Who's Your Caddie Now?
by
Owlcroft
The Peaceful Pines Country Club had just announced its annual Father and Son golf tournament. But this year it had changed to a Father and Son/Daughter Golf Tournament and Beetlejuice insisted that Lydia take his place as Charles Deetz's partner.
"Yeah, I know it was the plan that I'd play with Chuck, but that's before we knew you could." He looked at his wife of one year and smiled at her. "You're not a bad golfer and you know he'd rather have you than me any day."
"But I wanted him to win this year, and he would if you played." Lydia leaned back in her chair at the kitchen table and sighed. "It means a lot to him now that he's got so many friends at the club, and I wanted him to win because . . ." She frowned and sighed again.
"You wanted him to beat the Brewsters. Well, it would be even better if you helped him do it, right?" His smile broadened to a grin. "Rub Clare and her super-rich father's noses in it."
"That's not exactly the best reason, but . . . yes, that's it. They swank around the club all the time, bragging about everything and I know it bothers Father. And it bothers me even more that he takes it all to heart." She reached out and took hold of his hand. "Beej, you'd win if you played, you know that."
"Yeah, but, come on, Lyds. How many times have you played golf with Chuck?"
She thought, brow wrinkled. "Twice. No, wait . . . yes, twice. The other time we had to quit after three holes because it started to rain."
"Then you need to play in this tournament with him. I think it would mean a lot to him. And wouldn't it mean something to you?"
"But he has a better chance of winning if you play."
"But that's not what's important." Beetlejuice stopped suddenly, looking stricken. "I can't believe I just said that!" He waved a hand weakly. "I think I need to lie down."
Lydia chuckled, but shook her head at him. "I understand what you're saying, sweetheart, really. You think it would mean more to Father to have me as a partner than to win with you."
"Well, yeah, 'course it would. I think he realizes what he missed out on when you were a kid and wants to make up for it now." He raised his brows at her in question.
"Well . . . I'll think about it."
ooooo
The next afternoon, Lydia spent half an hour on the country club's putting green, then shot three buckets of balls on the driving range and came home tired and achy. "I'm so out of practice! Beej, this is a bad idea. Father's not the world's greatest golfer, but he deserves a better partner than I'll be."
Beetlejuice pampered her and fed her, massaged salve on her shoulders, gave her encouragement. "Look, maybe old man Brewster's rotten at golf. Okay, Clare was a golf champ but she's not a kid any more and she's probably as out of shape as you are." As she drew in a quick breath, he cleared his throat and added, "Not that you're really out of shape! You're just not quite at peak condition right now. Another couple of days –" He stopped again because she was laughing so hard that she joggled his arm and he got Icy Hot on his shirt.
ooooo
Charles had bought them matching burgundy polo shirts at the country club shop and he and Lydia were tasteful in their PPCC shirts and khaki shorts. BJ was wearing a flamingo pink-and-chartreuse Hawaiian shirt with purple and yellow plaid pants and a scarlet golf cap with a pompom. He looked atrocious. He fit right in with most of the other golfers.
Beetlejuice had promised his wife not to cheat so they would win. "It doesn't mean anything if we win that way," she'd warned him. "It has to be honest or it's worthless."
"I still don't understand that," he had muttered, but then held up a placatory hand. "But I promise, I promise!"
At their first sight of the Brewster golf cart, Beetlejuice had to turn away and muffle his screeches of laughter. It was a brilliant gold color, twice the size of a normal golf cart, and even had a rumble seat for the caddie in the back.
Charles had rented two golf carts from the club, one for himself and his golfing partner; Beetlejuice drove Delia in the other. "I simply must be there to cheer you on," she'd exclaimed gleefully. Lydia had tried to explain golf decorum to her, but gave up after a few minutes.
The tournament began and the luck of the draw, although Lydia gave her husband a suspicious look, had the Brewsters paired against Charles and his daughter.
"I swear I didn't," Beetlejuice whispered. "You know I promised." He looked around for a moment, then leaned in and whispered even softer. "Did you hear what that wart Clare said? 'I want Dadsy to lead off'," he mimicked, then stuck a finger down his throat and made a gagging sound.
Lydia bit her lip in an effort not to smile, then turned to her father and invited him to drive first for their twosome.
ooooo
Beetlejuice and Delia cheered and clapped loudly for every swing by their team. The rest of the crowd and even most of the players found it odd but heartwarming. It earned only hard stares and scowls from the Brewsters however. Delia formed the habit of putting her hand on BJ's arm as he drove them over the course, chatting casually about everything that flitted through her butterfly mind, but always coming back to the thought of Charles and Lydia forming a team.
"It's so important to him, you know," she confided at the fifth hole. "He looked forward so much to this, talked about it simply all the time." She smiled tenderly at the golf cart in front of them. "Making memories," she sighed.
Beetlejuice found himself slightly sickened, but having to admit he almost, sort of, very nearly, just about liked the old trout for her loyalty.
ooooo
At the seventeenth hole, the foursome found themselves tied with both teams on the green.
To Lydia's surprise and dismay, she found that her ball had landed on a worm, which was pinned to the turf and unable to escape. Muttering an apology to it, she lifted up the ball and moved the worm to one side, carefully, before lowering the ball again. This action did not go unnoticed by the Brewsters and Clare immediately raised an objection.
"Like, that has to be against the rules or something!" She smoothed a hand down her satin golf shirt, trying to look innocent and unconniving. "Dadsy, isn't it?"
Beetlejuice, for the fifth time, made his gagging noise, but Lydia threw a troubled look at her father.
"Well, Pumpkin," he murmured, "it might be." He turned to Richard Brewster and suggested, "We could look in the rule book."
Brewster shook his head apologetically. "I'm afraid I already know that one. It's one stroke for moving the ball, but Lydia actually moved the ball twice, so that would be two strokes, yes? One for picking it up and one for putting it back. So awfully sorry about that," he smirked unpleasantly.
"That's exactly right, Dadsy," beamed Clare. A now-familiar retching noise was heard.
"Oh, Father," Lydia looked at him with dismay. "I didn't even think –"
"No, no," he said with a smile. "Of course you did the right thing. Don't worry about it, Pumpkin."
"Sorry about that, old thing," Brewster was busily adding the extra strokes to the scorecard. "But the rules are the rules."
ooooo
The end of the round found that both teams had the lowest scores of the day. The Brewsters, though, held a one stroke lead over the Deetz pair when the teams handed their scorecards to the judging panel.
Lydia was nearly tearful in her apologies to her father and Delia had an arm around her stepdaughter's shoulders, murmuring objurgations against the Brewsters in her ear. She threw a malicious look at the triumphant pair who were already congratulating each other.
Meanwhile, Beetlejuice had sidled over to the judges and, without looking at them, murmured something. The three judges glanced at each other, startled, then went over to the golden Brewstermobile.
After an intense discussion and examination of the clubs in the back, the judges returned to scanning the scorecards.
Finally, the panel's chair held up his hand for quiet and announced, "The Brewsters have more clubs in the bag than allowed. This incurs a penalty of one stroke. Also," he checked with his fellow judges, "Ms. Brewster failed to sign the scorecard. This is another one stroke penalty." In a stunned silence, he went on to add, "Adding in the penalties, we declare that Charles Deetz and Lydia Deetz-Joos have won."
The crowd applauded noisily at once, as the Brewsters began a shocked and angry remonstrance. "You can't count those" was heard and "I will complain to the club board about this!"
One of the other judges spoke up at that. "Our decision is final! There can be no appeal."
In answer to that, Clare and her father stalked off toward the office of the club manager as the crowd still cheered for the winning team.
"Well, but . . ." Charles was dumbstruck for a moment, then he looked at his daughter. "We don't want to win like that. It's such a . . . a technical thing."
Beetlejuice cleared his throat loudly and said, behind his hand, but loud enough for everyone to hear, "The rules are the rules."
Lydia shook her head at him. "My father is right. We wouldn't feel that we'd really won if we accepted that ruling."
The judges huddled briefly, then one of them announced, "Since you refuse to accept it, we're going to inscribe the trophy with your names and display it in the entrance to the club."
"That will be fine," Beetlejuice proclaimed, arms folded and chin in the air, then glared at the crowd to see if anyone dared to disagree.
ooooo
Finally at home again, after a celebratory meal at the club's restaurant, Charles pulled his daughter to one side as Delia and Beetlejuice went for a bottle of champagne and glasses. "I just wanted to say one thing." He put an arm around Lydia's shoulders. "I'm so proud of you, Pumpkin. Not just the success you've had – you know, over there – but the kind of woman you've become. I hope you know I've always been proud of you."
Lydia hugged him fervently. "That means so much to me, Father. I have to admit, Beej talked me into playing today, and I'm glad he did. Maybe," she peeped up at him, "we could do it again next year?"
Delia and Beetlejuice entered just in time to hear that.
"Hah!" he said. "What happened to 'I can't do this', huh?" He gave his wife a glass of champagne and a grin. "Told you you could do it, didn't I? And you have to admit, it was fun. Especially beating Dadsy."
Lydia and Charles and Delia looked at each other, then simultaneously made the gagging noise. Beetlejuice shrieked so hard with laughter that he nearly fell down.
A/N: With a tip of the hat to Julianne Klemm for the episode "Caddy Shock"