Page 18 of Middlegame

He’s still sitting on the bed, rubbing his elbow with one hand, when the door swings open and his father is there, dressed in khaki slacks and a button-down white shirt, like he came home from the office five minutes ago. “Roger?” he says. “You feeling up to a little game, sport?”

“Yeah, Dad,” he says, grinning ear to ear. He slides off the bed, his fight with Dodger already virtually forgotten. He’ll remember it later, but sometimes it’s best to let his brain work like this, puzzling over the problem in the background while he gets on with the business of living. It’ll be okay. It always is. He and Dodger have fought before, and it’s always been okay. So why should this time be any different?

Dodger sits at the kitchen table with her notebook in front of her, trying to make her parents understand. Her frustration is obvious in the red tips of her ears and the high, bright color in her cheeks; no matter how much she explains, there will always be concepts she doesn’t have the words for, ideas she doesn’t know how to express. She wishes Roger were here to feed her what she needs, and she hates herself for being weak enough to need him, and she hates him for being gone.

Her father picks up the notebook, frowning. He hasn’t looked at any of her “independent study” in years; while he’s happy to stick her schoolwork to the fridge like any proud parent, this isn’t math anymore. This is poetry written in a language he doesn’t know, and something about it makes him feel unnecessary and small, like she’s gone on to decode the universe without him.

“You’re sure you didn’t copy this out of a book at the library?” he asks, for the third time. “We’re not going to be angry. It’s not like there’s anything wrong with copying things for your own use. It’s only wrong if you pretend you created them.”

Dodger, thinking of the reams of copier paper beneath her bed, sits up straighter and shakes her head. “No, Daddy,” she says. “I didn’t copy it. Only the equation at the top, in the purple ink. That’s the puzzle Mr. Monroe’s institute has been trying to solve, and I solved it. It’s my work, for real. I can come to the school and do it again while one of the math professors watches, if you want.” She doesn’t really understand the difference between teachers and professors, except that professors know so much more than teachers. Professors are like wizards: they create the universe. Having her work checked by one of them isn’t insulting, like it is when Mr. Blackmore does it. He doesn’t think girls are good at math. When he checks her work, it’s because he knows, all the way to his toes, that she cheated. A professor wouldn’t know that, wouldn’t even think that. A professor would be neutral.

(And to be honest, somewhere deep, deep down, she harbors the fantasy that if a real professor saw her work, they’d gasp and cry, “This girl is a genius!” and pull her out of elementary school to put her in college, where she could do all the math she wanted, and no one would whisper about her behind their hands or throw things at her “accidentally” during lunch and recess, or make fun of her name, or tell her girls weren’t supposed to be more interested in decimals than dolls. All she has to do is find a way into one of those classrooms, and her future can finally begin.)

“You say there’s a monetary prize?” The idea of paid academic challenges is nothing new to Peter Cheswich, who has never left academia; he’s seen manna from heaven a time or two, usually as a result of a translation project or the successful unraveling of an ancient riddle. He’s never looked at the math side of things, but math isn’t his forte. The scribbles in his daughter’s notebook (in purple ink, no less!) might as well be cuneiform.

And yet.

And yet he knows enough to know she’s smarter than he’ll ever be, especially where things like this are concerned. They’re comfortable—between his classes and Heather’s work at the store, they don’t want for money—but “comfortable” isn’t the same as “wealthy,” and this prize of hers could make a world of difference.

Dodger nods so vigorously that it looks like her head is in danger of popping clean off. “Ten thousand dollars,” she says. Suddenly shy, she continues, “I was thinking maybe we could take a family trip to Cambridge.”

“Why Cambridge?” asks Heather.

“My pen pal lives there,” says Dodger. She’s still the best liar in her household: she sounds utterly sincere. “It could be fun to go and meet him.”

Heather and Peter exchange a look. Their nine-year-old daughter is talking about flying across the country to meet a boy, and somehow the only thing either of them can feel is relief. There’s someone in the world Dodger wants to meet. Someone who isn’t a famous mathematician or a children’s science host. Although . . .

“How old is your pen pal?” asks Peter. They try to keep a tight leash on her activities, but she’s slippery when she wants to be. She could easily have started writing to some retired mathematician outside of Harvard and be trying to trick her parents into taking her to meet him. Dodger is young enough that he doesn’t worry about people trying to take advantage of her in the ways young girls are taken advantage of—although he’s aware that she’s a beautiful child, and the day will come when he has to add another layer of paranoia to his daily fears—but that doesn’t mean he’s all right with her corresponding with adults who haven’t been approved.

“Nine,” she says. “Same as me.” She and Roger have the same birthday, even, like they have the same eyes. Mathematically, they were always meant to be friends, two halves of the same equation, designed to complement one another. She doesn’t say that part. There’s getting your own way and there’s getting in your own way. She’s better at the second than she is at the first, but she’s learning, oh, yes. She’s learning.

“If I can get one of my colleagues to look over your work, and if it qualifies for this prize, we can discuss it,” says Peter finally. “Assuming you won this prize, most of it would need to go toward your college fund.” Being his daughter, her tuition will be covered if she goes to Stanford. There are still other expenses to consider, books and papers and the like, and that assumes she’s going to live at home, skipping housing costs. Raising a smart child is expensive in ways he could never have considered when he was a young man hoping for a family of his own.

But it comes with its own rewards. Dodger lights up, smiling like a sunrise. “I can meet with one of the professors to talk about math? I can really?”

“If I can set it up,” says Peter. His mind is already racing, considering and rejecting names. He needs someone he can trust to take Dodger seriously, despite her age; someone who’ll look at her work for what it is and not let their preconceptions of what a nine-year-old girl is capable of color their reactions. He closes her notebook. “May I take this?”

Dodger wants to tell him no; wants to explain that she needs it to sleep at night. All she does is bite her lip and nod.

Peter smiles. “I’m impressed, baby girl, even if you don’t win this prize. Do you want to play a game of chess?”

“I’ll set up the board,” she says, and she’s out of her chair and already running for the pieces, running for a future filled with professors and prizes, where she’ll be able to finally meet Roger, and he’ll understand that they were always meant to be best friends, forever.

That night she goes to bed and falls asleep almost immediately. She never hears Roger trying to make contact. She’s already too far away.

ISOLATION

Timeline: 9:35 PST, February 11, 1995 (two days later).

It’s nine-thirty in the morning. Dodger is supposed to be in school, but her father got her out with a note and an apology, and here she is walking alongside him, falling into another world. She feels awkward and small in her starched cotton dress and pale pink sweater. This isn’t her: this isn’t how she dresses, or how she stands, or anything. She’s a creature of jeans and blouses with capped sleeves, sneakers and T-shirts and shredded knees. This is the sort of thing she wears when her grandparents come on Easter to take her to church, even down to the pinching patent leather shoes. It feels like a costume. It feels like she’s being put on display.

In a weird way, she’s grateful for the discomfort, because it blunts the force of her awe. Her father is leading her through the halls of Stanford, his hand grasping hers, and she’s been here before—she’s been visiting him at work since she was a baby—she knows these halls and this campus like it belongs to her, but she’s never been here for official business. She’s here to show her work to a real mathematician, which is even better than showing it to Batman. So, while she hates that she has to do it in a dress, hates that she can’t look like herself while she’s trying to prove she’s as good as she thinks she is, she’s also glad for the distraction. It’s keeping her hands from shaking quite so hard.

“Now remember what we talked about, Dodger,” says her father. “Answer any questions he asks, but only the questions he asks. Don’t start babbling about things he doesn’t care about.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“He may ask you to do some math on his blackboard. If he does, it’s all right for you to do it. He just wants to see that this isn’t a trick.”