"I told her not to worry. I told her that when you're here, you don't go
out with anybody, you spend all your time with me. I think she felt better, but maybe you ought to go over your no-jealousy agreement with her one more time to be sure."
She left the table for a minute to puzzle over her tape collection. "I have Brahms's First by Ozawa, by Ormandy and by Mehta. Any preferences?"
"Whatever will be most distracting to your chess."
She considered for a moment, chose a tape and slid it into the intricate electronics of her sound-system.
"Inspiring," she corrected. "For distraction, I have other tapes."
We played for half an hour, a tough game from the first move. She had just reread her Modern Ideas in the Chess Opening, which would have powdered me had I not finished Chess Traps, Pitfalls and Swindles two days earlier. We played nearly to a draw; then a brilliant move on my part, and the game teetered in the balance.
As far as I could see, any move but one would be disaster. Her only escape was an obscure pawn advance, to control the hidden square around which I had built a towering delicate strategy. Without that square, my effort would collapse in rubble.
The part of me that takes chess seriously hoped she would see the move, demolish my position and force me to fight for my hand-carved wooden life (I play best when my back is to the wall). Yet I couldn't imagine how I would recover if she blocked this scheme.
The part of me that knew it was just a game hoped she wouldn't see it, because it was such a pretty, such an elegant strategy I had coming up. A Queen sacrifice, and five moves to checkmate.
I closed my eyes for a minute, while she considered the board, opened them, struck head-on by a remarkable thought.
There in front of me was a table and a window full of color; beyond, the twilight flickerings of Los Angeles, the last of June fading into the sea. Silhouetted against twinkles and color was Leslie misted in thought, as still as a warned deer over a chessboard melted honey and cream in the shadows of an evening still to come. A warm soft vision, I thought. Where did it come from, who's responsible for it?
A quick little trap of words, a net of ink and pocket notebook over the idea before it vanished.
From time to time, I wrote, it's fun to close our eyes, and in that dark say to ourselves, "I am the sorcerer, and when I open my eyes I shall see a world that I have created, and for which I and only I am completely responsible." Slowly then, eyelids open like curtains lifting stage-center. And sure enough, there's our world, just the way we've built it.
I wrote that at high speed in dim light. Then closed my eyes, tested once more: / am the sorcerer . . . slowly opened my eyes again.
Elbows on chess-table, face cupped in hands, I saw Leslie Parrish, eyes large and dark looking directly into my own.
"What did the wookie write?" she said.
I read it to her. "The little ceremony," I said, "is a way of reminding ourselves who's running the show."
She tried it, "I am the sorceress ..." She smiled when she opened her eyes. "Did that just come to you now?"
I nodded.
"I created you?" she said. "I'm responsible for bringing you onstage? Movies? Sundaes? Chessgames and talks?"
I nodded again. "Don't you think so? You're the cause of me-as-you-know-me. Nobody else in the world knows the
Richard that's in your life. No one knows the Leslie that's in mine."
"That's a nice note. Would you tell me some other notes, or am I prying?"
I turned on a light. "I'm glad you understand that these are very private notes. ..." I said it lightly, but it was true. Did she know it was another ribbon of trust between us, first that she who respected my privacy would ask to hear the notes and next that I'd read them to her? I had a notion that she knew it well.
"We have some book titles," I said, "Ruffled Feathers: A Birdwatcher's Expose of a National Scandal. Here's one could be a five-volume set-What Makes Ducks Tick?"
I turned the page back, skipped a grocery list, turned another page.
"Look in a mirror, and one thing's sure: what we see is not who we are. That was after your talk about mirrors, remember?
"When we look back on our days, they've passed in a flash. Time doesn't last, and nobody's got long to live! SOMETHING bridges time-What? What? What?
"You can tell that all of these aren't quite finished yet. . . .