Crispy Chicken
Tender Meal

Golden hour, and I was nervous. First date. She had suggested putting, which told me two things: she was confident, and I was in trouble.

The seventh hole at PopStroke Waterford Lakes has a tiered green that rises like a wedding cake. Her ball was on the bottom tier, mine on the top, and between us lay a ridge that has humbled better people than me. She read it in four seconds. She rolled it up and over and let gravity do the rest. It fell in the side door.

I said something clever. I don't remember what. She laughed anyway, which I have since learned is her way of being kind.

After the round we ordered at the patio and played cornhole while we waited. She sank her first bag. Then the food came. The crispy chicken tender meal. Buttermilk-marinated, which is the secret to that tenderness, a long patient soak before anything else happens. Then hand-breaded, so every crag and ridge of the coating fries up shatteringly crisp. French fries alongside. A tangle of citrus slaw, bright and cool. And honey mustard for dipping, sweet with a little bite.

She stole my fries. I let her.

We were three strokes apart on the scorecard. Mine was the higher number. Nobody brought it up.

That was a year ago. She still steals my fries, and I still can't read the seventh.