This Gorgeous Game

by Donna Freitas

  I don’t belong here. I am out of place. Too young, too inexperienced. Too insignificant. I haven’t earned the right to a spot in this room.

  Father Mark’s arms rest one on each thigh, parallel to his legs, his hands gripping his knees. McDaniel’s voice, his words are released into the room one after the other like a strand of pearls, and Father Mark turns to look at me sitting in the antique wooden chair next to him, the chair with the curved armrests on which I refuse to rest even an elbow. I don’t understand or listen to McDaniel and only my ears alert me that he is speaking because I am concentrating on the hem of my dress, how it doesn’t quite cover my knees when I sit, and how the capped sleeves leave my arms almost bare. I should have dressed differently, more appropriately, worn a suit, a pantsuit, even though it is late June and hot and sticky and I don’t even own a pantsuit but I should have bought one for tonight. Instead of professional and appropriate I feel yet again like a girl, a little girl at her first communion, a girl in a frilly party dress among the adults who know better, who are learned and wise, who must know something that I don’t know because what I do know is that something isn’t right, though I can’t put my finger on it, can’t quite articulate what it is.

  What is it?

  The other thing of which I am painfully, uncomfortably aware is that I am here by the grace of Father Mark D. Brendan, as his guest—this he does not let me or anyone else forget. Over and over, he says to everyone who stops to say hello to him, to congratulate him on this or that most recent award he’s won, “This is Olivia Peters. She is here with me, as my guest.” They smile, shake my hand, and then walk away. As if they know. As if they are uncomfortable with my presence, too. This lack of belonging, my lack of belonging, registers fully as McDaniel continues to read, each word adding another pearl onto the long, glamorous strand that I can not appreciate in this moment, though I wish, I wish I could.

  Something is very wrong.

  I look over at Father Mark, I study his face, his chin tilted slightly upward, his eyes, closed now, as if to better hear the words traveling toward us from the podium. On his lips, a smile. He seems enraptured. A chandelier hangs overhead and he is bathed in soft light, the top of his thick hair turned silver under a cascade of crystal.

  His eyes pop open and in less than a blink he turns to me, catches me staring, watching. Instead of being flustered or even annoyed he is gleeful to see I have been taking him in, and his smile broadens until it is almost frightening.

  I am frightened. Father Mark frightens me. This is what is wrong.

  This.

  In this moment—this very particular moment, with me reddening and him smiling—I see something a tad sinister in his eyes, calculating, measuring, appraising me like I am a bauble, a jewel with karats, clarity, cut, a possession. Something moves inside me, turns to ice, and a small, cold bead of warning lodges itself in the bottom curve of my heart and I think, How have I not noticed this before? and Maybe I didn’t allow myself to and Why did it take me so long to see?

  “What’s the matter, Olivia?” he whispers, leaning close, so close I can feel his breath on my ear, reminding me of Jamie and his breath on my cheek and my neck, and I want to shove Father Mark away because he should not remind me of anything having to do with Jamie because Jamie he is not and I don’t want memories of Jamie tainted with Father Mark. But his hand, Father Mark’s hand, brushes across the back of my dress, and his hair presses slightly into mine.

  I can feel it. All of it. It is all so clear.

  And I freeze, determined not to move. It would be weird to shift away, like he was doing something other than simply asking whether I am okay. Then he would know I know something is wrong, if I move away. So I stay still, feel his warm breath, his body leaning toward mine, and I whisper, “Nothing, nothing at all, Father Mark,” and he whispers, “Good,” and sits back upright, closing his eyes again, enraptured again, by the reading.

  Is it really the reading that has enraptured him? Taken him?

  I sit there, next to Father Mark, wishing away this reading, this event that I was supposed to love, soak up, feel lucky to attend. I cannot lose myself in the words or the moment or Father Mark’s presence, because of his presence. I want to bolt, run away, run as fast as I can as far as I can but I don’t. Leaving would be strange, would call attention to that sharp-edged, frosty crystal that has taken up residence in my heart.

  When McDaniel stops reading and the questions finally stop coming and everyone gets up and there is a reception, I stay because I’ve no other choice even though what I want is to go home. I think about calling a cab but decide it would be too conspicuous. I am afraid to call attention, to make everything worse than it already is, and Father Mark is my ride and I know, I know he will be upset and offended if I leave in a cab. So I smile and I mingle and I try to remember that these people are wonderful connections and Father Mark introduces me like I am some rising star and I know I should feel grateful, I should feel gratitude, I know I should, but for some reason this time, this awkward feeling and wishing I am elsewhere doesn’t go away and what I do feel isn’t anything resembling gratitude at all.

  I plead with myself, Olivia, you are wasting this opportunity and for what? Some indescribable feeling you get when Father Mark smiles? That is just plain stupid, Olivia. I swallow this advice and try to pull myself together and nod thank you when I get congratulations and someone compliments me on my dress, the dress I wish I had not worn because it makes me stand out among everyone else in the room and the last thing I want is to be noticeable, and worse, noticeable in a girlish way, but there you have it.

  Finally, after what seems like hours, it is over.

  Time to go.

  “Come on, Olivia,” Father Mark says, turning to me, smiling again, a smile I don’t want to read because I don’t want to know what lurks behind it or how to understand its meaning. “Let’s go to the car so I can get you home.” He looks at his watch, pulling back his black shirtsleeve. “You have work to do, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah,” I say, mustering a small laugh. “Of course,” I say, forcing myself to sound enthusiastic even if my enthusiasm about my writing, about him, is not just faltering anymore but gone.

  We get to his car, his modest car given him by the church, and he opens the passenger door for me.

  “After you,” he says, which immobilizes me for a second, because I don’t like the sound of this or the order of things, and wish he would just get into his side of the car first and not let me in like it’s some, like it’s a…I don’t know. I just don’t like this.

  In the car, on the ride home, I am silent.

  Father Mark, though, he talks. He talks about the classical music that plays on the CD, with its beautiful, haunting cello and violin, telling me how he thought I would like it, that he chose it especially for me, that he knew I’d be in the car and he wanted me to listen to it, that when he listens to this piece in particular he thinks of me.

  As the strings sing their melancholy notes I want to disappear, to become invisible. I want to press Eject, take the CD and break it in two. Instead, I count the blocks and shut out his voice, his comments, his romantic classical music that makes him think of me. Three…two…one more block and we are idling in front of my house.

  “Thank you,” I say, without looking at him, avoiding his gaze, opening the door to let myself out, to welcome the warm, humid air that already sticks to the right side of my body, my foot on the sidewalk, telling myself, cheering myself, that I am almost home. “I’ll see you in class.”

  His hand grabs my left arm, holding me, stopping me from leaving.

  I stop, pause, wait. Maybe he’ll just let go. But he doesn’t. His grip burns.

  “Olivia! Look at me.” A demand, not a request.

  One foot on the sidewalk, one foot still inside the car, I give up and turn to him.

  In his hand is an envelope, a manila envelope. He takes a deep breath. “What I have for you is something very dear t
o me. A story. A special one. My newest. Still unpublished. In fact, I’ve just written it, very quickly, over the last few weeks. No one else has seen it—”

  “I hope your editor loves it,” I interrupt, trying to stop him from continuing.

  He is undaunted.

  “—and I wish you to read it. I want to discuss it soon. I need you to read this—”

  Needs me to?

  “—it is very important to me, that you do this. Do you understand?”

  I say nothing.

  “Olivia!” Oh-liv-ee-aah!

  I do nothing.

  But his hands, rough, violent, they push, shove, force the envelope at me. It sits there for a second, against my body, threatening to slide to the ground before I grasp it and turn away.

  “Olivia,” he says again because he won’t stop saying my name. Refuses to. “Promise me you’ll read it.”

  I nod yes.

  “Promise me out loud,” he commands.

  But I don’t. Won’t.

  “I’ll see you in class,” I say, and get out of the car, feeling suffocated, dying to get into the house and out of his view and to stop, by all means, stop any contact, praying with every fiber of my being that he’ll forget about me, drop this charade, and just let me go.

  I do not want any more of it. Of this. Of him.

  This I know. I know this now. I am certain.

  I refuse to look back, to wave at him from the front door, though I hear the sound of his car idling, waiting, watching for me to disappear inside.

  The house is dark when I enter. I flip on light after light after light, wanting to be surrounded by light, feeling frightened, scared of the dark, of the darkness everywhere, seeping into me, so I leave a trail of light after me as I make my way through the house.

  When I reach my bedroom I toss the envelope onto the pile with the rest of it, the small mountain between my couch and the sill, still messy and untouched after Father Mark’s tantrum at dinner. I put on my pajamas, get into bed and burrow under the covers because I want to be buried, protected, hidden. I try to will myself to sleep but tugging at the corner of my consciousness is the story, his story, sitting so close that I cannot forget that it is there. A part of me wants to know what’s inside, to get it over with, to read it because I have a sense…I think it might…but then the biggest parts of me say, Olivia, don’t go there, just don’t. So maybe in the end I’ll get out of reading it like I get out of everything else recently, because he’ll start to get the picture like anyone else would, with him so desperate to be in touch and me avoiding, resisting, running away, because I will not stop avoiding. I will not. And eventually he will understand and stop and there will be no confrontation, no need for one, and then everything will be okay again because how could he not get the picture with all the signals I’m sending? How could he not? He will, in time he will eventually. My mother is always saying that patience is a virtue and I determine that I can ride this out, that I can be patient and virtuous, and so in the end no harm will have to come to anyone. Patience, Olivia, patience, I repeat over and over until sleep finally claims me.

  III

  I do so much want to love her as we began,

  spiritually—I do believe such spiritual love is not

  only possible but does exist between us, deeply,

  purely, strongly, and the rest can be controlled.

  Yet she is right to be scared. We can simply

  wreck each other.

  —THOMAS MERTON

  ON PRESSURE

  JUNE TURNS INTO JULY AND I THROW MYSELF INTO EVerything that comes my way—everything that has nothing to do with Father Mark. Addressing Greenie’s invitations, planning her shower, spending time with Ash and Jada, and Jamie, I see more and more and more of Jamie. Jamie who makes me forget. I want as much Jamie as possible. I wish for a brain that thinks only Jamie-thoughts because Jamie is the one person who can pull me out of the darkness that has settled over me, into me, throughout every part of me because of him. I am a heavy, dark cloud creeping across the sidewalks and parks of Boston, always bringing with me doom and gloom and destroying everyone’s mood around me, about to rain and ruin everything and everyone nearby.

  And now, now, now I wish with all my heart that I had never won this stupid freaking writing contest which is what got me into this mess with Father Mark who is probably going to call any minute because he calls just about every minute if he’s not e-mailing or texting every other minute or racing after me when class is over to discuss his stupid story only to find out that I, the ungrateful Olivia Peters, have still so far only read the title.

  This Gorgeous Game. By Mark D. Brendan.

  I can’t bring myself to go any further.

  I attend class to keep up appearances and because, well, Jamie is there and we go together and because if I stop going people will wonder why and what happened and say things like That’s not like you, Olivia, to skip class and Olivia, you used to be so excited about it and then I will have to come up with something to say. More and more and more reasons why and why not and for now going seems the path of least resistance, to just get in, get out, get home, and quick—at least until I find a better solution or it all stops and the situation resolves itself.

  I want this situation to resolve itself.

  As it is, Jamie knows something is up. That something is going on. That something is wrong. He’s started to make leading remarks like Wow, Father Mark calls you a lot, doesn’t he? and Father Mark is always leaving you things and You realize that Father Mark treats you different than everyone else, right? and all of these oblique observations require me to make even more excuses, to become a full-time Father Mark Excuse Machine because it’s only a matter of time before Father Mark gets the picture and stops, before it all stops and goes away, and if I can just keep this up a little longer then everything will be okay.

  I have to believe this.

  The other option is unthinkable. It requires that I…that I…and I can’t. I just can’t.

  Please, God. Please fix this for me.

  On yet another class day when the clock says three p.m. I drag myself from my room and out of the house, all the while debating whether or not to skip, to give myself a reprieve, engage in this internal tug of war—To go or not to go? To go or not to go?—always, eventually, landing on go because if I go I will see Jamie and I will avoid raised eyebrows from other parties. But most of all I won’t set him off because God only knows how badly I want to avoid doing that, giving Father Mark cause to come after me in some other new and creative way, and at least, at least if he sees me in class it seems to satisfy him somehow, pacify him, keep him from using that imagination for other purposes.

  It’s amazing, the things he thinks of doing. Trying.

  But today, today for some reason I remember that I can see Jamie after class or tomorrow, since by now Jamie always wants to see me as much as I want to see him, and I’ve only gone as far as the sidewalk in front of my house, my feet like lead, before I flip open my cell—three more missed calls to add to the four from earlier. I find Jamie’s number and hit Send.

  I decide to give myself a pass.

  “Olivia.” Jamie picks up right away.

  “Hi, Jamie,” I say, and scrape my foot back and forth along the cement. I can’t help but smile when I hear Jamie’s voice and the gloom lifts a little.

  “What’s up? Are you on your way?”

  “I was calling about class. I’m not going.”

  “Oh.”

  There is disappointment in that “Oh.” And a silence that follows.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No. I just have a lot of stuff to do. For Greenie. For Greenie’s wedding.” I hate lying to Jamie.

  “Olivia.”

  “Jamie.” I mimic his serious tone, trying to lighten things up.

  “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  Here we go again.

  “What do you mean?” I play dumb, stabbing at t
he sidewalk with the toe of my shoe.

  “I’m not sure. I know it hasn’t been that long since we’ve been seeing each other but I feel like we’ve gotten really close. But then I sense you are holding something back. Something important.” He sighs. “I want you to be able to tell me anything, Olivia. Absolutely anything.”

  No you don’t, I think. Not this, you don’t.

  “I trust you,” I say, and lean against a car parked along the street. The metal burns hot through my T-shirt even though the sun is hidden behind some clouds.

  “Olivia.”

  “I do,” I say, and wait another long moment. “So I’ll see you tomorrow at three?”

  I hear him breathing, in, out, hesitation, then resignation. “Fine. All right. Let’s meet at our spot,” he says, which makes my heart beat quicker. Jamie and I have “a spot” like other couples have “a song” and it’s the bench in the Public Garden. We go there almost every day now, ever since that first night of class. “I’ll be around later tonight online if you want to chat,” he adds.

  “Good to know.”

  “Well. Maybe talk to you later then,” he says, and I hear the phone click on the other end.

  I look up at the darkening sky and see that it’s probably about to storm like it does sometimes on summer afternoons, the thunder and lightning and rain rolling in and out over the course of an hour. The phone vibrates and I pick up without thinking. “What, you miss me already?”

  “Olivia,” scolds a familiar voice, and not the one I was expecting to hear. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”

  I slide down the side of the car until I’m sitting on the sidewalk.

  “Olivia? Are you there?”

  “Hi, Father Mark. Sorry. I, um, I thought you were someone else.”

  “Olivia, what is going on with you?” He is urgent. Desperate.