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For a few seconds, Oz stares like he’s fantasizing about disemboweling me and using my large intestine to crochet himself a scarf. Then he sighs, rolls his eyes, and says, “Your phone is on mute at all times— no buzzer. Computer on mute, too. Use a silent mouse. If you see me thinking and you interrupt me, Iwillstuff my chess pieces into your nostrils. Yes, all of them. No pacing around while you’re thinking through games. No perfume, hot foods, or wrappers. No sniffling, sneezing, heavy breathing, humming, burping, flatulating, or fidgeting. No talking to me unless you’re having a stroke and need me to call 911.” A thoughtful pause. “Even then, if you can manage to alert me, you can probably dial on your own. Understood?”
I open my mouth to say yes. Then remember the no-talking rule and nod, slowly.
“Excellent.” He grimaces at me. Oh God, is thata smile? “Welcome to Zugzwang. We’ll get on great, I’m sure.”
“Oz is one of our resident GMs,” Defne whispers in my ear,like it explains his behavior. “Have a good first day!” Her handwave is a little too chipper, considering that she’s leaving me alone with someone who’ll flog me if I get the hiccups, but when I glance at Oz, he’s back to staring at his game. Phew?
I grab the many lists Defne has given me, retrieve books from the library, boot up the computer, sit in the nice ergonomic chair as quietly as possible (the semi- leather creaks, which I’m sure has Oz on the verge of freeing me from the mortal coil), find the chapter I need to memorize from the fifteenth edition ofModern Chess Openings, and then . . .
Well. I read.
It’s not a new book to me. Dad would recite passages about initial gambits and positional play in his soothing, low baritone, ignoring Darcy and Sabrina screaming in the background, Mom puttering around the kitchen and warning about dinner getting cold. But that was centuries ago. That Mallory didn’t know anything about anything, and she had nothing in common withtodayMallory. And anyway, do I really need tostudyall this stuff? Am I not supposed toreasonmy way through a game?
It seems like a ridiculous amount of work, and over the day it doesn’t get any better. At ten, I switch to reading Dvoretsky’sEndgame Manual. At eleven it’sThe Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. Interesting stuff, but justreadingabout it seems like studying a manual on how to knit without ever touching needles. Utterly pointless. Every once in a while, I remember that Oz exists and look up to find him immobile, reading the same stuff I am— except he doesn’t seem to be wondering about the meaning of it all. His hands are a visor on his forehead, and he looks so deep in concentration, I’m almost tempted to say, “Rooks, amirite?”
But he’s clearly not here to make friends. When I leave forlunch (PB&J; yes, Defne’s list of nearby eateries looks amazing; no, I don’t have the money to eat out), he’s at his desk. Just like when I return— same exact position. Should I poke him? Check whether rigor mortis has set in?
The afternoon is more of the same. Reading. Setting up chess engines on the computer. Taking occasional long breaks to rake the Zen garden my desk’s previous inhabitant left behind.
On the train back home, I think about Easton’sfake your wayadvice. It won’t be hard. I’m not going to fall in love with chess again— not if I’m not playing and just reading about distant, abstract scenarios.
“How did the new job go, honey?” Mom asks when I let myself into the house. It’s past six and the family’s having dinner.
“Great.” I steal a pea from Sabrina’s plate, and she tries to stab me with her fork.
“I don’t get why you needed to change jobs,” Darcy says sullenly. “Who would rather organize bocce tournaments for old people than tinker withcars?”
There is a specific reason I’m lying to my family about my new job, and that reason is:
I don’t know.
Obviously, chess is tied to painful memories of Dad. But I’m not sure that justifies making up an entire new workplace— a senior rec center in NYC I’ve been hired to manage because a former hookup recommended me. And yet, when I told Mom I’d left the garage, the lie just rolled off my tongue.
I figure it won’t make a difference. A job’s a job. And this one’s temporary, to be left at the door when I come home.
“Old people are nice,” I tell Darcy. Unlike Sabrina, who’scurrently ignoring me and texting thumb- sprainingly hard, she’s thrilled to let me steal her peas.
“Old people smell weird.”
“Defineold.”
“I dunno. Twenty- three?”
Mom and I exchange a glance. “Soon you’ll be old, too, Darcy,” she says.
“Yes, but I’ll be living with the monkeys like Jane Goodall. And I won’t be hiring young people to come to the park to help me feed the pigeons.” She perks up. “Did you see any cute squirrels?”
I slip out silently around nine, when the entire house is asleep. Hasan’s car is parked at the end of my driveway, the internal light soft on his handsome features. We’ve been doing this all summer, and when he leans in for a casual peck, as though we have a routine, as though this is a date, I think that maybe it’s good he’s leaving soon.
I don’t really have room for that. Not with everything else going on.
“How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Great. Taking some really cool courses this semester. I’m thinking of declaring my major— medical anthropology.” I listen and nod and laugh in the right places as he tells me about a professor who once saidprostitutedinstead ofprosecuted, but the second the car is parked, I hand him a condom, and then it’s hushed words, hurried movements, muscles clenching and releasing.
Easton, who’s surprisingly romantic and painfully monogamous, once asked:Do you feel close to them?
