But it wasn’t Jolene. Beth stopped suddenly and turned away. The three girls left the fountain and pushed noisily out the front door of the building. Beth stood staring after them for a long time.
“Could you go to Bradley’s and get me some cigs?” Mrs. Wheatley said. “I think I have a cold.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Beth said. It was Saturday afternoon and Beth was holding a novel in her lap, but she wasn’t reading it. She was playing over a game between P. Morphy and someone called simply “grandmaster.” There was something peculiar about Morphy’s eighteenth move, of knight to bishop five. It was a good attack, but Beth felt Morphy could have been more destructive with his queen’s rook.
“I’ll give you a note, since you’re a bit youthful for smoking yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Beth said.
“Three packs of Chesterfields.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She had been in Bradley’s only once before, with Mrs. Wheatley. Mrs. Wheatley gave her a penciled note and a dollar and twenty cents. Beth handed the note to Mr. Bradley at the counter. There was a long rack of magazines behind her. When she got the cigarettes, she turned and began looking. Senator Kennedy’s picture was on the cover of Time and Newsweek: he was running for President and probably wouldn’t make it because he was a Catholic.
There was a row of women’s magazines that all had faces on their covers like the faces of Margaret and Sue Ann and the other Apple Pi’s. Their hair shone; their lips were full and red.
She had just decided to leave when something caught her eye. At the lower right-hand corner, where the magazines about photography and sunbathing and do-it-yourself were, was a magazine with a picture of a chess piece on its cover. She walked over and took it from the rack. On the cover was the title, Chess Review, and the price. She opened it. It was full of games and photographs of people playing chess. There was an article called “The King’s Gambit Reconsidered” and another one called “Morphy’s Brilliancies.” She had just been going over one of Morphy’s games! Her heart began beating faster. She kept going through the pages. There was an article about chess in Russia. And the thing that kept turning up was the word “tournament.” There was a whole section called “Tournament Life.” She had not known there was such a thing as a chess tournament. She thought chess was just something you did, the way Mrs. Wheatley hooked rugs and put together jigsaw puzzles.
“Young lady,” Mr. Bradley said, “you have to buy the magazine or put it back.”
She turned, startled. “Can’t I just…?”
“Read the sign,” Mr. Bradley said.
In front of her was a hand-lettered sign: IF YOU WANT TO READ IT—BUY IT. Beth had fifteen cents and that was all. Mrs. Wheatley had told her a few days before that she would have to do without an allowance for a while; they were rather short and Mr. Wheatley had been delayed out West. Beth put the magazine back and left the store.
Halfway back up the block she stopped, thought a moment and went back. There was a stack of newspapers on the counter, by Mr. Bradley’s elbow. She handed him a dime and took one. Mr. Bradley was busy with a lady who was paying for a prescription. Beth went over to the end of the magazine rack with her paper under her arm and waited.
After a few minutes Mr. Bradley said, “We have three sizes.” She heard him going to the back of the store with the lady following. Beth took the copy of Chess Review and slipped it into her newspaper.
Outside in the sunshine she walked a block with the paper under her arm. At the first corner she stopped, took out the magazine and slipped it under the waistband of her skirt, covering it with her robbin’s-egg-blue sweater, made of reprocessed wool and bought at Ben Snyder’s. She pulled the sweater down loosely over the magazine and dropped the newspaper into the corner trash can.
Walking home with the folded magazine tucked securely against her flat belly she thought again about that rook move Morphy hadn’t made. The magazine said Morphy was “perhaps the most brilliant player in the history of the game.” The rook could come to bishop seven, and Black had better not take it with his knight because… She stopped, halfway down the block. A dog was barking somewhere, and across the street from her on a well-mowed lawn two small boys were loudly playing tag. After the second pawn moved to king knight five, then the remaining rook could slide over, and if the black player took the pawn, the bishop could uncover, and if he didn’t…
She closed her eyes. If he didn’t capture it, Morphy could force a mate in two, starting with the bishop sacrificing itself with a check. If he did take it, the white pawn moved again, and then the bishop went the other way and there was nothing Black could do. There it was. One of the little boys across the street began crying. There was nothing Black could do. The game would be over in twenty-nine moves at least. The way it was in the book, it had taken Paul Morphy thirty-six moves to win. He hadn’t seen the move with the rook. But she had.
Overhead the sun shone in a blank blue sky. The dog continued barking. The child wailed. Beth walked slowly home and replayed the game. Her mind was as lucid as a perfect, stunning diamond.
“Allston should have returned weeks ago,” Mrs. Wheatley was saying. She was sitting up in bed, with a crossword-puzzle magazine beside her and a little TV set on the dresser with the sound turned down. Beth had just brought her a cup of instant coffee from the kitchen. Mrs. Wheatley was wearing her pink robe and her face was covered with powder.
“Will he be back soon?” Beth said. She didn’t really want to talk with Mrs. Wheatley; she wanted to get back to Chess Review.
“He has been unavoidably detained,” Mrs. Wheatley said.
Beth nodded. Then she said, “I’d like to get a job for after school.”
Mrs. Wheatley blinked at her. “A job?”
“Maybe I could work in a store, or wash dishes somewhere.”
Mrs. Wheatley stared at her for a long time before speaking. “At thirteen years of age?” she said finally. She blew her nose quietly on a tissue and folded it. “I should think you are well provided for.”
“I’d like to make some money.”
“To buy clothes with, I suspect.”
Beth said nothing.
“The only girls of your age who work,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “are colored.” The way she said “colored” made Beth decide to say nothing further about it.
To join the United States Chess Federation cost six dollars. Another four dollars got you a subscription to the magazine. There was something even more interesting: in the section called “Tournament Life” there were numbered regions; including one for Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky, and in the listing under it was an item that read: “Kentucky State Championship, Thanksgiving weekend, Henry Clay High School Auditorium, Lexington, Fri., Sat. Sun.,” and under this it said: “$185 in prizes. Entry fee: $5.00. USCF members only.”
It would take six dollars to join and five dollars to get into the tournament. When you took the bus down Main you passed Henry Clay High; it was eleven blocks from Janwell Drive. And it was five weeks until Thanksgiving.
“Can anyone say it verbatim?” Mrs. MacArthur said.
Beth put up her hand.
“Beth?”
She stood. “In any right triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.” She sat down.