Amber & Cedar is around half full, like it normally is this time of the evening. Being Tuesday, I don’t expect it’s going to fill up much more. Though, I’m also pretty sure I recognize enough faces at the bar to know it isn’t going to be emptying much either.
Behind me, I notice Therese walking in. I ignore her, try to get in her head, though I don’t know if she even notices. She’s a tricky one to figure out. Not her face, which is actually quite expressive once you get used to it. In her thinking. It never feels like she sees a hundred moves ahead of me. It feels almost like she’s playing a whole different game, one where her opponent is herself. Which makes the whole mind games thing a tricky endeavor. I head over to the bar. Veronica is working today. “Hey,” I say as she approaches, “Something up?”
Veronica smiles and shrugs. “Don’t know, Fred asked if I could cover his shift today and I didn’t have anything going on. The usual?”
I nod, handing over my credit card. Weird. Fred has something going on. I hope it isn’t too serious, he’s a good guy. Knows how to talk, knows how to keep a secret, and most importantly knows when to do one or the other. Actually, scratch that. It’s all true, of course, but the most important thing is that he’s not one of the toddler’s spies. Therese has too many of them around, but from what I can tell Fred isn’t one. Taking the glass once Veronica serves it to me, I smile and say, “Thanks.”
Therese doesn’t talk, just stares coldly. But a patient stare. I think it seems a little more patient than normal, though I would need to think back years to remember. By now, Fred almost always has her drink ready while she’s still approaching. That said, the kid does know I’m here, so perhaps this patience is part of a game all its own. Or is she making a show, not for me at all, but for someone else here. I scan the room as I walk to our usual table, looking for anyone or anything unusual. Seeing nothing, I sit down with a sigh. It takes a little less than a minute for Therese to make her way over to our table. “Sierra,” she says, “I was unsure whether to expect you.”
“Why not?” I reply, feigning curiosity. “Anyways, you must have just come in after me, sorry I didn’t say hello earlier.”
“You must not have noticed me,” she lies politely back. “Fred being gone must have thrown you for a bit of a loop, after all.”
“Bit of one,” I say with a smile. Then, genuinely, I ask, “Any idea what’s going on with him?” I hope she answers genuinely as well, not with this façade.
She does. “Yes,” is all she says. Which means she knows and she can’t talk about it. Good to know, that means it can be learned. I’ll figure it out with time.
“Well, I’m glad that’s out of the way,” I say. Meaning the whole being pleasant to one another thing. She gets my meaning, as the glint in her eye changes mood. I pull out the go board and stones. Taking up a large handful of stones and holding them tightly, I smile at the young woman sitting calmly across from me. “So?” I ask.
She smiles ever so slightly and, without even looking at the stones in my hand or seeming to think about it, silently slides two stones onto the board. Shaking my head at her, I count the stones. Twenty four. How she does it, I have no idea. Therese smiles. “It seems I’ll be playing black once again,” she says. But it isn’t smug, like I’d expect from just about anyone else who’d guessed correctly more than fifty times in a row. Merely a statement of fact.
“It seems you shall,” I reply, equally matter-of-factly, though enough of my confusion slipped in that Therese could definitely notice.
“Hand size,” she says to satisfy my hint of curiosity, as though that explains anything.
I shake my head. “Alright, get on with it,” I say, sweeping the white pebbles back into their container while Therese removes the pair of pieces from the board.
She nods. “Very well,” she says. She pauses for a moment, taking in the empty board, I suppose. “Why are you still here?” she asks as she places her stone in a fairly polite spot in my corner.
“Your move and your question show very different levels of respect,” I joke before I play my own response.
“That is a lacking answer in either respect,” she jokes coldly right back.
I sigh. “Well, I needed this. Or, something normal and this is, like it or not, normal for me.”
Therese lets out a single chortle. “Makes sense,” she says.
“So, I noticed something odd the other day. Why is my current headache getting tips and chatting with the headache that I finally got rid of?” I ask. See, this kid, Logan, is starting to get on my nerves. He thinks of himself as some kind of necessary dickbag. Which would be fine, except he’s taken to not showing up to required meetings and such. That, combined with him having private phone calls with Marshall makes me concerned.
Therese smiles her sort of barely-a-smile at me. “I figured Marshall would be a good influence.”
“So it’s your fault,” I shoot at her, though not in a particularly hostile manner.
She shrugs. “Logan did not show up to that one meeting you set. Marshall may have been late a lot, but you have to admit…” she trails off
I groan. She is right. She’s hiding something, but she’s right. “Marshall did always eventually show up. And he was always frustratingly prepared for things.” Then, leaning in, I add, “But that’s not everything.”
“No, it is not.”
“Will you tell me everything?”
“No, probably not.”
“Fine, will whatever it is affect me going forward?” I press. It’s an important question.
Therese looks at me. Through me. She’s looking at my life and trying to figure out my future, if I had to put money on it. Which means she’s taking my question seriously. “It should not, save Logan becoming a slightly better headache.”
I nod. “I suppose I’ll just have to accept that somewhat unsatisfying answer, at least until I figure the rest out on my own.”
“A commendable attitude,” Therese says. She takes another pause to survey the board. After all, while we’ve been talking, we’ve also been playing. She’s winning, but that isn’t why she’s looking at the board. She does this before every question she asks. Like reading what our games want her to ask. And, to be fair to her weird behavior, she always asks questions that I have the answer to. I take another drink. She looks up at me. “You held our meetings last weekend. The sophomores, have any of them selected majors already?”
“Yes, two. Logan and Valeria,” I answer quickly. Technically an answer to her question, and requires her to waste her time with follow ups.
“Very sly answer,” Therese replies.
“Why are you so focused on the sophomores? You don’t even like them. You barely hang out with them, other than your weird deals thing. Oh, and Irene and Valeria, but we both know that’s not something productive to your goals.” I can’t help but give her a wry little smirk at that one.
She looks at me and shakes her head. “Because if you don’t have plans for people you dislike, they start making plans of their own. And those might interfere with your own. Why is Charles not prepared?” She doesn’t even stop to read the board this time.
So that was the one she’s curious about. Makes sense, Charlie is young, and a genius. A lot like her. But he’s also human, and a self-conscious wreck of one at that. “He can’t decide. He wants to do everything, I’m afraid he’s going to end up stumbling into a High Magic Major that he doesn’t care about.” Therese’s reaction is interesting. She’s actively suppressing it. Not that I can tell what it is, she’s too good for that, but the fact that she is putting in the effort to not tell me means something. She has opinions about this path of his. And, more to the point, she wants to deal with them through some means not involving me. I cock my head. “So, you plan for everyone, what’s your plan for me?”
She looks at me sincerely. “Are you sure that is a question for which you wish to know the answer?” she asks, genuinely concerned. Though, it’s hard to tell what she’s concerned about and why.
“No, but I feel like it’s something I should know in any case,” I answer honestly. It is a game of honesty and respect, after all.
She nods respectfully in return for my honesty. “You’re ambitious to a point, and will be a destabilizing factor for Greatest Maestro Jonkers’s control over the region while we are preparing. But, you don’t wish to deal with the politics of the Magisterial Court, so when one who does comes in, you will step aside for them to take control more firmly.”
I can’t tell what’s worse, the fact that she has a plan for me or the fact that, even knowing the plan, I’m probably still going to follow it exactly. The Greatest Maestro doesn’t want to be a Grand Maestro, so she’ll be nervous about expansion and I need to be, well, elsewhere. But I don’t want to be a Grand Maestro either, so if someone who does comes onto the scene, I may or may not support them, but they give me my expansion region and I’ll stay out of their way. No, I can tell. Therese being right is worse.
Therese is taking in the board as I’m cursing her correctness. “Does my plan for you interfere with any of your plans for yourself?” she asks. No concern this time. Just curiosity. Like if she was wrong and my plans did interfere, that wouldn’t matter for her plans. Which, if we’re honest, is probably right, given how many people there are that could be destabilizing agents in North America.
“Not directly,” I reply, “Though your replacement better work fast.” Then, with a pause, I realize it. “It’s Jase’s girlfriend, um Allie or something like that, isn’t it? That’s not a question, that’s a statement of fact with a question mark. She’s got the pedigree, name, and people skills to pull it off. Make sure she gets through her Magisterial Thesis quickly, won’t you?”
Therese smiles. “Technically, that will be Natalya’s job. Though she doesn’t know it yet,” she jokes.
As I down my drink at that terrible joke, I stand up to go get another. Therese holds up a hand. “Do remember to pace yourself,” she says. I notice her own drink is still two thirds full. “It is Tuesday of a new semester.”
“Yes, and?” I ask.
“You will be teaching a class at 8 in the morning tomorrow,” she offers up as an answer.
I groan. So what, I muse, it’s not like I’m going to be seeing anyone tonight. Besides, I’m the adult here, why does she get to talk to me like that? I head over to the bar. “Another?” asks Veronica.
“Another,” I say, staring down Therese as I speak. Taking an exaggerated gulp once Veronica hands me my drink, I head back over to our table. Sitting down, I smile. “So, my question?” I say as I place a stone. Therese nods. I cock my head once more, thinking for a moment, then smirk. If I want to win, I need to get Therese out of her comfort zone. “Just how involved with one another are our dear Irene and Valeria now, anyway?” It seems to work a little, for my first button press.
“Very,” she says, putting on her own sort of hint of a smirk. “Would you like a play by play? Perhaps some diagrams?” she adds jokingly. At least, I hope she’s joking.
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