Chapter 15: ch.15 [A Beat Too Long]

The envelope had been on the walnut table since Thursday.

Astrid had squared it to the edge that night.

She had squared it again on Friday.

Seth had learned to walk around that end of the table the way you walk around a dog that has not decided about you.

? ? ?

At six, a small brass clock sat on the board between them.

Two faces. Two buttons. Older than both of them.

"Thirty positions," said Astrid. "Ten seconds each. You will tell me what is loose."

"Loose."

"Unprotected. Mine or yours."

She pressed the left button.

Tock.

Not a tick. Ticks go on. This sound ended.

Position one. He found it.

Position two. He found it.

By eleven, sweat had fogged the bottom of his glasses.

On twelve he stared at a bishop for what felt like a year.

Her finger came down on the button.

The clock stopped.

She said nothing. She only waited, hands folded, until he said "Oh..." and then she started it again.

He didn’t notice until much later that she had stopped it.

"Nineteen," she said, at the end.

"Out of thirty."

"I can count."

"You find the pieces I would never think to protect," said Astrid, frowning at the sheet. "And you miss the ones standing in the open. It is plain."

"Plain how?"

"It is..."

She stopped.

"Obvious."

"To who?"

The clock ticked once, though it wasn’t running.

Or maybe that was the pipes.

"To me." said Astrid.

It wasn’t an answer. They both knew it.

Seth took an index card from the shelf and uncapped a pen.

He had used his palm for a month.

A palm was enough when he was drowning.

Checks. Captures. Threats.

He thought about the old man’s thermos lid.

He added a fourth word.

Loose.

"That is not a word I gave you."

"I stole it."

"From whom?"

"A man in a cardigan."

She looked at the card for a long time.

Then she pressed the button.

Twenty-four.

He beat the small engine, the one set to a thousand, in thirty-one moves with nothing hanging.

In the next game he saw a knight sacrifice sitting there, shining, and his hand moved before he did.

The small engine took it and lost anyway.

"That was beautiful," said Astrid.

"Thank you."

"It was also wrong. It worked because the engine is small."

His ears went red.

"A stronger player would have simply said no."

she said, as she reset the board.

Did not look at him while she did it.

? ? ?

Ingrid arrived at 7:30 with no coffee and her tablet held like a shield.

"Somebody sold your contract."

Nobody moved.

She turned the screen around.

THE $4,800 HOUSEKEEPER: INSIDE THE CHAMPION’S SECRET ARRANGEMENT

Below it, a photograph. Seth on the pavement, eight grocery bags, mouth open mid-wheeze.

Below that, in a gray box, a quotation.

Section 11: A separate bedroom, with a lock.

And under it, in red: WHY DOES A HOUSEKEEPER NEED A LOCK?

Astrid’s thumbnail pressed into the walnut.

Seth watched the nail go white.

"Four copies exist," said Ingrid.

"The federation’s lawyer. Me. You."

She didn’t look at Seth.

"Him."

"I didn’t."

"I know. You would have asked for a better number."

That was almost kind. She tapped the envelope.

"And you will open this, because the person who sold the contract and the person who sent the card may be sharing an address."

She slit it herself.

Heavy cream card. Gold edge.

THE FEDERATION ANNUAL GALA. SATURDAY, 14 NOVEMBER. MERIDIAN HALL.

Below it, in script, as if the world were that polite:

Ms. Astrid Lind and Guest.

Seth stared at the last word.

A folded program fell out of the envelope. Ingrid read it flat.

"Nine-fifteen. ’The Champion’s Student.’ A ten-minute exhibition. Mr. Seth Pawn versus the Federation Junior Champion. Fourteen-fifty. Eleven hundred seats. Broadcast."

The room was very quiet.

"Sponsors bought tables because of the smile," said Ingrid. "They want to see if it was a fluke."

"We decline." said Astrid.

"I haven’t asked."

"Do I get a vote?" said Seth.

"You would be unwell."

"I’m sitting down."

"You would faint."

"Section fourteen has me covered."

Ingrid made a sound into her fist.

But Seth’s hands had gone flat on his knees, and the joke had run out of him.

"I’ve never been invited anywhere," he said.

"Not once. Don’t turn it down for me."

"I would be turning it down for both of us."

"Yes," said Seth. "That’s what I mean."

Astrid looked at him.

She had said both of us.

He watched her hear it.

"Reply by Friday," said Ingrid, and left a card on the table, face up, and the door shut behind her with the sound of someone not slamming it.

? ? ?

"Until we know who sold it, you do not leave this building without a driver."

Astrid said it to the window.

"No."

Her head turned.

"It is not a request. Section..."

"Which section?"

She stopped.

"Twelve."

"Twelve is groceries and appliances."

The thumbnail again. White.

"You read it."

"All of it. I fainted in the middle, not the end."

She had the face of a woman who had set down a piece and been told the move was illegal.

He held up one hand before she could speak.

"I’m not going to be careless. I’ll text when I get there and when I leave. No driver."

"Why?"

"It’s the one place nobody’s ever told me where to be."

The radiator ticked.

She was very tall, standing there in the lamplight, and it did not feel like standing over him.

"Both times?" she said.

"Both times."

"It was not a clause."

"No."

"I will not do that again."

"You will."

A pause.

"Probably..." said Astrid.

? ? ?

The park was thin with Saturday light.

He texted. Here.

The old man was there. Cap. Cardigan buttoned one hole off. Thermos lid steaming.

On the bench beside him, the same empty half.

Seth took off his bag.

He set it on that half.

The old man’s thumb stopped on the thermos.

Nobody said anything. A pigeon looked at the bag, and at them, and gave up.

"She’d have complained about the strap."

the old man said.

He left the bag where it was.

They played.

Seth took the card from his shirt pocket and set it by the board.

He did not read it.

He just needed it there.

Checks. Captures. Threats. Loose.

On move nine, the old man left a bishop hanging. A small, polite invitation.

Seth looked at it.

It was loose.

It was the only loose piece on the board.

That was the problem with it.

He left it.

The old man’s eyes lifted a quarter inch.

A very small nod.

Thirty-eight moves later, the old man laid a hand flat on the table.

"Draw."

"Draw?"

"Don’t get excited."

"I’m not."

His ears disagreed.

"Playing this game well is the sign of a wasted life, kid."

He said it like weather.

"But you have improved vastly."

Seth’s mouth did something.

His thumb found the queen in his pocket, and he held it, and he did not take it out.

? ? ?

The path went quiet before he knew why.

He looked up.

She stood at the gate.

Dark coat.

Hands folded.

A gray scarf over one wrist.

Not one step past the gate.

She had texted nothing.

He had texted Here.

She had understood that Here meant here.

She was keeping the exact edge of what she had promised.

Seth lifted a hand. Half a wave.

"Astrid?"

Across the board, the old man opened his newspaper.

It rose like a gray wall.

Cap to collar.

Only the thermos and a thread of steam showed.

The page did not shake.

The gravel crunched, even and unhurried.

She came and stopped an exact arm’s length from the table.

"You are not wearing a scarf."

"It wasn’t cold."

"It is cold."

She put it around his neck.

Once.

Twice.

She tucked the ends beneath his collar with two careful fingers.

She was not looking at the old man.

The old man was not looking at her.

Seth noticed that the way you notice a wrong note.

Her eyes had gone to the board instead.

To the old man’s king, tipped one half-turn.

She stopped on it.

Her hand twitched at her side.

"Good morning." said Astrid. To the newspaper.

A pause.

"Morning."

One rough word, from behind the page.

Her fingers tightened on the strap of his bag.

She did not ask.

He did not ask.

Two people were being very careful not to look at each other, and both were very good at it.

Seth put it in the margin of his list, in very small writing.

He did not ask.

Not yet.

? ? ?

The card lay on the walnut table when they got home.

The other one.

The RSVP.

Two boxes, in print.

Will attend.

Regretfully decline.

Astrid took a pen from the drawer and uncapped it.

The cap went on the right end.

She did not seem to notice.

She slid the card across the walnut.

She slid the pen after it.

Not an inch away this time. Right to his hand.

"What do you want?" said Seth.

"I want you to have been asked."

That was all she said.

He held the pen over the card for a long time.

On the shelf, the little brass clock waited with its flag up.

He ticked a box.

He turned the card face down before she could read it, and slid it back, the exact distance she had slid it.

Squared to the edge.

Astrid did not turn it over.

Her thumbnail pressed the walnut.

She had never, in her whole life, not looked.