The Girl He Used to Know(14)

“I don’t want to.”

“There must be a reason.”

“It would just be too much for me.”

“Because of your course load?”

“I can handle the academic load, but I volunteer twice a week in the Wildlife Medical Clinic and then there’s chess on Sunday night. That’s enough for me.” I required more downtime than most people. I needed to be able to read and sleep and be alone. “If you’re so into chess, why did you wait until your senior year to join the club?” I asked.

“This is my first year here. I transferred from Northwestern.”

“Oh.”

He stopped walking suddenly. “Thank you for being literally the only person I’ve told that to who didn’t immediately ask why.”

I stopped, too. “You’re welcome.”

He stared at me with a blank expression for a few seconds and then we started walking again.

“Why do you always smell like chlorine?”

“That’s the question you want me to answer?”

“Yes.”

“I swim almost every day. It’s what I do for exercise. I had my growth spurt later than everyone else, so I didn’t go out for football or basketball. If you don’t start early, you can never really catch up. I’m good at swimming though. I’m sorry if the smell bothers you. Seems like it never quite goes away, even after I shower.”

“I don’t mind it.”

We’d arrived at my apartment building by then, so I left Jonathan standing on the sidewalk and walked toward the door. Before I reached it he called out, “You should think about joining the competition team.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

But I wouldn’t.





11


Jonathan


CHICAGO

AUGUST 2001



I’m waiting outside the theater at noon when Annika walks out the door surrounded by children. She’s holding the hand of a little boy, and she crouches down to give him a hug before he runs into the waiting arms of his mother. The children scatter toward their respective parents, waving and calling out good-bye to Annika before they go. She waves in return, a smile lighting up her face. The smile grows bigger when she sees me, and I tell myself that accepting her invitation was the right thing to do. Like I told her on the phone, it’s just lunch. What I won’t tell her is that I’d been having an awful day when she’d left the last voice mail, and hearing her voice had taken the edge off of it. Annika’s the perfect antidote to any bad day.

She walks up to me. “Looks like you’ve got quite a fan club,” I say.

“I find children more enjoyable than most adults.”

Her statement does not surprise me. Children are born without hate, but unfortunately, some of them learn by an early age to wield it like a weapon, and no one knows that more than Annika. She has always had a childlike air about her, which probably makes her highly relatable to the kids. It’s also the reason adults are often unkind to her, because they mistakenly believe it points to a lack of intelligence or ability, neither of which is true.

“I picked up lunch,” I say, holding up the bag from Dominick’s. The grocery store has a great take-out counter, and since that’s where I ran into her, I figured it was as good a choice as any.

“But I invited you. I’m the one who’s supposed to pay.”

“You paid last time. It’s my turn.”

The humidity has dropped considerably in the last week and the air feels halfway bearable as we head toward Grant Park. Annika remains silent on the walk over.

“Is anything wrong? You’re kind of quiet,” I ask.

“I talked too much last time. I was nervous.”

“Don’t be. It’s just me.”

It seems all of Chicago has decided to come to the park today. We pick our way through the crowd and find an empty patch of grass to sit down and have our lunch. From the bag, I pull out sandwiches and chips. I hand Annika a bottle of lemonade and crack open a Coke for myself.

“You brought your board,” she says, pointing to the carrying case that had been slung over my arm and that now rests on the grass beside us.

“I thought maybe you’d be up for a match.” Mostly I thought it would put her at ease. Chess has always been one of the ways we communicate best.

“I’d like that. I’m rusty, though. You’ll probably win.”

“I’ll probably win because I’m better than you.” It takes her a second to comprehend that I’m teasing and she smiles.

She’s beautiful when she smiles.

Around us, people play Frisbee on the grass, many of them bare foot. A bee buzzes around Annika’s lemonade, and I swat it away. When we’re done eating I open the board and we set up.

Almost everything about Annika seems delicate. Her hands are so much smaller than mine, and when I first met her I spent enough time studying them as she contemplated her next chess move that I couldn’t help but wonder what they might feel like if I held one. But when she plays chess there is an absolute ruthlessness about her. She could barely look at me the first time I walked her home, but she has always stared at the pieces on a chessboard with laser focus, and today is no different. It’s a good game. She is rusty, but she plays hard, and I concentrate, because I’ve never forgotten the first time we played, when she wiped the floor with me.