Check & Mate

There are two main distinctions between the Olympics and a regular tournament: we get doping- tested (yup: it involves peeing in a cup), and we compete as a team. We still play all our matches individually, but our points will be added together. As the strongest among us, Nolan is first board. But then I, the least experienced player, am chosen for second. (I ask Emil repeatedly if it’s a good idea. He gives me a wide- eyed look and huffs, “Come on, Greenleaf.”)

It feels different, knowing that whatever victory I manage to bring home will be for us— no matter how temporary and abstract this us might be. It’s nice when Emil high- fives me after I win on time against the Estonian player, or Tanu kisses my forehead because I narrowly avoided a draw with Singapore. I don’t even mind Nolan’s long, thoughtful, lingering looks. He always defeats his opponent quickly. Then he finds something warm to drink for the rest of the team, sets it by our boards, and comes to stand somewhere behind my opponent. His eyes alternate between me and my game, dark and focused and greedy in a way I don’t fully understand.

He doesn’t fist- pump when I win. He doesn’t even tell me that I did good. He just nods once, like every single one of my victories is expected and his faith in me is as solid as a boulder. As though he couldn’t marvel at me playing well any more than at the sun setting at night.

The pressure that comes with it should be irritating. But I find the unwavering confidence from a player of his caliber flattering, which irritates me even more. So I do what I’m best at: I avoid thinking about it.

And it’s not hard. Toronto is beautiful, and the tournament atmosphere is fun: backpacks, players sitting on the floor and unwrapping homemade sandwiches, people who haven’t seen each other in years hugging it out between rounds. It’s youthful and low pressure, like a school trip with excellent chess instead of museums. I wear jeans and an oversized sweater without feeling underdressed.

“Don’t get cocky, though. We’ve been lucky so far,” Emil tells me while walking back to the hotel at the end of the first day. Nolan is giving Tanu a piggyback ride, because I really want one, Nolan. “We haven’t met any of the strongest teams.”

“Which are?”

“China, India, Russia. And, like, twelve more.”

“Who’s the current champion, by the way?”

“Germany. But they won’t be strong this year, with Koch already in Moscow.”

“That’s why the North American continent felt so much more pleasant than usual,” Nolan mutters.

“Is your manager still pissed about you coming to the Olympics?” Emil asks.

“Can’t say, since I stopped taking her calls.” He shrugs.

It has Tanu giggling on his shoulders and asking, “Remember years ago, when you pushed Koch and manhandled him a bit and he started calling for his mom?”

“One of my most treasured memories.”

“The tears. The panic. Totally worth that fine FIDE slapped you with.”

“Why did you punch him?” I ask, though I can imagine a million reasons.

“Can’t really recall,” Nolan murmurs, almost too casually.

“He was talking about your grandfather,” Tanu says. “As usual.”

“Ah, yes.” His jaw tightens. “He does enjoy running his mouth about shit he doesn’t know.”

We’re staying in a hostel, four separate bedrooms that converge into a shared living space and bathroom. Last night I wondered how Nolan, Mr. Fifty Thousand Dollars Is Nothing to Me, felt about it, but if he finds the accommodation subpar, he hasn’t mentioned it. I went to bed early, and then spent hours listening to the soft, intimate tones of the others chatting, feeling vaguely jealous. I texted Easton (How’s life? Are you puking your heart out in a toilet bowl?) and scrolled through her TikTok waiting for a reply that never came.

She’s busy. It’s fine.

After the first day I conk out on the couch before dinner, before I can even call home. It’s a dreamless, exhausted, happy kind of sleep, vague impressions of bishops and rooks gliding softly across a large board. I wake up tucked in my bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Someone took off my shoes, connected my phone to the charger, put a glass of water on my bedside. Someone took care of me.

I don’t ask who.

Day two is more of the same. In the morning, we win all of our matches— with the exception of Emil, who loses against Sierra Leone.

“Way to kill our streak, asshole,” Nolan tells him mildly over some lunch poutine, ducking to avoid the fry Emil throws at him.

Tanu nods. “Told you we should have brought along someone who knows how to castle.” Unfortunately, she ducks too slowly.

Nolan gestures at me with his chin. “It’s your turn, Mallory.”

“My turn?”

“To tear into Emil. It’s tradition.”

“Right.” I swallow a cheese curd. Scratch my nose. “Emil, that was, um . . . badly done?”

Nolan shakes his head. “Pitiful.”

“Really, Mal?” Tanu chides. “Is this the best you can do?”

“Clearly Mal’s as good at trash-talking as I was at playing against Sierra Leone.”

“She has other talents,” Nolan says, locking eyes with mine. “Like drawing guinea pigs.”

I hide my smile in my hand, but I’m feeling more comfortable with these three. Nolan is more approachable when consumed through the Brita filter of his friends, even if there’s still something intimidating about his unignorable, often quiet presence. Something that keeps me on edge.

As our opponents get stronger, we accumulate more losses and draws, mostly from Tanu and Emil. I like to win— I love to win— but my teammates’ defeats don’t bother me as much, and Nolan seems to be the same. On the second match of the third day, Jakub Szymański from Poland blunders ten moves in, and I pull off a victory in record time. I blink away the soupy feeling of emerging from a game, stretch a little, then come to stand right behind Nolan.

It’s the first time I’ve finished before him— the first time I get to watch him play. It’s his turn to move, and he sits back in the chair, neck slightly bent, arms on his chest. Then he moves his rook, large hands incongruously graceful, and presses the clock.

I have yet to study his games. Defne chooses what plays I analyze, and I’ve found none of Nolan’s in my list. Still, it’s impossible to know anything about chess without having some theoretical notions about him as a player: he is famously cunning, aggressive, versatile. Active. Always doing something risky to raise the pressure. His strategies might seem impulsive, spontaneous, but they are long- sighted and convoluted, nearly impossible to thwart. He relentlessly exploits every advantage, position, distraction. I remember reading about a quality of chess players called nettlesomeness: the ability to not just play well but also trick others into playing poorly. Nolan, by all accounts, has it in heaps. And when the adversary has blundered their way into the middle game, he sinks his teeth into them and draws blood.

The Kingkiller, indeed.

I watch him at work as he advances, surrounds the center, moves his knight and bishop in tandem, takes everything on his path, and . . .

I feel breathless. Light-headed. Confused. That’s how beautiful his moves are. Cruel and unstoppable. I won against him once, but I also know I might not win again—he’s that good. And there’s more: I’m a practical player, always focused on finishing off my opponent as quickly as possible rather than on the art and elegance of the game. But Nolan’s play is stunning. In five thousand years archaeologists will cry at its grace. Though if we don’t stop carbon emissions, the world will just be a pile of ashes, so maybe we should put it in a time capsule. Send it into space on an alien probe. Share with the rest of the universe—

“You okay?” Tanu asks.

“I— yes.” I hadn’t noticed her. Even though she’s right beside me.

“You looked . . . entranced.”

“No. I was just . . .”

“Yeah, Nolan’s play will do that. Nolan, in general.” She laughs softly. “I used to be so in love with him, I’d thought I’d die if we didn’t get married and have four chubby kids named after opening gambits no one uses anymore.” My eyes widen. “Oh, don’t worry. I was, like, twelve? And he couldn’t have cared less about that stuff.” She shrugs. “I thought he was incapable of caring at all before . . . well. On paper, he should have tons of game, but in reality he has very little.” She smiles reassuringly. I want to ask her why she assumes that I’d worry, or what before means, but Nolan buries his fangs into the Polish king and Tanu is too busy cheering.

I’m in a good mood until the last match of the day— Serbia. Because some chess divinity hates me, their second board is someone I remember from Koch’s crew back at Philly Open— Dordevic, the name tag informs me, and I suddenly recall what he asked me that night.

What did you do before the game? I need that kind of luck.

“Greenleaf,” he says, his sneer a clear sign of Koch affiliation.

I vow to myself to destroy him. And I’m true to my word for the first forty minutes or so, easily blocking his attacks and gaining control of the center. Until he takes a page from Koch’s Little Bitch Manual, and accuses me of making an illegal move.

“It’s not,” I tell him.

“If you previously moved the rook— ”

“But I didn’t.”

“Arbiter!”

I roll my eyes but let him flag the closest official— a blond woman who nods and walks over to us.

I recognize her immediately. My stomach flips, then freezes into a block of concrete that should drag me through the floor. Instead, snippets of a four- year- old conversation swarm my head.

Who was she?

No one.

But you were—

No one, Mal.

“Yes?” she asks Dordevic, and there’s a pounding roar in my ears. I know everything about her— name, age, even her address. Or at least, a few years ago’s. It’s possible that she moved. That she doesn’t work at the bank anymore, that she doesn’t exercise at Pure Barre, that—

“It’s not illegal,” she tells Dordevic, who starts gesticulating his disagreement. My entire body is shaking, and I can’t tune in.

“Are you okay?” a voice asks in my ear. Nolan. He just finished his game. “Mal?”

I thrust a trembling hand out to Dordevic. “Draw?” I offer. It’s the first time.

His expression shifts from confused, to distrustful, to relieved when he accepts. We both know that if we’d continued, I’d have won, but— I can’t. Not now.

“Not such a good talent, after all?” He sniggers. I’m already running to the bathroom when I hear Nolan calling him a shithead.

I wash my face, shuddering. I remind myself that it’s fine, because nothing happened. It was years ago. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing—

“What’s wrong?” Nolan asks the second I step out of the bathroom. He’s been waiting for me, and I nearly face- plant into his chest.

“I . . . Sorry about the draw.”

“I don’t care. Who was that arbiter?”

Shit. He noticed. “No one. I just . . .” I step around him, but one hand closes around my upper arm.

“Mallory. You’re not okay. What just happened?” His tone is firm.

But so is mine. “I need a minute, Nolan. Can you please— ”

“Mr. Sawyer?” A group of players approaches us. “We’re huge fans. Any chance we could get an autograph— ”

I seize the opportunity and slip away from Nolan, from Heather Turcotte, from chess. At the hostel, I lock myself into my room, lie down, take deep breaths to clear my mind.

Maybe, if you’d minded your own business, none of this would have—

No.

I empty my mind again, this time for good, and slowly fall into a dreamless, blessed sleep.

I wake up in the middle of the night, feeling more like myself. When I sneak out to use the bathroom, I find a brown bag outside my door. Inside are a sandwich, a Fanta, and a pack of Twizzlers.