When I had first found out I'd be visiting 1922 New York, I'd envisioned an evening of secret speakeasies, tin pan jazz and moments stolen from F. Scott Fitzgerald novels. Instead, I watched as my date got punched by an old man over a game of chess.

At least, I assumed it was my date. He matched the picture Ms. Little had given me. Henry Levison. His black hair looked wet with pomade save for a single strand he'd seemingly forgotten, which curled like a corkscrew at his forehead. He was dark-eyed and pale. One might've called him unremarkably handsome except for a distinct, hooked nose—which cracked under the old man's fist.

Chess pieces bounced and scattered across the leaf-plastered concrete. Henry reeled, both hands going for his nose as he gave a surprised bark of laughter.

"You got some nerve," the old man spat around ill-fitting dentures. "Hustling an old man out of his last dollar."

"Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have bet it on a game of chess." Henry's pained expression slowly unscrewed. "Consider it the price of a lesson. You play it too safe. It's a game of aggression, Pops, not dollies."

His words took some of the fire out of the old man, who straightened his houndstooth cap with a sense of finality. "I'll report you to the authorities."

"Sure." His Brooklyn accent was rougher than Cel's. He didn't bother looking up from collecting chess pieces. "Give my regards to Officer Murphy while you're there."

Angry footsteps grew quiet in the distance as the old man's stormy departure bled into the sounds of Washington Square Park on a Saturday afternoon. With the last pieces righted, Henry scanned the area for what I imagined was his next match. His scuffle with the old man had caused something of a stir at the game across from him—two NYU students, if their varsity sweaters were any indication—but since it was apparent that Henry would not be violencing an old man that day, their interest had waned and the game had resumed.

Henry had no other challengers.

He slumped, chin braced on a knuckle as he plucked up the silver dollar, considering it before biting down. He seemed pleased with the mouth-feel, producing a mostly-empty coin purse.

This was my chance.

The bench across from him squeaked as I sat down. "Hi. I promise I won't punch you in the face if you win."

From the look he gave me, I thought Henry would swallow the dollar whole. He stared for a full five seconds, surprise slowly draining from his expression as he smoothed back his hair. Pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket, he spit the coin into his waiting palm and started to clean it. "You, uh, you saw that?"

I smiled. "I did. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah." A ginger touch to his nose made him wince. "I'll admit it—the geezer's got a pretty mean haymaker for somebody whose biggest adversary is probably gout. So, what're we playing for?"

Well, he might not have been what I was looking for, but he was funny, at least. "If you win, I'll take you to dinner."

His eyes never left me as he dropped the coin into its purse, tucking it and the handkerchief away absently. "Boy, lady, you don't mess around."

"Calm down. I don't expect you to win." Calling it an empty boast would've been an understatement. The last time I had played chess, I'd been in high school. I'd learned the game exclusively so I could spend time with the class valedictorian. He was "a total doll baby," to borrow a phrase from Teddy.

"That so?" Henry seemed to be waiting on something. He finally nodded down to the pieces. "White goes first."

"Oh. That's right." Heat washed through my face as I scrambled for an opening move. I took my knight and sat it down along the outside of the board, trying to judge his reaction. "My name is Adaliah Blum. Everyone calls me Ada, though."

"Henry Levison." His expression was focused, unreadable, as his attention shifted from me to the chessboard. "And a knight on the rim is dim."

I quirked an eyebrow at his response. "That suppose to mean something?"

"Yeah." He picked up a pawn and moved it near the center of the board. "It means you're lousy at chess."

The next half hour would prove exactly how true that statement was. My knight gambit didn't pay off and I lost a third of my pieces in the process. "So, is this just a pastime for you, hustling women and the elderly?"

"Sometimes I'll squeeze in a kid, too. Take his penny candy." Henry shrugged, flashing a boyish grin. "All things considered, I probably deserved to be punched."

His win was less of a victory and more of a mercy-kill.

Through the treeline, I could see the pristine stone arch that served as the landmark for the park. Somewhere, jazz played, small and tinny on a radio, punctuated by the long squawk of a jalopy horn. One by one, I put the pieces back in a velvet-lined case Henry provided. "Should we be going then?"

Draping an arm over the back of the bench, Henry packed a pipe with sweet-smelling tobacco. He took a thoughtful pull as he crushed a still-burning match under his oxfords. "I don't like charity."

"What?"

He took the pipe from his mouth, gesturing at me with the stem. "You threw that game on purpose."

"No, I promise I didn't." I laughed, shaking my head. "Either you're particularly good at chess or I'm particularly bad at it. Your choice."

"Let's make one thing abundantly clear." Henry poked the pipe back in his mouth and puffed a few times. "I'm not particularly good at anything. What were you expecting to get out of this?"

The lacquer of the chess case felt cool under my hands. "I wanted to get to know you. Honestly, Henry, haven't you ever had a girl show interest in you before?"

He went quiet at that, blowing out a slow line of smoke.

"Sure," he said after a moment, voice low. His gaze fell from my face to the jeweled forget-me-nots pinned to my neckline. "But none of them looked like you."

I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but I pushed it from my mind as I stood from the table. "Do you have a place in mind for dinner? I'm new to the Village. Maybe something cold for your nose, to keep the swelling down?"

"Oh, you're a real riot." Henry rolled his eyes, but something gave him pause. His expression softened the longer he sat there, stewing over his pipe. "How do you feel about chop suey?"

***

There wasn't much of a difference between 1920s Chinese restaurants and the ones I had back home. If anything, the one Henry had taken me to felt oddly authentic compared to its modern-day equivalents. There were no bright paper lanterns that seemed more Ikea than Canton, no faded triptychs of the Great Wall, and no dust-covered Maneki-neko waiting by a saran-wrapped register. The only indication that this was a Chinese restaurant was a few banners, gold on red, hanging from the support beams. The painted cement walls were empty.

I smiled at our waiter as two plates were set down in front of us, steam rising from vegetables and diced chicken that glistened with a syrupy sauce, but as he walked away I was overcome with a sense of bittersweetness. It was funny. People spent all this money trying to go back to the past when food was the cheapest time machine I knew.

Across from me, Henry ate with enthusiasm. Pulling his fork clean, his dark eyes darted from me to my plate. "Don't like the food?"

"Oh, no, the food's fine." I snapped up my fork and took a big, reassuring bite. It wasn't as cloyingly sweet as the Chinese takeout I was accustomed to, which was both jarring and pleasant. The vegetables had a snap to them and the smell of bell peppers filled my head.

He wasn't convinced, gaze dropping. "It's okay. An acquired taste, I guess. Try some of it with the rice, you'll like it."

"Nobody orders Chinese for the rice." My smile wavered. "I guess I'm just used to eating it with chopsticks."

He glanced up from his plate. "You know how to use chopsticks?"

"Sure. Doesn't everyone?"

"No." Henry laughed, but it wasn't the loud bark that I'd heard before. It was breathless, surprised. More genuine, in a way. He looked at me as though I was a completely different person. "No, they don't."

My face warmed under his attention and I suddenly felt very foolish. Chinese restaurants had always pandered to their American customers—of course chopsticks weren't a readily available staple in 1922. Fortune cookies probably weren't even a thing yet.

"I had a neighbor who showed me," I lied. "So, is chess your preferred method of swindling people, or do you have other games that you enjoy?"

He saw through my obvious change of subject. As our waiter reemerged from the kitchen, Henry called out across the restaurant. "Hey, Ping Pong, c'mere."

I could feel myself melt into my seat in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. A few other diners looked up from their plates. The waiter, remarkably patient, came to our table.

"You got a pair of chopsticks we could borrow?" Henry pulled out his coin purse to fish out two quarters, sliding them across the table. "We'll give it back once we're done. My girl here says she knows how to use 'em and that blush of hers says she's lying."

Rattling something off in what I think was Cantonese, the waiter picked up the money and headed back into the kitchen.

I glared at Henry. "You didn't have to call him that."

"I'm sure he's heard worse. Besides, you know his name?"

"No, but 'waiter' would've sufficed." I realized from the looks of the other patrons that my voice was steadily rising.

"Whoa, easy there, shiksa." Henry held up his hands defensively. "I don't know if you've noticed but this is New York. Everybody hates everybody else here."

I exhaled thinly, trying to reign in my anger. "That doesn't make it right."

His resolve seemed to break the longer I kept eye contact. Finally, Henry lapsed into a fit of quiet, nervous laughter. "What kind of girl are you?"

"The kind of girl who'll leave you with the bill if you don't stop acting like a neanderthal."

There was something simmering just beneath the surface of Henry's expression as he sullenly went back to his chop suey. I ate, too, but our conversation had soured my appetite. My thoughts were dominated by a litany of better uses for my time. I could've spent the evening tangled up with some gorgeous Regency bachelor—provided he was actually single this time. Stupid, stupid parsnip jam. Why would you eat it when you could have perfectly non-racist strawberry?

I let out a sigh of frustration. Henry looked up from his food.

"Listen," he said in a small voice. "You can just go, if you want. These people know me. I'll pick up the tab."

"A promise is a promise, but I do think it's a good idea if I go." I was already counting out a dollar and twenty six cents from my Kairos-appointed allowance when the door to the kitchen opened. Our waiter had returned with a pair of plain chopsticks, setting them on a cloth napkin between the two of us.

"Thanks," Henry said flatly. He slumped, chin on a knuckle as he played with his chop suey. He wouldn't look at me.

Dammit. How had Henry managed to make me feel like the villain in this situation? He was the one being a racist jerk. I tried to drum up some excuse for him—he was a product of his time after all—but that didn't make it better.

"Well, what're you waiting for? Get on your high horse and get out of here," Henry muttered.

I should've walked out on him then, but I didn't.

At first, Henry feigned disinterest as I used the chopsticks to pluck up a piece of chicken and eat it, but as I continued his attention slowly migrated my way. His eyes widened. He reached out a hand, mouth forming a question before his eyes knitted together in stubborn resolution. His fingers closed into a fist.

Without a word, Henry went back to pushing food around his plate at a furious pace.

In spite of everything, I smiled. "Do you want me to teach you how to use them?"

There was a long pause. His fork clanked against the table. "Yeah, okay."

I took his fingers and started to shape them into the right position. Henry had musician hands; long and elegant but hardened from regular abuse. His left hand was particularly rough. "You play?"

"Violin." He held the chopsticks easily enough, but when it came time to manipulate them, he struggled.

"Just use your middle finger to open them up. How long have you played?"

"Before I could read." There was distraction in his voice. He bit the inside of his cheek as he tried to do as he was told, face lighting up when he seized a slice of chicken. His triumphant smile was short-lived, though, as was his grip. As the piece slipped further and further, he raced to eat it. "Ma had plans for me to play professionally, but I'm not—"

The morsel dangled above him, dripping sauce on his chin. Henry flexed the chopsticks and the chicken dropped. He slurped it up, chewing smugly, like a cat with a mouthful of canary.

"I feel more cultured already," he preened, before shifting his grip so that he held the chopsticks like an ice pick. He stabbed the next piece and brought it to his mouth. "But this might be a little more efficient."

I tried to keep a straight face. "If we're talking about efficiency, you could just eat it with your hands."

"Come on, that's just barbaric." He wiped his chin off on a wrist.

"And stabbing isn't?"

He thought it over, weighing invisible pros and cons with a chopstick as he chewed.

"No." Henry stabbed another piece for emphasis. "But it's more satisfying."

So maybe I would finish the date with Henry after all. He wasn't irredeemable, just in desperate need of some sensitivity training—and he wasn't hard to look at it, either. Definitely the type of person who becomes more attractive with familiarity. I picked up my fork and speared some vegetables. "So, what type of music do you play?"

He cracked a shy grin, eyes flitting back to his plate. "That's a goofy question."

"How so?"

"Let me ask you this: What sounds do you make with your voice?" To my surprise, he kept using the chopsticks, silently mouthing the instructions I'd given him earlier. He tried to pick up a clump of sticky rice but it fell with a splat against the plate.

I wasn't sure how to answer. "All of them, I guess."

He finally settled on picking up a single grain, studying it. "Same goes for a violin. My friends and I play freilech, sometimes. Weddings, mostly, as a favor to those who've been good to us. But people with money aren't too interested in that kind of music. They want Vitali, Bach. Old white men want to listen to older, deader white men."

"Didn't you say you weren't good at anything?" I helped myself to more rice and vegetables, though my eyes never left him.

"Trust me, I'm not." Henry tried a few more clumsy bites before he spoke again. "Say, can I ask you something?"

"You just did, didn't you?"

He swallowed, giving a dismissive wave of a chopstick. "Hey, I'm being serious for once. What do you want out of life?"

I faltered. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Don't play coy. You know exactly what I mean. Every broad does," he said, staring down at his food. "It's usually a picket fence upstate. If she's ambitious, not too hard on the eyes, it's one of those new penthouse suites like they're building on Park Avenue. It's two kids, a girl and a boy, and diamonds on your anniversary. You get what I'm saying?"

The front door opened, spilling a cascade of dry leaves across the floor. A quartet of ratty-looking bohemians started to unbundle as they placed their orders for chop suey. With a deep, stabilizing breath, I tried to gather my thoughts. "I guess I'm tired of fighting. I want something simple. Something real. Something easy."

He was silent for a long time after that. The bohemians were seated. Once thawed, their corner of the restaurant was filled with raucous laughter and cigarette smoke.

"Ada." Something about Henry's smile was sad. "Look. You seem like a swell gal, for a shiksa. You're pretty and you're not completely hollow-headed, even if you're lousy at chess. But I'm not the guy you're looking for. In fact, if I were you, I'd make a point to never see me again."

I nodded slowly. The sting that normally accompanied these sorts of speeches was strangely absent. If anything, I felt numb. Henry was just another stranger from another time, another place. I'd disappear from his life and he would grow old and die long before I ever stepped foot in Kairos. It was strange to think about.

"I understand." It was the same tone I used when I explained to hopeful customers why their mortgage application was denied. Calm. Even. Professional. I even gave him a gracious smile as I rose from the table with the money for our meal in hand. "Thank you for the evening, Henry. I hope your career as a violinist goes well."

The blast of cool autumn winds threatened to blow off my cloche as I left. The late afternoon sky was tinged with pink. I had no idea how long dinner had taken, so I wandered to a nearby alleyway and checked my corsage. The timer flashed 3:25. Over three hours until my chauffeur would arrive at Washington Square to pick me up. I sighed, leaning against smoke-stained brick.

While I wasn't particularly hurt by Henry's words, they were baffling. The date had went bad so abruptly. Our conversation turned circles in my mind, round and round like the horses in Ms. Little's carousel. A perfume advertisement plastered on the opposite wall caught my eye.

The young woman in the ad wasn't dressed too differently from me, in a sack dress and cardigan, but the clothes accentuated her thinner, more androgynous frame. Maybe that was why. Yes, Henry had called me pretty, but so had Ms. Little. It was a hollow compliment filled with hidden conditions. Even someone as unpolished as Henry probably had the good sense not to call a girl fat to her face.

Well, I had one thing to say: My love of Oreos was a lot stronger than my love of fitting into a size twelve. Maybe a trip to the Baroque period was in order. I might've struck out on my first two outings, but Rubens seemed like my kind of guy.

I walked to the corner. As a wave of Model Ts slowly puttered by, I planned a hypothetical late dinner with Teddy. A bright yellow taxi rolled up to the sidewalk. I gave a reflexive smile, a polite refusal on my lips, when the backseat window cranked its way down.

My stomach did a flip.