8 MARISA’S CURSE
Whack!
Despite the white ball’s initial straight-line flight, Joyce’s husband elicited a grunt beneath his breath.
“Hold on,” Charlie said from the tee box. He looked like a still-shot, statuesque, in his swing’s follow-through.
The ball sailed into the blue sky, an obvious bend taking shape in its trajectory.
“Hold Ooooon!” Charlie urged through clenched teeth. He leaned in the opposite direction the ball sliced.
In the golf cart, Joyce set her phone down and smiled at her husband’s childish effort to alter the shot through mental will—nothing mean spirited, she just got a kick seeing how serious he could take this game.
“Awww hell,” Charlie spat.
Two hundred yards up where the thirteenth hole dog-legged left, the ball flew straight into the trees, followed by the
