{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil Helvetica;}} \f0\fs24 Scene: Scene 7\par Model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6\par Character UUIDs: DEB6AE02-B51B-4C55-9E61-D08D32BABBA1,BFFEEB84-9E04-41EE-B083-5092D160ADF3,FE16770D-D7B7-48EC-AEFF-E1C0787E8D95,75F58E24-E4EE-4163-A6B3-7703D8D211BD\par Accepted for editing: 2026-08-23T19:19:10-05:00\par \par ### STYLE\par The style of the novel is in the style but not substance of Ken Follett. Each scene is in third person from the perspective of one of the characters.\par \par ### LEXICON\par (none)\par \par ### STORY\par Scene 5\par Ella and Bobby, evenly matched after an 18-hole morning round with a tradition of Oreos and Gatorade, share a comfortable silence on the shaded patio while Bobby makes his routine, gently deflected romantic overture\u8212?met again with Ella's firm but unexamined "friend zone" declaration\u8212?before she claims the cart keys and drives them out to the Palms course for the afternoon round, with both fathers emerging behind them, as Ella privately registers but refuses to inspect her awareness of Bobby's easy physical presence.\par \par ### CHARACTERS\par Andy Hayes\par Father and husband. Manages the team at American Airlines out of the Fort Lauderdale Airport that services its jets. Is a union member with nearly 30 years of experience. Scratch golfer. Large extended family, two brothers and a sister live nearby. Tall and handsome and very attractive to women in general. A leader of men.\par \par Continuity update from Scene 5:\par Plays golf on Saturday mornings with Ella and Bobby, paired with Alex Carpenter. Drinks two beers and continues to swing with the same untroubled tempo that Ella has noticed and finds both unfair and impressive.\par \par Ella Hayes\par Oldest daughter. To be a high school senior. Highly skilled golfer looking for a college golf scholarship. Tall, haughty, proud, smart. Prefers male friends to female friends. Has never dated and rarely attends parties or after school activities other than golf. Taught golf primarily by her father, a scratch golfer. Daddy\u8217?s girl. Usually impatient with others and likes to play fast.\par \par Continuity update from Scene 5:\par Has been playing Saturday morning golf with Bobby Carpenter for three years.\par \par Bobby Carpenter\par Best golfer on the boy\u8217?s high school team and Ella\u8217?s perpetual weekend playing and practice partner. Forever in Ella\u8217?s friend zone.\par \par Continuity update from Scene 5:\par Has been Ella's Saturday morning golf partner for three years. Has grown significantly taller in the past year \u8212? now legitimately tall \u8212? which has increased his driving distance and created new competitive problems for Ella.\par \par Alex Carpenter\par Continuity update from Scene 5:\par Bobby Carpenter's father. Plays golf with Andy Hayes on the same Saturday outings as Bobby and Ella. Drinks a lot of beer during a round \u8212? yet apparently still plays adequately nonetheless.\par \par ### RECALL\par (none)\par \par ### PREVIOUS\par "It's going in my memory as reading into it."\par \par She didn't say anything to that. The fan turned. The mockingbird finished one cycle and started another. Her father laughed at something Alex said, the sound coming through the glass slightly muffled.\par \par At ten minutes to noon, Ella stood, gathered her Sprite and the remaining Oreos, and nodded toward the clubhouse. "Let's go get the cart."\par \par The clubhouse was cool and dark inside after the patio, and the woman at the counter handed over the key without ceremony. Cart fourteen. Ella took the key before Bobby's hand was halfway across the counter.\par \par "I'm driving," she said.\par \par "You always drive."\par \par "Because you tried to put us in the water on eleven."\par \par "That was one time and the path curves."\par \par "The path has always curved. It curved the week before that and the week before that. The curve is not a new development." She pushed through the side door into the cart barn, found fourteen, and swung into the driver's seat with the efficiency of someone claiming territory. Bobby came around the other side and got in.\par \par "You know," he said, "in certain cultures, letting the passenger drive occasionally is considered a mark of social maturity."\par \par "Good thing I don't live in those cultures."\par \par "I'm just noting that you have control issues."\par \par "I don't have control issues. I have correct-decision-making habits. These are different."\par \par He settled back against the seat and put his arm along the back of it, easy and comfortable, and she was aware of this peripherally and in a way that she filed immediately into the category of things she didn't examine. Bobby Carpenter was her Saturday morning. He was her best opponent and the person who'd seen her three-putt from twelve feet and not said anything devastating about it. He was funny and tall and an infuriating driver of golf carts, and none of that was relevant to anything.\par \par She started the cart.\par \par "Palms, hole one," she said.\par \par "Hole one," he agreed.\par \par The cart rolled forward out of the staging area and into the white blaze of the afternoon, and ahead of them the Palms course opened up wide and shimmering in the heat, soft and forgiving and ready to be argued over, hole by hole, for the rest of the day. As she drove off, she saw her father and Bobby's father come out and walk towards the cart barn. It was time to play golf.\par \par ### NOTES\par Pompano Beach Golf Course \u8212? A frequently played course with Andy and Ella. Two eighteen hole courses, the shorter and easier Palms course and the longer and harder Pines course.\par Late Saturday afternoon, late May 2000, on the golf course.\par \par ### BRIEF\par This scene is told in third person from the viewpoint of Andy Hayes.\par Andy could see Ella had her temper barely under control as she stepped into the bunker with a bad lie and a difficult shot that she had to hole to tie with Bobby in their grudge match after the first round of the day ended a tie. Ella had struggled on the back nine of the Pines course but nevertheless had kept it even until a disastrous double bogey on the sixteenth. She\u8217?d picked up a shot on the seventeenth, but her shot to the green on eighteen had buried in the soft sand, whereas Bobby had hit a perfect iron to about two feet and was eagerly waiting to tap in the putt for birdie and win the match. From her lie, a pro golfer would be happy just to get the ball on the green, but she had to hole it or lose the match. She went into the bunker, sneered at the ugly lie of her nearly buried ball, and took a mighty swing with her sand wedge. The ball popped high into the air, the sand nearly blinding her, and the ball rolled past the hole and the match was lost.\par She angrily raked the sand and went up on the green and shook Bobby\u8217?s outstretched hand, conceding his putt, kicking her ball into the pond, turned and stalked off the green. Bobby knew she was furious and let her go without any trash talking. He couldn\u8217?t help grinning, though. It wasn\u8217?t often that he\u8217?d beaten her; she was by far the best player on the high school team, man or woman. She was good enough, he thought, to go pro, once she\u8217?d had a few seasons in college to polish her game.\par In the truck on the way home, Andy let her fume. She knew, as well as he did, that even the best golfers in the world won fewer than one-fourth of their tournaments. But it always made her angry to lose, every darn time.\par \par ### DIRECTIVE\par Expand to 1500 words maximum. Keep it dramatic.\par \par ### SCENE\par }