling us this?”
“Because …” Mustang continued. “Ever since he left, all you’ve been doing is thinking about what you are without him. Well, if you ask me, the answer to that question is simple: you’re better off.”
“Well, can you blame us for thinkin’ the exact opposite?” asked Logan, an air of reluctance in his voice at the fact he was about to compliment Cody. “The dude was our best player for years.”
“And the only reason he became that in the first place was because he made everything about himself,” Mustang countered. “I mean, think about it. That Lone Wolf version of ‘Walk The Plank’? The one you made me play last week? Why was it that Cody liked to play it? Cause he thought it was the best way for him to prepare for matches. He wasn’t thinking about you when he was doing that or about your preparation – no, just himself.”
Logan had no response. Nor did anyone else. So, Mustang continued.
“And last season? When Fr. Breen tried rotating who played with who in the foursomes?” said Mustang, more and more passion creeping into his voice with each passing sentence. “Who was the one complaining about it when things didn’t go exactly to plan the first time you tried it? Cody. And I went to the trouble of looking up the report on that match against the Mariners. And, yeah, while you guys did lose those three foursomes matches, the only pair who lost by more than a single hole was Indie and Cody; and even then that was only because, according to Melvin Burbage, Cody had delivered ‘a sub-par performance’ – and he didn’t mean the kind with a tonne of birdies. But did it matter that all of you had played well with your new partners? No. He just wanted it switched back to what suited him.”
Though it was still too early to be certain, as Mustang allowed himself a second or two to look around the locker room at each of the Pirates, he could tell by the looks on their faces that maybe – just maybe – they were beginning to come round to his way of thinking.
Well, almost everyone.
“You can’t blame that on Cody!” snapped Layla, finally finding her voice for the first time since discovering Cody had joined the Sharks. “Ok, he was caught off-guard by having to play with Indie instead of me – he told me himself. He said that he wasn’t used to the differences in yardages playing with her left him with, and how their strategies for certain holes didn’t match u-…”
“Layla, stop!”
Indie’s voice rattled loudly around the locker room, the frustration and urgency it was steeped in sounding as though it could pull the aged, cracked plaster right from the walls. A stunned Layla fell instantly silent and looked at Indie. Everyone did. Clearly, she had something important to say. And now the stage was her’s.
“I’m sorry …” she said quietly, regretting that she’d lost her patience quite so badly. “But I can’t let you keep on defending Cody like this – he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Oh, and why’s that I wonder?!” growled Layla sarcastically, her tongue now fully loosened and unfiltered – a dangerous combination no matter who you are.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” replied Indie, unable to prevent herself from being lured in by Layla’s loaded tone.
“Last season? That same match against the Mariners?” Layla said, answering the question in parts as if Indie already knew full well what she was talking about. “Cody told me what happened between you two, Indie.”
“Which was?!” Indie asked, her back now getting up at the accusatory tone Layla was speaking with. Because she did know what had happened between her and Cody in the week before the Mariner’s match. But going on the way she was acting, Layla had clearly heard quite a different version to how Indie remembered it.
“You’re really gonna make me say it, huh?” said Layla, sounding faux-impressed at what she deemed to be Indie’s unyielding determination to go down with the ship. “Alright, have it your way.” Layla took to glancing around at the rest of the Pirates, all of whom looked completely lost as to how exactly they’d ended up in this peculiar situation. “The Thursday before we were due to play the Mariners,” she began, a grandiose flavour to her voice as if revealing the twist in a thriller novel. “Indie asked Cody if he’d go out with her; he said no; hence why he then didn’t play well on the Saturday, because things were so awkward between them.”
“That’s a lie!” Indie exclaimed, horrified at being so wrongfully accused. “Layla, Cody asked me out and I turned him down! Not the other way round!”
“Oh, yeah, right!” scoffed Layla dismissively. “Why would he lie about that?”
“Because he’s Cody!” sniped Indie, the decibel level in her voice creeping back up as she desperately tried to make Layla believe her side of the story. “And, as today has shown, he’s not really all that shy about lying, now is he?!”
Mustang stole a wary glance in Layla’s direction. From the look on her face, he could tell Indie had breached Layla’s defences with what she’d said. The seed of doubt had been planted.
“I mean, come on, do you really think I would do that to you?” Indie implored, seeing the same crack in Layla’s resolve that Mustang had. “We all know that things were … ‘complicated’ between you two, so I would never go there with Cody – heck, I never even wanted to. And the reason I never said anything about all this is ‘cause I didn’t want you to get hurt – which, with hindsight, I now see was a dumb idea, but I swear I was just trying to protect you. You have to believe me, Laylz … please?”
With everyone turning and looking directly at her, eagerly awaiting her response, Layla couldn’t take anymore. She could barely breathe. She needed to get out of there. So, she bailed. Standing sharply up out of her chair, Layla brushed quickly past Mustang, pulled open the door of the locker room, and disappeared into the bright sunshine beating down outside.
“Layla, please don’t leave!” Indie begged, standing up to rush after her.
“Let me go…” said Mustang, quietly stepping in and blocking Indie’s path to the door.
“Look, that’s nice and all of you to offer,” replied Indie, trying her best to be polite but clearly eager to get past Mustang as quickly as possible. “But, no offence, this isn’t really anything you can help with – she needs to speak to me.”
“Actually, Indie, I disagree …” said Fr. Breen, quietly interjecting. “I think having someone as relatively ‘impartial’ as Mustang go speak to her might, in this instance, actually be for the best.”
“I swear I do know how she’s feeling right now,” Mustang said, trying his best to reassure Indie, who still looked unconvinced that he should be the one to go after Layla. “Trust me …”
“Let him go, Indie,” Donny encouraged, throwing his weight, for what it was worth, in behind Mustang.
“Yeah, man,” added Logan, rowing in with Donny. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
After seeing a solemn nod from Ryan that showed even he agreed with the general consensus inside the locker room, Indie, though still not looking entirely convinced by the plan, decided to yield. “Alright …” she said. “But on the off chance she does actually listen to you … just tell her I’m sorry, ok?”
“I promise,” Mustang vowed, already half turning to make for the door of the locker room. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
And as he quickly reached the door and pulled it open, exposing himself to the wave of heat waiting outside to wash over him, Mustang sincerely hoped that when he did come back, he’d have Layla with him. Because if he didn’t? His hopes of the Pirates going Shark hunting would be dead in the water before they’d even get to the 1st tee-box. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not today.
*
Layla popped open the lock on her bike and quickly untethered it from the rack she’d wrapped it around. As she distractedly coiled the lock back up so that it would fit into the pannier bag at the rear of her bicycle, however, Layla couldn’t help but shake her head at how much of a disaster the day had turned out to be. Finding out about Cody joining the Sharks. Dealing with the fact he hadn’t told her about it. Stinking up the course during the strokeplay session as a result. And then? To cap it all off? Finding out that Cody had not only asked Indie out but then lied to her about it?
Feeling tears beginning to sting the corners of her eyes once again, Layla quickly shook her head and focused her attention back onto coiling up her lock. She refused to cry about this – well, not whilst still at the Jungle at any rate. She just needed to get out of there and back to Vaillancourt Academy as soon as possible; a sentiment she never thought she’d find herself expressing for the drafty, quasi-prison her parents had enrolled her in a few years previously.
“LAYLA! … HOLD UP!”
With the sound of his voice drawing an exasperated sigh from her lungs, Layla, momentarily, paused from coiling up her lock and looked back over her shoulder. Sure enough, running across the parking lot towards her – the spikes on his shoes grinding against the asphalt with each hurried step – was Mustang. Turning back around, Layla returned to coiling up the last few inches of her lock. She really didn’t feel like talking. And especially not to Mustang.
“Hey … what are you doing?” a breathless Mustang asked as he landed next to Layla and worriedly took in the details of what he was seeing before him. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“How incredibly well deduced,” Layla replied sarcastically, as she finally finished coiling up the lock. “Hey, if the whole ‘golf prodigy’ thing doesn’t work out, you should think about becoming a detective.”
“Look, if this is about Indie …” said Mustang, choosing to ignore Layla’s attempt at riling him up. “She wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry.”
Having slipped the lock into the pannier bag as he’d been talking, Layla stood back up and looked at Mustang.
“Is that it?” she asked dismissively. “Because if it means you leaving me alone faster, then you can tell her all is forgiven, ok? Now, if you’ll excuse me …”
At that, Layla pulled her bike roughly from the rack and began walking it towards the gate that led out of the parking lot. Just before she could throw her leg over the saddle, however, the sound of Mustang’s voice, once more, stopped her from what she was doing.
“I know what it feels like to want to run away …” he said, the earnestness in his voice commanding Layla’s attention to such an extent that she turned back around and looked at him. “I did it back in Orlando. And, believe it or not, I even tried to do it in the final of the Memorial; locked myself in a port-a-john and refused to come out – not exactly my finest hour, but what can you do?”
“Look, if there’s actually meant to be a point to all this …” Layla countered, her attempt at appearing brash and unfazed by Mustang’s admission unconvincing. “Would you mind just hurrying up and getting to it already? I kinda have somewhere I need to be.”
“Alright …” said Mustang, taking to burying his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “The point is … running away? It doesn’t solve anything. It didn’t for me. And neither will it for you with Cody.”
“Well, see, that’s where you’re wrong,” replied Layla, continuing to put up a brave front. “Cause given the problem I have is that I really don’t want to see Cody? Me leaving will actually solve that problem quite nicely. So, thanks for the concern, but I think I’ve got this covered.”
Again, Layla began to make a move towards hopping onto her bike, but Mustang wasn’t finished just yet. “And what about the next time you have to see him, huh?” he said, his tone becoming a little firmer. “What then? Cause I think you’re forgetting the fact that even once today is over, we still have to go play the Sharks in Vermilion Bay next April; so, what are you gonna do then? Just bail on us again like you’re trying to do now?”
Layla paused for a moment as if mulling over what Mustang had said. For a fleeting second, Mustang felt as though he might have actually gotten through to her – the hunt was, tentatively, back on.
“No, you’re right …” said Layla, shaking her head gently as if ‘coming to’ from a trance she’d been in; what she needed to see, suddenly, crystal clear as if sitting on the ground in front of her. “That’s not fair. Not on the others. Not even on you …”
“Alright then … I’m glad we agree,” smiled Mustang, the sense of relief at having managed to talk Layla around flooding his body. “So, now that’s sorted, how would you feel about you and me anchoring in the foursomes? I mean, I still have to say it to Fr. Breen, obviously, but I’m sure he’d be fine with it and -…”
“No, you don’t get it,” said Layla, cutting across Mustang mid-sentence, her tone worryingly serious as she looked over at where he was standing. “I never want to see Cody ever again. But if I stay on the team? Then I’m leaving myself with the choice of either having to do exactly that, or – as you said – bailing on you guys the next time we play them. So, the way I look at it, there’s really only one option that suits everybody … I quit.”
*
If spirits had been low amongst the Pirates when he’d first come back from talking to Ray, when Mustang walked in through the door of the locker room with the unenviable task of delivering the news that his attempt at talking to Layla had finished with her not only telling him she was quitting the Pirates, but then seeing her cycle off without even so much as a backward glance at the Jungle, those same spirits finally plummeted to rock bottom.
Once the initial panic which, understandably, followed such a revelation had been sufficiently quelled by Fr. Breen, however, he quickly demanded to know everything that had transpired between Mustang and Layla. As soon as he’d then told him every minute detail – including even his, ultimately futile, last-ditch effort to get her to stop by desperately calling out after her that they could beat the Sharks – Mustang, along with the four remaining Pirates, were shocked to hear that, even though they were now down a player, Fr. Breen had no intention of forfeiting the foursomes session. They just needed to be clever about how they handled the situation.
Knowing the Sharks’ coaches would immediately call for all three remaining points to be awarded to them if they found out the Pirates no longer had a full complement of players, Fr. Breen’s plan was to keep Layla’s disappearance under wraps until the very last possible moment. So, there would be no heading up to the range to warm-up; in fact, no venturing outside the confines of the locker room whatsoever. For the remainder of the thirty minutes they had before the foursomes were due to start, they were on total lockdown.
And when that painfully short amount of time finally did expire, Fr. Breen – after doing some hasty rearranging to the playing order – went about accompanying Ryan and Logan up to the 1st tee, but not before leaving Donny, Indie, and Mustang with the explicit instructions that; one, they were to follow them to the tee only when there was as little time remaining before their respective tee-times as possible; and, two, under absolutely no circumstances, were they to talk to anyone on the journey between the locker room and the tee-box.
And, exactly as they were told, the three of them followed those instructions to the letter. Donny and Indie, given they were second out in the order after Ryan and Logan, left first. Then, after another eight or so excruciating minutes, Mustang grabbed his bag, exited the locker room, and briskly walked to the 1st tee, making sure to keep his gaze firmly locked on the ground as he moved in order to avoid making eye contact with the collection of people – many of them the Sharks’ ardent supporters – dotted along the route.
Once he saw the grass on the tee-box come gratefully into view beneath his feet, however, a relieved Mustang – who felt as though he could finally exhale – slipped his bag off his shoulder and placed it down onto the ground.
“Nicely timed,” said Fr. Breen, speaking quietly to Mustang to avoid being overheard by the Sharks’ coaches, all of whom were congregated nearby delivering their final notes to Cody and his partner for the foursomes, one Tamera Hudson, who’d posted an impressive -3 in that morning’s strokeplay session while playing with Layla.
“We still good?” Mustang asked, mirroring Fr. Breen’s hushed tone as he pulled his glove onto his hand and fastened the velcro.
“Well, no one seems to have cottoned on just yet,” said Fr. Breen, casting a wary glance in the direction of the match referee, who was carefully monitoring his watch to ensure the final match got out exactly on time. “But we’re fast approaching the point where, one way or another, that’ll no longer be the case.”
“And have you figured out what we’re gonna do when that happens?” asked Mustang, sliding the headcover off his driver and then pulling it up out of his bag.
“Well, as of right this second?” replied Fr. Breen, looking back down at Mustang. “Plan ‘A’ is looking like this: hold out until everything hits the fan and then hope for some divine intervention to help me figure out what my next move should be.”
“Ok …” said a skeptical-sounding Mustang, letting the head of his driver drop gently down onto the ground. “And on the off chance that divine intervention doesn’t come … is there a plan ‘B’?”
Fr. Breen drew a deep breath in as he took a moment to concoct an alternative option. “Probably just see if the coaches of the Sharks will let you play Cody and Tamera by yourself?” he proposed, the idea, now that he’d actually said it out loud, not sounding as ridiculous as it had done in his head.
“Sounds good to me,” smiled Mustang confidently, needing only a second to consider the proposal.
“Alright, everybody …” announced the match referee, suddenly, from across the other side of the tee-box. “We are live – so, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”. Finally shifting his gaze from his wristwatch, the referee looked around the tee to get an all-important headcount. When he looked towards Mustang and only counted one, however, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“New Malo? Where’s your second player for the final pairing?” he asked, pulling a clipboard out from behind his back and squinting at the small, tidy writing printed on it. “Uh … ‘Layla Ramirez’?”
With the eyes of everyone on the tee – including the particularly interested pair belonging to Cody – now squarely focused on the pair of them, Fr. Breen and Mustang both glanced nervously at one another. It was safe to say they both knew everything had now, officially, hit the fan – so, if Fr. Breen was to be struck by a bolt of all-enlightening ‘divine intervention’, it needed to happen sooner rather than later.
“Uh, well … the thing with that …” said Fr. Breen, the bluffing tone in his voice as he addressed the increasingly agitated-looking referee telling Mustang that the divine intervention he’d been hoping for had, unsurprisingly, not arrived. “Is that … Layla … is … uh …”
“RIGHT HERE!”
Almost unable to believe what they’d just heard, both Fr. Breen and Mustang – along with everyone else on the tee-box – turned and looked just in time to see a breathless Layla, her golf bag slung over her shoulder, running up the path towards the tee.
“Yes! Exactly!” said Fr. Breen, instantly rolling with the pleasant change of circumstances. “Layla is, of course, here, but she was just running a tad … uh … late … because … uh … she was … uh …”
Sensing that the wheels were starting to come off his excuse at an alarming rate, Mustang jumped in to help Fr. Breen land the plane on their lie. “Because she was in the bathroom!” he said, blurting out the first believable thought that popped into his head. “Isn’t that right, Layla?!”
“Yeah …” said Layla, reluctantly, as she finally reached the tee-box and slipped her bag down onto the slightly browning grass. “I was, uh … I was in the bathroom – had a problem with the lock.”
“Alright, well, as long as you’re here now,” grumbled the referee, willing to forget Layla’s tardiness in the interest of finally getting the match underway. “Vermilion Bay? As you won the strokeplay session this morning, you have the honour. Play well, everyone.”
With Cody stepping forward, driver in hand, to lead him and Tamera off into the afternoon – looking, it must be said, a little distracted as he did so – a smiling Mustang leaned in towards Layla and whispered, “What changed your mind?”
“Well, as shocking as this might sound …” Layla whispered, a wry smile on her face. “I realized you were right. Running away doesn’t solve anything. Plus, it kinda dawned on me how dumb I was being to quit over someone like Cody – so, I turned around and came back.”
FWWWEEEEESSSSHHHH!!!
After absolutely pummeling his drive and sending it on the perfect trajectory to end up right down the middle of the fairway, Cody casually brought his driver back down to his side and cleared the tee as he walked back over to where Tamera was standing.
“Also …” continued Layla, as she watched Cody and Tamera share a small fist bump. “If these guys are getting beat today like you said? Ain’t no way I was gonna miss that. So, go put me in the fairway … partner.”
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