The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman (14 page)

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?

Because it
was
true.

No, it’s not possible, he thought.

Nate’s father felt slightly dizzy, and his throat went dry and tight. Finally he understood what was happening. In a cautious voice Larry said, “Wendell? Wendell Bruno? Is it really you?”

The other man smiled slightly and nodded. “Yes, it’s really me. Your old Scrabble partner.”

It had been twenty-six years since these two men had been here together as twelve-year-old boys. Back then, Larry had obviously had no beard, and he hadn’t even begun to shave. Wendell had had a full head of frizzy hair then, and no dark glasses shielding his bright blue eyes. They had been good friends and Scrabble partners, but the loss of the game in the final round had devastated them both.

Their friendship became painful, and whenever they got together after Yakamee, all they thought about was losing. So the two boys drifted apart, and then Wendell’s family moved away from their town in Arizona, and Larry never saw him again. He had mostly stopped wondering about him. Even
thoughts
of Wendell Bruno had needed to be blotted out.

But here he was, miraculously, after all this time. Unblottable.

“Wendell, what are you doing here? Do you have a kid in the tournament, too?” Nate’s father asked.

His former Scrabble partner shook his head. “No,” he said. “I just come here to watch every year. I live right in Yakamee.”

“You do? That’s a coincidence.”

“Not really. I moved here years ago. I wanted to live in the place where my loserdom began.”

“You moved to Yakamee, Florida, just because we lost the tournament here?” asked Larry.

“I guess you could put it that way,” said Wendell. “And besides, the climate is nice. I got myself a job at Funswamp.”

“The amusement park? What do you do there?”

“I’m a character.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Wendell Bruno, “Funswamp is trying to be competitive with the more well-known amusement parks in the state. So it came up with its own set of characters. You know—the cute, lovable creatures that kids want to meet and shake hands with and hug. I’m the main one: Scaly the Gator.”

“Scaly? I’m not sure that’s the most appealing name,” said Larry.

“Ah, the kids love Scaly. At least I think they do,” Wendell added. “I dress up as a big green-and-rust-colored alligator that’s the color of certain kinds of algae. And I go up to the kids and I say”—and here Wendell put on a dopey, slowed-down voice—“‘I’m Scaly! Would you like to hug me? But be careful, those scales are rough!’”

“Oh,” said Larry politely. “I see. You know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they do love you, Wendell. Actually, we’re going to the amusement park tonight. There’s going to be an outing there. All the kids from the tournament are being bused over.”

“That would never have happened in the old days,” said Wendell.

“Funswamp didn’t
exist
in the old days,” said Larry. “It was just a swamp crawling with alligators.”

“True. I see you’ve got a son playing,” said Wendell. “I saw his name on the roster, and I knew it had to be your kid. Every year when the tournament pulls into town, I look to see if there’s a Saviano. I figure that Scrabble talent is at least partly genetic. And this year, what do you know: ‘Nate Saviano.’”

“In all honesty, my son Nate would rather be on his skateboard,” said his father. “He’s really good at it. You should see him.”

“Me, I come to the tournament every year just to drink in the atmosphere,” said Wendell. “And to remember what it was like back then.”

“Oh, come on,” said Larry. “Be honest. You come here every year to torture yourself. To remember how close we came to victory, and how we lost it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty accurate,” Wendell admitted with a sad little laugh. “We were two kids who had a chance to become winners,” he said. “And then we didn’t.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“And our lives have been affected because of it. At least, mine has. How’s
your
life been, Larry?” Wendell asked. “Loserish or winnerish?”

“It’s been a mixed bag,” Nate’s father said. “I got divorced. But the best thing that ever happened to me was my son. I know I drive Nate crazy. I just can’t help myself.”

“He’s
got
to win the tournament, right?” said Wendell.

Larry nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “It would really mean a lot to me.”

“You know, I’ve been watching your kid since this morning,” Wendell Bruno said. “He had a squeaker with the first game, but then things picked up. He’s a strong player, Larry. I started thinking that if he and his partner win the whole thing, it would mean a lot to
me
as well. It would be like reliving the past and
fixing
it, you know? Having it end the right way, finally.”

“That’s exactly how I feel,” said Larry Saviano.

“Maybe,” said Wendell, coming closer, “I could help make that happen. Can we go somewhere private to talk?”

Nate’s father nodded, and followed him onto the up escalator.

 

 

One level above, in Ballroom B of the Grand Imperial Hotel, the Junior National Gymnastics Competition was taking place. Some of the gymnasts’ parents wandered around the upstairs atrium, which was identical to the one below, but none of the parents looked familiar to Larry. There was no overlap between this world and the world of Scrabble one flight down. He and Wendell could talk freely here.

Out of curiosity, Nate’s father opened the door of Ballroom B a crack and peered inside. Gym mats had been rolled out on the floor, and there was a blur of movement. All around the edges of the ballroom, parents sat watching their kids. “Go, Suzy, go! Go, Suzy, go!” a mother and father chanted excitedly. All the young gymnasts had intense expressions on their faces as they performed their elaborate routines.

Larry gently shut the door and the two men went to sit in big armchairs in the adjacent atrium. “Here’s the thing,” Wendell said quietly. “I’ve been following the different games today.”

Larry nodded. “And?” he said.

Wendell Bruno took a crumpled receipt from a fastfood place out of his pocket. “Here,” he said. “I made a list of the teams that pose the greatest threat to Nate and Maxie.”

Larry looked down at the receipt for a triple bacon burger and a large Frooty Slurp. Across it Wendell had written:

 

THE OREGONZOS

THE SURFER DUDES

THE WORD GURRRLS

THE DRILLING FALLS SCRABBLE TEAM

 

“So how can this list help?” asked Larry. Whatever Wendell was planning, he didn’t like the feel of it.

“Just trust me,” said Wendell. “Can you do that?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t seen each other in twenty-six years. That’s over a quarter of a century.”

“Think what it would be like if Nate won,” Wendell said. “Can you picture it? Can you taste it? Can you
imagine
it?”

Nate’s father closed his eyes. Yes, he could almost imagine it. He desperately needed to find a way to make his son win, and he would do whatever it took.

PREPARE TO BE AMUSED

T
he doors of the ballroom were thrust open and Duncan emerged, limping on his injured knee. He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. His team had won game three, the last game of the day, although it had been a rough game, and not because of their opponents, but because of Carl. Early in the match, when it was Duncan’s turn to draw tiles, he’d picked an N, an E, and an L, which were completely ordinary letters—not disastrous, but not good. Carl, who’d been watching him closely, was shocked that Duncan had picked those tiles. He fiercely wrote on the notepad:
FTPS, DORFMAN, FTPS!

Duncan didn’t have to be told that FTPS meant “fingertips.”

Carl drew three thick lines under the second FTPS.

But Duncan just shook his head no. He had resolved that he wanted to play without any help for as long as he could. Carl was confused, because he believed that Duncan had
already
used his fingertips to help win the first game. So why wasn’t he doing it again now? Carl wrote on the pad:

Carl didn’t realize that the good letters Duncan had picked in the first game had been selected completely by chance, and that the second game, against the Wranglers, had, of course, just been a blowout. But the opponents in game three, the Proud Nerds, were very, very good, and the Drilling Falls team’s tiles were not. It became obvious to Carl as the game wore on and the clock ran down that Duncan was not using his fingertips at all. Drilling Falls managed to pull ahead through intense planning and smart moves, and at the end of the game, which Drilling Falls won 391 to 378, Carl pulled Duncan by his arm over to the side of the ballroom, and said, “What were you just doing in there?”

“Playing.”

Carl kept his grip on Duncan’s arm. “Look, we had a deal, dude. The only reason you’re here is because of how you can help the team. We came really close to losing that one. Did you hit your head, too, when you fell off the skateboard? Is that it? I want to see you using your stuff. Do what you’re supposed to do.”

He sharply released Duncan’s arm and walked off, but as Duncan went to tell his mother they’d won, he could still feel the pressure of Carl’s grasp.

Duncan’s mother was nowhere to be found. She had told him she’d be waiting for him right outside the ballroom after the game, but she wasn’t here. He watched as other kids went up to their parents to tell them how their games had gone. He had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong.

Duncan limped to the lobby, and was making his way toward the elevators to go up and check on his mother, when April Blunt tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Duncan, how’d you guys do?”

“We won again. You?”

“We won, too. And I hear that so did Nate and Maxie. It’s a good way to end the day. That knee okay? You’re limping pretty badly.”

“They gave me some ice and some antibacterial stuff,” Duncan said. “But it’s no big deal.” Actually, the knee was still throbbing, but he had other worries.

“Hey, listen,” said April, “tonight at Funswamp, maybe we can go on a couple of rides together.”

“Sure,” he said. “Do you know I’ve never been to an amusement park?”

“Really? Never? Well, prepare to be amused.”

Duncan took the glass elevator upstairs to eighteen and slid the card into the door of his room. The green light popped on, and Duncan pushed the door open and went in. The room was dark and the shades were drawn. In one of the two beds, his mother lay under the covers.

He knew what this meant: she’d had another migraine. MIGRAINE, he thought, is an anagram of IMAGINER. These days he couldn’t stop doing that.

“Mom?” Duncan asked. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, hi, honey,” she said, opening her eyes. “You’re back. How was the game?”

Duncan slowly walked through the room.

“You’re
limping
!” she said. Even in the dark she could tell, and she reached out a hand for the light.

“It’s nothing,” he said quickly. “You don’t need to turn on the light. It’ll hurt your eyes.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“I fell,” said Duncan. Which wasn’t untrue. “But we won,” he added quickly. “Carl and I are undefeated.”

“Well, that’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

“When did the migraine start?” Duncan asked, sitting down on the other bed and elevating his painful knee.

“It came on all of a sudden,” she said. “I saw the aura— you know—and then I got into bed and waited for the headache. And boy, it came. It’s been vicious.”

“But did something happen first?” Duncan persisted. “Something stressful?”

“No,” said his mother. “I was sitting and having a nice conversation with Nate Saviano’s dad, Larry.”

“What were you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing much. He was saying something about how hard it is to be a single parent. I agreed. We compared notes, and we both said that you kids are terrific. That was all.” She paused. “Listen, I don’t think I can go to Funswamp,” she said. “Will you be okay without me?”

“No problem, Mom,” Duncan said.

“If I rest up, I should be all better by tomorrow,” she said. “And we can watch the final round together on the big screen. Unless, of course, you’re
in
it.”

Duncan thought about his mother’s conversation with Nate’s father. He remembered that once, when he was little, he’d had a bad cough with lots of phlegm. His mother had dragged an air mattress into his room and spent the night on the floor beside his bed. The vaporizer had hissed, and Duncan had coughed and coughed, and he and his mother had told each other knock-knock jokes all night.