Chess Lessons
by Nikki Little
A long time ago, in a public library, sat a teenaged girl with a brand new chess set and a book. It was obvious that she was trying to learn the moves from the book, and her frustration was becoming clear. An older gentleman, perhaps a retired professor -- he had just that look, you know -- walked over to her table and offered to show her the moves. Needless to say, this happened in those happy, innocent days before every man was assumed to have evil intent when he approached a young girl. And it was, after all, a public place with lots of people around. The girl was grateful for the offer, and soon the chess pieces began to fly. At first, the rules and patterns were all just a blur for the girl, but, after just two hours, some parts of the game began to make sense. The girl asked him if he would be in the library next weekend at the same time, and he said yes. So began a long series of weekly meetings.
After a few weeks of chess lessons, the girl's play began to improve, and her squinting at the board became more obvious. The old man informed the girl that she might need glasses, and needed to say something to her parents. Sure enough, a few weeks later, in walked the girl with her brand new eyeglasses. That was back in the days before contact lenses had become common, and the girl was blissfully unselfconscious of how different, how owlish, she looked. In truth, the glasses only made the girl look as smart as she actually was. She was, at least to any adult looking on, quite lovely. The chess lessons proceeded apace, and, as the girl moved on from junior high school to high school, the old man asked her if she didn't have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than play chess in a library with an old man. The girl didn't have any boyfriends. "Boys don't seem interested in me," she said. The girl thought the problem was her glasses, and wondered if she should stop wearing them. "Never!" said the old man. "If a boy is shallow enough to reject a beautiful, intelligent girl because she wears glasses, then he does not deserve any girl!" The girl blushed at the description of herself as "beautiful," but it was true. In a subtle, unshowy way, the girl was indeed beautiful. More beautiful than any beauty contest winner. If only the boys at the high school could see it.
The girl continued to show up at the library on Saturday afternoons, and her skill as a chess player increased. She had started playing on the school's chess team, and, to everyone's astonishment, was the best chess player in the high school. Her luck with boys, however, had not increased. She graduated from her high school without ever once being asked for a date. She missed out on her senior prom. The geeks in her chess club, however, were all quite infatuated with her, but, being geeks, they all assumed that she would reject them without a second thought. If only she had thought to ask one of the boys. After all, fair is fair. If a boy can ask a girl for a date, then shouldn't a girl be able to ask a boy for a date? This possibility, however, had never occurred to the girl.
Months passed, and the months became years. The girl graduated from college, and the old man looked a little grayer, and his eyesight became a little worse. Every Saturday afternoon they still met for chess at the library. "Have you a boyfriend, my dear?" asked the old man. No, she still had no boyfriend. She had never even had a date. "Put away your chess set, my dear," said the old man. "Indulge an old man with an afternoon of your time."
They went to one of those small general goods stores that today no longer exist, and he bought a kite. They went to the park, and the breezes of an unusually cool summer day lifted the kite right up. The old man gave the kite to girl once it was up and sat down to watch. After she was through with the kite, she gave it away to a child in threadbare clothes who had watched with envy. She was worried that the old man would be offended that she had given away his kite, but he was delighted. Afterwards, they went to a small family-owned pizza shop which used an old-fashioned wood-fired oven. It was the best pizza she had ever eaten. The old man paid, and the girl objected when he refused her share of the check. "My dear," he said, "now you need never say again that you have never had a date!" He chuckled, and she realized that he was right. "Now there's someone I'd like you to meet," the old man said. "I have a nephew who is a nice fellow, but he's bashful around women, and hasn't the nerve to ask anyone. Be kind, I ask you, for he is quite inept around women. Tongue-tied, I think you would say." The girl kissed his cheek, and the old man laughed. "But I'm much too old for you, my dear!" She went on the date with the old man's nephew, but things didn't work out. She was back at the library the next Saturday afternoon, and told the old man that she was sorry that his attempt at match-making had failed. She did learn one thing from the date with the old man's nephew, however. It wasn't her glasses that had been putting the boys and men off. It was her intelligence. The poor girl, smart as she was, had never learned the art of "playing dumb." She hadn't realized how intimidating her intellectual prattle seemed.
Months became years, and years became decades. At their weekly meetings at the library for chess, the old man could now barely see, and the young woman was now middle-aged with a few faint lines on her face. The slim figure of her youth had thickened slightly, and her hips stretched the fabric of her dress. She had let her hair grow long, and blond curls draped in front of the chess board. Each was oblivious to the changes in the other. The girl only saw the handsome, old fellow in the tweed jacket which he had worn when she first met him. The old man saw only the slim, teen-aged girl with the blond curls framing her innocently beautiful face. All things pass, and one day the old man failed to show up for their Saturday afternoon chess games. A library clerk walked up to the woman, and showed her the old man's obituary in the newspaper. It dawned on her that after all these years that she did not know his last name. She attended his funeral, and continued to show up at the library on Saturday afternoons. After all, for an intellectual, there was no greater place to spend free time than a library.
One Saturday afternoon, she brought her chess set to the library -- something she hadn't done since her aged companion had died. She disappeared into an obscure corner of the library where a single table for two and two chairs stood. High overhead was an open window where breezes came in from a courtyard. Sunlight always shone down on the high bookstacks behind the table. The sunlight, however, did not hit the table itself, and there was no glare. The girl sat down and set up her chess set. Every Saturday afternoon after that, if you stand by a nearby stack and keep out of sight, you can hear whispers and giggles. If you listen really hard, every minute or so, you can hear the sound of a chess piece being moved.
The End