Learning to Live

Chapter 36

The day before Shana's birthday, Jon invites me to a country club. Jon and I have never been before, because we made a pact that we'd only go when we're retired old studs, to only gawk at the young women working there. Yet we're not old and I'm not single, but I am retired, and I saw this as the last time I could at least get to experience it. Jon always hated the thought of going to a country club after retirement, his idea of retiring was being on a beach with about fifty women parading around in bikinis, and he hated sports. So why was he so eager to come here?

He's wearing a blue knit polo shirt and khaki shorts with a grey sweater tied by its sleeves over his shoulders; my god, he looked ridiculous compared to my normal black pants and blue button up.

Even though it was a great opportunity to spend some time with my friend, my thoughts keep switching to Shana, and how she was doing after facing her dad. I wanted to be with her but she insists that I go to the country club, while she met up with a friend from work.

We took a golf cart out to the golf course. The grass was the greenest I've ever seen and it seems to go on for miles. I'm not going to argue, it's nice to get away from the city air and inhale this clean crisp fuel to life.

Jon lines himself up with the ball and he squint his eyes to look at his target, which was about ten feet away. He moved his club back and swings it forward; he missed the ball sitting on the tee peg, "Shit."

I snicker at him, "Good one Jon, I bet you a hundred bucks you can't get it in that hole."

"That's what she said." He snickered. "You're on buddy. Like my grandpa Cyrus used to say, a second chance is like a second wife, it feels better the second time round." He swings the club forward hitting the ball. It rolled slowly towards the hole, then by some magical force it swerved around it, missing it by an inch. "Crap!"

 "And your Grandpa Cyrus also said, not everyone wins the second time around. Remind me again Jon, how many ex-wives does he have now? Hand it over, Tiger not woods." I gloated, sitting in the passenger side of the gulf cart.

 "Six." He replies with his head buried. "FYI, I never really did like sports." With a disappointed face reached in his pocket pulled out his wallet and hands me the money.

A group women laughing in a distance alerts us. There were five of them, they were all dressed in casuals but one stood out, A blonde with her hair in a ponytail and tattoos on her arm; its Camelia.

"Ah, that's why you wanted to come here." I point at Camelia laughing with the group of women. "You knew Camelia was going to be here."

"Guilty, and I'm not ashamed of it."

"Never thought she was a country club girl though."

"She's not. Her friends from med school are, so they always invite her. I just needed to see her again man. I can't get her out of my head. What the hell is wrong with us? We're rich, we could have anything we want, anyone we want. But we had to fall for normal chicks."

"Normal?"

"You know what I mean. A woman who's not famous or a model. Things just feel more real around her, than some superficial model."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"Exactly. Ian, I love Camelia. She's normal; she's the girl that I thought I'd never be with. She completes me, but yeah, my stupid ass had to fuck it up."