“What kind of sweaters, dear?”
“Cashmere.”
Mrs. Wheatley’s eyebrows went up. “Cashmere? Are you sure we can afford it?”
“Yes.”
Beth found a pale-gray sweater on sale for twenty-four dollars, and it fit her perfectly. Looking in the tall mirror, she tried to imagine herself as a member of the Apple Pi Club, like Margaret; but the face was still Beth’s face, round and freckled, with straight brown hair. She shrugged and bought the sweater with a traveler’s check. They had passed an elegant little shoe store with saddle oxfords in the window on the way to Shillito’s and she took Mrs. Wheatley there and bought herself a pair. Then she bought argyle socks to go with them. The tag said: “100% wool. Made in England.” Going back to the hotel through a wind that whipped tiny snowflakes against her, Beth kept looking down at her new shoes and high plaid socks. She liked the way her feet felt, liked the tightness of the warm socks against her calves, and liked the way they looked—bright expensive socks above bright brown-and-white shoes. She kept looking down.
That afternoon she was matched with a middle-aged Ohioan with a rating of 1910. She played the Sicilian and forced him to resign after an hour and a half. Her mind was as clear as it had ever been, and she was able to use some of the things she had learned over the past weeks from studying her new book by the Russian Master Boleslavski.
When she turned in her score sheet Sizemore was standing near the desk. She saw a few other familiar faces from that tournament, and it felt good to see them, but she really wanted to see only one player from before—Townes. She looked several times but didn’t find him.
Back in their room that evening, Mrs. Wheatley watched The Beverly Hillbillies and The Dick Van Dyke Show, while Beth set up and went over her two games, looking for weaknesses in her play. There weren’t any. Then she got out the book by Reuben Fine on end-games and began studying. The endgame in chess had its own feeling; it was like an altogether different contest, once you got down to a piece or two on each side and the question became one of queening a pawn. It could be agonizingly subtle; there was no chance for the kind of violent attack Beth loved.
But she was bored with Reuben Fine, and after a while she closed the book and went to bed. She had two of the little green pills in her pajama pocket, and she took them after the lights were off. She didn’t want to risk not sleeping.
The second day was as easy as the first, even though Beth was matched against stronger players. It had taken her a while to clear her head from the effect of the pills, but by the time she started playing her mind was sharp. She even handled the pieces themselves with confidence, picking them up and setting them down with aplomb.
There was no “Top Boards” room at this tournament. Board One was merely the first board at the first table. For the second game Beth was at Board Six, and people were gathered around her as she forced the master to resign after taking one of his rooks. When she looked up during the applause, there stood Alma Wheatley at the back of the room smiling broadly.
In her final game, at Board One, Beth was playing a master named Rudolph. He managed to start trading pieces in the center during the middle game, and Beth was alarmed to find herself crowded into an ending with a rook, a knight and three pawns. Rudolph had the same thing, except for a bishop where she had a knight. She didn’t like it, and his bishop was a distinct advantage. But she managed to pin it and trade her knight for it and then play with great care for an hour and a half until Rudolph made a blunder and she zeroed in on it. She checked with a pawn, traded rooks and got one of her pawns passed with the king protecting. Rudolph looked furious at himself and resigned.
There was strong applause. Beth looked at the crowd around the table. Near the back, in her blue dress, was Mrs. Wheatley, clapping her hands enthusiastically.
Going back to the room, Mrs. Wheatley carried the heavy trophy and Beth had the check in her blouse pocket. Mrs. Wheatley had written it all out on a sheet of hotel stationery that sat on top of the TV: sixty-six dollars for three days at the Gibson, plus three-thirty tax; twenty-three sixty for the bus, and the price of each meal, including tip. “I’ve allowed twelve dollars for our celebration supper tonight and two dollars for a small breakfast tomorrow. That makes our total expenses equal one seventy-two thirty.”
“It leaves over three hundred dollars,” Beth said.
There was a silence for a while. Beth looked at the sheet of paper, although she understood it perfectly well. She was wondering if she should offer to split the money with Mrs. Wheatley. She did not want to do that. She had won it herself.
Mrs. Wheatley broke the silence. “Perhaps you could give me ten percent,” she said pleasantly. “As an agent’s commission.”
“Thirty-two dollars,” Beth said, “and seventy-seven cents.”
“They told me at Methuen that you were marvelous at math.”
Beth nodded. “Okay,” she said.
They had something with veal in it at an Italian restaurant. Mrs. Wheatley ordered herself a carafe of red wine and drank it and smoked Chesterfields throughout the meal. Beth liked the bread and the cold, pale butter. She liked the little tree with oranges on it that sat on the bar, not far from their table.
Mrs. Wheatley wiped her chin with her napkin when she finished the wine and lit a final cigarette. “Beth, dear,” she said, “there’s a tournament in Houston over the holidays, starting the twenty-sixth. I understand it’s very easy to travel on Christmas Day, since most people are eating plum pudding or whatever.”
“I saw,” Beth said. She had read the ad in Chess Review and wanted very much to go. But Houston had seemed awfully far away for a six hundred-dollar prize.
“I believe we could fly to Houston,” Mrs. Wheatley said brightly. “We could have a pleasant winter vacation in the sun.”
Beth was finishing her spumoni. “Okay,” she said and then, looking down at the ice cream, “Okay, Mother.”
Their Christmas dinner was microwave turkey served on an airplane, with a complimentary glass of champagne for Mrs. Wheatley and canned orange juice for Beth. It was the best Christmas she had ever had. The plane flew over a snow-covered Kentucky and, at the end of the trip, circled out above the Gulf of Mexico. They landed in warm air and sunshine. Driving in from the airport, they passed one construction site after the other, the big yellow cranes and bulldozers standing idle near stacks of girders. Someone had hung a Christmas wreath on one of them.
A week before they left Lexington a new copy of Chess Review had come in the mail. When Beth opened it she found a small picture of herself and Beltik at the back, and a banner headline: SCHOOLGIRL TAKES KENTUCKY CHAMPIONSHIP FROM MASTER. Their game was printed and the commentary said: “Onlookers were amazed at her youthful mastery of the fine points of strategy. She shows the assurance of players twice her age.” She read it twice before showing it to Mrs. Wheatley. Mrs. Wheatley was ecstatic; she had read the article in the Lexington paper aloud and then said, “Wonderful!” This time she read in silence before saying, “This is national recognition, dear,” in a hushed voice.
Mrs. Wheatley had brought the magazine with her, and they spent part of the time on the plane marking the tournaments Beth would play over the next several months. They settled on one a month; Mrs. Wheatley was afraid they would run out of diseases and, as she said, “credibility” if she wrote more excuses than that. Beth wondered to herself if they shouldn’t just ask for permission in a straightforward way—after all, boys were allowed to miss classes for basketball and football—but she was wise enough to say nothing. Mrs. Wheatley seemed to take immense enjoyment in doing it this way. It was like a conspiracy.