The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman

by Meg Wolitzer

  Larry Saviano was pacing in circles around the snack stand. When he saw Nate he snapped to attention like a dog that’s heard its master’s car pull into the driveway. “Well?” he said. “No jokes this time. My heart can’t take it.”

  “We won!” Nate yelled into his father’s face, part resentful, part excited.

  His father threw his arms around him. “I knew you could do it,” Larry said. “You’re on your way, kid.”

  Inside the ballroom at table eight, Duncan Dorfman sat gazing at his tiles. They weren’t particularly good letters, he knew. Surely Carl expected that on their next turn, Duncan would use his fingertips to pick something better from the bag. But the thing was, it still wasn’t necessary.

  Duncan and Carl’s round two opponents were two tiny kids, a boy and a girl from Wyoming named Tim and Marie. Everyone in the tournament was in fifth through eighth grade, but these kids looked as if they were only in second grade. They wore cowboy hats that were too big for their heads, stitched with embroidery that spelled out the name of their team, the Wranglers. Duncan realized Tim was the boy who’d raised his hand before the tournament to ask what would happen if you had to urinate.

  Before the game began, the Wranglers kept talking about how excited they were to be here. They could have never afforded to come, they explained. “But our whole town raised money at a bake sale to send us here,” said Tim.

  Duncan wondered how these kids had been chosen by their town to come to Florida. Wasn’t anyone else better at Scrabble? The Wranglers played as though this was one of their first games ever. They kept making phony words, and Duncan didn’t even think they were doing it on purpose. It started when they picked up some tiles from their rack and laid down FITO.

  Marie said confidently, “FITO. Eleven points.” Tim entered it on their score sheet.

  Duncan and Carl looked at each other, confused. Duncan scribbled to Carl,

  Maybe it’s a word we don’t know.

  Carl wrote:

  Maybe. But I bet they think it’s how you spell FIDO, like the dog.

  The word hardly seemed worth challenging, since Duncan and Carl weren’t completely sure. And it was only worth eleven points, after all.

  But then, two turns later, the Wranglers put down SLEFT.

  Carl smirked at Duncan. “Hold!” he said. These kids from Wyoming were either bluffing their way through the whole game, or else they didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Duncan felt sorry for them, but Carl wrote him a note that read:

  Challenge?

  Duncan nodded. “Challenge!” Carl said, pressing the center button on the timer to pause it.

  All four players stood, and together they walked over to one of the laptop computers positioned on stands around the edge of the room. The computers were set to a special word-judge program called Syzygy, which, naturally, was a word that was good in Scrabble. SYZYGY, Duncan had learned, meant a situation in which separate things line up and fall into place.

  Please let this all fall into place, Duncan thought.

  Carl typed in the letters of SLEFT. Marie, making sure that he had typed it correctly, pressed ENTER. All at once a new screen popped up with a red border, along with the words:

  NO, THIS PLAY IS NO GOOD

  “Oh,” said Marie, moving back a little as if shocked by what she saw. “Wow.”

  “What? It isn’t good?” Tim asked.

  The little girl shook her head, her mouth trembling. Duncan felt awful. It seemed cruel to beat these little kids, but this was the YST, and you were supposed to play your best, right? Marie picked up the S, L, E, F, and T and returned them to the rack. The Wranglers lost a turn. The button on the timer was pressed again, and game play continued.

  “We could have played that game in our sleep,” Carl boasted a little later when he and Duncan, April, Lucy, Nate, and Maxie sat together out on the hotel patio overlooking the beach. “We could have played that game if we were dead. If we were corpses lying in our graves we could have beaten those kids. I don’t even know what those kids are doing here. They should be back in Wyoming riding their dumb little miniature ponies in a circle.”

  “Maybe,” April said, irritated, “they’re here because they like Scrabble.”

  “They did seem into it,” Duncan agreed. “At least until we challenged them.” He thought about how the Wranglers had confidently plunked down those words that turned out to be no good.

  “I’m not here because I’m into it,” Nate said.

  “Oh no?” asked Duncan. “Then why?”

  “I’m here because of my dad’s obsession.” He turned to Maxie and said, “Sorry, Maxie, I should’ve explained this to you back in New York.”

  “Explained what?”

  Nate told everyone what had happened to his father and his father’s partner, Wendell Bruno, at the tournament twenty-six years earlier. “See, I’ve got to win,” Nate said. “And first place, not second place like my dad and Wendell Bruno. If I don’t win the whole enchilada, my dad won’t be able to get over it. I’ll have to practice again for next year’s tournament. I’ll never be able to go back to school. But please don’t let that affect the way any of you play, if you happen to play a game against Maxie and me. I mean, play your hardest,” he added.

  “Why do you care about going back to school? School’s overrated,” said Carl. “Listen to how pathetic our school in Drilling Falls is: we eat lunch at ten forty-five A.M. And it’s basically dog food.”

  Duncan thought again about Andrew Tanizaki, and how they no longer sat together in the cafeteria. He remembered the note with the drawings on it that Andrew had slipped into his back pocket, and now it seemed important not to lose it this weekend. Duncan touched his pocket to make sure it was still there. It was.

  “That sounds pretty bad,” said Maxie. “My school’s all right.”

  “I’ll say,” said Nate. “I loved it there.”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as love,” said Maxie. “But,” she told everyone, “we do have a skate park across the street.”

  “Our school,” Duncan said, “is filled with kids you’d never want to talk to. Or at least kids who’d never want to talk to me.”

  As soon as he said this, he also thought: And Carl’s one of them. Carl would never have said two words to Duncan if he hadn’t thought Duncan could help him. He was kind of mean, but he wasn’t terrible, and they were getting along fine at the tournament. Mrs. Slater hadn’t mentioned the eight hundred and eighty-five dollars or the cigarette ads. Even Duncan’s mother, now that he thought about it, was trying hard not to intrude.

  It was as if, for one weekend, they were all allowed to live in a world devoted to their game. When the weekend was over, they would return to the real world, where no one knew what bingo-bango-bongos were, and where vowel dumps sounded like something embarrassing that could happen to you on the toilet.

  “I’m here,” Maxie Roth said, “because Nate asked me to be his partner. It seemed kind of different. I’m not so great with words, but I’m really into numbers. Like, figuring out all the scores you could get if you made different moves. And what would happen if the other team did one thing versus another.”

  “You should see how fast Maxie figures these things out,” Nate said. “It’s awesome. She’s even better than me.”

  April said, “I’m here because I love the game. Also,” she added, “because I want to prove to my super-jock family that Scrabble’s a sport.”

  “Well, is it a sport, actually?” asked Duncan.

  They debated the question. Then Lucy announced that April was also here for another reason, and April immediately said to her, “Nobody’s interested in that.”

  But Lucy wouldn’t stop. She told everyone at the table the whole story about the boy from the motel pool in the blue T-shirt that said SETTLE MARS. She told them about how she and April had searched for him, and how they’d had no luck so far. “April has no idea of who he is or where he lives,” Lucy said. “But she taug
ht him to play Scrabble that day, and he was really good. So maybe he’s here this weekend.”

  “Do you have a crush on him, April?” asked Carl. “Do you want him to be your boyfriend?”

  “No,” said April sharply. “As a matter of fact I don’t, so just be quiet, okay?”

  “I think you have a crush on him,” Carl went on. “April loves Mystery Pool Boy, and wants to make out with him!”

  “Oh, shut up, Carl,” said Lucy. “Seriously. You’re such an infant.”

  “April?” said Maxie. “I don’t know anything about Scrabble. And, like, I don’t want to make you feel bad. But, statistically, the chances of him being one of the kids at this tournament are, well, totally low.”

  “I know,” said April. “It’s just a sort of a daydream of mine.”

  “SETTLE MARS,” said Duncan. “That sounds so weird.”

  “Maybe he’s just a weird kid,” Nate Saviano said. “Maybe his father forces him to stay home from school and study Scrabble all day.”

  “You aren’t weird, Nate,” Maxie said, looking at him. “I think you’re interesting.” Then she glanced around the table, stopping at Duncan. Everyone else had said why they’d come to the YST. Maxie Roth asked, “So what’s your story, Duncan?”

  He knew he couldn’t tell them the truth; if he did, someone might try to get him disqualified from the tournament. But the truth wasn’t so simple. He was here not only because of his fingertips, and not only because he wanted to win first place and show everyone at school that he was special and important and more than just a human piece of ordinary nothingness. And not only because he wanted to hand his mother the prize money and make it possible for them to move to their own place. The truth was also that he loved Scrabble now.

  “I’m basically here,” Duncan told them, “because I want to be.”

  Lucy popped open a can of lemon-lime Splurge and nodded. “Makes sense,” she said.

  They still had a little while until they had to go back inside and play round three. Nate and Maxie showed them some moves on their skateboards, and Carl and Lucy tried them. “Can you ollie?” Nate asked, and Carl said sure, he’d done it plenty of times, and Lucy said no, she’d only ridden once or twice, but she hadn’t learned much.

  “There are a lot of variations on the ollie,” Maxie explained to them, getting on her hot pink skateboard and expertly doing a few tricks. On his own skateboard, Nate was also impressive.

  One by one, the kids tried the skateboards. All except Duncan, who sat still, watching. Finally Nate came over and handed him his board. “Come on, man,” Nate said. “Your turn.”

  Duncan thought that Nate Saviano had something about him that made him practically another species from Duncan. Nate had his own style, and his very own way of being in the world. No one picked out Nate’s shirts for him. Nate had long hair and an intense expression on his face, and all those skateboard buttons on his jacket. But he was nice. And here he was, holding out the skateboard.

  “No thanks,” Duncan said. “I don’t . . . do that.”

  “It’s not so hard,” said Nate. “You’ll get the hang of it pretty fast.”

  “It isn’t that,” said Duncan. But it was that. That and more. Duncan had always worried about his nervous mother’s reactions to everything he did. He could just picture her poking her head over the railing above the patio and calling, “Duncan! What do you think you’re doing? You’ll hurt yourself!”

  He had held himself back from doing many things over the twelve years of his life, but it wasn’t really because of her. It was because of him. It made him nervous to try something new. And yet if you never tried anything new, Duncan thought, then everything was boring. Life was like an eighty-year-long bus ride in the rain.

  Duncan stood up and took the skateboard.

  “Go for it,” said April.

  “Way to go, Duncan D,” said Maxie.

  Duncan put a foot on the skateboard and immediately felt it flip out from under him as if it was alive. “Whoa!” he said, stumbling off and catching his balance.

  “Take it easy,” said Nate. “Try again.”

  The others watched as Nate gave Duncan the first skateboard lesson of his life. It was extremely hard; harder than math and gym rolled into one. The board was so small and narrow; how were you expected to stay on it? It was like riding a chopstick. Duncan fell off several times, but he hadn’t been going very fast, and the red tile surface of the patio wasn’t that far a fall.

  The pace of the lesson soon picked up, and all the kids left the table and moved over to a hilly concrete area.

  Duncan grabbed the board. He got on it again, wobbling, and went down the concrete slope, and before he knew it he was going too fast. Behind him the other kids’ voices called out, “Duncan! Duncan! Where are you going?”

  Where am I going? Duncan thought in terror. He was speeding down a hill, heading toward something he couldn’t even see. And he was heading there faster than he’d ever gone in his life. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he thought. Miraculously, Duncan stayed on the skateboard. Inside his sneakers, his toes gripped down like claws. He leaned to the left a little, rounding a curve, passing a couple of palm trees and a man selling cups of sweet shaved ice. He passed a surfing shop, and a souvenir stand, and he kept on going, his feet clinging to the board. Sometimes he crouched down a little, though no one had taught him to. It seemed as if his usually clumsy self knew what to do.

  “Watch out!” he called. This was amazing. Duncan was roaring down the sidewalk, and people were jumping out of the way. “Ayy-eeeeeee!” Duncan heard himself yell. And then the board just popped out from under him again, and he flew into the air.

  This time, the world was frozen in place. It was very still up there where Duncan hung, and very quiet.

  He thought: This is what it’s like right before you die.

  At least, he thought, I got to do some amazing things before I died. I got to take a joyride on a runaway skateboard. And be in a national Scrabble tournament. And start to make a bunch of new friends. And run around a little, without my mother watching my every move.

  But then the world unfroze, and Duncan thudded down to the ground. His knee slammed against concrete, and he heard himself shout out a word that would never be acceptable in school Scrabble. He was definitely hurt, but he definitely wasn’t dead. Duncan heard the other kids’ voices coming toward him. They sounded out of breath.

  “Duncan! Duncan! Are you okay?” Nate asked, kneeling beside him.

  Duncan lay on the ground with his knee throbbing like a little heart. At first he was speechless. His mother would be hysterical, he thought. He glanced down at his knee. The pants had ripped, and through the flap in the fabric he saw blood, which had started to spread.

  “ARE YOU OKAY?” Nate shouted, right in his ear now.

  “No, I’m not okay,” Duncan said with a moan.

  “Can you move it?” Nate asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, try.”

  Duncan moved it. The knee worked. Nothing was broken. It was a badly banged-up and extremely bloody knee, but it wasn’t actually a disaster. There was a difference. His pants had been ruined, and he’d need to get another pair at Thriftee Mike’s Warehouse. But the knee would be okay. It would be okay, and so would he. He had ridden a skateboard very fast, too fast, and he’d gone down a hill on the sidewalk, scaring everyone, including himself, but he had survived.

  Sometimes you had to take big risks if you wanted something. Everyone else had always known this, but Duncan never had. Now he knew what they had meant. The ride down the hill had been terrifying. Stupid. Really terrifying and really stupid. But also, it had been incredible.

  “We’ll get you some ice and a bandage,” said April. “They’ve got to have a first-aid kit around here somewhere.”

  “Yes, Scrabble injuries must be very common,” said Lucy. Duncan laughed a little despite the pain, and then they all helped him to his feet.

/>   Chapter Twelve

  A REUNION

  Nate’s father paced the atrium during round three. He was so tense now that he could barely think. Let him win, Larry Saviano thought. Please, please let him win.

  Larry tried to imagine what he would say if Nate came out and told him he had lost a game, and if this time he was telling the truth. Larry certainly couldn’t shout, “HOW COULD YOU HAVE LET THAT HAPPEN?” You weren’t supposed to shout at your kid when he lost a game. You were supposed to say, “You gave it your best shot, buddy,” and put your arms around him and take him out for a hot fudge sundae and buy him a golden retriever named Cody. But Larry didn’t really know what he would do if Nate lost.

  So it couldn’t happen. Nate had to win.

  Larry Saviano kept pacing the atrium, knowing how agitated he probably looked. The stress of the tournament was really getting to him. Inside the ballroom, Nate’s mother and stepfather sat waiting with baby Eloise, among all the other families. Two hundred players hunched over their Scrabble boards in intense, aching silence.

  Larry would have kept pacing back and forth for the entire game, but as he walked across the carpeting with the ugly abstract-art swirl design in it for the thirtieth or fortieth time, someone stepped into his path.

  It was the bald guy with dark glasses. Larry had seen him around earlier. The two men stood very still now, just looking at each other. There was something familiar about him, Larry thought, but he didn’t know what it was.

  “Larry?” said the bald guy.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” said Nate’s father, but as he spoke, the bald guy reached up and lifted his dark glasses. Behind them his eyes were clear and bright blue. Without the shades on, he didn’t look menacing at all. He looked young.

  And in that moment, Larry Saviano felt as if he had stood right here in this atrium before, facing this very same person. But how could that be true?