by Rona Jaffe
“Venice, Rome, Paris, London …” his mother said. “Eurail passes, student hostels … what energy you three have!”
“We never met Jay Jay,” his father said. “He’s the gourmet, isn’t he?”
“I guess you could call him that,” Daniel said. How could he explain Jay Jay? How could anyone explain Jay Jay to someone who hadn’t actually met him?
“Wait till you see how expensive Europe is,” his father said. “I don’t think you’ll be doing much three-star dining.”
“We don’t care,” Daniel said cheerfully.
“Of course they don’t,” his mother said. “Picnics of bread and cheese and wine … museums … art galleries … wait till you really see with your own eyes the streets and buildings you’ve only seen in photographs. The sense of history is incredible. You’ll never be the same again.”
“And Andy and Beth will be in Mexico,” his father said. “Ellie, I think you and I should take a trip somewhere.”
“I’m game,” his mother said cheerfully. “One of the nice things about being the mother of sons is that after a wedding you’re not exhausted. I’ll go to the travel agent tomorrow and get some brochures. I’d like to go someplace that’s not too hot.” She gathered up the Sunday papers they had read and began looking for the travel section. “I’m glad that story about that missing Grant boy ended and I don’t have to see it anymore. Every time I read about it I felt so upset. You did say you didn’t know him, Daniel? I guess you couldn’t—it’s such a big school—but I’m surprised because he lived right in your own dorm.”
“I lied,” Daniel said quietly.
He looked at his parents, their faces turned toward him in bewilderment, and he knew he not only wanted but needed to tell them the whole story. He’d been so tired when he came home from college that he hadn’t been able to face explaining it all and living it over again, but now he was ready.
“Why would you lie?” his mother asked.
“Because I was one of the people who played the game with him in the caves.”
“You what?”
“In the caves?” his father said. “You?”
They both looked stunned; not accusing or angry, simply stunned. “Why?” his mother asked.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Daniel said.
His father was shaking his head. “Wait,” he said. “Please … first explain the game to me. I want to know what kind of power a game can have that would make a group of normal, intelligent college students want to risk their lives.”
“Oh, yes,” his mother said. “Tell us …”
So Daniel explained the game, as best he could. It had taken him months to learn how to be a good player, so he obviously couldn’t tell them everything in half an hour, but he got across the basics, and more importantly, what the game had meant. His parents nodded; they were really trying to understand.
“I’ve thought about it a lot lately,” Daniel said. “I think the game was psychodrama.”
“Working it out,” his mother said. She kept nodding. “Yes, yes. But what problem were you trying to work out, Daniel?”
“I think the game was my way of competing without getting hurt,” Daniel said. “In real life you try difficult things, you win or you lose, and sometimes it hurts too much. We took the game very seriously but it was still a fantasy. Your character could get killed, but it wasn’t really you.”
“But it could have been!” his mother said.
“I know. And now when I look back I wonder how we could have thought life was scarier than that.”
“Who else played?” his father asked.
“Kate, Jay Jay, Robbie, and me. For Kate it was a way of not feeling helpless. For Jay Jay … I guess it was the same for different reasons. And they both liked the fantasy. Robbie was the one who needed the fantasy too much.”
“I wish you had told us,” his father said. “Maybe we could have talked about it, tried to help.”
“I didn’t even understand it myself,” Daniel said.
“And now that you do?” his mother asked.
“I just know I don’t need the game anymore.”
“And the others? That boy Robbie?”
“We’re all going to be fine,” Daniel said. He thought about Robbie again, and the stabbing—the part he had kept trying to forget—and he wondered if anyone, even Robbie, would ever find out what had really happened. They all just had to keep believing the “Killing” was part of Robbie’s imagination, like the rest of the game. He felt sick.
“Are you okay?” his mother asked, peering at him with a concerned frown.
“Sure. I was just remembering it for a minute. You don’t have to worry. We went through a bad experience and came through the other side.”
“And you’ll never want to do it again?”
“No,” Daniel said. “Never.” He smiled at her and let the present and future flow into him, and the sick feeling went away. “My life is too full of good things now. I’m not afraid of being afraid, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, yes,” his mother said. She looked at his father, and for the first time their faces relaxed. They smiled back at him. “Yes, we do.”
EPILOGUE:
HE THAT IS ALONE
Summer 1980
It was a beautiful morning at the end of June when Kate, Daniel, and Jay Jay drove from New York to Greenwich to visit Robbie. There were a few white puffs of clouds in the bright blue sky, and the trees were radiant with fat, green summer leaves. Grass was lush on the sides of the highway, and the air sang with all the life of a summer day: birds, insects, animals, children at play. Kate had never been happier.
She was with the people she loved, and while she was at home she had accidentally solved a problem she had thought was insurmountable. She was going to write her novel at last: she had the story she wanted to tell.
That was the greatest thing of all—her novel! Suddenly she was filled with ideas, her writer’s block gone. She would write a book about what had happened to the four of them from playing the game; their fears about life which had been conquered, the terrible thing that had happened to Robbie, and what the game had really meant. Now, at last, she had an experience to tell about, a real story. All her thoughts fell into place so easily. She would simply write about herself and her friends. She would have to reveal her feelings, for the first time—and to strangers—and that would be harder to do than anything she had ever done in her life, but she wanted to. Kate realized that the feelings she’d thought were so shameful, and were so painful, were the same as other people’s, and there was nothing wrong with them. Daniel had taught her that. A wave of such tenderness and love for him swept over her that she felt as if she were melting away.
“She’s thinking about her book again,” Daniel said. “I can always tell when her eyes get glassy.”
“You’re supposed to be watching the road, not my eyes,” Kate said.
“Am I right?” he said. “You’re thinking about your book?”
“Maybe,” she said. She laughed happily.
“I always said we’d all be famous,” Jay Jay said.
“I’ll start it next fall at school,” she said, thinking out loud. “I’ll have to hand in two thousand words a week for my creative writing course, so I can hand in pieces of my novel. If I do more than two thousand words that’s all right too. I feel like I could write the whole book in one year.”
“You had better make me sophisticated and devastatingly attractive,” Jay Jay said.
“Naturally,” Daniel said. “It’s fiction.”
“May your hair fall out when you’re twenty-five,” Jay Jay said.
“Oh, no!” Kate said. They all laughed.
“And Merlin’s going to be in it, isn’t he?” Jay Jay asked.
“Of course,” she said. She looked out the window at the landscape flashing by; suburbs deepening into country, so close to the city and yet so peaceful and different. This was possibly the mos
t gorgeous day she had ever seen.…
“Music!” Daniel commanded. “I want music!” He had given Kate a cassette player for her car for her birthday, and it had become his favorite toy. “It’s Jay Jay’s turn to pick the tape.”
Jay Jay reached over from the backseat and snapped in the score from Spellbound. He had given Kate a dozen tapes for her birthday, and nine of them were from old movies. He had told her they were the classical music of tomorrow.
“I wish you’d play Manhattan,” Kate said.
“You can play it when it’s your turn,” Jay Jay said.
“How about if I bribe you?”
“There is nothing I want,” Jay Jay said. “I have everything.”
“Bullshit,” Kate said. They all laughed.
“That’s a great-looking watch, Jay Jay,” Daniel said.
Jay Jay held up his wrist, displaying a dull-black steel watch with a complicated dial. “You know what this was? This was going to be the treasure when we finished the game. Actually, I bought one and hid it in the caverns, and then I bought a duplicate for me. Isn’t it great?”
“Yes,” Kate said. She felt a small pang. She would have liked to have won it. “Where’s the other one?”
“In the caverns forever,” Jay Jay said.
“And rest in peace,” said Daniel.
“Amen,” Kate and Jay Jay said.
They turned in at Robbie’s family’s driveway. There was the big white house, the fruit trees, the rose garden, and down the hill the sweep of manicured grass that ended in a vista of weeping willow trees, a pond with ducks swimming on it, and behind that dark, cool woods. It was all green and peaceful out there, the splash of wild flowers the only other touch of color against the silvery water. Kate felt more aware of colors now than she ever had before, just as her skin was more sensitive to touch and changes of temperature. It was as if, now that she knew for certain she was going to be a writer, everything had to be observed and stored away. Or perhaps it was because she had regained the energies she had given to the game.
Robbie’s mother came to the door to greet them. She looked much more rested now, and her skin had the flush of a summer tan. She smiled and drew them into her house.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “Robbie will be happy too. It’s sad—his friends don’t come around anymore. People can be selfish sometimes, can’t they? Would you like some coffee? Are you hungry?”
“Coffee would be fine,” Kate said. “We just finished breakfast. Where’s Robbie?”
“He’s up on the hill behind the house,” his mother said. “It’s his favorite place. The view there is the best one we have, I think.” She poured coffee for all of them and handed them a tray with a pitcher of milk and a sugar bowl on it. They were in the kitchen now; she had herded them all in as if they were her Kindergarten class. Kate had the feeling she was going to make them finish their milk and cookies before they went out to play. I must remember that, she thought. Nice line.
“How’s Robbie doing?” Daniel asked.
“He’s gained back all the weight he lost,” his mother said. “I must say it’s a relief to look at the Robbie I remember.” She smiled. “I drink a lot of coffee. I’m a recovered alcoholic—that’s what they call it. Or ‘recovering.’ Depends on whom you talk to. Anyway, I do drink a lot of coffee. One vice for another, you might say.” She laughed. “But I feel wonderful. I don’t know why I have this compulsion to tell you this. I’ve noticed quite a few of my friends who’ve licked the alcohol problem tend to announce it to everybody within earshot. I suppose we’re proud of it. Maybe it’s part of the process. Mea culpa … I guess you want to see Robbie.”
“We can finish our coffee,” Kate said. She didn’t understand why she felt so sorry for this woman. Robbie was back home safe and sound, his mother was sober, and yet there was a kind of pathetic, nervous loneliness about Mrs. Wheeling … The kitchen was so quiet Kate could hear the clock ticking.
“I know you’re the ones who played the game with him,” his mother said. Her tone was tense but kind. “I’m his mother, and I can guess these things. But I wanted to tell you that what happened to him wasn’t your fault. Robbie was fragile … damaged … and the game fit his needs. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said quietly. “I … my mother is a psychologist and she uses that word sometimes: ‘fragile.’ She says some people are more fragile than others. You shouldn’t blame yourself either.”
She smiled. “Mothers always do. But all right, I won’t. I’ll just blame the world. Sooner or later that’s a good place for the buck to stop, isn’t it? Out there in the cosmos?”
I can’t stand this conversation, Kate thought. All those undercurrents. I think I’m going to scream. “Why don’t we go see Robbie now?” she said cheerily.
“Of course,” his mother said.
They ran out of the house and around to the back where there was an arrangement of white metal chairs and a round table with a flowered umbrella in the middle of it, set out near a huge old tree on top of the hill. It was, as Mrs. Wheeling had told them, the most beautiful view on the property. And best of all, there was Robbie, sitting quietly in one of the chairs, wearing white tennis shorts and a white T-shirt, his face held up to the sun.
“Robbie!” they all yelled joyfully, running. “Hi!”
He turned, and when he saw them his face lit up. He looked wonderful, just like the same old Robbie, and his new sexy beard was neatly trimmed. “My friends!” Robbie said happily. He jumped up and ran to greet them.
“You look terrific,” Kate said.
“You certainly do,” Jay Jay said.
“Freelik!” Robbie cried. “I thought you were dead. Did you not die when you leaped into the pit? Ah, I know—you are Freelik’s son!”
“Cut the crap, Robbie,” Jay Jay said pleasantly.
“But no,” Robbie went on, as if he hadn’t even heard him. “It could not have been so long ago that we had our adventure. You must be Freelik himself. Did someone raise you from the dead? He must have been a great Holy Man, as great as myself. And here is Glacia, and Nimble too! I have been so restless here, planning my next quest, hoping to find companions to venture forth with me.”
“Come on,” Daniel said. “That’s enough. We came all the way from New York to visit you.” He sounded nervous, and glanced at Kate.
“You must be tired,” Robbie said. “Please sit here and rest.”
The three of them sat gingerly on the white metal chairs and Robbie sat down too. “We’re going to Europe tomorrow,” Jay Jay said.
“Is that very far from here?” Robbie asked.
“Robbie …” Kate said, and then she knew. She felt as if something inside her had died.
Robbie wasn’t just fooling around, trying to make a joke of the past. He was back in the game.
“I am Pardieu,” Robbie said, bewildered. “Don’t you remember me? Has someone put a spell of forgetfulness on you, Glacia?”
Kate turned her head away and held back the tears. Oh, Robbie …
“I have had so many strange encounters since we last met,” Robbie went on. “I saw the greatest dragon that ever existed, and I was almost raped by a succubus. I met the Princess of the Sprites. Ah, Freelik, she was so kind to me. And I met the King of France, who was very hospitable. You must tell me of your adventures too. Did you meet the innkeeper and his wife? It is a good place to stay—very clean, and the food is plentiful.”
Oh, Robbie … Kate thought.
“I have the Eternally Renewing Coin,” Robbie said conspiratorially. “Every night after supper I give it to the innkeeper’s wife to pay for my day’s lodging, and every morning when I awake it is under my pillow.” He reached into the pocket of his tennis shorts and pulled out a coin, and held it up. It was an ordinary quarter.
That’s why his mother told us it wasn’t our fault, Kate thought. She was preparing us.
“But I need an adventure,” Robbie said. “No
w that you are here, my loyal friends, let us go forth together.” He stood up. “Beyond that stand of trees is an enchanted lake. And beyond that is the great forest. The innkeeper and his wife are afraid of it. They have warned me to stay away. I feel there must be some evil thing within, and if we could rid the forest of it then the innkeeper and his wife could be safe and happy. I would like to do a service for them.”
Oh, Pardieu … Kate thought.
The four of them walked down the hill toward the lake where white ducks swam. They stopped under the shade of the weeping willow trees, a cave of green lace. Kate looked at Daniel. His eyes were very sad. Then he nodded. “I am the Maze Controller,” Daniel said. “This is the …” His voice broke.
“The kingdom of the evil Voracians,” Jay Jay said. “Ruled by the wicked Ak-Oga. I am Freelik the Frenetic of Glossamir.” Jay Jay looked at Daniel, handing him the power.
“There are great dangers within,” Daniel said. “But there is also a wondrous treasure. Shall you enter?”
“Yes,” they said.
And so they played the game again, for one last time. It did not matter that there were no maps or dice, no rule books, or even that there were no monsters. All of the evil that had ever existed was real again in Robbie’s mind, and so when Daniel said there were Gorvils to enchant or kill, Pardieu saw them. The others did not see them. They saw nothing but the death of a hope and the loss of their friend, and they played the game until the sun began to set and long shadows stretched across the lawn. They found the monster in the enchanted forest, and they killed him. The village would be saved, the innkeeper and his wife would be able to live in peace. Pardieu’s eyes shone.
