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“I bet you do! So people are wondering if— ”
“You should stop torturing yourself, Mal.”
I look up from my iMac to find Defne leaning against the doorframe, silver septum ring gleaming as she gives me a worried look.
“And if you decide tocontinuetorturing yourself, could you use your headphones?” Oz glares at me from his desk. “Some of us are not unlearned prodigies mistakenly assumed to be Nolan Sawyer’s new concubine. Some of us have to actuallypracticechess.”
“I just . . .” I massage my temple. “Why’s theTodayshow talking about chess? Shouldn’t they cover important stuff? Fracking, or the sustainable terraforming of Mars, or Malala’s book club?”
Oz blinks. “Have you literallyeverwatched cable television?”
I groan and head- desk.
I know I’m being Sabrina-level sullen, but I earned the right, because November has beensucking: everyone thinks I’m some Nolan groupie who slept her way into chess. Easton loves Colorado too much to come home for Thanksgiving— a scary ellipsis at the end of the dangling sentence that’s our friendship. And someone I went to middle school with texted to ask if I’m “really a professional softball player now, pregnant with a Dutch underwear model’s triplets?” A game of telephone, but still a clear sign that my name’s going around too much, and that Mom or Sabrina might come across my secret career any day.
So, yeah.Sullenis now my defining personality trait. I’m more sulk than woman, ready to brood with reckless abandon at a moment’s notice.
“I should have refused the invitation,” I mumble against the polished wood.
“The prize is one hundred thousand dollars,” Oz reminds me acidly. “We’ve been over the tax withholdings and the net earnings and the amounts of mortgage payments you’ll be able to afford when you were moping all over yourself last week. I didnotwhip out the calculator app for you to step back now.”
“It’s just . . . mortifying. People are saying on national television that I’m too weak to survive the winter.”
“People have said on the same national television that the California wildfires were started by space lasers.” Oz rolls his eyes. “Listen, it’s not that I don’t want to provide scaffolding for your delicate nerves, but as I mentioned before, I’d rather die impaled by a harpoon while farming beets than engage with the fungus of human emotions— ”
“Oz,” Defne interrupts, “could you leave us for a few minutes?”
“What?”
“Mallory and I need some privacy. To talk about mushrooms and such.”
“But all my stuff is here. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Go farm beets? Find a harpoon? Come back in half an hour. Chop chop.”
Defne’s my boss, but she’s neverfeltlike my boss so much as she does now, rounding my desk with a serious expression, sitting on it with an agile hop, a cloud of merrily jingling earrings and citrus and tobacco. She stares like we’re about to have a solemn talk, and it occurs to me that the misery of the past few days could be exponentially more pukeworthy if I were to be fired.
Crap.
“I know I’ve been whining, but I promise— ”
“They’re right, Mal.”
“Who is right?”
“FIDEdidchoose you because you are a woman.” She pauses, letting her words land. “The Nolan thing is bullshit, of course. He doesn’t havenearlyas much sway on FIDE, and FIDE must have made the decision before those pics came out. I don’t know what’s happening between you two— ”
“Nothing!”
It’s true enough. I haven’t seen Nolan since I ran out of his apartment three weeks ago in an internet- induced panic, though he did get my number (from Emil, I assume) because he’s been texting me. Initially stuff likeRan away again, did you? and Mallory. Are you okay? and I just want to talk to you.Then, a few days later, while I was watering Darcy’s chia porcupine,Cormenzana always opens with the Ruy Lopez.It was followedby many similar messages, with little advice (Kotov vs. Pachman, 1950) and big (Make sure you hydrate).
I don’t reply. I never reply, because . . .
Because I don’t want to.
Because we’re not friends.
Because I woke up on his couch and my first instinct was to burrow into him. A horror story in fifteen words.
