Mr. X

‘I had a rotten cold,’ I said.

‘Your cold wasn’t all that was rotten, if you ask me. Maybe you want to make college sound better than it is.’

‘After I get through the finals, everything’ll be fine,’ I said. Phil and Laura came in offering coffee and nightcaps, and before everybody went to bed we listened to the eighteen-year-old Billie Holiday singing ‘When You’re Smiling’ and ‘Ooh Ooh Ooh, What a Little Moonlight Can Do.’

The next morning Laura and Star went out shopping, and Star came home with a new coat from Biegelman’s purchased at 60 percent off because Mr Biegelman thought it would never look as good on anyone else. As Laura told the story, she gave me a sideways look that was half question, half accusation. Star seemed to be avoiding looking at me altogether. Laura finished talking and my mother left to hang up the coat. She gave me a murky glance on her way out of the room. Phil noticed nothing, for which I was grateful. Laura said, ‘Did you boys stay home all the time we were out?’

‘You bet,’ Phil said. ‘We had a hell of a time kicking out the dancing girls before you got back.’

My mother drifted into the living room, smiled more in my direction than at me, and glanced at the couch like a cat deciding where to settle down. Phil cleared his throat and challenged her to their annual Christmas chess championship. She grinned at him with what looked to me like relief.

Before the start of this tradition, I would have said that given two tries at telling a pawn from a rook, my mother would have been right at least once, but she was good enough to beat Phil about one game in four. This time, he was frowning at the board and muttering, ‘Hold on, I don’t get it,’ ten minutes after they started. (It turned out that the lithographer in Cleveland was a demon chess player.)

I followed Laura into the kitchen, expecting her to share my amusement at her husband’s consternation. ‘Either she got a lot better since last year, or Phil forgot how to play,’ I said.

Laura moved across the kitchen, leaned against the sink, and permitted my remark to shrivel in the air between us. The look she gave me had nothing to do with amusement. ‘I thought I knew you pretty well, but now I’m beginning to wonder.’ She crossed her arms across her chest.

‘About what?’

‘Did you leave the house while we were gone?’

I shook my head.

‘You didn’t go downtown. Or to Biegelman’s.’

‘What’s all this about? You and Star have been acting weird ever since you got back.’

‘That’s not an answer.’ She was staring fiercely into my eyes.

‘No,’ I said, beginning to get irritated. ‘I didn’t go to Biegelman’s. Biegelman’s is a woman’s clothing store. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside it in my whole life.’ I made myself calm down. ‘What’s going on?’

‘A mistake, I guess,’ Laura said.

In the other room, my mother laughed and cried out, ‘Phil, don’t you know anything about Capablanca?’

‘He’s dead, and so am I,’ Phil said.

‘Star’s worried about you.’ Laura was still searching my face.

‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Are you getting enough sleep? Do you walk around feeling exhausted all the time?’

Most of the time, I walked around feeling half-dead. ‘I’m tired sometimes, but it’s no big deal.’

‘Are you happy at Middlemount? If it’s getting to be too much for you, you can always take a semester off.’

I began to get angry all over again. ‘First everybody is pushing me into college, and now everybody wants to push me out. I wish you’d make up your minds.’

She looked stricken. ‘Ned, did we push you into college? Is that how it feels to you?’

I already regretted my words.

‘Think of how much those colleges wanted you. It’s a great opportunity. Besides that, not having a college degree would be a tremendous disadvantage later in life.’ She lifted her chin and looked away. ‘Boy oh boy. Maybe we did push you. But all we wanted was what we thought would be best for you.’ She looked back at me. ‘You’re the only person who can tell me what’s best for you, and you better be honest about it. Don’t worry about Phil, either. He feels the same way.’

She meant that she would be able to explain a leave of absence to him, if that was what I wanted. The thought of Phil’s disappointment made me feel like a traitor. ‘I guess I’ll have to get straight As and be elected president of my class before you and Star stop worrying,’ I said.

‘Hey, Ned!’ Phil shouted from the other room. ‘Your mother and Bobby Fischer, separated at birth, is that the deal?’

‘Okay,’ Laura said. ‘We’ll see how you feel at semester break. In the meantime, please remember that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, all right?’

Over lunch, the astonished Phil explained the Machiavellian stratagems by which my mother had sandbagged him. Star ate half of what was on her plate, looked at her watch, and stood up from the table. She had a long drive ahead of her, time to go, thanks so much, goodbye.

By the time I carried her bag downstairs, she was giving Laura a hug from the depths of her new winter coat. I walked her down the path to the Lincoln, wondering if she thought she could get in and drive away without speaking to me. We came up to the car door, and I said, ‘Mom.’ She wrapped me in her arms.

‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Throw a few things into a suitcase and tell those nice people you’re going to stay with me while you think things over.’

‘What?’ I pulled back and looked at her. She was serious.

‘I have enough room to put you up. You can wait tables at Inside the Outside until we find something better.’

If she had sandbagged Phil, what she was doing to me felt like a mugging. ‘What’s going on? Laura’s after me about transferring or dropping out for a semester, you can’t even look at me, both of you act like I turned into some person you don’t even like … I’m not where I’m supposed to be, I’m too skinny, I’m a liar … All of a sudden, come to Cleveland …’ I raised my arms and shook my head in bafflement. ‘If you can, explain it to me, how about that?’

‘I want to protect you,’ she said.

I couldn’t help it – I laughed at her. ‘Middlemount’s a lot safer than a nightclub in the middle of Cleveland.’

Some thought, an explanation or rebuttal, surged across her face. She visibly thrust it away. ‘Maybe I never had a chance to go to college. But you know what? Working at Inside the Outside isn’t such a bad deal.’

I had offended her. Even worse, I had insulted her. ‘Hey, Mom, I never wanted to go to Middlemount, it just happened.’

‘Then get in the car.’

‘I can’t.’ In the face of her huge, silent challenge, I said, ‘I did have a lot of problems, but I can work them out.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘The things you don’t know, they’d fill a football stadium.’

‘Like what?’ I said, remembering the refusal I had just seen.

‘You and me, honey, we don’t know anything at all.’ The warmth of the new coat enveloped me once more, and when I felt her arms and shoulders tremble as she kissed my cheek, I almost decided to climb into the old Lincoln and drive away. Star patted the back of my head twice, three times, waited a beat, then once more. ‘Get back inside before you freeze to death.’

I spent most of the next few days studying.

The Grants kept up a cheerful patter during the drive to O’Hare, though I could tell that Laura was still unhappy. Phil marveled at my mother’s progress in the year since their last championship. In the past, he had been able to predict her decisions three or four moves ahead. ‘I knew her game better than she knew mine. I could surprise her, whereas she always had to take chances to surprise me.’

‘Whereas?’ Laura said.

‘Yes. The point is, once you get to that stage, the situation never changes. But this year, Star figured out my strategies before I knew what they were. I thought she was just messing around until she started taking my pieces off the board. The level of her game went way past mine, which means that her ability is out of sight.’