Until tonight, sharing a sliver of my past with a best-friend sister.
"Forgive me, Leslie," I said, straightening, wiping my face. "I can't explain what happened. Never done that before. I'm very sorry."
"Never done what before? Never cared about someone's dying or never cried?"
"Never cried. Not for a long time."
"Poor Richard . . . maybe you should cry more often."
"No, thank you. I don't think I'd approve of me if I did too much of that."
"Do you think it's bad, for men to cry?"
I moved back to my chair. "Other men can cry, if they want. I don't think it's right for me."
"Oh," she said. I felt that she was thinking about that, judging me. What kind of person would judge against another for wishing to control his emotions? A loving woman might, one who knew a lot more about emotions and how to express them than I did. After a minute, no verdict returned, she said, "So what happened then?"
"Then I dropped out of my first and only waste-of-a-year in college. Wasn't wasted. Took a course in archery, and there met Bob Keech, my flight instructor. The college was a waste, the flying lessons changed my life. But I stopped writing, after high school, till I was out of the Air Force, married, and discovered that I couldn't hold a job. Any job. I'd go wild with boredom and quit. Better starve than live with the staml of the time clock, twice a day.
"Then at last, I finally understood what John Gartner had taught us: This is what it feels like to sell a story! Years after he died, I got his message. If the high-school-kid can sell one story, why can't the grown-up sell others?"
I watched myself, curious. Never had I talked this way, to anyone.
"So I started collecting rejection slips. Sell a story or two, earn a mass of rejections till the writing-boat sank and I was starving. Find a job letter-carrying or jewelry-making or drafting or tech-writing, hold it till I could stand it no longer. Back to writing, sell a story or two, rejections till the boat sank again; get a diflEerent job. . . . Over and over. Each time the writing-boat sank slower, until finally I was barely able to survive, and I never much looked back. That's how I got to be a writer."
She had a stack of cookies left on her plate, I had crumbs.
I licked my fingertip and touched the crumbs, eating them in neat order, one after the other. Without comment, listening, she moved her cookies to my plate, saving only one for herself.
"I had always wanted an adventurous life," I said. "It took a long time to realize that I was the only one who was going to make an adventurous life happen to me. So I did the things I wanted to do, and wrote about them, books and magazine stories."
She studied me carefully, as though I were a man she had known a thousand years before.
I felt suddenly guilty. "On and on I go," I said. "What have you done to me? I tell you I'm a listener and not a talker and now you won't believe it." , "We're both listeners," she said, "we're both talkers."
"Better finish our chess-game," I said. "Your move."
I had forgotten my elegant trap, took me as long to remember what it was as it took her to consider her position and move.
She did not make the pawn advance that was essential for her survival. I was sad and delighted. At least she would see m
y marvelous satin trap spring shut. That's what learning is, after all, I thought, not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning. ,
Even so, part of me stayed sad for her. My queen moved and lifted her knight from the board, even though the knight was guarded. Now her pawn would take my queen, for the sacrifice. Go ahead and take the queen, you little devil, enjoy it while you can. . . .
Her pawn did not take my queen. Instead, after a moment, her bishop flew from one corner of the board to the other, her night-blue eyes watched mine for response.
"Checkmate," she whispered.
I turned to ash, unbelieving. Then studied what she had done, reached for my notebook and wrote half a page.
"What did you write?"
"A nice new thought," I said. "That's what learning is, after all: not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."
She sat lightly on the sofa, shoes off, her feet drawn cozily beneath her. I sat on the chair opposite and placed my shoes carefully on the coffee-table, not to leave marks on the glass.
Teaching Horse-Latin to Leslie was like watching a new water-skier stand up on her first tow. Once through the principles of the language, she spoke it. Days, it had cost me as a kid, learning this, neglecting algebra to do it.