“Do you want to come over today?”
“I’m actually pretty busy,” she said, holding in a laugh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am. How’s two o’clock sound? I’ve got about thirty more pages of notes to look over.”
“That’s perfect,” he said. “I mean, if you want to.”
“Solomon,” she scolded. “You were doing so well. What’s this if you want to business? I want to, okay?”
“Great,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
“Do you play chess?”
“I do. Very poorly.”
“Awesome. So chess it is then. Do you have a set?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s an Adventure Time edition. Please don’t make fun of me.”
“Are you kidding? Clark and I watch it all the time.”
“You’re shitting me!” he said.
“Am not.”
? ? ?
When she got to his house a couple of hours later, he had the chess set ready to go at the dining room table. She’d actually never spent any time in this room and it looked like nobody else had, either. Maybe this was an eat-on-your-own family like hers had always been. For whatever reason, she sort of hoped not, though.
“What’s your favorite food?” she asked, taking a seat.
“Are we in kindergarten?”
She looked down at the chess set and back up at him with one arched eyebrow.
“Okay,” he said, sitting down. “Pizza, probably.”
“Ugh,” she said. “So boring, Solomon.”
“You can say Sol if you want,” he said. “Or Solo.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I think Solo sounds kind of mean.”
“Nah,” he said. “Think Han, not Lonely Agoraphobe.”
“Ah . . . yeah, that works.”
“I like Sol though. My great-granddad was a Sol.”
“Mine was Gator,” she said.
“Wait . . . Gator Praytor?”
“Yep,” she said, lowering her head in fake shame. “He was a zoologist. I’m not even kidding.”
“What was his real name though?”
“Dick,” she said.
“Well, see, that’s just a man who made good choices.”
“Okay, okay. Are you ready to be annihilated at chess?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said. “Who goes first?”
“Oh, Sol. You’re not off to a great start.”
“Shit,” he said. “White first. I remember.”
“You know, you’ve got quite the mouth for someone who’s never been to high school.”
“Don’t let my folks fool you. When no one’s around, they talk like sailors.”
“My mom made me wash my mouth out with soap last year,” she said. “I called my stepdad a son-of-a-bitch. Funny thing is, she was only mad about the cursing.”
“I don’t do it much around them,” he said.
“That’s just your form of rebellion. If they were criminals, you’d probably grow up to be a cop. The world is a mysterious place.”
“Or maybe you just bring out my bad side,” he said, moving his first pawn two spaces.
“I doubt that,” she said, moving one of her knights.
She didn’t care who won the game, really. She was trying something she’d read about online that morning. Game therapy. It was supposed to relax and distract a patient enough to help them open up more about personal or painful things. Now that Solomon had shown so much progress so quickly, she wanted to see how far she could push him without him realizing he was being pushed.
Lisa won the first game, trapping Solomon’s king with a pawn and a rook. Then, without a word, she watched as he reset all the pieces on the game board and carefully turned it around so the white pieces were facing her.
“I’m better with black,” he said.
Halfway through the game, it looked like Solomon might actually win. He was so focused on the board that he hadn’t looked up in fifteen minutes. Maybe it was working, she thought. Maybe now was as good a time as ever for her to play therapist.
“So, aside from losing this game, what’s your biggest fear?”
“Being buried alive,” he answered with little pause.
“That’s reasonable.”
“Yours?”
“Tornados. Don’t ask me why. I’ve never even been close to one.”
“They’re giant wind vortexes that destroy whole towns,” he said. “Respect.”
“And, I don’t know . . . I guess being stuck in Upland forever, too.”
“And that is where we differ,” he said, moving a pawn. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere,” she said. “Somewhere bigger. A big city. The suburbs bore the hell out of me.”
“But they’re full of old people and little kids and crazy guys like me,” he said. “What’s not to love?”
“Do you do that a lot?” she asked. “Call yourself crazy?”
“Only when it’s funny or gets me out of chores.”
“So, your biggest fear is being buried alive. Okay. What about something that could actually happen to you?”
“Like being asked repeatedly what my biggest fears are when I’m trying to beat you at chess?”