Check & Mate

He’s not looking at me.

He’s holding out his hand, but his eyes are on the board, and for a split second I can’t figure out what is happening, where I am, or what I came here to do. I can’t figure out what my name is.

No. Wait. I do know that.

“Mallory Greenleaf,” I stammer, taking his hand. It completely engulfs mine. His shake is brief, warm, and very, very firm. “PCC. That is, Paterson. Club. Uh, chess club.” I clear my throat. Wow. So eloquent. Much articulate. “Nice to meet you,” I lie.

He lies right back at me with a “Likewise,” and still doesn’t look up. Just sets his elbows on the table, keeping his gaze fixed on the pieces, as though my person, my face, my identity, are utterly irrelevant. As though I am but an extension of the white side of the board.

It cannot be. This guy cannot be Nolan Sawyer. Or, not the Nolan Sawyer. The famous one. The sex symbol— whatever that even means. The guy who a couple of years ago was number one in the world and now . . .

I have no clue what Nolan Sawyer’s up to now, but he can’t be sitting across from me. The people on our left and right seem to be not-so-subtly eyeing him, and I want to yell at them that this is just a doppelgänger. Plenty of those going around. Doppelgängerpalooza, these days.

It would explain why he’s sitting there, doing nothing. Clearly, bizarro Nolan Sawyer doesn’t know how to play and thought this would be a mah- jongg tournament and is wondering where the tiles are and—

Someone clears their throat. It’s the player sitting next to me: a middle-aged man who’s neglecting his own match to gawk at mine, pointedly staring between me and my pieces.

Which are white.

Shit— I have the first move. What do I do? Where do I start? Which piece do I use?

Pawn to e4. There. Done. The most common, boring—

“My clock,” Sawyer murmurs distractedly. His eyes are on my pawn.

“What?”

“I need you to start my clock, or I won’t be able to respond.” He sounds bored, with a dash of annoyed.

I flush scarlet, utterly mortified, and look around. I can’t find the stupid clock until someone— Sawyer— pushes it an inch toward me. It was right by my left hand.

Perfect. Lovely. Now would be an excellent time for the floor to morph into quicksand. Swallow me alive, too.

“I’m sorry. Um— I knew about the clock. But I forgot, and— ” And I’m thinking of stabbing myself in the eyeball with that pencil over there. Is it yours? Can I borrow it?

“It’s fine.” He makes his move— pawn in e5. Starts my clock. Then it’s my turn again, and— shit, I’m gonna have to move more than once. Against Nolan Sawyer. This is unjust. A travesty.

Pawn in d4, maybe? And then, after he takes my pawn, I move another to c3. Wait, what am I doing? Am I . . . I’m not trying a Danish Gambit with Nolan Sawyer, am I?

The Danish Gambit is one of the most aggressive openings in chess. Dad’s voice rings in my ears. You sacrifice two pieces in the first few moves— then shift quickly into attack. Most good players will have learned how to defend themselves. If you really must use it, make sure you have a solid follow-up plan.

I briefly consider my glaring lack of follow-up plans. Well, then. I could really use a puke bucket, but instead I just sigh and resignedly push my bishop into the midst, because the more the merrier.

This is a disaster. Send help.

I make five moves after that. Then two more— at which point Sawyer starts pressing me, dogging me insistently with his queen and knight, and I feel like one of the bugs that sometimes wander into Goliath’s cage. Pinned. Squashed. Done for. My stomach tightens, gelid, slimy, and I spend futile minutes staring at the board, scouring for a way out of this mess that’s just not there.

Until it is.

It takes three moves and I lose my poor, battered bishop, but I disentangle myself from the pin. The dread of the opening is slowly melting into an old, familiar feeling: I am playing chess and I know what I’m doing. After each move I punch Sawyer’s clock and glance up at him, curious, though he never does the same.

He’s always unreadable. Opaque. I have no doubt that he’s taking the game seriously, but he’s distant, as though playing from far away, locked in a cell on the top level of one of his rooks. Here, but not really here. His movements, when he touches the pieces, are precise, economical, strong. I hate myself for noticing that. He’s taller than the men sitting at his sides, and I hate myself for noticing that, too. His shoulders and biceps fill his black shirt just right, and when he rolls back his sleeves, I notice his forearms and am suddenly grateful that we’re playing chess and not arm- wrestling; I hate myself for that the most.

The Mallory-hate party is clearly in full swing—and then Sawyer moves his knight. After that, I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe to berate myself.

It’s not that it’s the wrong move. Not at all. It is, in fact, a flawless move. I can see what he’s planning to do with it— move it again, open me up, force me to castle. Check in four, or five. Knife to my throat, and I’d be toast. But.

But, I think it’s possible that elsewhere on the board . . .

If I forced him into . . .

And he didn’t retreat his . . .

My heart flutters. And I don’t defend. Instead I advance my own knight, a little light- headed, and for the first time in— oh my God, have we been at this for fifty- five minutes? How is that possible?

Why does chess always feel like this?

For the very first time since we started, when I look up at Sawyer, I notice a trace of something. In the shifting line of his shoulders, the way he presses his fingers against his full lips, there’s a hint that maybe he really is here, after all. Playing this game. With me.

Well. Against me.

A blink and it goes away. He moves his queen. Takes my bishop. Stops the clock.

I move my knight. Capture his pawn. Stop the clock.

Queen. Clock.

Knight, again. My mouth is dry. Clock.

Rook. Clock.

Pawn. I swallow, twice. Clock.

Rook takes pawn. Clock.

King.

It takes Sawyer a couple of seconds to realize what has happened. A few beats to map all the possible scenarios in his head, all the possible roads this game could take. I know it, because I see him lift his hand to move his own queen, as though it could possibly make a difference, as though he could wiggle his way out of my attack. And I know it, because I have to clear my throat before I say,

“I . . . Checkmate.”

That’s when he lifts his eyes to mine for the first time. They are dark, and clear, and serious. And they remind me of a few important, long- forgotten things.

When Nolan Sawyer was twelve, he placed third at a tournament because of an arguably unfair arbitral decision on castling short, and in response he wiped the chess pieces off the board with his arm. When he was thirteen, he placed second at the very same tournament— this time, he flipped an entire table. When he was fourteen, he got into a screaming match with Antonov over either a girl or a denied draw (rumors disagree), and I can’t recall how old he was when he called a former world champion a fuckwhit for trying to pull an illegal move during a warm-up game.

I do recall, however, hearing the story and having no idea what a fuckwhit might be.

Each time, Sawyer was fined. Reprimanded. The object of scathing op-eds on chess media. And each time, he was welcomed back to the chess community with open arms, because here’s the deal: for over a decade Nolan Sawyer has been rewriting chess history, redefining standards, bringing attention to the sport. Where’s the fun in playing, if the best is left out? And if the best sometimes acts like a douchebag . . . well. It’s all forgiven.

But not forgotten. Everyone in the community knows that Nolan Sawyer is a terrible, moody, ill- tempered ball of toxic masculinity. That he’s the poorest loser in the history of chess. In the history of any sport. In the history of history.

Which, because he just lost against me, is possibly going to develop into a problem.

For the first time since the match started, I realize that a dozen people are standing around us, whispering to each other. I want to ask them what they’re looking at, if I have a nosebleed, a wardrobe malfunction, a tarantula on my ear, but I’m too busy staring at Sawyer. Tracking his movements. Making sure he won’t hurl the chess clock at me. I’m not one to be easily intimidated, but I’d rather avoid a checkmate- induced traumatic brain injury if he decides to smash a foldable chair on my head.

Though, surprisingly, he seems content to just study me. Lips slightly parted and eyes bright, like I’m simultaneously something odd and familiar and puzzling and larger than life and—

He looks. After ignoring me for twenty- five moves, he just looks. Calm. Inquisitive. Upsettingly not angry. Something funny occurs to me: top players are always given cutesy nicknames by the press. The Artist. The Picasso of Chess. The Gambit Mozart. Nolan’s nickname?

The Kingkiller.

The Kingkiller leans forward, ever so slightly, and his intense, awestruck expression feels much more threatening than a folding chair to my head.

“Who— ” he starts, and I cannot bear it.

“Thank you for the game,” I blurt out, and then, even though I should shake his hand, sign the scorecard, play three more games— despite all of that, I leap to my feet.

No shame in retreating your pieces if you’re being pinned and can get out, Dad used to say. No shame in knowing the limits of your game.

My chair falls to the ground as I run away. I hear the grating sound, and still don’t stop to pick it up.