Kim Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting

“Well, good question. But I think a lot of calculations are really trying to quantify certain assumptions, don’t you? Like in economics? Not as bad as that, of course, but still.”

“Maybe we can arrange for a conference in McMurdo.”

“Good idea! I mean, NSF would probably hate it, but maybe not. It might be good publicity. Good for the budget.”

“I’ll check with Diane about it.”

“Good. Hey, how’s it going with her?”

“Good. She and Phil seem good for each other.”

“Ah yeah, that’s nice. Phil needed someone.”

“Diane too. So hey, how’s it going with Val again?”

“Ah, well, good, good. Good when I see her. I’ll see her again in about a month.”

“Whoah. So, is she off with…?”

“Yes, I think she’s with X, for part of that time, anyway. She’s with some kind of polar cap sailing village.”

“What did you say?”

“Tents on big sleds, like catamarans. They put up sails when the wind is right and move around.”

“Like iceboats?”

“Yes, like that I guess, but they’re like big rafts, and there’s a little camp’s worth of them, moving around together.”

“Wow, that sounds interesting.”

“Yeah, they’re like Huck Finn on the ice cap.”

“So—but it’s going well when you see her.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. I can’t wait.”

“And the, the other guy?”

“I like X. We get along well. I mean, we’re friends. We don’t talk about Val, that’s understood. But other than that we’re like any other friends. We understand each other. We don’t talk about it, but we understand.”

“Interesting!” Frank said, frowning. “It’s—kind of hard to imagine.”

“I don’t even try. That’s part of how it works.”

“I see.” Though he didn’t.

“You know how it is,” Wade said. “When you’re in love, you take what you can get.”

“Ahhh.”

His plane landed at JFK in the midmorning, and after that Frank had scheduled in a layover of several hours before his commuter pop down to D.C. The plan had puzzled the woman in the White House travel office, but he had only said, “I have some business in New York that day.”

Now he got in a taxi and gave the driver the address of a YMCA in Brooklyn. He sat back in the back seat and watched the infinite city flow by outside the window. It went on and on. Frank felt dumbstruck with jetlag, but as the taxi driver pulled up to the curb, next to yet another block-long five-story building, he was also curiously tense.

The chess tournament was taking place in a gym that had room for only one basketball court and a single riser of stands. Stale old-locker smell. There was a pretty good crowd in the stands.

Frank climbed the metal stairs to the top riser and sat down behind a couple of guys wearing Yankees caps. For some reason he didn’t want to be seen. He only wanted to see—

Down there at one of the tables, Chessman was playing a girl. Frank shuddered with surprise, startled by the sight even though he had been (mostly) expecting it. Clifford Archer, the tournament website had said, under-sixteen level, etc. It had seemed like it had to be him.

And there he was. He looked a bit older and taller, and was wearing a checked shirt with a button-down collar. Frank felt himself grinning; the youth held the same hunched position over this game that he had had at the picnic tables.

Maybe he had moved up here with family, as Deirdre had guessed. Or was doing it on his own somehow, following his chess destiny.

Every game in progress was represented as a schematic on a screen set up at the far end of the room, and after Frank identified Chessman’s game he could follow its progress move by move. In his jetlagged state and his low level of expertise he found it hard to judge how the game was going; they were in an odd configuration, somewhere in the mid-game, Chessman playing black and seeming to be pushed to the edges a bit more than was usual for him, or safe.

Frank studied the game, trying to get what Chessman was up to. It reminded him sharply of the long winter, when he had first met the bros, and built his treehouse. He hadn’t cared then what happened in the games. Now he was rooting for Chessman, but in ignorance. The two players had both lost about the same number and strength of pieces.

Then the girl took one of Chessman’s bishops, but it was a sacrifice (Frank hadn’t seen it) and after that Chessman’s trap was revealed. He had her in a pincer movement of sorts, although she had a lot of pieces in the middle.

The men sitting on the riser just below him were murmuring about this, it seemed. Frank leaned forward and said in a low voice, with a gesture:

“Is that young man doing well?”

They both nodded, without looking back at him. One muttered from the side of his mouth, “He’s very patient.”

The other one nodded. “He plays black even when he’s playing white. He’s like good at waiting. He’s going to win this one, and she’s a junior master.”

And though Frank couldn’t see it, they were right. Chessman made a move, hit his timer and leaned back. The girl scowled and resigned, shook hands with Clifford, smiling crookedly, and went to rejoin her coach for a postmortem.

Chessman stood. No one joined him, and he was not looking around. He walked over to the officials’ table, and some of the people standing there congratulated him. Frank stood, walked down the stairs to the floor of the gym, crossed the court, and approached the officials’ table. He paused when he saw the youth in conversation with someone there, talking chess, it was clear. Chessman was animated, even cheerful. There was a look on his face that Frank had never seen before. Frank stopped in his tracks. He hesitated, watching. Finally he turned and left the gym.

THE NEXT DAY FRANK RAN WITH EDGARDO,and told him about his trip, and then said to him, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said about Caroline, and I’ve tried contacting her by getting into her surveillance, and it hasn’t worked, and I’m getting scared. And it occurred to me that maybe your friends might be in some sort of contact with her, if what you said happened to be the case, and if so, that they might be able to tell her that I really, really want to see her. I need to see her, if it’s at all possible. Because otherwise it’s just too…well. I’m scared is the thing.”

“Yes, yes yes yes yes,” Edgardo said, as if pooh-poohing the idea; and then he went silent, as if thinking it over; and then he made no other response at all, but as they made the turn under the Lincoln Memorial, changed the subject to the difficulties that Chase was having with Congress.

The following Wednesday after dinner, Frank went to the mouth of Rock Creek to check the dead drop, and there was a new note.

OUR FIRST SPOT MIDNIGHT LOVE C

In just a couple of hours, if she meant tonight! Thank God he had thought to check! Thank God and thank Edgardo. Frank ran to his VW van, which he had parked in the boathouse parking lot, and drove north on Wisconsin at speed, in a state of high excitement. In Bethesda he took a right and parked in a dark spot near the little park they had first met in. He got out, walked to the bench under the little statue of the girl holding up the hoop. The empty cipher, there in the dark; he waited; and suddenly there she was, standing before him.

They banged together and hugged. “Where have you been?” Frank said roughly, face in her hair. “I’ve been so scared.”

She shook her head for him to be silent, ran a wand over him. “I heard,” she said at last, hugging him again. “I’ve had to be away. But I’ve been in contact with your friend’s friends, and they told me you were concerned.”