by Rich Wallace
“Easy to say.”
Malone exits the room, followed a few seconds later by Jenna McNulty. Both are smiling.
“Let's go in,” Mr. Mansfield says. “See what your brother is up to.”
Zeke is frowning deeply—nearly a scowl—and is staring at his black king, which is the only piece he has left. Derek Pham has just a queen to go with his king, but he's forcing Zeke toward the corner of the board and his victory seems inevitable.
An Asian couple is standing as close to the table as they're permitted, about twenty feet away, and beaming with pride. Pham himself is showing no emotion, but he quickly moves his queen and sits back.
Zeke lets out a snorty laugh, gives Pham a hard look, and says, “Stalemate.” He stands up and takes a few steps away while Pham stares openmouthed at the board. Zeke is not in check, but he has no legal moves that would not put him in check. So the game is a draw.
Zeke makes a big show of sitting back down and sweeping the white pieces over to his side. “Need a break?” he asks somewhat pointedly.
Pham shakes his head and sets up the black pieces. And they start over.
Zeke moves rapidly now, keeping a sharp gaze on Pham between moves. Pham is clearly flustered from his stumble in the previous game, and Zeke takes control of the center of the board. He wins easily, smacks his right fist loudly into his left palm, and reaches across to shake Pham's hand.
Zeke's is the last game to finish, and the remaining players are milling around in the lobby, waiting to begin the quarterfinals. He's permitted a twenty-minute break, even if the other games begin on time.
The new matchups are quickly posted:
McNulty vs. Z. Mansfield
Ahada vs. R. Mansfield
Eskederian vs. Vega
Malone vs. Leung
Pham looks totally dejected, and Mr. Mansfield goes over to talk to him and his parents. Randy walks over to Zeke.
“I gotta get a drink,” Zeke says. So they go out to the lobby and put a handful of quarters into the machine. Randy gets a Sprite.
“I clobbered him,” Zeke says, taking a swig of Coke.
“You nailed him pretty good. My guy was weak. No idea how he got this far.”
“People get intimidated. Pressure, you know.”
“Speaking of. You get Jenna next.”
Zeke shrugs. “I'm up for it.”
“You ever watch her play?”
“You mean, study her game?”
“Yeah.”
“Nope.”
Randy looks around, then leans in a little. “You can beat her, believe me. Let her have her first three or four moves; you'll see what's coming.”
“How do you know?”
“She was right next to me this morning. Burke was so weak I had a chance to watch some of her game.”
“Oh.”
“Just play your game, but be very aware of what she does.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Just be aware.”
Zeke turns away, scratching his jaw. “Like I need your help.”
Pramod walks over with his too-confident smile. He stands next to Zeke and says, “Pulled one out of your ass, huh?”
“He got lucky in the first game,” Zeke says, taking a half step back. Pramod always stands too close. “I showed him who's boss in the second.”
“Pham sucks anyway. I beat him in about two minutes a couple of weeks ago.”
“Big deal.”
Pramod studies the fingernails of his right hand. “You get the princess next.”
“Who?” Zeke asks. Don't let this jerk get to you again.
“You know who.”
“I ain't worried.” Zeke closes one eye, holds his Coke can up to his face, and looks into it with his open eye.
“See if you can at least make her sweat a little. Drain her concentration so she won't be too pumped when I play her in the final.”
Randy butts in. “You scared of her or something?”
Pramod lets out a dismissive sound, blowing his breath out through his teeth. “Not a chance.”
“She has to get past me first,” Zeke says.
“Right,” says Pramod. “I'm sure she's insanely worried.”
Randy locks his eyes on Pramod's and juts his head toward the conference room. “Why don't you go find yourself some more ‘ladies’?”
“In there?”
“Anywhere.”
“You think I can't?”
Randy laughs. “You're such a bullshitter. Two hundred bucks, huh?”
Pramod glares at Zeke. “Something like that,” he says.
“Anyway,” Randy says, “this is a private conversation.” He raises his hand and wiggles his fingers. “Bye-bye, Pramod.”
“Screw you.” But he walks away.
“What a putz,” Randy says.
Zeke is embarrassed. He should have been the one to tell Pramod to screw off, not his little brother. “He's totally full of himself,” he says.
“As if we aren't?”
“Not like that guy,” Zeke says.
“As I was saying, you can beat her.”
“Like I was saying, I don't need your help.” Zeke looks up at the clock and says, “I'm going upstairs for a minute.” He walks toward the elevator.
Randy plunks himself onto the leather couch and looks at a spiky plant in a pot. Zeke has always been like that, resistant to any outreach from his brother. On the scale in Randy's head, guys like Pramod are near the upper echelon of jerks, with Zeke a notch or two below but well up there nonetheless. A guy like Buddy Malone—smart and talented and successful—somehow manages to hardly be a jerk at all, at least to Randy.
The leather cushions hiss as Mr. Mansfield sits down. “Concentrating on your next match?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
The truth is, Randy hasn't even thought about it. Lucy Ahada is small and quiet, but she seemed very nice when she beat him a few weeks ago. As usual, he'll see how the match develops rather than going in with a definitive strategy.
“Remember,” his father says, “you start out with an advantage.”
“How so?”
Mr. Mansfield lowers his voice. “You're a man.”
“Oh yeah.” Randy says it slowly, with mock surprise in his voice. “I'm very bemasculant. I forgot.”
“Don't ever forget that.”
“Right. I suppose that'll help Zeke a lot against Jenna.”
“Listen, Jenna hasn't won anything that matters, okay? Dual matches and some half-assed tournaments. This one is big. Your brother is game-tested. On the field. We'll see how the chess queen holds up against that kind of pressure.”
“This isn't soccer.”
Mr. Mansfield leans forward and pokes a thumb into Randy's arm. “You don't get it, do you? I don't care if it's chess or soccer or business negotiations. When you've taken a few hits”—he jabs the thumb harder—”been under the boards with an elbow in your chest or it's fourth-and-goal and your mouth is bleeding, that's when you learn about toughness. That's when you find out if you've got what it takes to kick anybody's rear end. Whatever the situation. You hear me?”
Randy shuts his eyes, opens them in a hurry, and nods. “Loud and clear,” he says, rubbing his arm where his father jabbed it.
“Yeah, you have to be smart,” Mr. Mansfield says. “Yeah, you have to know chess. You have to be constantly aware.” He makes a circle with his thumb and first finger and pushes it hard into the air. “But everything else being equal, it's the one who makes the other one crack that'll win. The one who gets in his opponent's head and stays there.”
FIVE
Unslept-in
Zeke brushes his teeth for the third time this morning and stares at himself in the mirror. He's got two opponents in his head; how good can that be? Jenna has coolly disposed of her first three opponents and hasn't lost to anyone younger than forty for at least six months. And Pramod—hell, Zeke would have to win twice more just to face Pramod—he's got Zeke rattled as w
ell.
They both think they're such hot shit.
And Zeke lets Pramod do that to him, insult him to his face and get away with it.
Frickin’ Randy stands up and tells Pramod to get lost; how bullshit is that? Because Randy's such a dweeb he doesn't even know what's going on. Thinks he can chat up Jenna McNulty. Like she wasn't laughing at him in her head? Like Pramod wasn't thinking what an annoying little piece of shit Randy is?
He spits out the toothpaste and cups some water into his mouth.
Randy's trying to give me advice about how to beat Jenna? Might as well try to give me advice about sports or girlfriends. Like I'd listen. Like he could tell me anything I don't already know.
Zeke scowls into the mirror, then wipes his face with a towel. He hangs the towel over the shower-curtain rod, then leaves the bathroom. He pulls the bedspread down on his unslept-in bed, pulls off the sandals, and climbs under the sheets. He kicks his legs around, pushes both pillows to one side, and gets out, leaving the sheets and the blankets in a heap.
He puts the sandals back on—Randy's stupid sandals—and lies back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
There was a girl back in ninth grade. Luanne. A bunch of them played basketball one night that May, on the outside court off Church Street. Mostly guys. They were hanging around after, drinking Gatorade, and she said, “Let's go over to the park.” Zeke was supposed to be home already, but she talked him into it. They made out for about six minutes on a bench. She moved away that summer, but it counted.
He sits up quickly and looks at the clock. Shit. Late.
He bolts out the door and runs down the stairs, leaving his room key on the dresser again. The other three matches are under way when he enters the conference room, and everyone looks up at him.
The Regional Director clears his throat and motions Zeke over. “Everything all right?” he whispers.
“Yeah. Had a stomachache.”
“Feeling better now?”
“Yeah. I'm fine.”
They've reconfigured the tables. All four games are well within sight of the spectators now. Jenna has her side of the board set up and is sitting with her legs crossed.
Zeke glances at the three games in progress. Buddy Malone has his hands against the table, leaning back and balancing his chair on its two back legs. It appears to be his move, the way he's fixated on the board. His opponent, Serena Leung, has a confident smile, as if she's just made a significant move. She's dressed in black jeans and a black polo shirt, with untied white sneakers and splayed-out feet. Her short hair is gelled, and there's a small silver cross on a chain around her neck. All day long she's been applying ChapStick between moves.
Pramod seems to be making short work of Silvio Vega, managing to look both bored and amused as he waits for Vega to move.
Randy and Ahada are deep in concentration, both looking exceptionally young and out of place among the other quarter-finalists.
The Regional Director looks at his watch and whispers to Zeke, “You can have four more minutes if you need.”
Zeke nods. “I'll be right back,” he says.
He heads straight for the bathroom. He really does have a stomachache now. Nerves and breakfast sausage.
Zeke asked a girl to the junior prom last spring. Waited too long, though. It seemed like a sure thing back in February, when they spent a lot of time joking around and talking about sports in study hall. He figured he could put off asking her until March. By mid-April he finally got up the courage, even though they hadn't really said much to each other in weeks. She was sweet about it, but she'd already accepted another offer.
Zeke finally takes his seat across from Jenna. Pramod's game seems to be nearing completion, but the other two matches look like they could go either way.
Jenna smiles and offers her hand. “Good luck,” she says.
“You, too.” Zeke does not smile back. He sets up the black pieces and chews on the side of his lip. He's been waiting to hear from the state colleges at Kutztown and Bloomsburg. Jenna's been offered a full ride to Princeton. The odds of him beating her are minuscule.
He turns his head toward his father and gets a thumbs-up in return.
All those practice serves, Zeke's thinking, all those push-ups and wind sprints. They're not a lot of help right now. Worth about as much as a misshapen M&M. “You have any idea how rare that is?” someone once asked him. “Very rare.”
But sometimes very rare things happen.
SIX
Nobody Dances Well
Randy keeps track of his brother's game as best he can, ascertaining that Jenna's using the same opening as before. He tries to catch Zeke's eye to make sure he's caught on, but Zeke wouldn't acknowledge Randy for a million dollars. So Randy shifts his focus back to his own match, which he senses is moving in the right direction for him.
Lucy Ahada reminds him a lot of his girlfriend, Dina— slight build, airy demeanor, ambiguous ethnic background— so he automatically feels a sense of affection for her. She studies the board for several seconds before every move but never hesitates once she's decided what to do. She catches Randy's eye, then looks at the board again until he's responded. She always gives a slight, polite smile after Randy's move but never betrays concern or pleasure.
She hasn't altered her strategy much from the narrow defeat she handed Randy in last month's dual match. So while she pays perhaps too much attention to bringing out her knights, Randy puts two pawns in position to limit the knights’ effectiveness in the center of the board.
Dina went through the Catholic grade school, so Randy hadn't known her until they started high school and he sat behind her in American history. She was always turning around and rolling her eyes when the obnoxious teacher said something particularly annoying, and she seemed to enjoy Randy's made-up words. And Randy sometimes did childish things like fastening paper clips to Dina's collar or flicking tiny wads of paper onto her desk. He heard through another girl in the class that Dina wanted him to ask her out. But he was very passive about things like that. Scared, in fact.
So Dina waited until mid-October, then turned around one afternoon and said, “There's a dance after the home coming football game on Friday.”
“So?”
“You planning to go?”
“No.”
“Well, make plans.” She gave him a very sweet smile. “How about if we go together?”
“I don't dance very well.”
“Nobody does.”
So Randy warmed up to the idea and got his mom to do the driving. She liked Dina right away, especially since she's a straight-A student and babysits for three different families. Mrs. Mansfield said she had spirit and fortitude, and that it'd be great if some of that could rub off on Randy.
Lucy's mouth is slightly open, and she's making circles on her chin with a finger. The way Randy's just positioned his queen has left her with a difficult choice—retreat with her knight and surrender a bishop, or save the bishop and lose the knight. She reluctantly moves the bishop, which Randy was hoping she would do. He takes the knight. Within three moves, he has the bishop, too.
He takes another quick look at his brother's table and wonders if he's detecting some concern on Jenna McNulty's face. Zeke's expression is slightly smug, and Randy hopes he's smart enough not to get overconfident and blow it.
The way Randy sees it, Zeke is probably as smart as he is but manages to get blinded by ambition too often. And his arrogance never helps. When Randy takes a hard look at himself, he realizes that a certain degree of Zeke's conceit might not be a bad addition to his own repertoire. But the volume of ego that Zeke possesses—and their father, too—generally leads to a downfall.
Randy has figured out that he usually beats Zeke because Zeke is too stubborn to give each move the consideration it deserves. Zeke still tells himself—despite having beaten Randy only six times in their most recent one hundred matches (twenty-nine draws)—that defeating his brother simply shouldn't take a 100 percent
effort. That Zeke is superior enough that his normal game will suffice.
Randy has his hands folded now and is looking kindly across the board at Lucy. She has two pawns and her king remaining, and Randy has her in check. She can get out of it this time, but on Randy's next move, one of his pawns will reach the end of the board and be promoted to queen. Lucy will be in checkmate.
She frowns, then looks up with a gracious smile. She tips her king onto its side in concession, lets out a sigh, and reaches her hand across the board.
Randy shakes her hand and they stand. He gives her a half hug with his arm around her shoulder and nods to the Regional Director.
Randy looks around and sees that neither of the other two games seems to be near completion. (Pramod has already won his.) He carefully turns the knob on the conference room door, and they step into the hallway.
“Great game,” he says to Lucy.
“You throttled me.”
The door reopens noisily, and Randy's father steps out. “You're on your way!” he says to Randy.
Randy shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Listen to him,” Mr. Mansfield says, turning to Lucy. “He's the man and he won't even admit it. The kid's going to win this thing.”
Lucy gives him a tight smile. “He played very well.”
“You said it.” He points his thumb back toward the conference room. “Now we'll see how the other one measures up.”
“He's playing Jenna?”
“Yep. I don't see why they don't have two different divisions. Men and ladies. Seems that'd be a lot fairer for you girls.”
Lucy shifts her eyes just slightly and catches Randy's. “I think we're holding our own,” she says.
“Sure. You gals are terrific. Best of luck to you.” And he goes back into the room.
Randy puffs out his cheeks, and his eyes get wider. His dad always manages to stun him. “He's … excited,” he says.
“He should be. You guys are doing great.”
“Yeah. You gonna stick around?”
“Might as well. I'd love to see Pramod get his butt kicked in the semis.”
“Wouldn't we all?”
The Malone match seems closest to a conclusion, so Randy keeps his eyes mostly on that one. Serena Leung has only her king and a rook, but Buddy is definitely in trouble. He still has a bishop and two pawns, but the bishop is in a useless position given how his king is trapped by Leung's pieces.