Bette had to agree. She was starting to feel it. The hitting in the practice range, the competitive talk with Lea, practice swings – her juices were beginning to flow, and her stroke motion felt good.  She shut her eyes for a moment and let the breeze engage her senses.

“That part of your secret?”

Bette opened her eyes to look at Lea, large brown eyes smiling back at the cheerful dark blue ones of Lea. “Getting all zen, now?”

Bette winked. “Guess there’s only so much that background research can give you about someone’s golf game, huh?”  Bette teased her.

Lea shook her head again, and then drove to a spot that was halfway between where her ball landed and where Bette’s sat, which was about 40 yards further down, and at the center of the fairway. They got out of the cart, and fell quiet as they each considered what clubs they needed, based on how far they each needed to go to get to the green.

“I noticed you haven’t talked about the foundation, or about the work. I thought you wanted to do that today…I had the impression this was going to be some kind of interview or something.”

Bette smiled at her. “Oh, it will be, don’t worry.  But, do you want to talk about it, now, before you hit?”  She laughed lightly.

Lea smiled. “I’ve got a real great compliment for you .. and it’s true.  Your foundation has a lot of potential to do great work, Bette.”

Bette licked her lips, casually readjusting the straps of her gloves. “Does this mean you’re interested?”

Lea laughed a little, and then walked towards her ball. “How do you know I haven’t been recruiting you?  How do you know that even though you’ve been scouting me, I haven’t been the one who’s been recruiting you?”

“I’m sure you know that there’re probably any number of traditional, foundation CEO types salivating to latch on to you. And all this time you’ve been asking Cade about me…what if I’ve been keeping an eye on you, too?”

Bette shrugged, still playing it cool. She slung the hybrid 5 club onto her shoulder, following a few steps behind Lea.  “That’s possible … I’ve certainly used that tactic before, while I was still in finance, before all of this foundation work.  I’ve seen the different ways people have used to maneuver to hitch or latch themselves to a star.”