Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

So maybe, just maybe, it will be. Fine, I mean.

“Rest, okay?” I cup her face. There are about seven gray circles under her eyes. “Go back to bed. The creatures will entertain themselves.”

When I let myself out. I can hear Sabrina and Darcy kvetching about their oatmeals in the kitchen. I make a mental note to stock up on nail polish remover, and when I spot Easton’s car rounding the corner, I wave at her and jog up to the street.

And that, I guess, is the beginning of the rest of my life.





“It’s a Swiss- system tournament. Kind of. Not really, though.”

Easton gathers our team around her, like she’s Tony Stark briefing the Avengers, but instead of quippy one- liners she hands out Paterson Chess Club pins. There must be three hundred people on the second floor of the Fulton Stall Market, and I am the only one who didn’t get the business casual memo.

Oops.

“Each one of us is going to play four matches,” she continues. “Because it’s for charity, and because the tournament is open to amateurs, instead of using FIDE ratings, players are going to be matched according to self- reported ability.”

FIDE, the World Chess Federation (Why isn’t the acronym WCF? Not sure, but I suspect the French language is involved) has a complicated system to determine players’ skill levels and rank them accordingly. I knew all about it when I was seven, chess obsessed, and wanted to grow up to be a mermaid Grandmaster. By now, though, I’ve forgotten most bureaucratic stuff, probably to make room for more useful information— like the best way to crimp a wire terminal, or the plot of the first three seasons of How to Get Away with Murder. All I remember is that to get a rating one needs to sign up for FIDE- sponsored tournaments. Which, of course, I haven’t done in ages— because I haven’t played in ages.

Four years, five months, and two weeks, and no, I will not stoop to counting the days.

“So we have to self- report our level of skill?” Zach asks. He’s a Montclair freshman who joined the Paterson Chess Club after I left and has some ambitions of going pro. I’ve met him once at Oscar’s place and I’m not a fan, for reasons that include his penchant for derailing conversations with unrelated mentions of his FIDE rating (2,546), his ability to carry out hour- long monologues on his FIDE rating (2,546), and his lack of understanding that I’m not interested in going out with him, no matter his FIDE rating (2,546).

But he’s still better than our fourth member, Josh, whose claim to fame is repeatedly implying that Easton would be a little less gay if only she made out with him at least once.

“Since I’m the team leader, I went ahead and declared your skill levels,” Easton tells us. “I put— ”

“Why are you the leader?” Zach asks. “I don’t remember having an election.”

“Then I’m the team dictator,” she hisses. I fix my pin to my tee to hide a smile. “I put Mallory in the highest bracket.”

I drop my arms. “Easton. I’ve barely played in— ”

“Zach’s in the highest, too. Third highest for myself,” she continues, ignoring me. Then she looks at Josh and pauses for effect. “The lowest for you.”

Josh bursts into his wholesome, golden boy laughter. “Joking aside, what bracket did you . . .” Easton keeps staring, serious as death and taxes, and he lowers his eyes to the floor.

“Does the PCC have your browser history?” I ask Easton once it’s just the two of us, heading toward the hall.

“Why?”

“There’s no way you’re here of your own free will, not with those two. So either they found out about the tentacle porn, or— ”

“There’s no tentacle porn.” She gives me a scathing look. “The manager of the club asked me to put together a team. I couldn’t say no, since he wrote me a rec letter for college. He was just exploiting the fact that I owe him a favor.” She shoulders past two older men in suits to get to the tournament area. “Like you did when you sicced your sisters on me.”

“It’s what you deserve for bringing Zach and the rook he shoved up his ass.”

“Ah, Zach. If only we could know what his FIDE rating is.”

I laugh. “Maybe we should ask him and . . .”

We walk through the doors, and my voice trails off.

The noise in the bustling room dims, then quiets.

People walk around me, past me, into me, but I stand still, frozen, unable to step out of the way.

There are tables. Many tables pushed together to form long, parallel rows— rows and rows, covered in white- and- blue cloth with plastic, foldable chairs tucked into each side, and between each pair of chairs—

Chessboards.

Dozens of them. Hundreds. Not good ones: I can tell even from the entrance that they’re old and cheap, the pieces chipped and poorly cut, the squares dirty and discolored. Ugly, mismatched sets all around me. The smell in the room is like a childhood memory, made of familiar, simple notes: wood and felt and sweat and stale coffee, the bergamot note of Dad’s aftershave, home, belonging, betrayal, happiness, and—

“Mal? You okay?” Easton tugs at my arm with a frown. I don’t think it’s the first time she’s asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I . . .” I swallow, and it helps. The moment breaks, my heart slows, and I’m just a girl—perhaps a slightly fawn-kneed one. It’s just a room that I’m standing in. The chess pieces— they’re just stuff. Things. Some white, some black. Some can move in any number of unoccupied squares, others not so much. Who cares? “I need a drink.”