The Girl He Used to Know Read online

  And then, a short while later when things turned bad, my roommate was there once again to pick up my pieces and put me back together.

  Janice laid a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think you’re wrong this time. I think Jonathan genuinely likes you. He seems like a good guy. Let yourself have this. Don’t let one bad experience take the happiness in meeting a great guy away forever. If you’re not quite ready to admit it to me, at least admit it to yourself.”

  “Do you really think he likes me?”

  “It sure seems like he does. Does he flirt with you?”

  Jonathan hadn’t done any of the things Jake had done, like drawing on my notebook or putting his arm around me. “I’m not sure. He does smile at me a lot.”

  “That’s a good sign.”

  “I’ll have to pay closer attention.”

  I thought about Jonathan later that night when I was lying in bed, and I tried not to mentally catalogue all the things that could go wrong. Instead, I thought of how he almost always chose to play with me at chess club. I liked that he always walked me home. I liked that he cared whether or not I was cold.

  I liked all of those things.

  I liked them a lot.

  13

  Annika

  THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

  AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

  1991

  The sun had barely risen when Jonathan and I left campus for the drive to St. Louis. My empty stomach churned. I was so nervous, I hadn’t been able to fathom the thought of breakfast and I worried I might dry-heave in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s truck.

  “I’m sorry there’s no music,” Jonathan said. “The radio has never worked.”

  “I like the quiet,” I said. Being trapped in a car where loud music was playing was one of the things that could send me into a tailspin. I couldn’t handle the overstimulation and would need hours of silence to counteract the noise. Jonathan’s truck looked old and it rattled softly as we drove down the highway, but to me it was perfect.

  Jonathan had not only convinced me to join the competition team, he’d talked me into participating in the practice match. Eric had been thrilled. So had Janice. I was the only one who still had reservations. At the last chess team meeting—and only the second one I’d attended—I’d overheard some of the others questioning Eric about whether I was cut out for tournament play. That was another thing I’d discovered over the years. If you’re quiet and don’t make a lot of sound, for some reason people think it means there’s something wrong with your hearing. But there was nothing wrong with mine.

  Eric defended me. “I’ve been playing with Annika for three years, and I’d bet money that she could beat every one of you. She’ll be an asset to us.” The last thing I wanted to do after an endorsement like that was let Eric down.

  There were twelve of us competing that day, and if I’d had to drive over with the others, packed six to a car like sardines, surrounded by noises and smells, I would not have agreed to do it.

  “We can drive over by ourselves if you want, Annika,” Jonathan had said. “And we don’t have to spend the night. We can leave as soon as our matches are over.” Once again, he’d removed every obstacle in my way as if he’d known exactly what to do to make me comfortable.

  “He does know,” Janice said when I told her about his offer. “And he’s doing it because he likes you, and because he truly is a nice guy.”

  “I’m very nervous,” I admitted to Jonathan, tucking my hands up under the hem of my shirt so I could hide the flicking of my fingers.

  “You’ll do great,” he said. “They’ll take one look at you and forget how to play the game.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “These players are really good. I can’t imagine they’d suddenly forget how to play.”

  “I meant because you’re so pretty. They’ll be too busy looking at you and it will blow their concentration.”

  “That probably won’t happen.”

  He let out a short laugh. “Just me then, huh?”

  My brain figured out what he meant a few minutes later and I yelled “Oh” loud enough to make Jonathan jump in his seat a little. “Were you flirting with me?”

  “I was trying to. I thought I was halfway decent at it, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Jonathan?”

  He took his eyes off the road for a second and looked over at me.

  “I totally thought you were flirting. I was just making sure.”

  Then he gave me another one of those smiles I’d told Janice about.

  * * *

  The competition was being held in a large conference room at a local hotel. Though we were traveling as a team, we would be competing individually. The weather that day was unseasonably warm for late October, as it often is in the unpredictable Midwest, and I’d worn a long baggy skirt and even looser T-shirt knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle clothing that wasn’t lightweight and comfortable. I still felt overheated and had already started to sweat a little.

  “You doing okay?” Jonathan asked. I hadn’t uttered a word since we’d walked into the hotel, and I’d remained close by his side even though I really needed to go to the bathroom. My bladder didn’t handle nervousness well at all.

  “When will we start playing?” I hated not knowing exactly how things worked, and I should have asked Eric what to expect from tournament play before I’d committed. If I could get past the part where I had to exchange small talk with my opponent, and start playing, I could lose myself in the game and block out the rest. All the butterflies in my stomach would disappear and I’d stop feeling like I had to throw up.

  “The first round will start at ten o’clock. Eric has the sheet with our brackets and who we’ll be playing. Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything.”

  His words calmed me and I nodded. “Okay.”

  For the next half hour, we warmed up and Eric shared everything he knew about the other teams. I would potentially be playing three times, depending on whether I won and advanced to the next round. My first opponent was a girl from Missouri, and I studied her stats and pondered my opening.

  A little before ten, we filed into the conference room and took our spots in front of the boards that had our names next to them on small cardboard signs.

  “Hello,” my opponent said. She was a dark-haired girl named Daisy and when she extended her hand, I shook it quickly and turned my attention back to the board. My nervousness over competing for the first time affected my opening, and I faltered, making two careless moves in a row. Her capitalization on them was all it took for me to realize she would be a formidable opponent, and it was exactly the motivation I needed to banish the butterflies and send me into fighting mode. We battled until the finish, but in a move she didn’t see coming, I captured her king. “Checkmate.”

  “Good game,” she said.

  The next match seemed easier by comparison; I’d expected it to be harder. Maybe it was the luck of the draw, but I dispatched my opponent—a tall boy from the University of Iowa—with relative ease, although it took me nearly two hours to do it.

  “Wow. Okay,” was all he said before he moved on.

  By the time I sat down across from my third and final opponent, I had been playing for almost four hours, and the combination of an early wake-up time and the mental energy required to sustain this level of play had begun to catch up with me. My opponent kept his focus on the board when we sat down across from each other. We didn’t look at each other, and neither of us said a word. Our match went on for a long time and we drew a crowd as the others finished. It was truly the hardest match I’d ever played in all my years of dispatching opponents, and it was only because my opponent botched his final move that I was able to triumph. I felt depleted, almost limp, as I captured his king. “Checkmate.” Jonathan came up and placed his hands on my shoulders, squeezing gently as I exhaled in relief.

  Our fellow teammates gathered around us, celebrating their wins and lamenting their losses. We lingered f
or a while until Eric suggested we leave the hotel and go to dinner at a nearby diner. The team enthusiastically agreed.

  “What do you think, Annika?” Jonathan asked. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” I said. It was almost six o’clock by then, and my opponents had probably been able to hear my stomach growling while we played. “I need to use the restroom and then I’ll be ready to go.”

  When I was washing my hands, I looked in the mirror. My cheeks were pink and my eyes had a brightness I’d never seen in them before. Maybe this was what it felt like to be happy, I thought. In the hallway, after I left the bathroom but before I walked to where Jonathan was waiting for me, I quickly slipped off my shoes and tucked them into my bag. Janice had convinced me to swap my usual tennis shoes for a pair of her flats, and I hated the way my feet felt inside them. No one would be able to see my bare feet under my long skirt.

  He was standing by the door, and he held it open and followed me outside. The late-fall grass had gone mostly dormant and there was a texture to it, a slight crispness that felt incredible under my feet as we cut across the hotel’s lawn on the way to Jonathan’s truck so we could catch up to the others, who’d already begun pulling out of the parking lot. I wanted to sit down on the grass and curl my toes in it. I would never be able to explain how much satisfaction that would give me, or how effective it would be in helping me disperse the stress from the crowded room and a full day of competition.

  Jonathan started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. “How is it that you’ve been a member of the chess club for over three years, and no one but Eric and I know how good you are?” he asked. Only seven of us had won all of our brackets, and Jonathan and I were two of them.

  “When Eric can’t play with me, I usually go home.”

  “Why?”

  How could I make him understand that I was mostly invisible to others? Most of my fellow club members had written me off a long time ago as the weird, shy girl, and they would have been right. For most of them, the club provided a social outlet and the chess part was a way to add a pleasurable activity they also enjoyed. It was so much more for me. Concentrating on the game eliminated a lot of the anxious clutter that constantly took up real estate inside my brain. “I don’t know. I just do.”

  At the restaurant, Jonathan parked the truck and we went inside to join the others. As we waited in line, I slipped my hands into the pockets of my skirt and swished the fabric back and forth. There was something about the movement that soothed me, and I liked the sound it made.

  “Miss, you can’t come in here like that,” a voice said. I didn’t realize it was directed at me until Jonathan said, “Annika, where are your shoes?” It felt like one of those moments when you’re talking too loud because you’re in a noisy place but then the noise stops suddenly and everyone looks to see who’s shouting. Except I wasn’t shouting. I was standing in line at a diner in my bare feet, and everyone was looking down at my hot pink painted toenails. I hadn’t done it intentionally; I’d just forgotten to slip my shoes back on before we got out of the truck.

  My face flamed, and I turned toward the door, panicking when I tried to pull it open instead of pushing. It rattled as I shook it and when I finally comprehended how it worked, I burst through it and fled to the parking lot. Jonathan caught up to me as I jerked on the door handle of his truck. “Hold on, it’s locked,” he said. He put in the key and opened the door for me. “Don’t worry about it. Just put on your shoes and we’ll go back in.”

  I climbed into the truck and wiped the tears that spilled from my eyes with the back of my hand. Jonathan stood patiently next to the door, waiting.

  “I can’t go back in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “You go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  “Annika, it’s no big deal.”

  “Please don’t make me go in,” I cried.

  He placed his hands, palm side down, on my legs, and his touch comforted me in a way I’d never felt before. He made me feel protected, as if he’d never let anything bad happen to me. “Stay here. Lock the door, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He closed the door, and I pushed down on the lock as he walked back into the diner. Through the glass, I watched him talk to the team and then make his way to the counter. He returned to the truck five minutes later carrying a white paper bag.

  I reached over and unlocked his door. “I told them you were tired and that the competition really took it out of you so we decided we’d head back. They were totally cool. Wanted me to tell you again how great you did today. I got sandwiches and pie. Do you like pie?”

  I no longer had any doubt about the kind of guy Jonathan was.

  “I love pie.”

  “The sandwich is ham. The pie’s apple.” He handed me a foil-wrapped sandwich and a Styrofoam container of pie, along with a fork and napkin.

  It was something that Janice would do, and I wondered if I would always need someone to take care of me. “Thank you.” I was never intentionally impolite, but I often forgot to say thank you, and I would have been so embarrassed if I hadn’t remembered until after he dropped me off at home.

  Jonathan unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. “You don’t strike me as someone who’d have hot pink toenails.”

  “Janice did it. She said if I insist on going barefoot so much, the least I could do was make my feet prettier for people to look at.” I took a bite of my pie because I always ate dessert first if given the chance, and I was so hungry I had to force myself to pause between bites. “I don’t like shoes.”

  He let out a short laugh but it sounded kind. “Yeah, I gathered that.”

  “They feel restrictive and I can’t wiggle my toes.”

  “What do you do in the winter?”

  “Suffer in boots.”

  “You don’t play games, do you?”

  I took another bite of my pie. “Chess is the only game I know how to play.”

  * * *

  After we finished eating, we drove down the dark highway in silence, and by the time we reached Urbana, I’d returned to as calm a state as I’d ever be in outside the walls of my apartment. Jonathan pulled up in front of my building and turned off the truck. I opened the door and climbed out without saying good-bye, focusing only on reaching the safety and comfort of my bedroom, where I planned to spend the rest of the evening in solitude trying to forget the whole mortifying experience. To my surprise, Jonathan got out, too, and he caught up with me as I reached the doorway of my building. He grabbed my hand and I stopped short. He squeezed it gently but didn’t let it go. His touch grounded me and made me feel as if nothing bad could ever happen as long as Jonathan had ahold of my hand.

  “Do you want to go out with me Friday night?”

  “Go out with you where?” I asked.

  “On a date. We can go wherever you want.”

  I couldn’t believe he still wanted to be seen with me, let alone take me someplace willingly. Jake had never asked me to go anywhere with him, and the food Jonathan had just shared with me had been the closest I’d ever come to having a meal with a member of the opposite sex.

  It was the closest thing I’d had to a date of any kind.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Why would anyone? My humiliation felt palpable by then, and I instantly regretted asking the question. Why heap more embarrassment on top of what I’d already brought upon myself?

  “Because I think you’re really pretty, and I like you.” When I didn’t say anything, he dropped my hand and shoved his into his pockets. “I feel like I can be myself with you.”

  All my life, I’d been waiting for someone I could be myself with. It had never occurred to me that I could be that person for someone else. His words choked me up and made me feel like crying.

  “I would like to go out with you.”

  He smiled, and my eyes met his fleetingly before I looked away. “Great. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow at chess club.”

  I looked down at
the ground and nodded. Then I walked inside, and though I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to escape into the comfort of a deep sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about when he might hold my hand again.

  14

  Jonathan

  CHICAGO

  AUGUST 2001

  I last all of five days before I break down and call Annika. I’m leaving the day after tomorrow to spend two weeks in the New York office, and I want to see her again before I go.

  “It’s Jonathan,” I say when she answers the phone. “I can’t believe you picked up. I thought for sure I’d get your machine.”

  “I thought it was Janice calling me back. She hates it when I screen her calls.”

  “I wanted to see if you could have dinner tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice.”

  “I can have dinner. I would love to have dinner.”

  “Okay. What’s your number at work? I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon.” She gives it to me, and it’s hard to miss the unmistakable joy in her voice.

  So, I guess I’m willing to peel back a few layers after all.

  * * *

  I’m swamped at work, so when I call Annika the next day to confirm, I tell her I’ll have to come straight from the office. She says she’s working late, too, so she asks me to pick her up at the library and says she’ll be ready by seven. That’s an early night for me, but I can get away with it because I’ll be on a plane long before the sun comes up tomorrow.

  She’s having a conversation with a man when I arrive, presumably a coworker because they’re both wearing lanyards around their necks. Annika is gesturing excitedly with her hands, and she doesn’t seem at all like the shy girl I met in college and had to draw out of her shell. This man is someone she’s comfortable with. I can tell by how close he’s standing to her and the way she almost looks right at him when she’s talking. I wonder if this was the man she said was “too much like” her. She hasn’t spotted me yet, and it feels slightly voyeuristic to observe her like this, but I’m still learning about present-day Annika, and one thing I’ve noticed is that she seems more confident than she was back then. I guess that’s what ten years will do to a person.