The Girl He Used to Know (Page 10)

“It’s okay if you do,” Janice said.

“I don’t.”

“Just don’t jump in with both feet this time. Until we know for sure.”

I turned to her, exasperated. “But how will we know?”

“Sometimes we won’t. But if a guy reminds you to carry a jacket because he doesn’t want you to get cold, it’s a pretty good indicator he won’t try to hurt you. That doesn’t guarantee that he won’t, and you still have to be careful, but it’s a good start.”

“I don’t want to be wrong again,” I said, because I had been, once, midway through our sophomore year. A guy named Jake, who I’d met in one of my lectures, had taken a liking to me, and to say I reciprocated with vigor would have been an embarrassing understatement. What started as silly doodling on each other’s notebooks while the professor droned on soon morphed into walking to our next class together, me wearing the biggest smile that had ever shown itself on my face, and Jake with his arm casually thrown over my shoulder or resting on my ass. Having a boyfriend was as great as I’d always thought it would be, and it was easy! For over a week, I rarely left Jake’s side. I sought him out in the student union and the dining hall, and took my rightful place at his table the way any girlfriend would. I did his laundry and helped him with his homework because that’s what you do when you’re in love with someone and they’re in love with you. And he was very busy, so I was grateful he could spend time with me at all. Whenever we ran into his friends, which seemed to be all the time because he was apparently very popular on campus, he would point at me and say, “Have you met Annika? She sure is something.” Then they would all laugh and my smile would grow even wider because it felt so good to fit in.

And then, a short while later when things turned bad, my roommate was there once again to pick up my pieces and put me back together.

Janice laid a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think you’re wrong this time. I think Jonathan genuinely likes you. He seems like a good guy. Let yourself have this. Don’t let one bad experience take the happiness in meeting a great guy away forever. If you’re not quite ready to admit it to me, at least admit it to yourself.”

“Do you really think he likes me?”

“It sure seems like he does. Does he flirt with you?”

Jonathan hadn’t done any of the things Jake had done, like drawing on my notebook or putting his arm around me. “I’m not sure. He does smile at me a lot.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“I’ll have to pay closer attention.”

I thought about Jonathan later that night when I was lying in bed, and I tried not to mentally catalogue all the things that could go wrong. Instead, I thought of how he almost always chose to play with me at chess club. I liked that he always walked me home. I liked that he cared whether or not I was cold.

I liked all of those things.

I liked them a lot.

13

Annika

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

1991

The sun had barely risen when Jonathan and I left campus for the drive to St. Louis. My empty stomach churned. I was so nervous, I hadn’t been able to fathom the thought of breakfast and I worried I might dry-heave in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s truck.

“I’m sorry there’s no music,” Jonathan said. “The radio has never worked.”

“I like the quiet,” I said. Being trapped in a car where loud music was playing was one of the things that could send me into a tailspin. I couldn’t handle the overstimulation and would need hours of silence to counteract the noise. Jonathan’s truck looked old and it rattled softly as we drove down the highway, but to me it was perfect.

Jonathan had not only convinced me to join the competition team, he’d talked me into participating in the practice match. Eric had been thrilled. So had Janice. I was the only one who still had reservations. At the last chess team meeting—and only the second one I’d attended—I’d overheard some of the others questioning Eric about whether I was cut out for tournament play. That was another thing I’d discovered over the years. If you’re quiet and don’t make a lot of sound, for some reason people think it means there’s something wrong with your hearing. But there was nothing wrong with mine.

Eric defended me. “I’ve been playing with Annika for three years, and I’d bet money that she could beat every one of you. She’ll be an asset to us.” The last thing I wanted to do after an endorsement like that was let Eric down.

There were twelve of us competing that day, and if I’d had to drive over with the others, packed six to a car like sardines, surrounded by noises and smells, I would not have agreed to do it.

“We can drive over by ourselves if you want, Annika,” Jonathan had said. “And we don’t have to spend the night. We can leave as soon as our matches are over.” Once again, he’d removed every obstacle in my way as if he’d known exactly what to do to make me comfortable.

“He does know,” Janice said when I told her about his offer. “And he’s doing it because he likes you, and because he truly is a nice guy.”

“I’m very nervous,” I admitted to Jonathan, tucking my hands up under the hem of my shirt so I could hide the flicking of my fingers.

“You’ll do great,” he said. “They’ll take one look at you and forget how to play the game.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “These players are really good. I can’t imagine they’d suddenly forget how to play.”

“I meant because you’re so pretty. They’ll be too busy looking at you and it will blow their concentration.”

“That probably won’t happen.”

He let out a short laugh. “Just me then, huh?”

My brain figured out what he meant a few minutes later and I yelled “Oh” loud enough to make Jonathan jump in his seat a little. “Were you flirting with me?”

“I was trying to. I thought I was halfway decent at it, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Jonathan?”

He took his eyes off the road for a second and looked over at me.

“I totally thought you were flirting. I was just making sure.”

Then he gave me another one of those smiles I’d told Janice about.

* * *

The competition was being held in a large conference room at a local hotel. Though we were traveling as a team, we would be competing individually. The weather that day was unseasonably warm for late October, as it often is in the unpredictable Midwest, and I’d worn a long baggy skirt and even looser T-shirt knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle clothing that wasn’t lightweight and comfortable. I still felt overheated and had already started to sweat a little.

“You doing okay?” Jonathan asked. I hadn’t uttered a word since we’d walked into the hotel, and I’d remained close by his side even though I really needed to go to the bathroom. My bladder didn’t handle nervousness well at all.

“When will we start playing?” I hated not knowing exactly how things worked, and I should have asked Eric what to expect from tournament play before I’d committed. If I could get past the part where I had to exchange small talk with my opponent, and start playing, I could lose myself in the game and block out the rest. All the butterflies in my stomach would disappear and I’d stop feeling like I had to throw up.

“The first round will start at ten o’clock. Eric has the sheet with our brackets and who we’ll be playing. Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything.”

His words calmed me and I nodded. “Okay.”

For the next half hour, we warmed up and Eric shared everything he knew about the other teams. I would potentially be playing three times, depending on whether I won and advanced to the next round. My first opponent was a girl from Missouri, and I studied her stats and pondered my opening.

A little before ten, we filed into the conference room and took our spots in front of the boards that had our names next to them on small cardboard signs.

“Hello,” my opponent said. She was a dark-haired girl named Daisy and when she extended her hand, I shook it quickly and turned my attention back to the board. My nervousness over competing for the first time affected my opening, and I faltered, making two careless moves in a row. Her capitalization on them was all it took for me to realize she would be a formidable opponent, and it was exactly the motivation I needed to banish the butterflies and send me into fighting mode. We battled until the finish, but in a move she didn’t see coming, I captured her king. “Checkmate.”

“Good game,” she said.

The next match seemed easier by comparison; I’d expected it to be harder. Maybe it was the luck of the draw, but I dispatched my opponent—a tall boy from the University of Iowa—with relative ease, although it took me nearly two hours to do it.

“Wow. Okay,” was all he said before he moved on.

By the time I sat down across from my third and final opponent, I had been playing for almost four hours, and the combination of an early wake-up time and the mental energy required to sustain this level of play had begun to catch up with me. My opponent kept his focus on the board when we sat down across from each other. We didn’t look at each other, and neither of us said a word. Our match went on for a long time and we drew a crowd as the others finished. It was truly the hardest match I’d ever played in all my years of dispatching opponents, and it was only because my opponent botched his final move that I was able to triumph. I felt depleted, almost limp, as I captured his king. “Checkmate.” Jonathan came up and placed his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently as I exhaled in relief.