absorbed in each other. A dozen men and one or two women sat in front of a big-screen television set, on which a baseball game was in progress. A few more men slumped on barstools, their eyes also focused on the TV screen.
We stood for a minute to let our eyes adjust to the dim light. I looked behind the counter. The handsome man mixing drinks must be Mark. A waitress served beer to one of the tables of men.
“Let's sit at the bar,” I said to Sandra, who made a face. I led the way to the end of the bar away from the television set, where several stools stood empty. I let Sandra have the end stool. She sat down on it carefully, tugging at her skirt, which was too short for a schoolteacher.
Mark had short, dark hair and was close to Sandra's age-thirtyish. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up almost to the elbows and he moved with speed and dexterity as he mixed drinks.
When he finished an order he bustled down to our end of the bar and said, “What can I get for you ladies?” as he placed paper napkins in front of us.
“Draft beer,” Sandra said in a voice that was meant to tell him that she didn't usually frequent places like this.
“Same,” I said, giving him my best smile, but he was still looking at Sandra.
He produced two tall glasses and filled them carefully from the tap, not cheating us with excess foam.
I had my wallet out when he set them in front of us, but he said, “Would you like to run a tab?”
“Sure,” I said, thinking this would give us more chances to speak to him. “Are you Mark?”
He nodded, surprised. “How did you know?”
“I've heard about you,” I said, trying to sound mysterious. A roar from the baseball fans partially drowned out my voice. I was about to add something more when he excused himself and hustled to fill more orders.
Sandra sipped her beer and said, “It's going to be hard to get his attention while the game of the week is playing. Those guys are drinking a lot of beer.”
They made a lot of noise, too. I hoped that Sandra's presence would bring Mark back to our end of the bar, but I wasn't about to tell her that. She would say that she didn't date bartenders. In fact, it seemed as if she didn't date anybody. After one mistake, perhaps nobody was good enough for her now.
I wondered whether I would have to knock over my glass to get some attention, or ask Sandra to sit on the bar and show off her legs, when Mark wandered back, this time with a more casual manner.
He said, looking at Sandra, “What brings you ladies here?”
“We're waiting for someone,” Sandra said, stiffly.
“Anybody I know?”
“We're waiting for Godot.”
“I'll tell you how I know your name,” I said, trying to counter Sandra's coldness. “You made a delivery to Silver Acres last week on Wednesday, and Ophah, the receptionist, told me how handsome you are.” I could feel Sandra cringing beside me.
Mark flashed me a bright smile and said, “That's right. I came in here to pick up my check and I was asked to take an order there since I live near you.”
He left again before I could ask a follow-up question. Sandra said, “Gogi, how could you? Now he thinks we're on the make.”
“At my age, I can say anything I like. But at least we're making progress. And what can it hurt? Why don't you pretend that you are on the make for once in your life?”
“With a bartender?”
She shut up as Mark returned. He said, “Since it's obvious that you're not interested in watching the baseball game, I feel it's my duty to entertain you until your escort arrives.” He spilled some toothpicks out of a container onto the bar-top and started arranging them in rows in front of Sandra.
“What is this, some sort of a con game?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said with a grin, “but it has a mathematical basis to it, which you might appreciate since you're a teacher, although probably an English teacher.”
“How did you know that?”
“By your attitude toward me-treating me as a lower form of life-and the literary allusion you made. Certainly not by your hair. No teacher of mine ever had hair that long. Or that blond.”
And probably not a face as red as Sandra's had become.
“So, what do you teach?”
She practically whispered the word: “English.”
“All right! I'm working on a Ph. D. in physics at UNC.”
“Oh.” Sandra looked as if she wished she were in Antarctica studying penguins.
“But I've got to eat too, so I work here.”
My ears had perked up at the word “mathematical.” I had written a book about mathematical games. Mark arranged four rows of toothpicks, 7, 5, 3 and 1, respectively.
“The object of the game is not to remove the last toothpick,” Mark said. “On your turn you may remove any number from any one row, but you have to remove at least one. Go ahead and start,” he said to Sandra.
Sandra sat immobile for about five seconds and I wondered whether she was going to refuse to play and would embarrass herself again. Then she tentatively removed one toothpick. Mark quickly removed one from another row. As they played I observed the patterns that Mark left on his turns. It jogged my memory. I may not remember what I did yesterday, but there's nothing wrong with my long-term memory.
I flashed back to the early sixties, to a strange foreign movie I had seen, called Last Year at Marienbad, one in which I hadn't known what was happening. However, one man in it had played this game over and over, with anyone who would play with him. He had used a deck of cards. And he always won. I analyzed the game afterward.
Of course Mark won. “So what does that prove?” Sandra asked, although the ice was gone from her voice.
“Would you like to play a game for a round of drinks?” I asked Mark. “Including one for you?”
He looked at me, surprised. “I don't drink on duty.”
“Okay, five dollars to you if you win. If I win I get to ask you a question.”
“Look, I don't want to take advantage of you.”
“I wouldn't worry about that,” Sandra said.
He looked at her. “All right,” he said with a little smile, setting up the toothpicks.
“One condition,” I said. “You go first.”
If that condition bothered him he didn't show it. He took three off the five-row, leaving 7, 2, 3, 1. It had been a long time since I had thought about this game. What was the key? The gears ground slowly in my head. Convert the number in each row to binary: Seven became 111; two became 10; three became 11; and one became 1. List them vertically as though I was going to add them together. I had taken a pen from my purse and did this on my napkin, hiding what I wrote. 111 + 10 + 11 + 1.
Remove toothpicks so as to leave an even number of ones in each binary column. The beer must have affected me because I drew a blank. Sandra looked anxious; she wanted to help me but didn't know how.
After a full sweaty minute I figured out the only way to do it. It was simple now that I saw it, but then most math is. With a grand gesture I swept all the toothpicks in the seven row to the floor at Mark's feet. He looked startled, but immediately removed one from the row of two, leaving 1, 3, 1.
Now my formula didn't work anymore. Had I blown it? Then I remembered. The formula allowed me to remove the last toothpick, not force my opponent to do it. There was a twist at the end. I had to use pure logic now. I removed two from the three row, leaving 1, 1, 1. I had Mark beaten and he knew it. He looked crestfallen.
“I forgot to tell you that my grandmother used to be a mathematics professor,” Sandra said, not unkindly.
“That explains it,” Mark said, perking up. “I owe you a round.”
“And an answer to my question,” I said, quickly.
“Okay, shoot.”
“Actually, two questions. What did you take to Silver Acres and who did you deliver it to?”
I was surprising him all over the place. He started to say something, stopped, then said, “It was an order of
