“Most games are like that,” Roger said. “Something everyone knows that someone else makes you pay for.”
“Like War.”
“Yes! And Battleships! I can’t believe people buy that. We used to play it by just drawing graphs.”
“But there are some that need the board,”Sylvia said. “And dice. And timers. And pieces.”
“Almost all of that can be improvised,” Hugh said. “Only we wouldn’t have called it improvisation then. It was the game.”
Marg was passing around the special papers for Pictionary. Sylvia watched as Marg made sure not to be on Roger’s team. Hugh turned out to be the best artist, easily drawing things that were unmissable, that you had to be trying not to guess. Sylvia noticed what was happening between Marg and Hugh: Hugh’s drawings, Marg glancing and yelling something out, seeming to play, seeming to guess, but obtusely, unfairly, saying the very thing that Hugh had not meant. The more obvious Hugh was, the more obscure Marg became. He drew a handbag and Marg called out “trombone!” He drew a heart and Marg called out “steak!” Marg was zealous and Hugh went along with it, but he had an advantage, the advantage of the sitting man. He knew something Marg did not.
Frustrated that the game was not going anywhere, the other couple suggested they play a real board game, one that needed its board.
Sylvia couldn’t remember who mentioned Sorry! but they all quickly agreed that it was perfect, its elaborate board, its primary colors, its hard plastic bauble on which one slammed down one’s palm. Sorry to have set you back five spaces! Sorry to have jumped over your piece. Sorry to have won. They called out, they laughed, they drank whiskey and joked that none of them would ever say sorry to anyone again. The color rose in Marg’s cheeks. She was playing to win. Sylvia could see their reflections in the black windowpanes, their eyes, their teeth, their quick movements, and beyond these the reflection of the moonlight against the dark trees.
When Sylvia kissed Hugh for the first time, two weeks later, she thought of that game, and it made their kiss at once tender and comical. It was as if, she thought, they were kissing with everyone crying out Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! and pushing their palms down on the plastic bauble. At the same time it was like she was playing pool, aiming the cue, the white ball hitting the triangle of brightly colored balls, sending them careening off in all directions. They landed on lawns and in lakes and forests, breaking free, the moment decisive, one thing hitting another, and everything that followed from that.