A few hours later I sit at the dinner table with my family, munching on the tail of a tyrannosaurus chicken nugget and mentioning as casually as I can muster, “The senior center asked me to accompany the residents on a trip.”
“Oh.” Mom looks up from her plate. “Where to?”
“Toronto. Five days, in November.” I can feel Darcy’s eyes burning through me. Having a crucial secret with a naturally chatty twelve-year- old is not all it’s cracked up to be. “They’d pay me time and a half. And it’d be cool to see Canada. I need to let them know by tomorrow— ”
“Wait.” Sabrina sets her phone on the table. Forcefully. “You’re going to party in Toronto and leave us on our own? For real?”
I blink, taken aback by the mix of panic and anger in her voice. “I was just— ”
“What if Goliath has a vet emergency? What if Darcy sticks a Monopoly token up her nose and needs to be taken to urgent care? What if I need a ride to a derby meet— am I supposed to hitchhike?”
“I’d arrange everything beforehand,” I start just as Darcy says, “I haven’t stuck anything up my nose since I was five!” and Mom points out, “I will still be around, Sabrina.”
“Darcy’s an idiot, and idiots are unpredictable, Mal. And that’s the point of emergencies— you cannot prepare for them. What if Mom has a flare-up? Who’s going to take care of her? How egotistical can you— ”
“Sabrina.” Mom’s voice, usually gentle, cuts like a whip. “Apologize to your sisters.”
“I didn’t say anything that’s not true— ”
“Sabrina.”
She’s gone in a flurry of screeching chairs and stomping feet. The room falls silent, and seconds later a door down the hallway slams into its frame.
Mom closes her eyes for exactly three breaths. Then says, “Mallory, of course you should go. We’ll be fine.”
I shake my head. Deep down, I know Sabrina is right. After all, I’m the one who keeps reminding her how fragile Mom’s health is. I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s freaking out at the idea of me leaving. “No. Honestly— ”
“Mallory.” Mom covers my hand with hers. It’s still clutching the fork, the half-eaten nugget speared at its end. “I am asking you to please tell your boss that you’re going, okay?”
I nod. Then churn it over the entire night, sleepless, bitter, Sabrina’s words a hateful ring in my ears. I am angry. Guilty. Furious. Sad.
Egotistical. Does she not understand the sacrifices I’ve made for the family? Does she think that I wanted to stop going to school? Does she think that I enjoy it, knowing that in four years Easton will have a degree and a career and I’ll be stuck in some minimum-wage dead-end job? That we’ll grow further and further apart as time goes on, as I fall behind, forgotten? Screw Sabrina, honestly.
But it’s your own fault if your family is in this situation, that obnoxious little voice reminds me. She has every right to be mad at you. And weren’t you only going to compete in tournaments with money prizes? Why do you even want to go to Toronto?
To build rating! To access future tournaments!
Not because you enjoyed the thrill of competitive chess so much, you’ve been jonesing for it since Philly? Cool. Just making sure.
Oh, shut up.
You just said shut up to yourself, but go off, I guess.
I wake up in the morning eager to apologize to Sabrina for . . . I don’t know. Ruining her life four years ago, maybe? Her room, though, is empty.
“McKenzie’s mom’s driving her to school,” Darcy explains. “For someone whose biggest fear is not having a ride to the ER, Sabrina the Teenage Bitch is pretty crafty at finding one on short notice.”
“First of all, we do not use that word.” I smile and step closer, pushing her bangs back. It’s like looking into a freckled, rejuvenating Snapchat filter. “Secondly, you know Sabrina loves you, right? She doesn’t really think that you’re an idiot.”
“I believe that she loves me and thinks that I’m an idiot. Because she is an idiot.” She gives me an appraising look. “By the way, I don’t think you’re egotistical, Mal. I mean, you skimp on the Nutella and don’t show Timothée Chalamet the admiration that’s due him, and you are, objectively, a liar. But I don’t think you’re egotistical.” I feel a lump swell in my throat. Until Darcy frowns. “Though I’m not one hundred percent sure I have the correct definition of egotistical.”
A couple of hours later I’m in Defne’s office, which is a bit like its owner: colorful, happy, and full of knickknacks that should not go well together but somehow do.
“Good morning!” She grins from her desk. “Did you steal Delroy’s rainbow bagel? He’s very upset.”
“Nope. Just got here.”
“Oh. How can I help you then?”
I clear my throat. Well, here goes. “Could you tell Emil that I’d love to do the Olympics?”
I feel Nolan before I see him.
One second I’m struggling to drag my duffel bag onto the LaGuardia suitcase conveyor and wondering why the Greenleaf clan never invested in something with wheels （or a set of dumbbells, for upper body strength）; the next, someone takes it from me, lifts it effortlessly, and deposits it on the belt.
I turn around, but my body already knows, like my atoms vibrate differently when he’s near. Which probably just means that his presence gives me radiation poisoning.
“Hi, Mallory,” he says. He’s wearing sunglasses and a dark shirt, but his voice is the same. He looks the same: Tall. Unsmiling.
Good.
A few pimples, that’s what he needs. A wart to break the perfect imperfection of his face.
“Hi,” I scratch out.
It’s been over two months since I was in his presence. Two months of chess, chess, chess. Wrangling my sisters, taking Mom to the doctor, then more chess. Being glared at by Oz, putting off checking Tinder, then chess. I won the Nashville Open and another online tournament. I haven’t lost a match yet, but my rating’s not even in the nineteen hundreds. There’s a little engine in a corner of my skull, constantly working on positions, pawn structure, square theory.
“Are you . . . flying somewhere?” I ask once he’s been silent a little too long. My voice sounds breathy. I hope I’m not getting sick right before the Olympics.
The corners of his lips twitch. “That’s what airports are for.”
I bristle out of my breathlessness. “You could be flying in. Or picking up someone. Or be like Tom Hanks in that movie, living in a terminal because of funky immigration paperwork.” I clear my throat. “Where are you flying?”
He tilts his head. “For real?”
For real, what? “Are you going to that tournament in Russia?”
“You haven’t figured it out?”
“What am I supposed to— ”
“Greenleaf.” Emil Kareem appears and hugs me like I’m his long-lost sister. There’s a girl with him, a supermodel who just flew into LaGuardia for fashion week. Wait, she’s familiar. From Philly Open—Nolan’s girlfriend, the one he hugged? I don’t know, but she is hugging me like I’m her long-lost sister.