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The next time Beth meets Benjamin Watts, he’s now going by Benny Watts.
Beth thinks it suits him better, though she doesn’t tell him this.
The last time they met, they hadn’t played each other officially. Alma had taken ill and Beth had had to withdraw from the competition early. She’d been upset with Alma, initially, had been looking forward to playing the boy from under the table, talking to him more.
Now, she has her chance to play him again.
-
They play each other for the first time at a tournament in Pittsburgh. He’s in a long-sleeved dress shirt and slacks; she’s in a white blouse and skirt.
Before the tournament, Alma hugs her. This game will be getting some attention; it’s not every day that the two American child prodigies play each other in a formal tournament. He knows a lot. She knows he knows a lot. He knows she knows he knows a lot —
“You can do this, dear,” Alma says reassuringly in her ear. “Don’t be afraid.”
Beth balls her fist in defiance, as ready to play as she can be. “I’m not afraid of him.” She’s not playing Benny Watts. She’s playing chess.
She likes Alma’s fond smile when she tucks a hair behind Beth’s ear. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone you’re afraid of. Now go beat him.”
Beth and Benny’s previous games had been verbal, unofficial, for fun — she had won some, but he had, too. Now, her body is coursing with focus that buzzes out all other sensations. She’s playing white to his black. She had been expecting him to accept her Queen’s Gambit. That’s what he always did in their casual games. Instead, he declines it.
Surprising, but nothing she can’t handle.
Benny takes her bishop and punches the clock in one sweeping gesture. She’s never seen Benny play in person before. He plays so precisely and calmly. When he places his pieces down on the board, they don’t make a sound. It’s eerie. She’s never really paid attention to the way adults play chess, but Benny is supposed to be like her. Do her pieces thud awkwardly on the board? Does she look clunky and graceless next to him? She smooths down her hair. She tries to mimic his smoothness when she takes his knight, but the clock is on her non-dominant hand. It doesn’t work, it’s just awkward. She can feel herself blushing so hard.
She tries to get back to herself: attack fast, then end the game. So, she moves her castle rook to an open aisle to trade. A few moves later, she tries to trade knights. When she brings her queen out to capture a pawn, she’s stunned. She hadn’t realized that his queen, bishop, and rook were neatly positioned on the KR2 diagonal. If he moves his rook to the second row, she’s toast. How can she get out of this? She stares at the board for what feels like hours. When she checks the clock, it’s been half an hour. Still unideal. She feebly tries to bring some pieces out to defend at least half of the diagonal, but to no avail. Beth wonders if this is what panic feels like: unable to dig her way out of this. She tries to calm her breathing – she should know better than to collapse.
The game goes for thirty-six moves, when they’ve traded queens and Benny’s bishop has seized the diagonal it’s been fighting for this whole game. She’s one move from rook-bishop mate. Her voice shakes when she topples her king and holds out her hand, “I resign.”
“You attack like Alekhine!” he tells her as they shake hands, earnest and awed, but Beth can’t look at anything except her feet. She wants to scream, because she lost, how could she lose, why is he looking at her like that when she’s lost, and nothing anyone says can make this better. She doesn’t look at the reporters, or Benny, or Alma. Just her sandals. She fights to keep the tears brimming in her eyes down.
Alma doesn’t make her stay too long. She takes Beth’s hand back to the hotel, where Beth cries for so long, her eyes get red and puffy and she’s lost control of her chest and breathing.
Alma strokes her hair, while Beth rants about the game. “I didn’t see what he was doing,” she sobs.
“You can’t finesse everything,” Alma says softly, her hands massaging circles on Beth’s back.
“I – hiccup – hate – hiccup – losing,” Beth tries to catch her breath. “I – hiccup – hate – hiccup – him.”
-
Beth doesn’t want to talk to Benny Watts again, ever.
She had only lost the one game to him, but he had had a perfect score this tournament. Second place feels like a dirty title. She’s never come in second before. Even at the tournament where Alma had withdrawn, the tournament had given her joint first-place with Benny and two grown-up players whose names she doesn’t remember.
When they’re seated next to each other at the award ceremony, sandwiched between their mothers, she crosses her arms and stares in any direction except for his.
The ceremony is so, so boring. She doesn’t want the tiny trophy they’ll give her anyway.
She feels a tap on her shoulder and musters her best glare. “What?” she hisses quietly as the man on stage drones on, and on, and on.
Benny doesn’t say anything, he just tilts his head slightly toward the door. She re-evaluates and it clicks. He wants to leave, too.
She’s still mad at him, but she doesn’t want to throw away opportunities when they’re handed to her. It’s not too conspicuous that they get up and leave. At least, no one seems to stare. Alma only raises an eyebrow. Benny’s mom is nowhere to be seen. The man doesn’t stop talking.
They exit through the door, quietly shutting it behind him with minimal squeaking.
“Hi,” Benny says quietly.
“Thanks,” Beth replies. She doesn’t say, “I didn’t want to be there.” Because that would require admitting she didn’t want her second-place trophy. She adds quickly, “I hate you.”
He stares at her. “Because you lost?”
Beth just crosses her arms. She tries to spin on her heel to stalk off in the opposite direction.
He says to her back, “You can leave, but we can only stay out here until my mom gets back.”
Beth is dismayed. “We have to go back?”
With a shrug, he says, “They need us for the pictures.” He starts walking down the corridor of the building in the opposite direction. Beth follows.
“Haven’t they taken enough?” She knows she’s whining, but she doesn’t care. “Benny, where are we going?”
“There’s a room around here somewhere with dessert! I saw it on my way here.”
Beth likes dessert, so they pick up the pace. After winding past a variety of mystery doors, they find one ajar that Benny seems to recognize. They hesitantly press it open and peek inside.
The room is marvelous, with only a few people too absorbed in eating on their loungers to notice two children innocently grabbing plates full of decadent chocolates and iced sugar cookies. There aren’t any red velvet cupcakes this time.
There’s no clock nearby, so they hurry back to the auditorium for the ceremony so that no one misses them. Benny’s mom is back and shoots them a look. But since there’s now someone else on the podium talking, they just slip back into their seats, scarfing down treat after treat.
Their hands aren’t too dirty when the announcements of the winners finally begins and they’re called up on stage. Beth feels unsettled, but it’s not because of her anger earlier. She focuses on not throwing up, which somehow makes the announcement of “Second place: Elizabeth Harmon,” hurt just a little less. The pictures are fast, and they slip back to their seats and empty plates for the closing remarks. That was a lot of dessert.
She looks over at Benny, who makes a queasy face at her. “Ow,” he mouths to her, before leaning against his mom’s shoulder.
Beth turns to Alma. “Mom?” Beth asks in a whisper. “I have a stomachache.”
“I’m sure you do, dear.”
-
After the Pittsburgh tournament, although Benny lives in New York and Beth lives in Lexington, they start up a correspondence. Beth writes a letter about her week: her favorite color, the last movie she saw, the latest book she’s reading. Benny is as reserved as she is about their study habits. Always, Alma takes the paper when she’s done to send it off. After all, it was her idea. Their parents had been the ones to agree that it would be “good” for them to talk to each other, being the only child prodigies in the US right now.
Beth really only cares about the correspondence game that Benny starts in one letter. It’s more interesting than the news that his friend Cleo just adopted a dog. He tries moves she’s never studied, writes notes and annotations on her game. He criticizes her, yes, but only on occasion. Most of the time, he writes exclamation marks on her moves and tells her why he thinks it’s great.
She starts to feel more comfortable arguing back with him as to why his question marks on her moves are wrong, what she’s getting out of every book. She asks his opinions on openings, and his letters get startlingly longer and longer. Maybe having a friend who knows a lot isn’t so bad. His opinions are much more fun than Lasker’s, and they’ve expanded to five simultaneous games. When she writes her letters back, she folds the paper carefully and licks the envelope herself.
Alma doesn’t check her letters or ask anything beyond whether she won or lost the game, but based on the annotations, she can see a different-colored script that contrasts with Benny’s wobbly writing. Alma tells her that’s just Benny’s mom, making additional notes. “Some parents just do that. But I don’t think you need me to regulate you so closely.”
Beth furrows her eyebrows. “Oh.”
-
In the winter, Benny attends a tournament in Copenhagen and draws against Najdorf. He writes three whole pages to Beth about the games.
Beth tries to read sympathetically. She hates taking draws and will never offer a draw. Every time someone offers her a draw, she shakes her head and wins instead.
She can’t deny, however, that she’s furious that it was Benny who was invited to Copenhagen instead of her. Based on Benny’s writing, she would’ve played his best moves and avoided his mistakes. She wouldn’t have drawn. Probably.
Alma is pushing her to enter some more kids’ tournaments and Women’s Tournaments, but that kind of competition doesn’t interest her. She wants to be like Benny. No – she wants to be better.
-
The next time they meet in-person is Las Vegas, for an open with a hefty top prize and the wedding.
Beth is playing against Juan Manuel Bellón López, and she is absolutely determined to beat him. He gives her a good fight in the middlegame, but she handily defeats him by the endgame.
“Well,” the man says, as he shakes her hand. “You’re a marvel.” Beth smiles politely, although she’s heard that at least a hundred times this weekend alone by now.
“Say,” the man says, starting to look over Beth’s shoulder to Alma. “I hope this isn’t too forward but–”
“Yes?” Alma cuts in sharply, ready to defend Beth. Beth looks on at the man curiously.
The man chuckles nervously. “My fiancée and I are getting married this weekend, right here in one of the chapels,” he says. “And she was just putzing about how she’d like to have a flower girl.” Juan looks kindly down at Beth.
“Would your daughter like to be our flower girl?”
“Congratulations,” Alma says, always well-mannered. Then, “Well, I suppose that would be up to Beth,” she says.
Both adults look at Beth. Beth has never been to a wedding, and from what she’s seen on television, they don’t look like much fun to her. She hesitates, but then Juan starts to speak again.
“We’d pay for a new dress,” he says.
Beth may be a child prodigy, but she is not immune to the lure of a new dress. She quickly nods “yes.” Besides, how bad can being a flower girl be?
Alma and Juan make arrangements and soon Beth finds herself whisked off to Las Vegas’ finest department store to find a dress. Green, the bride has requested.
-
The next day, Beth finds herself standing in the back of the chapel among bustling other adults. The dress is pretty but it’s itchy, and she just wants to take it off and run back to the chess tables. But she agreed to be here, and Alma wouldn’t let her back out now, so she sucks it up and plays with the flower petals in the wicker basket they gave her.
A hush falls over the room when the bride comes in (the groom is safely ensconced toward the front of the chapel), and Beth is surprised to recognize her.
She’s wearing a smart white dress, with a veil just covering half of her face, but Beth still recognizes her. She is Pia Cramling, one of the few women chess players who regularly plays in open tournaments. Beth has seen her from afar, and has admired the woman’s severely smart black and white outfits, has admired her acuity on the board, the careful way she moves her pieces.
An excited older woman that she thinks is Pia’s aunt based on the physical resemblance next to Beth exclaims “You two really are the king and queen!”
Comparing people to chess pieces never made sense to Beth, and she scoffs at the aunt, who’s probably never played chess before. It’s silly. Still, the concept interests Beth. Two chess players marrying each other. Huh. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard of that. Of course, it would make sense. There are so few women chess players anyway, as the reporters who interview her always like to remind her.
Pia, seemingly just as gracious in person as on the board, makes her way through the party, which is a bit garish in size, even for Vegas. It seems to be a hodgepodge of chess players Beth vaguely recognizes, as well as some family and random onlookers.
Finally, Pia makes her way over to Beth, the older woman crouching down to Beth’s eye level. Suddenly, Beth feels self-conscious in her pretty-but-itchy dress, in front of this woman who seems so graceful and elegant, on and off the board.
“Hello, Elizabeth,” Pia says in a kind voice.
“It’s Beth,” she responds automatically.
The woman smiles. “Hello, Beth.” Then, “Thank you for being here. And thank you for agreeing to be in my wedding,” she says.
“Do you play him?” Beth asks, not quite sure where the question came from.
Pia’s lips twitch up even further. “Yes,” she laughs. “All the time.”
All the time. Beth thinks it must be fun to have someone to play chess with every day. Alma doesn’t play chess, and Mr. Shaibel works odd hours. Some of the girls at school know the basics of how to play, but Beth often defeats them in less than 10 moves. It would be nice to have someone to play chess with all the time.
“We met at a tournament,” Pia adds, to no one in particular. This woman is beautiful, radiating happiness.
Soon enough, an usher is organizing all of the bridal party and Beth is placed at the front of the line. There’s a commotion toward the back and Beth overhears some mutterings of “where is he?” that she mostly ignores. It doesn’t have to do with her.
To her surprise, a Benny Watts with obviously finger-combed hair, but in a pressed dress shirt and dress pants, is shoved next to her, and a pillow with two rings carefully balanced across his outstretched arms.
“What are you doing here?” Beth asks. “I didn’t see your name on the list.”
“I came to visit the tournament. My cousin lives here. Mom says I shouldn’t compete too often, it’ll only hurt my rating –”
Just then, the big ostentatious chapel doors open and the music starts playing.
Beth has practiced this in her head, not wanting to mess it up in front of all these people, and so she takes slow steps down the aisle, leaving thoughts of why Benny Watts is here next to her behind, clammy hand grabbing fistfuls of rose petals and scattering them to the aisles.
Ahead of her, she sees the groom, Juan, and even from afar, she thinks that his face is puffier than yesterday.
To his credit, though he looks like he just ran a mile, he matches her slow steps to the organ playing Pachelbel’s Canon.
Eventually, they and the rest of the party make it up to the altar, where Beth stands by the seat she was told would be waiting for her. Her part is done. To her surprise, Benny stands next to her,
The organ swells even more and Beth follows everyone’s swiveling heads toward the chapel doors, where the bride finally emerges. Walking down the aisle, Beth thinks Pia looks like an angel and envies the smooth-looking fabric of her dress.
Beth thinks she hears sniffles from behind her, and she hopes she doesn’t get a cold.
Finally, the preacher motions that everyone can sit. Benny sits down next to her, velvet pillow carefully balanced on his lap.
The cameras are flashing on the wedding ceremony, and the preacher is saying some words, but Beth mostly tunes them out. Weddings have never really interested her. Instead, she looks at Pia and Juan’s faces. Both are beaming ear to ear, a look hardly seen at chess tables. She wonders if they look like that every day, when they play each other across the board.
She steals a side glance at Benny, who is sitting up straight, though his own eyes seem to be darting everywhere.
At one point, Benny gets up, pillow in hand, and approaches the couple, who gladly take the rings from him. Juan puts one on Pia’s hand and Pia does the same to Juan.
How strange, Beth thinks. She is not a big fan of jewelry, thinks the pieces Alma wears are a little too big for her taste.
On his way back, Benny winks at Beth.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the preacher announces. For a moment, neither Pia or Juan move, but then Juan is holding Pia’s face with his hands and kissing her and Beth looks toward the side. Usually, she is fascinated by people kissing, but this feels private somehow. She looks toward the side, right into Benny’s eyes, who is looking at her.
She looks to the other side as quickly as he does.
-
At the reception, there is cake and punch. The cake is a simple sheet cake decorated like a chessboard with icing flowers.
Beth helps herself to two slices and finds a place in the hallway to sit. She doesn’t much like crowds and everyone in there is gushing and, despite a room full of chess players, they are decidedly not talking about chess.
At some point, Benny comes out and joins her, making himself at home besides her. He eyes the cake on her plate. She can practically hear his stomach rumbling.
Beth asks, “Do you want a piece?”
Benny nods. Beth glances around for another plate and fork, but realizes she doesn’t really want to get up, so instead, she just feeds him the piece from her own fork. He bites – he must have been starving all day.
“You’re not worried about germs or cooties?” he asks.
“Should I be?” Beth asks. She’s never really had the time for when the boys and girls at school squeal about cooties. Benny doesn’t answer, just shrugs, mind apparently adrift.
“Do you wonder what it felt like?” Benny asks.
“Like what felt like?” she says, smashing the icing flower with her fork.
“When they kissed,” Benny says.
Beth thinks. She was curious. But she’s not sure she wants to admit that to Benny Watts.
“Maybe,” she says.
“Maybe is a loser’s word,” Benny scoffs. Beth isn’t sure what losing has to do with this, so she flicks some of the icing from her fork at Benny.
“Hey.”
“I’m not a loser,” she says. And she’s not. She’s very proud of the fact. In the year and a half since she’s been on the tournament circuit, she has not lost a game when it’s counted.
“Everyone loses sometimes,” Benny says gruffly. “That’s what Mom always says.”
Beth rolls her eyes. Sometimes she really wishes there were other people her age at tournaments besides Benny. Even if he does play well.
Sensing her coldness, Benny switches the subject back. “She also told me they were gonna kiss at the wedding, but I didn’t think it would be like that.”
“Like what?”
Benny shuffles, playing with the buttons on his dress shirt. “I don’t know,” he says. “It was weird.”
Beth thinks back to the way Pia and Juan looked in each other’s eyes, like they had both just won a match, even though that’s impossible. And how she’d looked away when they’d kissed, as if she were intruding on something private. “Maybe kissing is just weird,” she tells Benny.
“Have you ever kissed someone?”
The question catches her off guard. No, she hasn’t kissed anyone. Kissing is for grown-ups, or at least, teenagers. But Beth has always hated being called a kid, too. “Why do you want to know?”
Benny ignores her question. “I don’t think kissing is supposed to be weird.”
“How would you know?” Benny always thinks he knows everything. But he doesn’t.
“It’s not.”
“Well, it looked like it did today.”
“It’s not supposed to be weird,” she insists. She knows from the highschool sweethearts she’s watched outside of her school. They kiss a lot when she’s waiting for Alma to pick her up.
Then, she has an idea. “I’ll prove it,” she says.
Benny looks at her incredulously. “How?”
“We could kiss,” Beth offers.
If she wanted to surprise Benny, she succeeds because Benny’s mouth drops open, a few cake crumbles falling from his mouth. Benny is momentarily speechless and she’s exceedingly satisfied with herself.
Until Benny shakes his head. “No, that would be weird. Forget about it.”
Beth goes back to picking apart the cake with her fork. It’s a vanilla cake, but she prefers chocolate. She shrugs, trying to hide her face as it falls. It’s not like she wants to kiss Benny, but his rejection stings all the same.
They sit in silence for a little, eating. Beth notices that Benny eats all of his cake.
Then, Benny starts a game of chess. He plays the Ruy López, while Beth offers the Morphy Defense. It’s not a difficult game. Beth is about to check him when –
Benny’s mom calls out from the doorway, “Benny! Beth! Come inside, they want to take pictures!” Beth didn’t think anyone noticed her absence, but apparently they did.
She tries not to sulk that they won’t get to finish this game. Quickly, Beth brushes the remaining crumbs from the plate off of her dress and goes to stand up. The slight heel on her shoe catches on the carpet and she stumbles a bit and oh no, my stockings are going to tear, she thinks, as she braces for her knees to hit the ground. But she doesn’t.
A skinny hand steadies her, and she finds herself looking into Benny’s brown eyes. She’d almost expect Benny to laugh at her, but he doesn’t, just looks at her in a way she can’t quite decipher. She has to work on reading people’s faces more.
Quietly, so quietly that she almost doesn’t hear it, Benny mumbles, “Doyoustillwannatryit?”
“What?” she asks, not quite sure if she heard him right.
Benny grits his teeth and looks like he might take off running down the hallway. But he stands his ground, still holding his arm. “Kissing,” he says. “Do you still want to try it?”
Beth swallows. Now he wants to kiss? What happened to it being weird?
Whatever, she’ll show him.
“Okay,” she says, hesitantly. Benny looks at her, as if surprised by her response, or maybe just the whole situation.
“Okay,” Benny says.
For a moment, neither of them move, and Beth isn’t sure if she’s supposed to kiss him, but that’s not what the movies show, and plus he asked her, but also she suggested it, and she’s confused, and how do adults know and—
And there’s a press against her lips and it tingles. It’s so quick, she almost misses it, faster than a move in blitz chess, before his face is right in front of hers again and he’s staring at her and she can’t help but stare back at him.
Benny is starting to turn a faint shade of red and Beth is about to ask him so was that weird? Even though she’s not sure she can even answer her own question anymore.
Then, Benny’s arm is off hers and his eyes are darting around, and he’s suddenly dashing toward the doors to the reception, leaving Beth alone in the hall.
Beth stands there, unsure what to do. She brings her fingers to her lips, flicks out her tongue and the sugar on her taste buds tells her that Benny must have still had icing on his lips when he kissed her.
Benny was right. Kissing is weird.