“Right.” I look away, chastised. I’m going to have to google this. I’m dying to whip out my phone right now. “Well, the top ten sounds pretty crowded with assholes.”
“Mostly just Koch and Cormenzana. And Sawyer, but he’s a better brand. I’m not gonna make a friendship bracelet for him, but I’ll take a sphincter-clenchingly scary asshole like Sawyer over a slug-slurping-moisture-after-a-rainstorm slimy asshole like Koch any day.”
They both sound uniquely horrible, I think as a man plucks custard-filled beignets off the table and quickly scurries away, unimpressed with the anus talk.
“Anyway,” Oz concludes, “everyone else in the top ten is less punchable.”
I smile faintly. “Is ‘less punchable’ Oz-speak for ‘nice’？”
He arches one eyebrow. “And what does that mean?”
“Well, you’re not the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”
“I am a motherfucking delight, Greenleaf. And for the record, you and I are equally hot.”
I only stay at the reception for about thirty minutes. Oz is right, and not everyone in chess is a dick: he introduces me to several people who do not insult me, sexually harass me, or act with a messianic-grade superiority complex. But his group of friends is a few years older than me, and I drift out of conversation when it falls on their wives and graduate education. I feel the occasional side glances from Koch’s gang on me, and cannot quite relax, so I wave goodnight and head back to my room, ready to spend the rest of the evening berating myself over my mistakes.
Until I see the sign in the elevator. Three little words next to the fifth floor:
Indoor Pool & Gym.
I head there without thinking it through. The entrance for the pool slides open under my keycard. When I peek inside, I’m instantly enveloped by heat, chlorine, and silence.
I love swimming. Or whatever that thing I do that passes as swimming is— float for hours, occasionally move about like a drowning puppy. And here’s this amazing, deserted pool.
Problem: I don’t have a swimsuit. The tattered bikini that barely fit me a cup size ago is somewhere in my dresser at home, and Goliath is probably using it at this very moment to wipe his butt. What I do have, however, is underwear that’s basically a bikini. And a strong yearning for a swim.
So I don’t think about it too much: I pull my dress over my head, shrug off my sandals, and toss them on the nearest bench. Then I jump in with a loud, messy splash.
I need to minimize my blunders, I tell myself fifteen minutes later, drifting over the water and staring at the ceiling. The reflection of the waves on the ceiling is a mangled, distorted chessboard. I should aim for breadth of knowledge, since I’m unlikely to achieve much depth in one year. I should play more offbeat lines.
By the time I lift myself out, I’m in better spirits. I screwed up today, but I’ll focus on improving. If I know my weaknesses, I can tailor my training. I train a ridiculous amount anyway.
You are faking your way through this fellowship, a voice reminds me. It’s either mine or Easton’s.
Well, yes, I reply defensively, grabbing my dress and shoes, rubbing chlorine off my eyes. But I’ve signed a one-year contract, so I might as well—
I stop dead in my tracks.
I’m not alone anymore. Someone is standing right in front of me. Someone barefooted, who’s wearing swim trunks. I look up, and up, and up, and up even more, and—
My stomach drops. Nolan Sawyer is staring down at me, a faint scowl between his eyes. I’m dumbfounded by the fact that he’s . . . fit. His chest. His shoulders. His biceps. No one who spends hours a day moving one-ounce pieces around a chessboard has any business looking like that.
“I— Hi,” I stammer. Because he’s standing right there, and I don’t know what else to say.
But he doesn’t answer. Just stares down, taking in my nowsee-through bra, my panties with little rainbows all over them. The temperature in the pool increases. The gravity, too. I’m concerned that my legs won’t hold me.
Then I remember what Koch’s friends said: Does he know she’s here?
Well, she’s still alive, so clearly no. Fear pops into me.
Nolan Sawyer despises me. Nolan Sawyer wants to murder me. Nolan Sawyer is staring down at me with the sheer soulcutting intensity one reserves for those he hates with the strength of a million bloodthirsty bears.
Didn’t he once break another player’s nasal septum? I remember hearing some stories. Something had happened after a tournament, and . . .
Is he going to tear me to pieces? Will the local morgue not know how to put me together? Will they have to call in a professional makeup artist, one of those YouTube beauty gurus who are always making callout videos about each other—
“Coooooming throuuuuuuuugh!!!!”
Someone runs past us, a blur of dark skin and red trunks, and cannonballs into the pool with a tsunami-like splash. Sawyer mutters something like “Shit, Emil,” and it’s the escape chance I was waiting for. I scamper away, feet slapping against the wet floor. I’m at the door when I make the mistake of looking behind me: Sawyer is staring at me, lips parted, eyes darker than dark.
So I do the only sensible thing: I slam the door in his face, and don’t stop running until I’m in my room, dripping on my bed.
It’s the second time I’ve met Sawyer. And the second time I’ve retreated like a pinned knight.
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.