Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Defne is yelling. With the corner of my eye I see Mrs. Abebe, my neighbor, stare at us from her yard, a clear Do you need saving? in her eyes. I subtly shake my head. Defne just seems like a very passionate, very loud cheerleader. I think I might even like her. Despite the fact that she’s here to talk about chess.

“I can’t be the first person to win against Sawyer,” I say. As a matter of fact, I know I’m not. I studied his play, back when I still . . . studied plays. Antonov- Sawyer, 2013, Rome. Sawyer-Shankar, 2016, Seattle. Antoni- Sawyer, 2012—

“No, but it’s been a while. And when people win against him, it’s because he makes dumb mistakes— which he didn’t, not that I could see. It’s just that you were . . . better.”

“I’m not— ”

“And it’s not like this is your first feat when it comes to chess.”

I shake my head, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I looked you up, and . . .” She glances at her phone. Her case says, Check, mate! on a galaxy background. “There are articles of you winning tournaments in the area, and pics of you doing blindfolded simultaneous exhibitions— you were an adorable kid, by the way. I’m surprised you didn’t play in rated tournaments, ’cause you’d have killed it.”

I might be flushing. “My mother didn’t want me to,” I say, without quite knowing why.

Defne’s eyes widen. “Your mother doesn’t support you playing chess?”

“No, nothing like that. She just . . .”

Mom loved that I played. She even learned the rules to be able to follow my never- ending chess- related chatter. However, she also didn’t shy away from pushing back against Dad. For most of my childhood, the greatest hit in the Greenleaf household was Dad insisting that someone as good as I was at manipulating numbers and pattern recognitions should be cultivated into a pro; Mom replying that she didn’t want me dealing with the hyper- competitive, hyper- individualistic environment of rated chess from a young age; Sabrina emerging from her room to ask flatly, When you’re done arguing about your favorite daughter, can we maybe have dinner? In the end, they agreed that I’d start competing in the rated divisions of tournaments when I was fourteen.

Then I turned fourteen, and everything changed.

“I wasn’t interested.”

“I see. You’re Archie Greenleaf’s daughter, aren’t you? I think I met him— ”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt her sharply. Sharper than I mean to, because of the sour taste in my throat. The things she’s saying, it’s like unearthing a corpse. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, gentler. “Was there . . . Is there a reason you’re here?”

“Right, yes.” If she’s offended by my bluntness, she doesn’t let it show. Instead she surprises me by saying, “I’m here to offer you a job.”

I blink. “A job?”

“Yup. Wait— are you a minor? Because if so, one of your parents should probably— ”

“I’m eighteen.”

“Eighteen! Are you heading off to college?”

“No.” I swallow. “I’m done with school.”

“Perfect, then.” She smiles like she’s giving me a gift. Like I’m about to be happy. Like the idea of making me happy makes her happy. “Here’s the deal: I run a chess club. Zugzwang, in Brooklyn, over by— ”

“I’ve heard of it.” Marshall might be the oldest, most renowned club in New York, but in the last few years Zugzwang has become known for attracting a less traditional crowd. It has a TikTok account that sometimes goes viral, community engagement, stripchess tournaments. I vaguely remember hearing about a more-or-less acerbic rivalry between Marshall and Zugzwang— which would explain her glee at my beating Sawyer, a Marshall member.

“Here’s the deal: some of our members decide to use their overgrown chess brains for something that isn’t chess, and— well, they go out in the world, get jobs in finance and other lucrative, amoral fields, make tons of money, and looove tax write- offs. Long story short, we have a bunch of donors. And this year we instituted a fellowship.”

“A fellowship?” Does she want to hire me to keep track of donors? Does she think I’m an accountant?

“It’s a one- year salary for a player who has the potential to go pro. You’d be mentored and sent to tournaments on our tab. The primary goal is to give a head start to promising young chess players. The secondary goal is for me to eat popcorn while you hand Nolan his ass, again. But that’s not, like, a must.”

I scratch my nose. “I don’t understand.”

“Mallory, I’d love for you to be this year’s Zugzwang fellow.”

I don’t immediately parse her words. Then I do, and I still have to turn them around in my head over and over, because I’m not sure I heard them correctly.

Did she just offer to pay me to play chess?

This is wild. Incredible. This fellowship— it’s like the stuff of dreams. Life changing. Everything fourteen- year- old Mallory Greenleaf would have wished for.

Too bad fourteen- year- old Mallory Greenleaf is nowhere in sight.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Defne. She’s still looking at me with a bright, happy expression. “I told you, I don’t play anymore.”