#garevans

wow i had a lot of fun writing yolanda! also i spent like half an hour trying to work out what non-english endearment she might use with dana...

props to reddit and quora for info on the usage of spanish terms of endearment in different contexts, particularly panamanian spanish because her actress, alexandra metz, is afro-latina (her mother is panamanian)

Evans: [laugh] Well, I hate to cut off that unexpected display of affection from our ever cold-hearted Garcia but it looks like The King is being announced to the tee.

Garcia: Yes, Mel King and Trinity Santos are the favourites to win but there are a few underdogs on everyone’s radar…

Evans: Definitely. Joy Kwon and Victoria Javadi are playing in the next group, they had a promising opening round landing them in tied third place…

::End Dow Championship Coverage Transcipt::

It is only at the end of the day, after 5pm, that the players have finished the round and the commentators are allowed to leave. However, they were pleasantly surprised to find that they had been sent two separate bouquets of flowers during the time they’d been on the air. One was a simple bouquet of yellow, white and pink flowers with a note reading:

“Happy 25 years, here’s to 25 more. 

- Your very tolerant

fourth wheel, Michael.”

The second was a beautifully curated array of light to dark purple flowers and white baby’s breath. It also had a note:

“Congratulations wonderful

people! Love you both, wishing

you the best - Baran xx”

They each sent a quick thank you text to both of them. It was always nice to know the people around them who were in the know about their relationship really did care.

They walked with their sides pressed together as they made their way to their dark blue Volvo. Only when they were both buckled up inside it (Dana in the driver’s seat), did they have their first real conversation about what they’d said at the beginning of the broadcast.

“I’m your favourite person in the world, mi amor?” Yolanda asked with a cheeky smirk.

“Tied first with Heather and Lillie, of course, but yes. I love ya more than you can imagine,” Dana replied with a soft smile. Dana and Yolanda had a somewhat unconventional relationship with Heather Collins, a third partner to their already chaotic duo. And in the last few years, Heather had adopted a little girl named Olive (they all called her Lillie) who they all looked after when Dana and Yolanda weren’t travelling the country commentating golf tournaments.

Yolanda smiled genuinely at the mention of the rest of their pseudo-family before leaning in to press a lingering kiss onto Dana’s lipstick covered lips. “I love you too, D.”

“I gotta say, I was surprised to hear you mention GN Z-11…”

“Were you over the moon?” Yolanda threw back, raising her brows up and down conspiratorially. 

Dana laughed loudly at that.

“Good to know my dad-joke charm still works on you after all these years,” Yolanda remarked. Dana pat her thigh in response.

“C’mon, sweetheart, we got a dinner reservation to get to.”

-

Not too long after they arrived at their hotel to get ready, Yolanda’s phone lit up with a voice call request from ‘H❤️’. “Amor, Heather’s calling!”

“Oh, comin’, one sec–”

Yolanda answered, “Hola, mi cariño, D’s just finishing up her makeup.”

Over the phone, Heather said, “Oh that’s okay! I just wanted to call and say happy 25th anniversary and see how you’re both doing.”

“Thank you. We’re doing pretty well, a long day on the mics but an interesting outcome for the players. The usual, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. I miss you both. Actually, let me correct myself, we miss you both. Lillie’s just having a snack now– hey, Olive, you wanna say hi to Mami Yoyo and Mama?”

In the background, Yolanda could hear the excited squeals of their four year old and Dana had just made her way over. “Hi, babe,” Dana said to Heather before Lillie got close enough to the phone to be properly heard.

“Hi, D, Yolo says you’re well?” Heather said.

“Yes, I am–” Dana got out before Lillie cut her off.

“Hi! Hi! Hi, Mama! Hi, Mami! Where are youuuu?”

They all giggled at her excitement. “We’re in Michigan, in our hotel room, sweetpea,” Dana said.

“Ooo it is big? Did they make the- the animal things like with the towels?”

“It is quite big but no, amorita, no towel animals in this one. Good thinking though, they definitely should do that at all the hotels.”

“Hmmm that’s pretty boring. Is there good snacks though?”

“We haven’t had a chance to try ‘em, Lillie. We’re going to go have dinner in about an hour,” Dana chimed in.

“Are you going somewhere fancyyy?”

They all laughed again. Dana said, “Oh, you know us too well, hon’. It’s an Italian restaurant so we’ll probably be havin’ some pasta.”

“Rest-a-rrr, um, rest-ront. Resta-row-nt. That’s a tricky one,” Lille said with a hurumph. Yolanda imagined her crossing her little arms across her chest in frustration, her own cuteness aggression threatening to take over.

“It’s okay. We can work on that together,” Heather said soothingly.

“When you get home, I’m gonna say it pr-e-fectly!” she said with all the confidence of an over-excited preschooler.

“Yes, perfectly, amorita. Per-fect-ly,” Yolanda said, trying to correct her without upsetting her.

“Uh huh, perf-r-ectly.”

“Okay,” Heather began, trying to hold it back but still laughing quietly at Lillie’s antics, “Well, let’s let Mama and Mami go get ready. It’s a special night for them together, do you know how long they’ve been married?”

“Um… five hundred years!”

“Oh not quite that many, baby, we’re not that old,” Dana said.

Yolanda cut in, “Yet.”

Dana rolled her eyes. Heather gave the answer for them, “They’ve been married for 25 years. That’s more than 5 times how long you’ve been alive!”

“Woahhhh. That’s a very long time, Mom.”

“Yes, it is. So they’re celebrating that tonight. You gonna say goodbye now?”

“Mmm I don’t wanna…” she said with a pout that was obvious even to Dana and Yolanda through the phone.

“Hey, amorita, we’re going to be home with you in just a few days, okay? And you can call us again tomorrow night if you want,” Yolanda attempted to placate her.

“Yeah, and you can always ask Mom to text us whenever. We love you so much, poppet,” Dana added on.

“I love you too, Mama,” Lillie said, sounding a little less sad.

“See, it’s okay, Lillie,” Heather continued, “Goodbye, Mami, goodbye, Mama, we love you lots.”

“Love you, Mami Yoyo, love you, Mama!”

“We love you too,” Dana and Yolanda said together.

A chorus of ‘bye’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘talk soon’ overlapped as they ended the call. There was a moment of silence afterwards where they just smiled to themselves.

“She’s just the best,” Dana said.

“Which of our girls are you referring to?”

“Hah, well, I meant Lillie but both of them, really, now that you say it.”

“We’re pretty fucking lucky.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” Dana replied, giving Yolanda a peck on the lips, “Okay, let me finish getting ready.”

“Alright.”

-

The restaurant was beautiful. Marble flooring, high ceilings, and tables that were spread liberally, allowing plenty of room in between each party. Dana was wearing a scarlet, silk dress with a square neckline, complimented by her matching lipstick. Yolanda wore a charcoal grey dress that went over her shoulders and up to her neck, hair slicked into a bun with her baby hairs meticulously gelled down into picturesque, swooping curls.*

Dressing up was half the fun of going out together. It was exciting to put on such a show, even if it was really only for themselves and each other, because they would always get flattering attention from the servers and other patrons wherever they went.

Sometimes, that night included, they would compete to see who could get the most phone numbers slipped to them by the end of the night (Dana held the record at 15 numbers from one instance at a nightclub - Yolanda maintained that at least 5 of those were because she was recognised [Dynamic Dana Evans, former number one women’s golfer] which Yolanda considered cheating).

After dinner, desert, and a bottle of champagne, Yolanda ended with 1 and Dana with 3 numbers. This meant, as they had agreed upon earlier, that Dana would get to choose the movie they watched as they cuddled up together in the hotel’s huge king sized bed.

They showered as soon as they got back to their room. Each helped the other wash their hair in a dance of sorts they had done countless times by then. And if Yolanda got down on her knees before they left the shower to dry off, and Dana held her hair tight in her hands, well, it was just another part of their anniversary celebration.

They put on comfortable, baggy pyjama tops and underwear and cuddled into one another on the bed with the covers pulled over them. Yolanda sat with her back against the pillows and with Dana in between her legs, both facing forwards toward the large television by the end of the bed.

After very little deliberation, Dana chose to put on Before Sunrise, a slice of life romance between two strangers who share a single night together in Vienna. Yolanda rolled her eyes at the choice, but the barely suppressed grin on her lips told Dana that she wasn’t all that upset about it.

Once the final sequence played, Dana slowly extracted herself from Yolanda’s warm embrace to putter over to her suitcase. “So, I got you something small since this was such a big milestone,” she said, bringing a small box back to the bed and handing it to Yolanda.

“Oh, mi amor,” Yolanda said, beginning to open the box, “You really didn’t have to– oh my god, oh my god! You didn’t!”

Inside the box sat a set of carving knives with custom-made handles with wood from Yolanda’s favourite type of tree and ‘Property of Mesdames Garcia-Evans’ engraved along each handle. Yolanda surged across the bed and kissed all over Dana’s face – cheek, forehead, nose, chin, lips – rambling out, “Thank you, thank you, I love you, this is so cool, wow–”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Dana said with a chuckle, “I saw this guy online who did custom carving knives and thought you’d like ‘em.”

“Well, I love them, actually,” she said with sass meant mainly for Dana’s amusement, “And I have something for you too.”

She went to her bag, and then handed Dana a smaller box, one that looked like it was for a ring or earrings, maybe. Dana pulled off the lid and sitting there on a small pillow was a silver necklace with a circular pendant that seemed to have a map of the stars in the night sky on it.

“It’s the night sky from the day that we met, all those years ago at the Oldsmobile LPGA Classic tournament, Feb… 2nd, 1992,” Yolanda blurted out.

Dana was tearing up, honest to god about to start crying, “Oh, Yolanda, it’s beautiful. I love you so so much.”

And they hugged, long and tight. Dana quietly sobbed into Yolanda’s shoulder. Yolanda said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry, amor.”

“No, no, these are happy tears. I– I just don’t know how you manage to surprise me still, after all these years I’m still amazed by how caring you are for little old me.”

“It has been a long time, hasn’t it?” she replied, pausing before continuing, “You ever… you ever think about going public about us?”

It was something they had spoken about a few times over the years, mostly avoiding it because of social stigma and eventually just because neither had felt a real need to.

“Of course I have,” Dana said.

“I know we’ve always kept this to ourselves but something about being married for a quarter of a century is really putting some things into perspective for me. We only have so much time to live our lives and I feel like I’m missing out on flaunting what an amazing, beautiful wife I have,” Yolanda continued, “I didn’t get the nickname Yolo for nothing, you know? It’s true: you only live once.”

“Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?” Dana asked, curious.

“Will you go public about our marriage with me?”

Dana stopped for a moment, weighing up something in her mind, “I– Is that what you really want?”

“I just want to be able to say I’m yours, and that you’re mine, D. Because I love you and you love me and that’s all that matters.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, fuck it, let’s go public,” Dana said with a mischievous grin that rivalled Yolanda’s.

“Yes! Oh, this is so exciting!”

“We’ll have to be organised about this though, think it through.”

“Whatever you want, ma’am,” Yolanda mock saluted her.

“And we gotta talk to Heather first.”

“I… may have already asked her if she was okay with it.”

“Oh, you sneaky little shit,” Dana said fondly, “You planned this.”

“Only a little! Heather was actually the one who pushed me to go ahead with asking you. So, she’s definitely on board.”

Dana rolled her eyes, “Right, okay… What am I going to do with you?”

“Love me and cherish me, till death do us part?”

Dana sighed, still smiling, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”

fin.

hope you enjoyed!! this was so fun to write i love these two sm

and yes, dana love astronomy, and garcia is speaking spanish (mi amor = my love, mi amorita = my little love, mi cariño = my darling/honey)

*here is the photo this is based on (+bonus pic):