After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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I don't like board games. I may stock a wide variety in my store and I may play them with my kids a couple times a month, but I don't care for them. I lack the competitive streak necessary to make them fun, I think – I don't have that burning desire to win and I'd rather read a book or watch a movie than spend hours playing some infuriating game with convoluted rules that inevitably ends with one of my kids in a grump.
But watching Annie makes it worth it. The moment we sit down on the floor around the coffee table – me with my back against the sofa for support – her entire demeanor shifts, her game face on. I watch with a smile as she counts out the cash that Hannah had already laid out for us by the time we got home a half hour ago. Our drink at Deer & Pine turned into two, and it was hard to tear ourselves away from the heat of the fire.
The house was oddly quiet when Annie and I stepped into the hallway, covered in snow after a ten minute walk in a growing blizzard. I walked to meet Annie after her shift, assuming she'd driven, only to find out her dad had dropped her off. We got home shivering and Hannah emerged from the living room, where she'd set up the game, and told us that Otto was reading Ava to sleep. My heart often swells with love for my kids, and that was one of those moments where I felt it might burst.
It's finger food for dinner today. Things we can pick at as we play: fries and the dinosaur nuggets Hannah loves; carrot and cucumber sticks and hummus; plum tomatoes and chips and dip. I lay it all out on the table alongside the Monopoly board and dunk a cucumber stick in the hummus.
"You look very serious," Otto says to Annie, whose thick eyebrows are pulled together in an adorable little scrunch above her nose.
"Monopoly is a serious business. I'm trying to remember your weaknesses."
Otto laughs. "From when I was seven? Hate to break it to you, Annie, but I've only gone from strength to strength since then."
"Your arrogance will be your downfall," she says. "Any house rules?"
"If you have to pay any kind of tax, you put the money in the middle and if you land on free parking, you take it all," Otto says. "Um ... we don't do the whole thing where we go round the board once before we can buy properties. If you want to do deals with other players, you have to do it during your go."
"What about if you land on the same square someone else is already on? In my family, that means we can kick them off to jail if we want to."
"We do that too," Hannah says. "I think it's mean, though."
Otto shrugs and says, "That's just the game, Han."
"Alrighty then. Youngest goes first. You're up, Han." Annie rolls the dice towards Hannah.
Otto gasps and says, "So that's why you insisted on sitting to Hannah's left. You wanted to go second!"
Annie winks. Something tells me she's going to be a ruthless player. I may not like the game, but I think this is going to be fun.
