The Girl He Used to Know(3)
“I thought he was in New York?”
“He was. He transferred here to take care of his mom before she died. That’s all I really know.” Jonathan’s appearance had been so unexpected, so random, that I hadn’t been capable of articulating many questions. It had occurred to me belatedly that I had no idea if he was married. Glancing down at a man’s ring finger is the kind of subterfuge that occurs to me later—and in the case of Jonathan, two full days after the fact.
“What do you suppose was going through Jonathan’s mind when he saw you in that grocery store?”
Tina knows how difficult it is for me to understand what others are thinking, so her question does not surprise me. In the ten years since I’ve seen Jonathan, I’ve replayed the final weeks of our relationship, and the last message he left on my answering machine, over and over in my mind. Tina had helped me see these events through Jonathan’s eyes, and what I’d realized made me feel ashamed. “He didn’t seem hurt or angry,” I say, which doesn’t really answer her question. Tina knows everything there is to know about the situation, and she could probably tell me what Jonathan was thinking. She just wants to hear my take on it. One of the things I like most about our sessions is that I’m the one who determines what I’m comfortable discussing, so Tina won’t push. Not too much, anyway.
“How did he seem?”
“Neutral, I guess? He smiled when I told him about the library. He started to walk away, but I asked him if he wanted to get together, and he gave me his number.”
“You’ve made real progress, Annika. You should be proud.”
“He probably thinks I won’t call.”
“Will you?”
Though it fills me with anxiety to envision the road I’m about to travel, I answer firmly. “Yes.”
I study Tina’s face, and though I can’t be certain, I think she might be pleased.
3
Annika
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
1991
In college, if you wanted to find me, you’d need only to look in three places: the Wildlife Medical Clinic, the library, or the student union, where my chess club meetings took place.
With the amount of time I spent volunteering in the clinic, one might think I aspired to a career in veterinary medicine. Animals were one of the few things that brought me extreme happiness, especially those in need of my attention. The other volunteers might have assumed the animals provided a respite from the loneliness and isolation that surrounded me during my college years, but few would understand that I simply preferred the company of animals over most humans. The soulful look in their eyes as they learned to trust me sustained me more than any social situation ever would.
If there was one thing I loved almost as much as animals, it was books. Reading transported me to exotic locales, fascinating periods in history, and worlds that were vastly different from my own. My mother, frantic with worry one afternoon when I was eight, found me outside in our tree house on a snowy December day engrossed in my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book, the one where Pa got caught in the blizzard and ate the Christmas candy he was bringing home for Laura and Mary. She’d been searching for me for half an hour and had called my name for so long she’d lost her voice. Though I explained it to her repeatedly, she couldn’t seem to grasp that I was simply playing the part of Laura waiting in the cabin. Sitting in the cold tree house made perfect sense to me. When I’d discovered I could pursue a career that would allow me to spend my days in a library, surrounded by books, the joy I’d felt had been profound.
Until my dad taught me to play chess at age seven, there wasn’t a single thing I was good at. I did not excel at sports, and I was all over the board academically, earning either the very highest or the very lowest marks, depending on the class and how much it interested me. Debilitating shyness prevented me from participating in school plays or other extracurricular activities. But much like books, chess filled a void in my life that nothing else had been able to satisfy. Though it took me a long time to figure it out, I know that my brain does not work like other people’s. I think in black-and-white. Concrete, not abstract. The game of chess, with its strategies and rules, matched my worldview. Animals and books sustained me, but chess gave me the opportunity to be a part of something.
When I played the game, I almost fit in.
* * *
The Illini Chess Club met in the food court area of the student union on Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. The number of attendees varied widely. At the beginning of the semester, when members weren’t yet bogged down by their course loads or busy studying for exams, there might be thirty students. By the time finals drew near, our numbers would plummet and we would be lucky to have ten. The Sunday chess club meetings were casual, consisting mostly of free play and socializing. The chess team meetings—for members who wanted to participate in competitive play—were held on Wednesday evenings and focused on competitive training games, the solving of chess puzzles, and analyzing famous chess matches. Though I possessed the necessary skills and would have preferred the more formal structure of the chess team meetings, I had no desire to compete.
Jonathan joined us on a Sunday evening early in my senior year. While the rest of the club mingled and talked, I fidgeted in my customary spot, board set up, ready for play. I’d kicked off my shoes as soon as I sat down, pressing the soles of my bare feet down on the cool smooth floor because it felt so good to me in a way I could never explain to anyone no matter how hard I tried. I watched as Jonathan approached Eric, our club president, who smiled and shook his hand. A few minutes later, Eric called the meeting to attention, raising his voice to be heard above the din.