Framed posters for both Ichigo games were prominently displayed on the wall of the pizza parlor. The only other poster was for a Korean beer, JjokJjok. The poster was from the ’80s and quite faded. It had a picture of a smiling Korean woman and the tagline “What’s the most beautiful woman in Koreatown drinking?”
Sam was waiting for her at a booth toward the back.
When he saw Sadie, Dong Hyun came from behind the counter to hug her. “Sadie Green! Famous person!” he greeted her. “Same order? Half-mushroom, half-pepperoni?”
“I don’t eat meat anymore,” Sadie said. “So just mushrooms. And onions if you have them.”
Using one of the many keys on the key ring attached to his belt, Dong Hyun unlocked the Donkey Kong machine. “You kids play as much as you want.”
“Shall we?” Sam said.
As they approached the Donkey Kong cabinet, the Hall of Fame screen came up: Only one of S.A.M.’s scores remained—the top one. “Your record stands,” Sadie said. “You think you can beat it?”
“No,” Sam said. “I’m too out of practice.”
While they waited for the pizza, they played several rounds of Donkey Kong. Neither Sam nor Sadie was good anymore.
“You know the best thing about Donkey Kong?” Sadie asked.
“That it’s named for the villain? The innovative use of barrels as weapons?”
“The necktie,” she said. “It’s brilliant design. Without it, the question of his dick would always be hanging out there.”
“Literally.”
They both giggled at their adolescent joke, and they felt twelve again.
Dong Hyun served the pizza, and Sadie and Sam sat in a booth. Sam didn’t eat—it was after seven and his surgery was scheduled first, the next morning. “You’re seriously just going to watch?” Sadie said.
“I don’t mind,” Sam said. “I think you love pizza more than I do anyway.”
“When I was a kid.” Sadie made a face at him. “You sure you don’t mind?”
“I mean, I mind a little, but there’ll be other pizzas, Sadie.”
“You never know,” she said. “This could be the last pizza in the world.”
Sadie hadn’t eaten since the plane that morning, and she ended up eating almost the whole pie. “I didn’t know it,” she said, “but I was starving.”
Around eight, Sadie drove Sam to the hospital. It was past visiting hours, so only immediate family were allowed to accompany patients into their rooms. But when the nurse asked Sam who Sadie was, Sam answered quickly, “My wife.”
They went back to Sam’s hospital room. Sam didn’t feel like sleeping yet, so they sat side by side on the bed and looked out the window, which faced another almost identical building.
“A game that takes place in a hospital,” Sadie said.
“Who’s the main character?”
“A doctor, I guess,” Sadie said. “She’s trying to save everyone.”
“No,” Sam said. “It’s a zombie attack, and this kid has cancer, and he’s got to somehow get out of the hospital alive and save as many of the other kids as possible.”
“That’s better,” Sadie said. She reached into her bag. “I found this in my desk at home and I was waiting for the right time to give it to you.” She handed him several waterlogged sheets. Across the top it read: Community Service Record: Sadie M. Green. Bat Mitzvah Date: 10/15/88.
Sam was delighted when he figured out what it was. He flipped to the back to look at the total. “Six hundred nine hours.”
“It was the most community service any Bat Mitzvah had ever done. I don’t know if I ever told you, but they gave me a prize,” Sadie said.
“You better have brought the prize with you!”
“What do you take me for?” She reached into her bag again and removed a small heart-shaped crystal paperweight that was inscribed: Presented to Sadie Miranda Green, for Her Outstanding Record of Community Service, June 1988, from Hadassah of Temple Beth El Beverly Hills. “They gave it to me when I hit five hundred hours. It drove Alice crazy, which is why I think she told you, though she denies that was the reason.”
“This is a quality prize,” Sam said.
“Those Hadassah ladies don’t mess around. It’s Swarovski or Waterford or something. Alice was so jealous!”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Sam enclosed the paperweight in his fist. “This is mine now.”
“Of course,” Sadie said. “That’s why I brought it.”
“You’re sentimental tonight,” Sam said.
“Back in L.A. Back at the hospital with you. Starting all over again. No Dov. New game. New office. I guess I am.”
“I thought you were worried I was going to die,” Sam said.
“No. You’ll never die. And if you ever died, I’d just start the game again,” Sadie said.
“Sam’s dead. Put another quarter in the machine.”
“Go back to the save point. Keep playing, and we’ll win eventually.” She paused. “Are you scared?” she asked him.
“I’m relieved, more than anything, I think,” he said. “I’m glad it’ll be done. But it’s strange because I’ll also miss this useless foot. It’s been with me my whole life, of course, and I can’t completely deny that it’s been lucky.”
“How so?”
“Well, if I hadn’t been in the hospital, I never would have met you,” Sam said. “And we never would have become friends. And then enemies—”
“I was never your enemy. That’s all on you.”
“You were my enemy,” Sam said. He held up the paperweight. “This precious proves it once and for all!”
“Don’t make me sorry I let you have that.” Sadie grabbed for it, but Sam held it away from her.
“I’ll never give it back. But then we were friends again. And if I hadn’t had a messed-up foot, we never would have made Ichigo, and we wouldn’t be here, twelve years later, sitting in another hospital, less than a five-minute walk from the first one.”
“You can’t know that,” Sadie said. “We could have met at some other time. Our childhood homes were five miles apart, and we went to colleges that were less than two miles apart. We could have met in Cambridge. Or we could have met before that, at one of those smart-kid things in L.A. that you were always shooting me those dirty looks at. Don’t deny it—”
“You were my mortal enemy!”
“That seems strong. I remember it as a period of reserved cordiality. But returning to my original point, there were many other ways—indeed, infinite ways—we could have met.”
“You’re saying all my pain and suffering was for nothing?” he said.
“Complete waste,” she said. “Sorry, Sam. The universe tortured you because it could, because it will. The enormous polyhedral die in the sky was rolled, and it came up ‘Torture Sam Masur.’ I would have shown up in the game of your life either way.” Sadie yawned. She was starting to feel deathly tired. She’d been up for eighteen hours and she’d eaten so much pizza. She smiled sleepily at Sam. “I’m not your wife.”