by Jahn, Amalie
We haven’t played chess together since leaving Iowa, and I jump at the opportunity to test out a new opening move I’ve been exploring with one of the guys in my chess club. The match is barely underway before he mentions something about it.
“Knight’s pawn to G4? What’re you playing at, Tess?”
I shrug but can’t keep the smirk off my face. My fledgling chess club, which meets after school on Wednesdays in Mr. Wilson’s room, consists of five students. Five. A school of almost a thousand students and only five have consistently shown up during the month since its inception. Mr. Wilson was quick to point out that as a mid-year addition to the extracurriculars list, many people may not have heard about it or might already have full schedules on Wednesday afternoons. He’s also mentioned that the members we do have are some of the brightest in the school.
One of those members is Cameron Lewis, a squat, shy eleventh grader who’s reminded me no less than a dozen times of his 161 IQ. He’s not great in social situations or any time he’s forced to make small talk, maintain eye contact, or deal with unexpected changes. He has no difficulty, however, communicating through his chess pieces, and after our first afternoon together, he struck me as some sort of a savant.
For three solid weeks, Cameron and I have been working on a technique for winning a game where pawn to G4 is the opener. It’s called the Grob’s Attack and is considered in most chess circles to be an inferior if not masochistic move. Cameron’s convinced, however, the surprise value alone makes it worth using.
Dad plays exactly what I expect him to—pawn to D5. He’s nothing if not predictable.
I slide my bishop to G2.
“Have you lost your mind?” Dad says. “Maybe you should eat a banana. Your blood sugar must be low.”
“I’m good,” I say as I balance on the back two legs of the chair, my arms tucked against my chest.
Dad immediately slides his bishop across the board to G4, taking my pawn. Without hesitating, I move my pawn from C2 to C4, noting how Dad is playing the exact moves Cameron predicted an experienced opponent would make using our planned assault. Not surprisingly, Dad moves his pawn from C7 to C6, eyeing me with the contempt reserved for a prisoner of war. He has no idea what I’m doing, and it’s freaking him out.
“Maybe bringing you to Fayetteville wasn’t such a good idea after all,” he says, shaking his head as I move my queen across the board to B3. “Someone here is a terrible influence on you.”
“His name’s Cameron.”
Dad glances up from the board, eyebrows raised. “A boy?”
“He’s in my chess club.” I’m being purposely evasive, knowing Dad is both relieved and worried by my perpetual status as a single woman. Because he and mom were high school sweethearts, he values young love. But since I’m not like Ashley, who has boys calling every night, he’s concerned I might be on the fast track to spinsterhood.
He makes a quick decision to move his queen from D8 to C8, recognizing his other options would end catastrophically for him. With the board in my possession, he presses me for information.
“Do you like him, this Cameron?”
“He’s nice,” I say, fingering my pawn at C4.
“But do you like him?”
“Well,” I say, “he has a genius IQ, is obsessed with quantum physics, most specifically as it relates to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and won’t eat anything he knows for certain has touched the ground.”
He ponders this for a moment while I move my piece to D5, capturing his pawn.
“So, no squash?”
“Or strawberries.”
“Or dropped slices of pizza.”
“Yeah. No. He’s not a fan of the Five-Second Rule.”
Dad studies the board. “He’s a proponent of that opening move, though?”
I shrug.
“I’m guessing this guy isn’t a love connection.”
“He’s a really amazing guy, so he might be a good match for someone more into Jean Luke and the USS Enterprise,” I say. “For me personally, though, not so much.”
After considering his moves in complete silence for several minutes, Dad moves a pawn from E7 to E6.
“That’s your move?” I tease, confident enough in my imminent win to mock him.
He throws up his hands. “That’s all I’ve got,” he replies.
The game and the conversation go on like this for the next several minutes, with Dad trying desperately to figure out both my angle and my love life.
“I danced with this basketball player from FSU the other weekend at that after-party. His name’s Calvin Watkins.”
Thanks to Cameron’s technique, I’ve got him in check, and he’s struggling to work his way out. Still, I can’t stop myself from dangling this distracting bit of information in front of him, like a horse with a carrot.
His head pops up. “You mentioned his name before. He threw the party. Is he the same Calvin Watkins who’s the starting center from Fayetteville State?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You met him?” His voice sounds impressed.
“I danced with him,” I say.
“Hmm.” His eyes are back on the board. “I was just reading about him in the paper. They did a spotlight piece on him since his team’s going to the CIAA tournament this coming week. Seems like a great kid.”
“He was nice to me,” I say, the memory of how he went out of his way to include me now tarnished by the events of Monday morning.
Dad must sense the change in my demeanor. “But?”
I hadn’t planned on telling him about Calvin and the slut posters, but now I can’t lie my way out. I’ve never been great at keeping stuff from him.
“But nothing. It wasn’t a thing, Dad. He felt sorry for me because I was the awkward chick from Iowa who didn’t know her way around a party.” I hesitate then, not wanting to give him any reason to doubt his decision to bring us here, but my mouth keeps talking before my brain has a chance to shut it down. “And this girl from my chemistry class, Monika Moore, found out I danced with him and put up a bunch of signs around school making fun of me. Summer, Leonetta, Alice, and I skipped first period and took them all down. Thanks to them, the rumor was squashed pretty quickly.” I shrug and turn my attention back to the board, not wanting to see the pain I’m certain will be in his eyes.
He makes his final move, his only move, and resigns the game. Then he locks eyes with me across the table as if his life’s depending on it.
“You’re not the awkward chick, Tess. And did it ever occur to you maybe Calvin danced with you for the same reasons your new friends had your back at school? Because you’re the smart chick? The funny chick? The loyal chick?”
I hadn’t considered any of those options, but I had to give it to my dad for trying to make me feel better. He was nothing if not sincere.
“So, from now on, I don’t ever want to hear you putting yourself down again. You got it?”
What I want to say is I love you. What I say instead is, “Got it.”
*
The skies have broken by the time I pull into the parking lot at Sicily Drop Zone. It isn’t anything like I imagined. Although, with no frame of reference, I don’t know quite what I was expecting. The field is expansive, open and empty in every direction. Flanking the narrowest stretch are the same log pole pine forests which dominate all the natural space here in the sandhills of North Carolina. There are two sets of bleachers beyond the border of the parking lot where a handful of spectators has already staked their claims, and to the left, a food truck selling hot dogs and funnel cakes.
I slip my copy of Wuthering Heights under my arm and tuck my hair under a knitted ski cap, making sure to cover my ears, before crossing the gravel toward the bleachers. The seats are wet, speckled with raindrops from the morning’s deluge, and I’m contemplating wiping a section off with my sleeve when a harried-looking mother surrounded by four preschoolers tosses me a towel.
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” she says,
smiling. “I must be a glutton for punishment.”
I dry off a small section of bleacher with the towel and return it, thanking her for her kindness.
She turns to me as she’s wrangling one of her boys out of a mud puddle. “This your first jump? I only ask cuz you look kinda nervous, but you got nothin’ to worry about. It’s a cool thing to watch.”
“Yeah. First time,” I admit.
She motions toward the sky, where a shaft of sunlight is now peeking through the clouds. “Your boyfriend up there?”
I’m taken aback for a second, wondering why she would assume such a thing, then it dawns on me that this is Fayetteville, where lots of young women from town date Bragg soldiers.
Before her brood, was she one of those girls?
“Actually, I’m here to watch my dad,” I say. “I’ve never seen him jump before.”
“Well you’re in for a treat,” she says. “This is my husband’s first time as a jumpmaster. He graduated from school last week and was adamant about us being here to see it.” She rolls her eyes as she runs off to prevent her youngest child from chasing after someone’s Pomeranian. “If you ask me, he’s got it way easier than I do. It’s gotta be less painful jumping outta the plane than wrangling these maniacs.”
I smile after her and open my book with the intention of passing the time until the planes arrive, but I can’t concentrate on Heathcliff and Catherine. Their fictional lives seem far too removed from the real-life anxiety I’m experiencing.
Although I typically don’t mind being alone and wasn’t terribly upset by Mom’s decision to stay home with Ashley to help with her science fair project, I long for them now as I find myself the lone dilettante amongst a sea of confident, seasoned spectators. What I wouldn’t give for a single affirmation from them about Dad’s chances of survival.
“You’re being silly, Tess. Your dad’s perfectly safe,” Mom would say, were she beside me on the bench now.
Without them, however, I’m left stewing over the safety bulletin on Gruber Road which read ‘14 DAYS NO DIVISION FATALITY’ as I passed by on the way to the drop zone. I can’t help but wonder what took the life of the soldier two weeks before and pray whoever it was became the victim of a shark bite or a chocolate chip cookie overdose and didn’t lose their life as the result of a faulty parachute.
Oh, God, I pray. Let it have been anything but a faulty parachute.
My experiences with parachutes, although limited, have always been pleasant. For most of my life, I only associated them with the enormous rainbow-striped swatches of loud, crinkly fabric my elementary school teacher, Mr. Whalen, brought out on days he lacked the strength to referee another round of dodgeball. We would all hold onto a spot around the perimeter and squeal with delight as he tossed balls atop the parachute for us to shake off like popcorn, pumping our arms up and down until all the ‘kernels’ exploded onto the ground.
Scanning the western sky for signs of approaching C-130s, I recall my first field day as a kindergartener. It was special because our parents were invited to join us at the final station of the day: the parachute. Without the delay or embarrassment many of the other parents exhibited, Dad dashed to my side, as enthusiastic as the surrounding six-year-olds. I remember the way he grinned, towering above me like a giddy giraffe while we listened to Mr. Whalen’s instructions. As the whistle blew, we lifted our arms, raising the parachute into the air as high as we could until the whistle blew again and we all slipped under the fabric, trapped with the air beneath, creating a rainbow-colored dome above our heads. Crouching side-by-side underneath this dome, my dad whispered to me, “Of all the princesses in the Kingdom of Colors, you, fair maiden, are the loveliest,” and I had said, “I love you, too, Daddy.”
The memory of the parachute harnessing the air to bring simple joy to a group of kindergarteners is strangely reassuring. Because if it had the power to do that, certainly it would keep my dad aloft, carrying him safely to the ground.
“I hear them,” the oldest of the woman’s four boys calls out, pointing to the left with one hand while shielding his eyes with the other. “And I see them too. Here they come.”
I jump to my feet at the same time the boy begins chanting “Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy,” igniting my already frazzled nerves.
“Timmy, stop,” his mother snaps, throwing me an apologetic gaze. “He does this every time. He remembers the announcements from Airborne School. He must’ve heard the jumpmasters say it a million times that day. I’m so sorry.”
But Timmy continues his incantation.
“Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy.”
I try to ignore him, concentrating instead on the planes, which are now close enough for me to make out their propellers. I don’t know which plane Dad’s in and wonder briefly if I’ll be able to recognize him. As the initial stream of soldiers begins spilling out of the first plane, however, it becomes obvious there’ll be no way to tell one jumper from the next. Every one of them looks exactly the same.
“Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy.”
The only way to know for certain he’s safe is to watch them all. To try and follow every jumper from the gaping hole in the side of the plane to the ground. But there are dozens of them. Hundreds even. And they’re falling so quickly I have trouble figuring out where to look.
“Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy.”
The second plane is emptying out, each soldier an unwieldy figure hurling toward earth, laden down with a parachute pack on the back and enormous rucksack on the front. Parachutes stream out behind each of them before catching the air to inflate, giant olive umbrellas as numerous as the stars in the sky.
“Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy.”
By the time the final plane approaches the drop zone, every parachute has opened. Every soldier has reached the ground safely. Statistically, though, this means the chances of something bad happening now are increasing with each passing moment. The first jumper appears out of the plane and my breath catches.
Please be okay, I say to myself.
As each soldier materializes in the sky, I say it again.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
Please be okay.
“Check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy, check canopy.”
We are together, son and daughter, both of us praying in our own way for our fathers’ safe passage.
As the last jumper lands, the boy falls silent, and I let out a very deep breath.
chapter 19
Kings and Queens
Wednesday, March 6
Cameron and I are three sessions into a new game using the Barnes Opening, pawn to F3, which most chess aficionados consider to be the absolute worst starting maneuver. Not only does it prevent the development of the pawn itself or open any lines for other pieces, the move hinders the development of the White king’s knight by denying it its most natural square. Worse yet, it weakens White’s kingside pawn structure, opens the E1–H4 diagonal against White’s uncastled king, and opens the G1–A7 diagonal against White’s potential kingside castling position.
In short, the move is suicide, and there’s a reason no one ever uses it.
No one, that is, except Cameron.
He’s especially quiet sitting across the picnic table from me today, and as I’m waiting for him to take his turn, his silence reminds me a bit of Zander who was known to shush me if I tried to carry on a conversation while he was thinking through a complex sequence of moves. He would often complain he couldn’t concentrate with my ‘blathering,’ so chatting about useless drivel became one of my techniques to use against him in the event I became desperate enough to win.
As much as I like Cameron and have become accustomed to and even fond of his quirks, it’s Zander I’d rather be playing with on
this seasonably warm afternoon. With the blossoms budding on the redbud trees, it wasn’t hard to convince the entire chess team that our psyches and vitamin D levels could stand a move outside to the picnic tables for some sunshine.
A mother cardinal works diligently on her nest, gathering pine needles off the ground and delivering them to a narrow grouping of branches in the tree above. It makes me curious about my tree, my bur oak, and whether it, too, has begun to bud. I make a mental note to ask Zander about it the next time we talk, but inexplicably, the thought of our upcoming conversation hurts my heart. Our Sunday afternoon chats, undoubtedly the highlight of every week, are also the times I dread the most. They are the painful reminder of how far away we are, in both physical and emotional proximity.
*
The first time the two of us faced separation was during the summer before seventh grade. Along with a few other members of his 4-H program, Zander entered one of his father’s spring calves into the state fair two hours away in Des Moines. Unlike pies or crafts, those entering livestock are responsible for their animal’s care for the duration of the fair. With no one else to feed the calf or muck the stall, Zander was forced to stay.
And I couldn’t stand the thought of him leaving me behind.
“Why don’t you come with me?” he offered from the lowest branch of our tree as I bemoaned the utter tedium that would become my life once he headed to the fairgrounds the following week.
I turned my face from the waning sun, looking down at him from my perch above to check if he was serious. He was grinning, his eyes hopeful. Was he nervous about being at the fair alone?
“I can’t leave Dad,” I told him. “He needs my help.”
He scoffed. “Ashley can help for once. That girl hardly does anything.”
He was right. Ashley was rather lazy, not to mention so easily distracted from her chores it was less trouble to pick up her slack than nag her into submission. Her ineptitude was the whole reason Dad needed me around.
“I guess I could ask Mom and Dad,” I relented. “But don’t get your hopes up. There’s a good chance they’ll say no.”