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Phoning Frederick Trumper is probably not an advisable thing to do, under any circumstances, but especially not tonight, one year on from his victory at the World Chess Championship in Budapest. A win like that should have been a happy thing. You remember how he’d fought to pretend it was; the way that he’d shouted at you that it had proved he’d never needed you.
However, you are Florence Vassy, of course you had been able to see through the paper thin facade of happiness to know that the victory had felt hollow, that his tossed insults were only an attempt to make himself feel better. All in all, between that, and losing Anatoly for good, it is not a time of your life you look back on with much fondness.
A year on, you are doing better. You don’t talk to him; you don’t talk to Anatoly either. In a strange turn of events, sometimes you write letters to Svetlana, but largely, you try to put all of that behind you and look to the future instead.
You go back to school to finish that degree you’d abandoned for a brash and bold chess player—when you were younger and more foolish—and you start dating again. Men, women, anyone who makes you feel valued really, you can’t seem to make any relationship last, so what does it matter.
The past clings to you, and seeps into moments when you expect it least, but you keep pushing forward. It’s that or drowning in the old memories, replaying over and over as they crash around your head. Keep going, outrun it all, and then maybe one day when you have created a safe distance you can finally turn around and look back at it in that way you long to.
On nights like this though, the alcohol muddles your senses, and the past draws in far closer than you would like it to. You remember getting drunk with Walter in some bar in Bangkok, alternating between snapping at him, and commiserating over your chaotic chess player. You remember Freddie doing his best to help you to bed—one hand on his cane and the other around your waist—as you stumbled back into the hotel. These days, you try not to drink, for generally it just makes you feel worse.
You’ve had a long day though, Walter had phoned to say that they are still no further with uncovering records on your father—at this point there is no pretence that he is alive, but you would still do anything to figure out what had happened to him, when and where he had died, for some closure if nothing else—and you’d got a grade back on an assignment that has convinced you that in those years you spent gallivanting around the world playing chess, you have completely forgotten how to write an essay.
So you go to the bar and you have a drink, and then another, and then another and another and the next thing you know you’ve somehow made it back home and have dialled that all too familiar number. You don’t know if it’s still his, you aren’t really thinking about that at all. Nothing about this is conscious really, you are floating on instinct and far too much tequila.
Of course he picks up. He had hated you once it was all over, but you know him far too well to believe that would last. You are quite sure that he has been debating phoning you, but wanting you to make the first move—or at least that is what your slightly cocky drunken brain is telling you.
‘Who is this?’ he asks. For a second you have to fight the urge to hang up, the tiny part of your brain that isn’t addled by the alcohol screaming out that this is a terrible idea, that you are meant to be moving on , not crawling back to a guy who had treated you like shit.
It’s easy to ignore that voice however, when his voice washes over you. It’s a little deeper than last time you spoke to him—the hormones must be treating him well—but it’s so familiar you know you could never forget what it sounds like. His heavy Chicago accent is slightly grating, but it feels like home in a way that the apartment of your adoptive parents has never quite managed to.
You can picture him sitting by the phone, hair curling around his shoulders overdue for a cut, in that denim jacket he had worn like a comfort blanket even after the arbiter had asked him to take it off on multiple occasions. It’s late, gone two in the morning, he was probably up late playing chess against himself, you think, if he still even plays. It’s not like you keep up with that these days.
‘Hello?’ he asks, and through his slight drawl you can tell that he sounds tired. You wonder if you woke him up, and mentally correct your image of him to one in pyjamas with slightly fluffed up hair. ‘Is anyone there?’
It is at that moment you realise that you can’t just sit there, thinking about him. He is right there on the other end of the phone waiting for you to speak.
‘Freddie,’ you say, fighting to keep your words from slurring, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he could smell the alcohol on you down the phone line. ‘Freddie why don’t we talk anymore, I miss you.’
He lets out a small gasp as he realises who you are, and then a gentle laugh. ‘Oh Florence you’re really drunk huh? Are you home right now?’
‘Yuh huh,’ you reply, giving up the pretence of sobriety.
‘Good. That’s good.’ You think he sounds worried, you can’t quite tell. ‘You know, you’re going to regret this in the morning.’ There is a sadness to his voice that’s almost undetectable. Almost.
‘No, I really miss you, I mean it. Come over, I miss you.’ You are aware you sound slightly pathetic, but you do miss him and you think he should know it.
He sighs softly. ‘I really don’t think you want that Florence. You should drink some water.’
‘I don’t want to drink water, I want you to come over,’ you say, but you let him gently bully you into drinking some water and getting some pain medication for the headache you are certainly going to wake up with.
Once he’s established that you probably aren’t going to be sick—and you have kicked off your heels and brushed your teeth, but not bothered to change into your pyjamas—you stand there in the hallway. The phone cord does not stretch to your bedroom, but you don’t want to leave him.
It’s like a dam has broken inside you, the longing to see him again having built up over the months apart suddenly all rushing out at once. All the things you hadn’t let yourself think about suddenly rising back to the surface.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I was awful. Vindictive. Mean. I know you’re drunk right now, but maybe you could phone again in the morning, if you really mean it?’
‘Hmm I miss you,’ you say again, like a broken record, but eventually when your yawns get loud enough that you can’t hide them from him, he says he’s going to hang up if you won’t, so you can get some sleep.
‘Phone in the morning, okay Florence? Just to let me know you’re okay and not killed by your hangover or whatever.’ You can tell he is trying to sound nonchalant.
‘You know you can just say you miss me too.’
‘I know. I do,’ he says, and then he hangs up.
In the morning, you wake up beside the phone, asleep on the floor. Your entire body aches, not just your head, and you immediately remember what you have done. You are not sure if you want to kill drunk Florence, or thank her for doing that thing you had been far too afraid to do otherwise. For taking that step that sober Florence probably never would have.
All of that is too complicated to think about so hungover though, so you stumble through to your bedroom, and doze off back to sleep. Bed is warm; you can deal with the fallout later.