Perpetual Check (9 page)

“I guess I need to pay more attention.”

“Yeah,” Zeke says. “Start acting like a
man.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“He's right about that one.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

The door opens and Jenna walks in, carrying her briefcase.

“Well, well,” she says, smiling broadly and stopping next to the booth. “Didn't think I'd find you two together.”

“Why not?” Zeke says.

“Big showdown this afternoon.”

“We gotta eat,” Randy says. “No way we were eating with Pramod.”

“Right. Shove over.”

Randy slides toward the wall, and Jenna sits across from Zeke. “Pramod will have his hands full with Serena,” she says. “She's the real thing.”

“You've played her?” Zeke asks.

“I
taught
her. They had this clinic at the library last summer. Three afternoons. Serena comes in dressed like a”—Jenna turns her head and looks across the aisle, where the homeless guy has finished the McNuggets and has returned his blank stare to the window; she lowers her voice—”like a street person. But she turns out to be brilliant. And her family's regular; she just has this freakish attitude. Anyway, she's a prodigy. She just has no idea that she is. This is her first tournament ever, and she might just win it.”

Zeke is staring openmouthed at Jenna. Randy lifts his foot and nudges Zeke's shin. Zeke sits up a bit straighter and closes his mouth.

“You think she'll beat Pramod?” Randy asks.

“She might.” Jenna steps out of the booth and raps her fingers on the table. “Then one of you would have to take her on.”

“Either way,” Zeke says. “It doesn't matter who we play.”

“Yeah,” she says, “but which one of you will it be?”

Randy and Zeke stare at each other for a second. Randy points to his eye again. “Whichever one is tougher, I guess.”

Jenna nods toward the counter. “Time to indulge,” she says. “I only eat french fries after I lose.”

“Been a while, huh?” Randy asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “but a couple of times a year won't kill me.”

Zeke turns and watches her go. When he turns back, Randy says, “Nice, huh?”

Zeke blushes a bit. “She's okay.” He balls up his hamburger wrapper and sets it down on the tray. “You want anything else?”

“I'd drink a milk shake.”

“Vanilla?”

“Yeah. Why? You getting it?”

“Sure,” Zeke says, staring at Jenna. He gets up and stands next to her on line.

That's the only reason Randy can figure why Zeke would offer to get him anything.

It occurs to Randy for the first time that he might actually win this tournament. The odds are strong that he'll beat Zeke as usual, and who knows what would happen in the final? He'd
like nothing more than to silence Pramod. And if Serena knocks Pramod out first, then Randy would have to be considered the favorite. Even against a prodigy.

But Zeke won't be beaten easily. There's too much at stake for him not to play his best game. He'll be focused and intense, and he'll do his best to intimidate Randy. And Zeke is one of the few people who can actually pull it off. He gets that from all those sports that he plays. Randy envies that a little. He dropped out of sports early.

There
was
that last season of organized basketball back in sixth grade. It wasn't the school team but another recreational program at the Y. Still, the competition was intense, and most of the better players who
were
on the school team played in this league, too.

So when Randy's dad assigned him to cover Peter Adams in the fourth game—five-ten, 168-pound Peter Adams— Randy could see the beginning of the end. By the first timeout, Peter had six points and three rebounds, and Mr. Mansfield clapped his fists over Randy's ears and said, “Box him
out!
Be a man and get in his face!”

The opposing coach had the decency to switch to a zone and played Peter for only half the game, but his team still won by twenty points.

Fortunately for Randy, there were only four games left. He low-keyed it in the two games he played and was too “sick” with a cold to participate in the other two. His father was totally disgusted with him about it.

Zeke and Jenna come back with supersize containers of fries and set them on the tray. “Have some,” Jenna says, sitting next to Randy again.

“Brain food?”

“Solace,” she says. “Some comfort after that butt kicking your brother gave me.”

Randy takes two fries and asks, “Where's my shake?”

Zeke looks at Jenna. “Damn.”

“I'll go,” Randy says. “Gimme some money.”

Zeke hands him a five, and Jenna slides out of the booth to let Randy by.

The counter is busy, and only one register is open. The girl is frantically bagging orders. “We need fries!” she yells to someone in the back.

When Randy orders, she says, “The shake machine isn't working too well. The chocolate's okay, but the vanilla is kind of syrupy … and gray.”

“Chocolate will be fine.”

Jenna is laughing when Randy returns. Could Zeke have actually said something witty? Most of the fries are gone, too.

“Maybe I'll Kmartulate this summer after all,” Randy says.

“It's hard as hell pushing those carts around,” Zeke says. “Especially in July when it's ninety.”

“Yeah, well, I figure maybe it'd be good for me.”

Zeke turns to Jenna. “Suddenly he's got ambition.”

“No,” Randy says. “Suddenly I'd rather do anything than work at a McDonald's.”

“Where do
you
work?” Zeke asks Jenna.

“I tutor. Last summer I waitressed, but this year we're going to Spain.”

“We?”

“My parents. It's a graduation present.”

“Oh,” Zeke says. “I'll be lucky if I get a card.”

Jenna takes a Wet-Nap from her pocket and wipes the grease and salt off her fingers. “You guys must play each other every day, huh?”

Randy wipes his fingers on his pants. “No. Just once in a while.”

“So who's gonna win today?”

“How would we know?” Randy says.

“That's why they play the games,” Zeke says. “To find out.”

“Who
usually
wins?”

Zeke shoots a cold look at his brother. “Depends,” he says. “If I give a shit and pay attention, I win.”

Randy rolls his eyes slightly but says nothing. There's some truth in that, and he knows it. Zeke probably cares enough only about 5 percent of the time, but this afternoon will certainly be one of those games.

EIGHT
Two Nights’ Sleep

With another half hour to kill before the semifinals, Randy starts toward the hotel elevator. Zeke is actually carrying on a conversation with Jenna in the lobby, and the boys’ father has not reappeared.

Randy sees his mother—a heavyset woman with striking eyebrows and bronze-tinted hair—rapidly approaching the hotel's main entrance. Trailing behind her is Randy's girlfriend, Dina, walking somewhat awkwardly due to her platform heels. He feels a bit of warmth spreading across his cheeks—these two people actually get his sense of humor; they actually
have
senses of humor. And they're kind to him, in direct contrast to the men in his life.

He gives a wave, slicing the air sideways with his hand. “Hey, Mom.”

“Are you still playing?” she asks, somewhat teasingly. “Or did we drive over here for nothing?”

“Not nothing. We're both still in it.” He steps over to Dina and kisses her. “How you doing?” he asks her.

“My mom … didn't really know why I was coming over here,” she says somewhat slowly. “She's like, ‘How do you watch chess?’ And I'm trying to explain to her that I'm not really watching
chess
so much as watching how you're
doing
at chess?”

Randy pats her head and she giggles. “Well put,” he says.

Dina's mother was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York City. Her father is an auto mechanic, and he's lived his entire life in Sturbridge. They met in Shorty's Bar on Main Street and never married, but they've lived together for fifteen years.

“I said it's so very much more interesting when your boyfriend is playing than when
other
people play,” Dina says.

“So very much more interesting,” Randy repeats. “That's like two adverbs and three adjectives.”

“So?” She blushes with a shy smile. “I'm very descriptive. I brought my camera.”

“To record this for posterity?”

“And for the school paper. My English teacher wants me to write for it.”

“About this tournament?”

“Mostly about the new computers in the library.”

“I guess that would be so very much more interesting than chess.”

“But a picture of you playing
would
be interesting.”

“Especially since I'm playing against Zeke.”

“Against Zeke?” Mrs. Mansfield says. “They're making you play against each
other?”

“There's only four of us left. Sooner or later we had to face each other if we kept winning.”

“That'll go over big with your father,” Mrs. Mansfield says with a dose of sarcasm. “He won't have an opponent to hate.”

“You never know,” Randy says. “He might end up despising both of us.”

“How does Zeke feel about this?”

“Same as he feels about everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“That his great superiority will shine through and he'll clobber me.”

Dina grabs Randy's arm lightly. “He says I have good ideas but I don't present them coherently.”

“Zeke does?”

“No! Mr. Chandless.” Her English teacher. “He says writing for the newspaper will help me to straighten out my thoughts.”

“That could be dangerous.”

“You think?”

“Who is Zeke talking to?” Mrs. Mansfield asks, looking across the lobby.

“She was supposed to win the tournament.”

“She's very pretty.”

“He beat her this morning.”

Mrs. Mansfield lifts her painted eyebrows. “I should go over and say hello.”

Randy considers this, then says, “How about seeing my room first?” He knows that Zeke is possibly on the verge of his second breakthrough of the day, and something within Randy wants to cut his brother a break and steer his mother away. “It'll just take a minute.”

“All right,” she says, and she follows Randy toward the elevator. Dina follows Mrs. Mansfield.

“It's on the third floor,” Randy says.

“This place is
nice,”
Dina says, running her hand along the bright steel wall of the elevator.

“Never been in an elevator before?” Randy asks with a grin.

“I mean the
hotel.
It's a lot nicer than the rest of the neighborhood.”

“They've entirely de-Scrantonized it.”

“Is that good?”

“I don't know. We passed a bunch of beautiful old buildings when we walked to McDonald's. A lot of the storefronts are empty, though.”

“They're supposedly very high-tech,” Dina says as the elevator stops at the third floor.

“The storefronts?”

“The computers.”

“What computers?”

“At
school.
The ones I'm writing about for the paper.”

“Oh yeah.” Randy laughs. “Those.”

“I already took a picture of one of them. Except Bobby Colaneri was sitting at it, and I think he was giving the finger.”