Katherine Heiny - Games and Rituals

4th Estate

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2023

Copyright Katherine Heiny 2023

Cover design by Kelly Blair

Cover illustration Anna Parini

Katherine Heiny asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Several stories originally appeared in the following publications: Bridesmaid, Revisited in Narrative, CobRa in Grand Journal, Games and Rituals in Epoch (February 2023), King Midas in Meetinghouse, Sky Bar in Catamaran, and 561 published as a novella by Fourth Estate Kindle Division in 2018.

Information on previously published material appears .

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008395148

Ebook Edition April 2023 ISBN: 9780008395162

Version: 2023-02-23

for Angus and Hector

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

CONTENTS

COLETTE HAS BEEN A DRIVING EXAMINER FOR TWELVE YEARSSHES thirty-sixand yet it only occurs to her today that Ted Bundy had had a drivers license. And that means that some driving examiner had taken him for a road test. Think about it: some driving examiner had willingly clambered into Teds VW bug and driven off with him. Maybe the driving examiner had even been a woman. A woman who never knew she had ridden next to Death, never knew she had docked Death points for improper clutch control.

Why has Colette never thought of that before? But she thinks of lots of things lately that she hasnt thought about before.

IT IS EARLY FEBRUARY in Maryland, the day as bleak as a pen-and-ink drawing done on old gray paperbare trees, muddy snow, the road clear but scored with white salt stains like the scars from old injuries. Colette parks behind the DMV building and walks up the sidewalk to the employee entrance.

Shes a little late and the other driving examiners are already there: Vic, Gregg, and Alejandro. Vic is a pointy-faced man of about forty with slicked-back dark hair who looks like a weaselly sort of hood, or maybe just a weasel, with his small eyes and vicious smile. Before landing here at the DMV, Vic worked as a bouncer, a roadie, a security guard, a fitness trainer, an auditor, and a head cookname a job where you got to intimidate people and Vic has held it.

Gregg is an older man with bushy salt-and-pepper hair, a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, and horn-rimmed glasses. He looks like a retired history teacher and is, in fact, a retired history teacher. He likes to do cryptograms between examinations. No one knows why Gregg works as a driving examiner instead of enjoying his retirement and doing unlimited cryptograms at home in his underwear. Colette worries that Gregg has been unwise with his pension and is short of money but Vic says its undoubtedly that Gregg doesnt want to stay home with his wife. Greggs wife packs him the most elaborate lunches Colette has ever seen, with all the food in undersized portions: tiny sandwiches, miniature quiches, itty-bitty salads in old baby food jars, cupcakes no bigger than a quarter. Can you imagine living with the woman who packs those lunches? Vic asked. His choices are probably to come here or stay home and help her organize her toothpick collection. Colette thinks he might be right.

Alejandro is a compactly built man in his late twenties with close-cropped black hair, bright brown eyes, an easy smile, and chiseled features. Not chiseled as in especially strong or sharp, but chiseled as in some sculptor had apparently chiseled them especially for Colette, had known what Colette would find handsome before she herself knew it.

Alejandro had started work here six months ago. Colette had been out on a road test when he arrivedshed come back to the office and there he was. He rose to shake her hand and introduce himself and Colette dropped her clipboard. Sorry Im so distracted, she said, leaning down to retrieve it. My last road test drove the wrong way down a one-way street.

That was true. Colette had never been so grateful to have an excuse for looking flushed and out of breath.

THE DRIVING EXAMINERS work at four metal desks in a room with cinder-block walls painted the color of curdled cream. The only window is one-way glass and the view is not of outside but of the four scuffed blue plastic chairs in the hall where test-takers wait to take their road tests. (The person who accompanies themusually a parenthas to wait over in chairs on the other side of the building.)

A moment or two after the test-taker sits down, Trina or Gina from Written Tests pops open the door to the driving examiners office, tosses the test-takers folder into the tray on top of the filing cabinet, and retreats.

Vic always volunteers for the mornings first test, and today its a burly guy in a maroon sweatsuit.

Okay, Im headed out for coffee, Vic says. What he means is that hes going to make the burly guy go through the McDonalds drive-thru as part of the road test. He does it every single day, and no test-taker has ever thought to complain, not even the lady who chipped the Ronald McDonald statue and had to pay three hundred dollars in repairs.

None for me, Colette says.

Vic frowns. Why the fuck not?

It gives me headaches.

What, after decades of drinking coffee, it suddenly gives you headaches?

Its possible to develop an allergy at any time in your life, Gregg says.

Vic looks at him, annoyed. Now you dont want one, either?

No, I want a premium blend, black with two sugars.

Alejandro?

Americano, with an extra shot of espresso. Ill make up for Colettes lack of caffeine. He winks at Colette. The wink doesnt cause her heart to leap with hope anymore. She thinks that must be a good sign.

THE DRIVING EXAMINERS are supposed to work in strict rotation, like a batting order lineup: the first available driving examiner taking the next test-taker. But Colette and Vic and Gregg have long ago developed their own system where they assess the test-taker through the one-way glass (and study the paperwork in the test-takers folder) and make their own assignments.

Rules apply, obviously. No one is allowed to strike every undesirable test-taker who comes their way because that would basically mean no one except pretty girls, men with kind faces, and librarians would ever get drivers licenses. But they can pick and choose to some extent.

None of them liked to take old people. The problems with old people were endless: hearing loss, vision loss, memory loss, slowed reflexes, confusion. It broke Colettes heart when she saw some elderly person shuffle out to take their test and knew that person had once been lithe and slender, brimming with intelligence and verve. And she knew that the old people still thought of themselves that way. They had no idea the younger, more capable versions of themselves had decamped decades ago. It was heartbreaking but it was also fucking