So, like any sensible person, I do my fair share of pre-date stalking. Sarah was always telling me I should at least have a cursory google of Connector guys before I met them, just to be safe. And she was right. Unfortunately, when I’d typed “Josh Little” into the search engine, all I’d learned was that Josh shared his name with a major league baseball player from San Francisco. And while I was super impressed that this Josh Little had, apparently, scored forty-four home runs last season and had a really neat goatee, that information was not incredibly helpful right now.
I scribbled a “Back Soon” note for Charlie, unlocked my bike from the back of the van, and pedaled toward Jolly Jungle Crazy Golf, the scene of my disastrous date with Josh. I figured if he’d booked our session online, they’d at least have an email address for him. Built as a kids’ attraction about ten years ago, Jolly Jungle Crazy Golf had recently been repurposed as a sort of hipster hangout, where grown adults seemingly found it hilarious to smack tiny balls past giant plastic animals into tiny holes.
When I arrived, I went up to the booth at the entrance and knocked on the glass.
“Hi,” I said, trying to get the attention of the teenage attendant hunched over a laptop inside.
He didn’t look up from the screen. Peering through the glass, I could see he was in the middle of a hand of online poker. I rapped on the window again.
“Hey,” I said, more loudly this time.
With a sigh, the boy looked up to meet my eyes. Despite what I opined to be a terrible haircut and even more questionable facial hair than Josh Little (the baseball one), he had kind eyes and looked cozy in a chunky puffer jacket.
“Four pound fifty,” he mumbled, sliding the glass divider across so I could pay. “The clubs are down there.” He gestured to a metal container full of putters.
“No, I don’t want to play, thanks. I need your help. My friend Josh Little made a booking here. Can you look him up on your computer there?”
“We don’t do that sort of thing, sorry,” he replied.
“Oh really, not even for me”—I scanned his puffer jacket for some sort of name tag in vain—“um, mate?”
“Stephen,” he said indifferently.
“Okay, look, Stephen, the truth is, me and Josh had an amazing first date here, and then I went and lost my phone! So I just need his number so I can tell him how much I enjoyed it. He probably thinks I’m ghosting him. I’m, like, so totally into him, you know? You don’t want to stand in the way of true love, do you?”
I gave him my best Sandra Bullock goofy smile.
“Wait, you were here on a date last week? Think I heard about that. Weren’t you the one who—”
“No,” I interrupted. “That wasn’t me. We had a great date. That’s why I need his number, email address, anything. Please. I really need to get hold of him. You must have all the booking information stored there somewhere.”
“I should get the manager,” he said.
“No, no, wait a second. Listen a sec, Stephen. I own the coffee van out on the promenade,” I said. “I’ll give you free hot chocolates for a week if you help me out here.”
He paused for a moment. “With those little marshmallows on top?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, with the little marshmallows. Just look up Josh Little on your computer there for me, will you?”
Stephen started tapping on the laptop in front of him.
“Right, here he is. I have an email address and a contact number,” he said, turning the computer screen to face me.
As I pulled out my phone and started copying it down, Stephen eyed the grinning sparkly unicorn on the back of my battered phone suspiciously.
“It’s ironic,” I told him.
“Didn’t you say you lost your phone?”
“Yeah, I did. I dropped it in the bath. Then I got a new one.”
“Doesn’t look new,” he said.
“New phone, old case,” I told him.
Stephen narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head. He reached up and swung the laptop screen away from me.
“Hey! What are you doing?” I cried. “I’m not finished.”
“I’m sorry, I really think I should get the manager,” he said, picking up his phone.
“Wait, wait, do we really want to involve the manager with this, Stephen?” I said. “He’s probably really busy, right? I’m sure he doesn’t have time to hear about his underage staff using the company computer for gambling, right?”
Stephen shifted in his seat and looked guiltily at the computer.
“So, tell you what,” I went on. “Since you like a bet, I’ll make you a deal.”
“Go on,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Okay, if I get a hole in one on the crocodile hole,” I said, pointing over at the course, “you give me the number. I miss, you get the free hot chocolates for a month. With the marshmallows. Plus a muffin.”
Stephen considered the offer for a second.
“You won’t make that shot,” he said, looking me up and down. “No one does. That’s the hardest hole on the course.”
It took all my strength not to tell him it was a seaside crazy golf course filled with unrealistic monkeys, not the links at St. Andrews. But I bit my lip and forced a smile. The hole consisted of a gigantic green plastic crocodile with an opening and closing mouth. In order to do it in one shot, you had to hit your ball down the green and through the mouth when it opened, which would then send it running all the way down his tail and into the hole.
“Well, you have nothing to lose then,” I said, sticking my hand through the window of the booth.
“Whatever,” he said, taking it and shaking firmly. “Knock yourself out.”
“Great.” I picked up a club and went over to the hole. A few yards in front of me, the jaws of the massive plastic crocodile slowly opened and then, with a loud click, snapped shut. I placed my ball on the white spot at the start of the hole and watched the crocodile’s mouth carefully as it opened and clamped shut again. Then I closed my eyes.
“I haven’t got all day,” Stephen called from the booth.
I ignored him and counted slowly to three, before tapping the ball toward the crocodile’s mouth. I’d timed it perfectly. It reached the jaws just as they opened, and rolled past the gleaming white teeth into the beast.
“Yes!” I shouted. But then I watched in horror as the ball bumped up against something and trundled back toward my feet.
“What?” I cried. “No way! There’s something wrong with the crocodile.”
“Sorry,” Stephen said. “You lose.”
“I am not having this,” I said, marching down the Astroturf fairway to the crocodile. I poked my mini club inside the mouth. I could feel something blocking the way through.
“There’s something in there. I demand another turn!” I said, bending down to investigate. I peered into the crocodile’s mouth, trying to see what it was.
As I poked the club in between the jaws again, something flopped out.
I stifled a scream.
It was a hand.