Bette had shaken her head in wonderment. “Your daughter must be gorgeous!”

Lea’d cracked her first big smile at that one. “I think so, of course.  As every mother does about her daughter!”

Bette had half expected that they would show each other pictures of their kids at that point, as what tended to happen when mothers started talking about their kids. But in this case, Lea had looked away, and then had murmured that she’d wanted to check her golf bag to see if she’d brought the driver she’d recently purchased.   That’s fine. Just because I show pictures of Angie and TJ to people at the drop of a hat doesn’t mean she’d be the same when it came to her daughter.  Maybe later, when she’s more comfortable around me… we’ll exchange pictures?

Since she’d just teased Lea about dumping her first drive into the rough, Bette now playfully formed a small “o” with her lips and covered her mouth with her fingers. “Ooopps!  Sorry about that, Lea!”

Lea shook her head and chuckled, and then took several practice swings with the driver as they prepared to start the next hole. “Well, to answer your question: the rough allowed the ball to settle down a bit, so it made for a difficult shot.”

Bette raised her eyebrows. “Really?  Would never have guessed that from how the ball shot out of there!  That was a really excellent shot you made.”

“Hmmm… thanks. I think.  Don’t bother trying to butter me up, Bette.  I still want to win that spa treatment we bet on, you know!”

Bette pretended to pull her phone out from her side pocket. “Not as much as I want to.  In fact, I think I’ll book myself a package I’ve wanted to try ever since I read about it in the brochure, the one with an organic facial and a rosemary citron salt scrub?  2 hours of bliss in that Heavenly Spa …”

Lea seemed to have ignore that tease. She was silent as she set her tee down and carefully positioned her golf ball atop it.  Her tone was brisk.  “I think it’s my turn to go first, right?”

After she took a few more practice swings, she took half a step closer to the tee, shook her ass a bit from side to side until she was comfortable about how her legs were positioned, and rolled her shoulders a few times to relax them.   She addressed the ball, focusing on it further, and then swung her club up in a smooth motion, and, with an accelerated downswing, smacked the ball solidly in the sweet spot of the broad flat surface of her driver.