Flashback (1988) Read Free Page B

to accept than the possibility of his mother having had a child by any gene pool other than the Judges.
    It was nearly seven o’clock and the meal was winding down.The twins were getting restless, but were held in place by Lisette’s glances and the prospect of Grandmama’s apple pie. Although snatches of conversation had dealt with Zack’s upcoming practice, most of it had centered around golf. The Judge, blind to anyone elses boredom with the subject, was on the sixteenth green of a hole-by-hole account of his match with Frank.
    “Thirty feet,” he said, nudging his wineglass, which in seconds was refilled by his wife. “Maybe forty. I swear, Zachary, I have never seen your brother putt like that—Marthe, a young lady does not play with her dress at the dinner table. He steps up to the ball, then looks over at me and, just as calmly as you please, says ‘double or nothing.’ It was—what, Frank, three dollars …?”
    “Five,” Frank said, making no attempt to mask his ennui.
    “
Mon dieu
, five. Well, I tell you, he just knocked that ball over hill and dale, right into the center of the cup for a three. The nerve. Say, maybe next weekend we can make it a threesome.”
    “Hey, Judge,” Frank said, “leave the man alone. He’s an Ultramed surgeon now. It’s in his contract: no golfing for the first year.” He turned to his brother, his hands raised in mock defense. “Just kidding, Zack-o, just kidding. You play any down in Boston?”
    “Only the kind where you shoot it into the whales mouth and out its tail,” Zack said.
    Annie laughed out loud and choked briefly on a piece of celery.
    “We played that, Uncle Zack,” Lucy said excitedly. “Mama took us. Marthe hit herself in the head with her club. Will you take us again sometime?”
    “Of course I will.”
    “You’re not going away like all the other times, are you?”
    “No, Lucy. I’m staying here.”
    “See, Marthe. I told you he wasn’t going away this time. Will you take us to McDonald’s, too? We never get to go except when you take us.”
    Zack shrunk in his seat before Lisette’s reproving glare. “They get confused sometimes,” he said.
    “I spoke to Jess Bishop,” the Judge went on. “He’s membership chairman at the club. You remember him, Zachary? Well, no matter. Jess says that being as your father and brother aremembers in good standing, you won’t even have to go through the application process.”
    “Thank goodness,” Zack said, hoping, even as he heard his own words, that the Judge would miss the facetiousness in his voice. “So, who finally won today?”
    “Won? Why, me, of course,” the Judge said, shifting his bulk in his chair. His Christian name was Clayton, but even his wife rarely called him anything but Judge. He was, like both his sons, over six feet, but his athlete’s body had, years before, yielded to his sedentary job and rich tastes. A civic leader and chairman of the board of Davis Regional Hospital until its sale to Ultramed, the Judge had no less than six plaques tacked up in the den proclaiming him Sterling Man of the Year. He was also, though in his mid-sixties, a ten handicap. “It was close, though, Frank,” he went on. “I’ll give you that.”
    “Close,” Frank humphed. “Judge, you’re the one who pounded it into us that close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.”
    Again, Annie Doucette laughed out loud, and again her laugh was terminated by a fit of coughing. This time, Zack noted, she was massaging her chest after she had regained control, and her color was marginally more pale than it had been.
    “You okay, Annie?” he asked.
    “Fine, I’m fine,” the woman said in the Maurice Chevalier accent she had never shown the least inclination to change. She lowered her hand slightly, but not completely. “Now you just stop eyeing me like you want to take out my liver or something, and go on about your talking. There’ll be plenty of time for you to play doctor