Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

I just didn’t expect the necessary amount of it to equal a bajillion craploads.

“Yeah.” I force out a smile. I may not be thrilled to be here, but Defne is saving me and my family from the underpass. And I’m not an ungrateful little shit— I hope. “There’s a . . . workout schedule?”

“You don’t work out?”

I haven’t voluntarily broken a sweat since my last PE requirement— junior high, I believe. But she looks surprised to find out that I’m a sloth, so I massage the truth. “Not quite that often.”

“You’ll want to up that. Most chess players work out every day to build stamina. Believe me, you’ll need it when you’re in the middle of a seven- hour game.”

“A seven- hour game?” I’ve never done anything for seven hours straight. Not even sleeping.

“Players burn, like, six thousand calories a day while playing a tournament. It’s ridiculous.” She gestures for me to follow her. “I’ll show you your office. You don’t mind sharing, do you?”

“No.” This morning my roommate repeatedly farted on my pillow because I dared to ask her not to practice her xylophone at 5:30 a.m. “I’m used to it.”

The Paterson Chess Club is a room in the rec center, made up of painfully fluorescent light bulbs, vinyl planks sticking out of the floor, and enough asbestos to fry the brains of three generations. I expected Zugzwang to be more of the same, but every corner is sun-dappled hardwood floors, expensive furniture, and sleek, state-of-the- art monitors. Tradition and technology, new and old. Either I underestimated the kind of money one can make from chess, or the place is just a mob front.

I nearly gasp when Defne shows me the library, something straight out of Oxford— if on a smaller scale. There are rows and rows of high shelves, fancy ladders, something that, from watching Selling Sunset with Mom exactly twice, I believe is called a mezzanine, and—

Books.

So. Many. Books.

So many books that I recognize from the living room shelves stocked by Dad, then hastily packed away in old Amazon boxes once the silent decision to erase his presence was made.

“You’re welcome to use the library whenever you want,” Defne says. “Several volumes in here are on your reading list. And it’s right by your office.”

That’s correct: my office is across the hall, and this time I do gasp, shamelessly. It has three windows, the largest desk I’ve ever seen, various chess sets that probably cost more than a gallbladder on the black market, and—

“Quiet, please.”

I turn around. On the desk opposite to mine sits a scowling man. He must be in his twenties, but his blond hairline is already receding into deep hills. There’s a developed chess game in front of him, and three open books.

“Hey, Oz.” Either Defne doesn’t notice his frown or she doesn’t care. “This is Mallory. She’ll take the empty desk.”

For a few seconds, Oz stares like he’s fantasizing about disemboweling me and using my large intestine to crochet himself a scarf. Then he sighs, rolls his eyes, and says, “Your phone is on mute at all times— no buzzer. Computer on mute, too. Use a silent mouse. If you see me thinking and you interrupt me, I will stuff my chess pieces into your nostrils. Yes, all of them. No pacing around while you’re thinking through games. No perfume, hot foods, or wrappers. No sniffling, sneezing, heavy breathing, humming, burping, flatulating, or fidgeting. No talking to me unless you’re having a stroke and need me to call 911.” A thoughtful pause. “Even then, if you can manage to alert me, you can probably dial on your own. Understood?”

I open my mouth to say yes. Then remember the no-talking rule and nod, slowly.

“Excellent.” He grimaces at me. Oh God, is that a smile? “Welcome to Zugzwang. We’ll get on great, I’m sure.”

“Oz is one of our resident GMs,” Defne whispers in my ear, like it explains his behavior. “Have a good first day!” Her handwave is a little too chipper, considering that she’s leaving me alone with someone who’ll flog me if I get the hiccups, but when I glance at Oz, he’s back to staring at his game. Phew?

I grab the many lists Defne has given me, retrieve books from the library, boot up the computer, sit in the nice ergonomic chair as quietly as possible (the semi- leather creaks, which I’m sure has Oz on the verge of freeing me from the mortal coil), find the chapter I need to memorize from the fifteenth edition of Modern Chess Openings, and then . . .

Well. I read.

It’s not a new book to me. Dad would recite passages about initial gambits and positional play in his soothing, low baritone, ignoring Darcy and Sabrina screaming in the background, Mom puttering around the kitchen and warning about dinner getting cold. But that was centuries ago. That Mallory didn’t know anything about anything, and she had nothing in common with today Mallory. And anyway, do I really need to study all this stuff? Am I not supposed to reason my way through a game?

It seems like a ridiculous amount of work, and over the day it doesn’t get any better. At ten, I switch to reading Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual. At eleven it’s The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. Interesting stuff, but just reading about it seems like studying a manual on how to knit without ever touching needles. Utterly pointless. Every once in a while, I remember that Oz exists and look up to find him immobile, reading the same stuff I am— except he doesn’t seem to be wondering about the meaning of it all. His hands are a visor on his forehead, and he looks so deep in concentration, I’m almost tempted to say, “Rooks, amirite?”