Winners win

Blake won every game he played. Chess against his Dad’s driver? Undefeated. Table Tennis against his mom’s yoga instructor? Never a loss. The foot race last Christmas against the doorman? The gangly 13-year old in crocs smoked the middle aged. Dominican man in his rubber soled loafers.

Blake Slade knew he was born a winner. All the Slade men were. An unbroken history of winning- from card games on the Mayflower to the leveraged buyout of the world’s third most popular candy brand just last week. His father repeated to him often what should have been on the Slade family crest, “Winners win.”

Patti lost every game she played. Chess against the old men in the park? They embarrassed her. Backgammon against her abuela? The old lady showed no mercy. And last Christmas her uncle Tito beat her twenty one to five in a pickup basketball game.

Patti De La Cruz was born a loser. All the De La Cruz women were. An unbroken history of losing from the time the first pale man stepped foot on their old island, to just last week when the power went off in their apartment and they told stories to each other to pass the time. Her mother repeated to her what would never be on a De La Cruz crest, because no De La Cruz ever had a crest, “we can’t lose forever.”

Ms. De La Cruz was lucky Mr. Slade hired her to clean. It was a good job and he tipped well. Once a week, she would ride the 1 into midtown, went up to the 40th floor of a marble and glass building and made the Slade penthouse shine. Sometimes Blake was there, but to him, she was no different than a chair he never sat on. Furniture. Invisible.

But the De La Cruz women were losers. So a good job like this could not last forever. Her last day on the job happened October 4th. On the way to clean, an administrator from PS 155 called. “Water off, please pick up your daughter.” It was too late to make other arrangements, and so Patti joined Ms. De La Cruz in the penthouse. She deposited her daughter at the kitchen table and hoped that no Slade would ask questions about the brown girl in their home.

Ms. De La Cruz’s hopes were short lived. Middle schoolers are like puppies in a park. They have to sniff each other and decide who is the top dog.

It was Blake who lifted his leg first, “Who are you?”

Taking out one headphone, “Patti.”

“Why are you here?”

“School‘s water broke.”

“Ha. You’re funny. You wanna play a game?”

“I guess,” Patti paused, “which one?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Blake beamed, “I’m good at all of them.”

Blake motioned for Patti to follow him. Next to the largest, thinnest, TV she had ever seen Blake opened a glass wardrobe taller than them both. And he had everything- Four different Unos, Monopoly, Monopoly Deal, Exploding Kittens, Twister, Candyland, Chess, Checkers, Settlers, and her personal favorite, “Connect four!”

Blake set up the blue and yellow plastic on a coffee table, “I’ll go first,” he said, “since you picked.”

Blake dropped in a red piece. Patti remembered her cousin David had to remind her every time he beat her, the trick to the game is that it’s really “connect three.” Get three pieces together so that if someone blocked one side, you’d win on the other.

It seemed no one taught Blake this rule. Patti won five games in a row.

“You’re cheating,” Blake fumed.

Not wanting to give up the chance to see what other amusements Blake had to offer, Patti suggested, “let’s try another game.”

The results were the same. Patti beat Blake in Scattegories, Scrabble, Checkers, Codename and Chess, twice. It would have been three times, but Blake swiped all the pieces off the board before Patti could move Queen to g7.

“Your school must waste time playing board games,” Blake demanded, “what about a race? There is no way you could beat me in a race. I beat our doorman last Christmas.”

“I really shouldn’t leave the apartment. My mom would be upset.”

“I’ll handle that. Your mom works for us,” and with that the young Slade marched up to Ms. De La Cruz, “me and Patti are going downstairs to race, we’ll be back fast.”

Ms. De La Cruz bit the inside of her mouth. She looked at her daughter, and knew that born winners should never play born losers. She also knew then that she would have to make up these lost hours somewhere, “go ahead, come back as soon as you’re done.”

“We’ll go to one end of the block and back,” Blake said to Patti as they went down the elevator, “do you need a head start?”

Patti said nothing.

“Roberto, can you call the race?” Blake motioned to the doorman whom he embarrassed last winter.

“No problem Mr. Slade,” and as he said this he tried to look Patti in her eyes to plead, “don’t do this. Please. For your mom, for me, don’t do this.” But the De La Cruz women were losers. Even when they won. Even when they ran their hardest and high fived the doorman long before their competitor huffed to the finish line, they lost.

Patti De La Cruz was not born a winner.

That didn’t matter. The born winners would never be ready for her. She world outrun them all.