She's Got Game Read online

  She was right. At the very least, I needed to apologize for not waking him before I left, which required some privacy. I motioned for them to go on ahead and sat on the steps, my phone burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to hear his voice and feel his arms around me and put my head on his shoulder and cry. I hated all these feelings. This was why I never wanted to care about him. Hookups were so much simpler. Get some, get gone.

  The stairwell didn’t have any reception. Even after walking around, holding my phone near the occasional window, I only got one bar. After a few minutes, I gave up and sat down on a step to read and respond to my texts.

  They filled my notifications.

  Cody: Good morning, sexy. Come back to bed? ;-)

  Cody: Wait. Where are you?

  Cody: Gwen? You’re not still mad, are you?

  Cody: Typical. Things get tough, so you bail. I should’ve known.

  My hand tightened around the phone. So this was what he thought of me? That I’d ditched him as soon as things got a little awkward? Sure, I’d resisted getting involved, but once I committed to something, I was all in. It wasn’t like I’d lie about an emergency to give me an excuse to sneak out. If I didn’t want to see him again, my note would have said so.

  Cody: Well, it was a nice weekend, anyway. Thanks for the memories. Sorry you couldn’t be bothered to say good-bye. Sorry you’re afraid to let yourself feel anything real.

  Cody: Is this because you got eliminated? Because that wasn’t my fault.

  Fucker. After everything, he thought I’d dump him because he made it to the next round and I didn’t? I mean, okay, I’m fairly competitive. Some might say I had a teeny bit of a temper. But game hate stayed at the table. Once I’d gotten over my reservations about getting involved with Cody, I’d been willing to make it work. Until last night.

  Before I read his final text, I’d been considering going to Vegas for the finals anyway, to cheer him on. At the very least, I’d have been watching at home with Shannon and Holly, rooting for him. But not now. I hoped he came in last. Let him be haunted by Don’s smirking face after playing his final cards.

  Re-reading the messages, I resisted the urge to throw my phone at the wall. As if this was all my fault. Sure, I left, but I had to. No time to explain. If I’d woken him up, I would’ve fallen apart. But I’d never expected this reaction when he found the note. He’d always been an easy-going guy. These texts made me feel like I’d never known him.

  They also told me, with certainty, I’d made a huge mistake getting involved with him. I didn’t reply to the messages. There was nothing left to say.

  Instead, I swiped to my contacts lists. Two words stared up at me, so simple, yet so final. “Block number.”

  Before I lost my nerve, I hit the button. Goodbye, Cody.

  Chapter 19

  One morning after three weeks back home, Dad knocked on my bedroom door and invited me into the living room with him. This was our thing. Talking about our feelings didn’t come naturally to either of us, but doing it while shooting things on the TV made it easier.

  Since all I’d been doing was glaring at my phone listing the reasons not to call Cody for the thousandth time, I set the device down and got up. Dad led the way, his crutches thumping onto the hardwood floor with each step.

  My father loved video games when he was a kid, so much that he’d saved all his old games and consoles. After my mother left, he went to my grandparents’ house and brought them out of storage. As a result, I was well-versed in games most kids my age had never heard of. The gaming console awaited us, a familiar screen already on the TV. He’d paused the game at the beginning rather than coming to get me at the start screen.

  “Unlimited lives?” I asked, referencing a favorite cheat code that needed to be entered as the game loaded.

  “You know it.”

  Before settling in, I grabbed my favorite old beanbag chair from its normal spot in the corner, then got each of us a beer from the kitchen. “Where’s Holly?”

  “Job interview in Providence, remember?”

  “Right. I hope she gets it.”

  He glanced at me. “You’re not going to miss her, so far away?”

  I shrugged, un-pausing the game and starting to shoot. “I travel so much, it wouldn’t be very different. Besides, Providence isn’t far. We’ll hang out as much as we do now.”

  “I guess so. The house will feel weird, with the two of you gone. I’ve gotten used to having you both around.”

  On the screen, my character executed a double flip while firing a stream of bullets. “If you’re lonely, we can always revisit your online profile. I know you never made it live. I checked.”

  “You went to a dating website to look for your father? That’s highly disturbing,” he said. “Perhaps not having a strong mother figure around caused you more psychological damage than I thought.”

  A pang hit me at the mention of my mother. My character stopped dead, only to promptly get killed. “Sorry. I….sorry.”

  “That was a joke, Queen Guinevere. What’s wrong?”

  With a sigh, I set down the controller. A tear slipped down my cheek. “I saw her.”

  “What? When?”

  “A couple of months ago. In New York City.” The night I was so depressed, I almost kissed my arch-nemesis, in a moment that ultimately started the series of events culminating with my shattered heart when I discovered how incompatible Cody and I were. No big deal. Leaving out that minor detail, I filled him in on the details of my encounter with Beverly. By the time I finished, his face resembled that of a wounded puppy.

  “Come here, Gwen. I can’t get up.”

  I sat on the edge of his chair for a moment, being careful not to bump his cast, one head on his shoulder. It felt nice. Maybe I didn’t have a mother, but my father loved me more than anything in the world. “I’m sorry. At the very least, she should have said hello. Asked how you were doing. Pretended to be happy to see you, even if she wasn’t.”

  In a small voice, I asked, “Why did she leave us?”

  “She didn’t leave us, honey. She left me. We weren’t high school sweethearts. We weren’t some great love affair. We were two kids who got drunk at a party one night with a defective condom.”

  “Seriously?” This was news to me. This information probably should’ve sent my entire world spinning, but after seeing how unhappy my parents were together, it explained a lot.

  “Yeah. I mean, we knew each other, but we didn’t become a couple until after that night. I wanted to make it work if we could.”

  Weird to think your entire existence hung on something as arbitrary as quality control at Trojan and the number of Mike’s Hard Lemonades available at a party. I’d heard my birth story a million times, and it wasn’t exactly romantic. My father worked hard to give me everything I needed in life so I felt loved and wanted. But he’d never hinted that he and my mother weren’t even dating when they had sex the first time. It made me wonder how many other things he’d sheltered me from over the years.

  Getting up, I moved back to my bean bag and resumed my gaming position. Sometimes killing things was the best medicine. “So that’s it? She never wanted me, so she left? Why have me at all? Why wait almost eleven years before taking off? You always said the two of you were dating.”

  “We were, after the first night. You know how it is, especially when you’re a teenager. People have all these hormones. You meet someone you’re attracted to, you want to have sex. If they also want to have sex with you, that’s amazing. If they want to do it more than once, even better.”

  An image of Cody swam before me, but I pushed it aside by picking up my controller and holding down the A button to shoot every computer-generated image I found. But he hadn’t really answered my question. “Okay, and…?”

  “The night you were conceived was our
first time. We kept hanging out. By the time she realized she was pregnant, we were a couple.”

  “But you weren’t in love.”

  “We didn’t even know what love was.” Now he paused the game. “Maybe if it had been some other guy, she wouldn’t have had the baby. I don’t know. But when she told me she was pregnant, I got so excited. Yeah, it was dumb. What fifteen-year-old is happy at the thought of becoming a parent? But I kept thinking it must be happening for a reason. And now I know that reason is you. You’re everything.”

  “I love you, too, Dad. Even though you suck at this game.”

  He smiled at me and hit the start button. “It wasn’t all me, though. Your mother didn’t believe in abortion. When your grandparents found out she was pregnant, they threw her out. She didn’t have any money or anywhere to go, so she moved in with my family. I think part of her felt like, if she became a good mother, she’d know she hadn’t make a mistake.”

  “What changed her mind, then?”

  “Ten plus years of an unhappy relationship, which is on me, not you. We never had much in common other than an affinity for drunken parties. In high school, that’s enough. Later, not so much. As we grew up, it become clear we were incompatible. She wanted to be a doctor, save lives, change the world. I was happy working in the shop, fixing cars, raising my beautiful daughter.” He paused and took a deep breath, setting the controller down. “But there is something I never told you.”

  My heart skipped a beat. This sounded serious. Following his lead, I set my own controller in my lap. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m telling you now.” He swallowed. “A couple of years after the divorce, she sent me an email, thanking me. Telling me she was happy, and that never would’ve happened if she’d stayed. She believed leaving was the best thing she could do for herself—and for you. But she wanted to make amends. Beverly inherited a lot of money from her parents, and thought you should have it.”

  Something clicked inside my head. Dad had said he was giving me money that his parents had given him for college. My grandparents never seemed to have enough money to make a special fund for me, even with many years interest. Now I understood. “The Harvard money.”

  He nodded. “My parents never had much, and they put everything into helping me buy the garage when I started out. They wanted the best for you, but they couldn’t afford the education you got.”

  Suddenly, I felt dirty. Like my mother thought of me as some kind of commodity. A debt to be paid. Even after a lifetime of thinking she never wanted me, part of me always hoped she’d come home, apologize, ask me to forgive her.

  And that was never going to happen. Instead, she’d tried to buy my forgiveness.

  “I have to go.”

  Tears streamed down my face. Ignoring my father’s shouts behind me, I grabbed my bag from its hook beside the front door, stuffed my feet into a pair of sandals, and bolted. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care. Anywhere to escape the feelings chasing me.

  * * * *

  It didn’t matter where I went. Dad couldn’t follow me down the street on crutches. He’d probably ask Holly to text me after her interview, so I turned my phone off and jammed it all the way to the bottom of my bag. It was the closest thing to being unplugged without going back to the house. Being temporarily unreachable made me feel disconnected, apart from the world. But I’d always been that way. Drifting along, never staying in one place, some part of me looking for my mother.

  Unfortunately, now I’d found her, and I was still drifting. No permanent address, few friends, afraid to fall in love. The one time I decided to take a chance, my insecurities ruined everything. All I had to do was wake him up, say good-bye instead of leaving a note, and Cody wouldn’t have gotten so upset. But those texts upset me. If he hadn’t gotten hostile, I’d have called him after I checked on Dad. Maybe Cody and I would have worked things out.

  I walked and walked. My mind swirled, but didn’t come up with any answers. What would happen if I went to South Station, hopped on a bus to New York City, and demanded an explanation? I didn’t need her address, because a quick social media search showed she was one of those people who checked in everywhere she went. Older people were so weird.

  When I was a kid, we had a phone book with everyone’s numbers and sometimes even addresses. Around the same time the internet became big, everyone freaked out about privacy and didn’t want their address public anymore. Even though phone books still existed. But then they started using sites like Yelp or even Facebook that literally let people stalk them. My mom appeared to be about as tech savvy as most people her age. Two hours ago, she’d checked in at a hair salon.

  Obviously, she wouldn’t be there by the time I got to NYC, but how long would it be before she checked in somewhere else? A scan of her public profile showed me everywhere she’d been recently. It wouldn’t be difficult to narrow down her neighborhood, if I wanted.

  Two things brought my fledgling plan to a screeching halt. The first being that, apparently, in order to have a conversation with my mother, I needed to engage in behavior dangerously close to a felony. How sad. The second was, what if I got there and she brushed me off again? My heart wouldn’t be able to take it. Maybe I’d get some satisfaction if I went to the bank, withdrew what was left of my “inheritance,” and dropped the money in her lap. But her money was the only thing standing between me and a boring old nine to five job somewhere. Especially since I’d kissed the Explorers of Islay prize money good-bye.

  I hated knowing she was the one responsible for allowing me to follow my dreams.

  My feet carried me without any input from my brain. Up and down the streets, over the bridge, mile after mile. Soon I found myself wandering my old stomping ground. Harvard Square bustled with activity most of the time, making it easy for a person to lose themselves in the crowd. Around and around I walked, not paying attention to anything. I passed a coffee shop with a line spilling out into the street, the local bookstore, the bar where Shannon and I caught Lucas cheating on Holly.

  Eventually, I wound up at the one place that always made me feel better: the board game store. Long before competitive gaming became my reality, Dad and I would trek to Game On! on Sundays after lunch to look at the new stock. This is where I spent my allowance. After not being around for a while, entering it gave me the same sense of peace other people must feel upon returning to church after a long absence.

  A “Now Hiring” sign hung in the window, reminding me that time always marched forward. Since day one, this place had been family owned and operated. But the owners must be nearing seventy. John and Carla carried most of the workload; if the family wanted someone new to step in, I hoped everything was okay. Maybe they were having a good year.

  Inside the doors, I stopped and inhaled, letting the memories overwhelm me. Sure, things changed, but some things remained the same. Our first visit came a week after my mother left. Maybe it was appropriate I’d found my way here while thinking about her.

  Behind the counter stood Carla. Her t-shirt said “I’m a villager, but the baby’s a werewolf,” in reference to a popular social deduction game. Between that and her now clearly-extended belly, I understood why the store was hiring an outsider for the first time in forty years or so. “Can I help…. Gwen! How’s the life of a wanderer?”

  “Not bad,” I lied. I mean, wandering was great, even if everything else sucked. “Dad broke his leg, though, so I’m home for a few weeks to help out. Thought I might get him a game to pass the time while he’s laid up. Something he can play on a tray table while sitting in a recliner, preferably.”

  She led me to a group of card games with funny themes, chattering away, but I barely listened. My mind fluttered in too many directions. Carla grew up in Mexico, then moved to the U.S. for college. She met and married John when she was a couple of years younger than me, and she’
d worked in the store ever since.

  “Did you ever want to do anything else with your life?” Carla’s startled look reminded me she’d been speaking before I cut her off. “Sorry, I just…am having a bit of a crisis. And I was thinking about how you’ve always worked here and wondered how you felt about that.”

  “I am very happy with my life,” Carla said. “Growing up in Mexico, I wanted to travel the world, experience more places. When I came to the United States, I expected to go to school, travel during breaks, and move on to eventually settle in Spain or South America.”

  “What about Mexico?”

  “I had nothing left in Mexico,” she said. “When I met John, everything changed. I still wanted to travel the world, but now we take vacations together. I love having a partner by my side. Working in the store is wonderful, because I’m part of something bigger. This store belongs to my in-laws, yes, but a part of it belongs to John and me, and even our regular customers. Having the store to come back to makes our trips even more fulfilling. I love these roots.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “My mother died many years ago. I miss her terribly. My father was not a nice man. We don’t talk.”

  Her voice remained firm, but it must hurt to talk about her father. How hard it was to pretend not to care about the missing parent in your life. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. I’m lucky to have had one parent who loved me so much. Some people don’t get that.”

  Yes, she was. My mother gave me ten whole years before moving on, years in which she was usually at school or doing homework. We didn’t have many happy memories. I turned back to the game selection in front of me, pretending to be absorbed by the decision, not wanting her to see me rapidly blinking away the tears that threatened.

  “Why are you asking now? We’ve known each other for years,” Carla said.

  Briefly, I explained what happened when I ran into my mother. What Dad told me, and how his revelations left me at loose ends.