Check & Mate

I sleep poorly, stuck in dreams of chess blunders surveyed by dark, judgmental eyes, and wake up too early with a cramp in my left leg.

“I hate my life,” I mutter as I limp into the bathroom, contemplating chopping off my foot with a meat cleaver. Then I find out that my period just started.

I glare down at my ill- timed, uncooperative, treacherous body, and vow to never feed it leafy vegetables again in revenge. Take that, you little bitch.

I packed another sundress for today, blue with a lace hem and flouncy sleeves, but the second I slide it on, I remember Malte Koch’s leering.

Were you wearing something low-cut?

During sophomore year, Caden Sanfilippo, a junior whom I’d known since grade school and whose mission statement was being a dick, started making fun of me for the way I dressed. My theory is that he had a crush on Easton and was trying to get her attention by annoying her best friend, because the harassment stopped the very day she came out. Either way, whenever I’d walk into physics class, Caden would say creative stuff like Hey, granola, or Good morning, discount hippie, or This is not a Whole Foods. He did it for months and months. And yet I never once considered altering my fashion choices.

Today, though, I look in the mirror and instantly take off my dress. “Because they’ll be blasting the AC,” I tell myself, adjusting my jeans and flannel shirt, but I don’t quite meet my own eyes before going downstairs.

I win my first match easily, even feeling like a waterlogged corpse. After the abashing performance I gave last night, I’m very careful about each move. It eats up some of my time, but being less reckless pays off.

“Merde,” my opponent murmurs before thrusting his hand at me, presumably to concede defeat. I take it with a shrug.

My second opponent is late. One minute. Two. Five. I’m playing White, and the tournament director encourages me to make the first move and start the clock, but it seems dickish.

As eliminations happen, the number of games per turn is dwindling. I can spot only a handful, all at distant tables, and notice that most of the remaining players seem to be around my age or just a little older. I remember something Defne said the other day, when she checked on whether I had upped my workout schedule (I had not): chess is a young person’s game, so physically, mentally, cognitively taxing, most of the top GMs start declining in their early thirties. The more I train, the more I believe it.

To pass the time, I doodle flowers on the scorecard, thinking about the email Darcy’s school sent: there are two kids with nut allergies in her class, and PB&Js won’t be allowed. They suggested sunflower seed butter, but I have a nonzero number of reasons to believe that if Darcy doesn’t like it, she’ll email CPS that I’m poisoning her—

“I am so sorry,” a British accent says. A tall guy folds into the chair across from mine. “There was a line for the bathroom, and I had three cups of coffee. The Hunger Games have nothing on the men’s restroom at a chess tournament. I’m Emil Kareem, nice to meet you.”

I straighten. “Mallory Greenleaf.”

“I know.” His smile is open and warm, teeth ivory- white against clean-shaven dark skin. He’s movie-star handsome— and he’s aware.

“Have we met before?” I ask.

“We have not.” He grins again, and the dimple on his left cheek deepens. There’s something familiar about him, and it doesn’t occur to me what it is until three moves in.

He’s the guy from the pool. Running. Wearing red trunks. Splashing water all over me and Nolan Sawyer, giving me a way out. I should probably weigh the ramifications of this information, but Emil is too good a player for me to let my mind drift. His style is careful, positional with bursts of aggressive advances. It takes me several moves to get used to him, and even longer to mount a sensible counterattack.

“Greenleaf,” he says with a self- deprecating smile when I take his queen, “show some mercy, will you?” He’s the first player to talk to me during a match, and I have no idea how to reply. Clearly chess is destroying my social skills.

“Well, well, well.” I have him cornered, and he almost sounds pleased. “I see why he’s been going on about you now,” he murmurs. Or maybe he doesn’t, I can’t quite make out the words. He’s smiling at me again, pleasant and welcoming.

I want to be his friend.

“Are you a pro?” I ask.

“Nah. I have a life.”

I laugh. “What do you do?”

“I’m a senior at NYU. Economics.” I tilt my head to study him. I thought he’d be closer to my age. “I’m nineteen, but I skipped a few grades,” he says, reading my mind.

“Are you a Grandmaster?”

“At this stage of the tournament, every player is. Except for you,” he says, with no malice and a lot of relish. “You’re going to send several of them weeping into the men’s restroom.”

“They seem to be more likely to key my car.”

“Just the wankers. Let me guess— you met Koch?”

I nod.

“Ignore him. He’s a pitiful little slug, forever bitter because he once popped a boner on national television.”

“No way.”

“Oh, yeah. Prize- giving ceremony at Montreal Chess. Puberty’s a bitch, and so’s the internet. They meme’d it into eternity. Just like that time he played an entire match against Kasparov with a ginormous booger dangling from his nose. That shit scars you.”

I cover my mouth. “It’s his supervillain origin story.”

“It’s not easy growing up as a prodigy in front of the cameras— journalists are merciless. When Koch was sixteen and decided to grow a goatee? Everyone took pictures. No one told him that he looked like his own malnourished evil twin with an iron deficiency.”

I let out a laugh— a real one, my first since the tournament started, maybe even since Easton left. Emil stares with a kind, curious expression.

“He has no chance,” he says cryptically.

I clear my throat. “Have you been playing for long?”

“Since forever. My family moved to the United States when I was little so I’d have the best training available. But unlike all these people”— he gestures around the room— “I only love chess a reasonable amount. I’d rather work in finance and play the occasional tournament for fun. It also doesn’t help when your closest friend is the best player the sport has seen in a couple hundred years. You keep losing your Spider- Man action figures to him. Makes you rethink your priorities.”

I frown. “What do you— ”

“White moves forward,” the tournament director says, interrupting us. “Next round’s in ten minutes.”

I hate cutting my chat with Emil short, even more so when I find Defne outside, sitting next to a sullen, gloomy, seething Oz.

“What happened?” I ask.

“My wedding planner is out of peonies. What do you think happened? I lost.” He glares. “This entire tournament could have been an email.”

I scratch my head. I want to ask Defne if she has any Costco Twizzlers left, but it seems like a bad moment. “I bet it was a really tough game.”

“Do not patronize me.”

I snap my mouth shut and retreat one step.

“I saw you were matched with Kareem,” Defne says. “He’s an excellent player.”

“He is.”

“How did it go?”

I glance around, uneasy, considering the chances that Oz will attack me. I can probably take him, but what if he whips a sickle out of his pocket? He’s definitely the portable- sickle type. “I got really lucky. He wasn’t in great shape, so— ”

“Oh my God.” She leaps to her feet. “You won?”

“I’m sure it was just— ”

She hugs me around the neck. “This is fantastic, Mal! Why are you idling here?”

“It was just a game. I didn’t— ”

“You advanced to quarterfinals!”

Wait. “Wait.” What? “What? There is no way we’re already at quarterfinals.”

“Did you even glance at the tournament board?” Oz asks acerbically.

“I’m . . . not sure where it is. I was kind of taking it game by game— ”

“Pearls before swine,” Oz mutters.

I frown. “Did you just call me a pig— ”

Defne pulls me back inside the building, excitedly blubbering about my FIDE rating. I expect her to lead me back to the large tournament room, but she takes a sharp turn left.

“Where are we— ”

“The quarters are in here.” She gives me a long, appraising glance. “Did you want to put on makeup?”

“Why would I want to put on makeup?”

“Oh, you don’t have to. I didn’t mean to imply that you should.” She gives me an apologetic glance. “You look fantastic. You always do. Plus, bodies are but the meaty shells we dwell inside as we move about the mortal plane. No need to doll them up for the cameras— ”

“The cameras?”

“Yeah. Lots of close- ups, too. Come on, we’re late.”

The new location is smaller, glitzier, and more crowded. There are dozens of chairs rapidly filling up, and people whisper excitedly, like the next Fast & Furious movie is about to be screened. All the seats are facing a dais with a row of four boards. The chess sets are fancy. The clocks are fancy. Even the water bottles are fancy— Fiji? At three bucks a pop? Really?

“The cameras film each set of players and their board, and the matches are live streamed on those large screens behind the dais. And”— she points to the side— “the commentators are over there.”

“Commentators?”

“Don’t worry. They work for various streaming services and TV channels. You won’t have to listen to them narrate your every blunder.” Jesus. “The tournament director will call you onstage, but— ”

“Here we are,” an announcer starts. “Board one, Malte Koch and Ilya Miroslav. Board two, Mallory Greenleaf and Benul Jackson. Board three, Li Wei and Nolan Sawyer. Board four— ”

Anxiety knots inside me. I turn to Defne. “What happens if I win?”

Defne gives me a confused look. “You move to semifinals.”

“Against who?”

“Against whoever won their match. Why?

What’s the problem?” What’s the problem? What’s the problem? “Defne, I don’t want to go against— ”

“Please, players, come to the stage and stand next to each other for a few pictures.”

My knees buckle. Defne gives me an encouraging nod. Then an encouraging smile. Then, when it’s clear that my legs are made of concrete and have no intention of moving, an encouraging push. I trudge through my own dread up the dais, fully expecting to trip on the steps. It is I, Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars. The temple priestess of public mishaps. Maybe I’ll puke all over myself, too, just for fun.

I take myself to the end of the row of finalists, next to Koch (who gives me a they really let anyone in here nowadays glance) and two heads down from the other player, the one taller than the others, the one with the deep scowl and the temper.

I refuse to think of his name.

“Greenleaf, right?” the tournament director asks me. I’m tempted to deny it, but I nod. It’s not hard to guess: I’m the only player unfamiliar to him, since I’m no one from Noonetown. Not to mention, the only girl. I am careful not to look toward the audience. The sounds of flashes and whispers are bad enough. “Board two. On the right.”

I shuffle there, keeping my head down. There are dark, broody eyes I wouldn’t want to risk meeting.

Benul Jackson is at least three years younger than me, and pulls out of me some of the best chess I’ve ever played. There is an elegance to his moves, a beauty to his attacks, a class to his defense, that have me nearly forgetting that I’m in the most public moment of my life. Dad once told me, There are two types of players: the warriors and the artists. Jackson is the latter.

He’s also painfully slow.

During my other matches, whenever my opponent would take too long to decide on a move, I’d stand and stroll around, stretch a bit, maybe even take a peek at interesting positions on the nearby boards. On the dais, though, I do not dare. What if I slip? What if I stand up too quickly and faint? What if my tampon leaks through my jeans? Malte Koch and his untimely boner should be a cautionary tale for us all. So I just look around— the commentator table, the vertical line on Jackson’s forehead, my annotation score sheet. I record my moves and scribble in the margins. Flowers. Hearts.

Deep- set, dark, intense eyes.

I stop myself, flushing. Thankfully, Jackson chooses that moment to take my rook and fall into my trap. Too much of an artist, not enough of a warrior. I win in four moves, and he shakes my hand with a confused, befuddled smile.

“Impressive,” he says. “Remarkable. Your style reminds me of . . .” His gaze drifts somewhere past my shoulder. He trails off with a head shake before leaving the dais. When I look around in search of Defne, several journalists eye me curiously. I close my eyes and whisper a silent prayer to the pantheon of chess demigods: Don’t let my next match be against Sawyer. Please. I will gut an abducted guinea pig with depression at your altar.

It’s not until the tables are set up for semifinals that I realize the error of my ways. Someone announces that Sawyer’s next game will be against Etienne Poisy. I inspect my brain to make sure that it’s not my name— phew— and merrily head to my board, hoping Darcy won’t be too mad when I slaughter her pet.

That’s when I see Malte Koch, sitting on the White side.

I halt abruptly.

No. Nope. Nope-ity nope. I’m not playing against some dick whose understanding of gender can be dated somewhere in the 1930s. No way I—

“Everything okay?” the tournament director asks, noticing my hesitation.

I’d rather drink a can of Axe body spray while feral raccoons feast on my exposed bone marrow than sit across from this twat. “Yeah.” I swallow.

Koch’s smirk is quite possibly the most slappable thing I’ve ever seen, but the way he handles his pieces on the board gives it a run for its money. Whenever he moves them to a new square, he adds a little flourish, like he’s putting off a cigarette butt. It makes me want to skin him and use his hide to reupholster Mom’s couch.

Then he starts talking. “So you got to semifinals.”

“Clearly.”

“Are you here through the Make-A-Wish program? Was there a memo about letting you win that I never got?”

I move my pawn in response to the variation of the Ruy Lopez that he opened with, which I happen to have been reading about ad nauseam for the past two weeks. I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules for him to talk to me during my turn. Pretty sure, but unfortunately not certain.

“Did you know that single- elimination tournaments are also called sudden death? As in, when you lose, you’re as good as dead.”

I clench my jaw. “Is the conversation necessary?”

“Why? Are you annoyed?”

“Yep.”

Another smirk. “Then yes, it is.”

I want to cut his brake lines. Just a little bit.

“You know,” he continues casually, “I like it better when women stick to their own tournaments. I find that there’s a natural order to things.”

I look up and smile sweetly. “I like it better when men shut their mouths and stuff their rooks up their asses, but clearly we can’t always get what we want.”

Koch’s smile widens. He lifts his hand to signal to the tournament director to come closer. “Excuse me, could you ask Ms. Greenleaf to avoid using profane language?”

The director gives me a withering look. “Ms. Greenleaf. You’re new here, but you must follow the rules. Like everybody else.”

“But— ” I snap my mouth shut, cheeks heating.

I’m going to kill him. I am going to murder Malte Koch. Or I’ll do the next best thing: annihilate his damn king.

Probably.

Maybe.

If I manage to.

The worst part is— I’m not surprised to hear that he’s number two in the world. He’s an excellent player. I try to pin his queen, but he weasels out. I try to take control of the center, but he pushes me back. I try to wreck his defense line, but not only does he field my attempts, but he also mounts an attack of his own that almost has my king in check.

This is a very dangerous player, I tell myself.

On top of being the worst sack of shit you’ve ever met, a voice inside me adds. I let out a silent huff of a laugh, and play even more aggressively.

Our game lasts long past the other. Seventy minutes in, and we’re still battling. I have his queen, but he got my rook and my knight, and a dense, concrete- like dread starts churning at the bottom of my stomach. I break a sweat. The back of my neck is hot, hair sticky against my skin.

“What are you doing here? Came to see how it’s done?” Koch’s tone is low enough that the mics won’t pick it up. He’s not talking to me.

“She’ll have you in less than five moves,” a deep, assured voice says from behind me. I recognize it but don’t turn around, not even when I hear footsteps fading away.

Sawyer’s in the midst of some delusion. I’m nowhere near winning. There’s next to nothing I can do with this position. Then again, Koch’s pretty much at the same . . .

Oh.

Oh.

It suddenly makes sense. In less than five moves. Yes. Yes, I only have to—

I move my pawn. A silent, safe move, but Koch’s eyes narrow. He has no idea what I’m doing, and I’ve trained him to expect backdoor attacks. He studies the board like it’s a WW2 cypher, and I sit back and relax. I take my pen, annotate my move, attempt a portrait of Goliath on the scorecard to kill time. That stupid beast has truly infiltrated my heart—

Koch moves his knight. I immediately respond with my bishop, confusing him even more. Repeat that, with minimal variations, again, and again, until . . .

“Time’s up,” the director says. Koch looks up, wide eyed, thin lipped. My intentions dawn on him. “It’s a draw. Black moves forward.”

Koch’s jaw clenches. His nostrils flare. He’s staring at me like I just stole his lunch money and bought myself a feather boa with it. Which, let’s be real, I kind of did.

Sudden death, I mouth at him.

“You tricked me,” he spits out.

“Why? Are you annoyed by it?”

“Yes!”

I smile. “Then yes. I tricked you.”

There’s a forty-five-minute break before the final, which I spend with Defne and Oz on a patch of grass shaded by the hibiscus bushes. The high of owning Koch fades fast, and another kind of dread rises.

My next match is against Sawyer. And because my brain is made of applesauce, I can’t stop thinking about his stern expression. The chlorine- thick air curling the hair on his neck. His full lips almost moving, as though he was ready to say something—

“First tournament, and you get to the final,” Oz mumbles, angrily splitting a twig in a million pieces. “Damn child prodigies.”

“I’m eighteen,” I point out.

“You are a chess child. An infant. I could shove my nipple in your mouth and you wouldn’t be able to latch on to it.”

Defne’s eyebrow lifts. “I didn’t know you lactated, Oz.”

“All I’m saying, she’s unjustly brilliant. Wunderkinds are so déclassé. You know what’s in? Hard work. Tribulations. People like you and Sawyer, with your gifted brains and boundless talent are the real plebs.”

I exchange an amused look with Defne. Maybe I’m not growing on Oz, but he’s sure growing on me.

“Have you ever played against Sawyer?” I ask him.

“Of course. Since he was a brat.”

“Ever won?”

He looks away cagily, chin high. “Not as such. But once I offered him a draw and he considered accepting.”

“What about you?” I ask Defne.

I’m almost positive her “Yeah. I have” is a bit tense.

“Any tips on how to avoid making a fool of myself?”

“Open with the Ruy Lopez or the Caro- Kann. Castle early.” She seems uncharacteristically un-chatty. Reticent. “You’ll be fine. You know what to do with Nolan.” I wonder why she calls Sawyer by his first name, when last names seem to be the norm in the chess world.

“Assuming that you even want to win,” Oz points out. “Since he’s pants- crappingly terrifying, rudely storms out of press conferences, punches walls, and once called an arbiter a shitstain. Plus, we all know the kind of genes that run in that family, so— ”

“Oz.” Defne’s tone is sharper than I’ve ever heard it.

“What? It’s true. About Sawyer’s grandfather and about Sawyer being a hotheaded asshole.”

“He was a child. He was only ever violent with Koch, which he can hardly be blamed for, and hasn’t done any of that in years,” Defne retorts. “When he lost to Mallory, he just sat there and stared after her and . . .” Defne shrugs and holds my eyes. “No need to hold back, Mal. He’s a big boy. Whatever you’ll dish out, Nolan can take it.” Her smile is faint. “He probably wants it.”

I doubt Nolan No Emotional Regulation Skills Sawyer wants anything from me. I’m probably working myself up for nothing, and he barely knows that I exist, doesn’t remember we ever played, and stared at me last night only because I was bathing half- naked in the pool, like some nutty girl who talks with lampposts.

The match will be fine. Uneventful. Not a big deal. A micro deal. Nano deal. I’m probably going to lose, because Nolan Sawyer is Nolan Sawyer, and although the competitive part of my brain (i.e., all of it) hates the idea, it doesn’t matter. I am faking my way through this fellowship—

“Mallory, do you have a moment?”

Someone pushes a mic into my face the second I’m back in the tournament room. The press seems to have tripled— or maybe it feels like it, because the journalists from earlier are crowding around me, asking what my background is, if I’m training at Zugzwang, what my strategy for the final match is, and my personal favorite: “How does it feel to be a woman in chess?”

“Excuse us,” Defne says, smiling politely, then slides between me and the cameras, and weaves us through the crowd. Photos are taken, requests for comments are made, and there’s only one escape route.

Up the stage.

Sawyer is already there. Waiting. Sitting on Black, tracking all my movements. His eyes on me are unsettling. There’s something too sharp, too ravenous, almost acquisitive about them. Like the match is an afterthought, and I am what he came here for.

The only possible explanation is that he does hate me. He’s thrilled to have me where he can easily rip me to shreds— revenge for that time I defeated him. He’s going to chop me into pieces, smear me with balsamic vinegar, and relish every bite.

Calm down. It’s your overactive imagination. Like when you see birds in the sky and can’t help but wonder if they’re a family of vultures circling above your head. Thick, warm tension coils inside me. Sawyer is an intense guy. He probably does dislike me, but just a little. Leisurely. As a side gig.

I force myself to go to him, step after step after step. Flashes click and the crowd buzzes and I finally get to the White side of the table.

Sawyer stands.

I extend my hand.

He takes it immediately, almost eagerly. Holds it for a touch too long. His palms are warm, unexpectedly calloused.

“Mallory,” he murmurs. His voice is deep, somber against the shuttering of the cameras, and I shiver. Something hot and electric licks down my spine.

“Hi,” I say. I can’t tear my gaze from his. Am I out of breath?

“Hi.” Is he out of breath?

“Hi,” I repeat, like a total idiot. I should just sit down, I really should—

“Excuse me.” An unfamiliar voice. I’m focused on Sawyer, and it takes a while to penetrate. “Ms. Greenleaf, I’m sorry. We need to talk.”

I turn. The tournament director is watching our handshake with an apologetic, harried expression.

“There has been an error, Ms. Greenleaf.” He clears his throat. “You will not be playing this match.”