Her fingers have lost feeling by the time she spins into a telephone kiosk at the far side of the park.
"Mezhdunarodnyy zvonok," she fumbles to the operator, who responds with implacable patience. "New York City."
Benny picks up on the third ring.
"Call from Moskva," says the operator, with difficulty. "Voman."
"I'll take it." A pause. Rustling. "Beth?"
"You got it." She leans against the side of the booth.
There is a long pause. "So," he says in that irritating, smug drawl. "You did it."
"I did." She shifts the hard plastic receiver against her ear.
"You took Borgov. I knew you could. I knew we could take him." She wants simultaneously to hug him and slug him in the face. Benny can get under her skin every time.
"He didn't do knight to rook four." She sounds colder than she feels. "He didn't make any of the moves you thought." There is a little pilot light of warmth in her gut. She needed to hear Benny's voice. Hear Benny be Benny.
Benny pauses again. Leather creaks. "But you got him. King rook pawn?"
"Queen to F6. Sacrifice. Is Harry there?"
"Queen to F6, of course. Yeah, he fell asleep on my floor. We stayed up all night. Mike and Matt too."
She twirls a strand of hair around her finger. "You can kiss them all thank-you from me when they wake up."
"Beth, are you coming home?"
"I don't know yet." She grinds the toe of her shoe into the rough asphalt outside the booth. "I just wanted to play."
"Are you sober?"
"Yes, asshole. As a judge. It worked."
"You gotta come home. What else are you gonna do?"
"What do I do anywhere?"
She can hear him smile. "Just... be there, Beth, okay? I think you should come home, I wanna see you. Fly into New York, I'll come pick you up. Let Townes take care of you, he's still there, right?"
"Yes, he's at the hotel. I'll call you, Benny."
"When?"
"When I'm free, okay? I'll call you."
The receiver clicks solidly back into the cradle.
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The hotel isn't a long walk. She can remember most of the main boulevards the cab went along, and then see the building from almost a half mile away.
Townes is waiting in the bar. "Beth," he says, standing up from the velvet banquette to enfold her in a hug. "You were wonderful."
All of a sudden she's close to tears. "I hoped…"
He pulls back to look at her face. "Are you OK?"
"I think I'm just tired." She swipes at her eyes, tries a smile. "It's been a long week."
"I thought you checked out, didn't you go to the airport? I was waiting for a cab myself."
Just as abruptly, she isn't sure she can leave. The hotel feels like a strange, upholstered womb, and in the park she had been so free, and they had called her name…
Townes is watching her carefully. "Beth?"
"Yes, I'm going to the airport," she hears herself say. "We can share the cab."
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"So it's this one?" says the driver in Russian to the man sitting in the passenger seat.
"Yes. Harmon," says the other, in that half-swallowing way they have of saying her name. "Little girl walked on Borgov." He glances back and adds something in Russian too thick for her to catch; the driver laughs.
Townes picks up something; he frowns, and lays a hand on her knee. "How long?" he says pointedly to the driver.
"Da, kak dolgo?" Beth adds innocently, in her best accent. She kneads her white beret between her fingers.
The driver fastens his attention on the road in a hurry. "Dvadtsat' minut," he says to his gloves. "Very good Russian."
"Spasibo." She looks out the window at the grey Moscow suburbs, and pushes Townes's hand off.
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Booth, the State Department man, is waiting in a hard chair in what passes for a departure lounge, and he's madder than three hatters.
"Where have you been?" he hisses before she's within ten feet of him.
Beth remembers the way her mother, her first mother, used to be with people she considered beneath her notice. "I had things to do," she says, tilting her head in a way she knows will infuriate him. "I am a champion. I don't have to stay on your schedule."
"You can't be alone in this country!" A vein on Booth's forehead is popping; he looks like he might really have a stroke. "They could have, could have taken you for questioning! You don't know what trouble you could have caused!" He notices Townes, six feet behind her, and drops his voice in a hurry.
Beth doesn't feel very much like letting this drop. "He's alone," she says in a hard tone, "and he's fine. And so am I. I'm sitting next to Townes on this flight. You can do whatever you want." She'd rebooked for this flight at the airport desk, with no idea how she would pay if they tried to charge her, but they seem to have changed her ticket without charge; the attendant was dazzled, and praised her chess and her Russian again and again.
"You'll have to be debriefed," Booth says in a flat tone. "In New York. You'll have to come with me."
"Am I under arrest?" Beth says sweetly.
"No."
"Then I will do no such thing. I'm going home to Kentucky." She sweeps past him to the gate, with Townes scrambling along in her wake, carrying her bag and grinning.
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Townes falls asleep two hours into the flight, after a glass of wine, but her eyes won't close. She looks at his head, slumped against the window. His dark and beautiful head.
How does he do it? How can he… not care, about what he's doing, about going against everyone? How can he want someone so much that he can do that?
There is a little wine left in his glass, on the tiny table. Red wine. Dark and thick. She can feel it spreading out across her tongue, evaporating. Feel it getting into her veins.
She won. They can't take that away from her now. She beat Borgov. She won. Would it matter..?
They would bring her more. If she asked. Booth can't see her, he's eight rows back, still fuming.
She drops her head back against the seat. There's metal not far under the thin, cheap plush. Six hours to go. She is thirsty.
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She remembers the moment Cleo stood up from the banker's lap.
"You've been too kind, gentlemen," she says in her accented English, to their startlement, "but this young lady has worlds to conquer tomorrow."
Beth is feeling lazily unwound; she's still sitting across from the other man, what was it he did again?, with his hand on her thigh and a pleasant warmth pooling around and underneath it. But she sees the look in Cleo's eyes; it's intent and serious. She scrambles to her feet, stumbling on one of her heels. The man looks disappointed and dumbfounded.
She likes how Cleo says conquer. Accent on the second syllable.
He could have been okay. To have on top of her. Heavy and lulling. Warm.
Beth clears her throat. "Yes," she says, hearing herself slur a little. "I have a match tomorrow. Good night, gentlemen." She tries to bow; Cleo catches her halfway down and pinches her arm a little. She swallows a gasp.
Cleo bends down and takes off her high heels, snagging the half-bottle of red wine in her other hand. "We wish you good night," she says, with one of her smiles that seems both easy and elusive. "Sirs."
There is no one else in the elevator. Cleo is watching her, but her eyes are a blur under the heavy dark bangs. "So how many lies did yours tell?" she says. Her shoes knock together in her hand.
"Oh, many, I'm sure." Beth bends down and takes off her own shoes. Her feet don't hurt, but they don't seem to be quite touching the floor. "Didn't you want to stay?"
Cleo smiles. "Oh, we could have stayed, I'm sure. And they would have shown us the glories of the Champs-Élysées and the Avenue Montaigne. And what is in their shorts. Doesn't it ever weary you?"
"Doesn't what weary me?" Her tongue is thick. Cleo is still looking at her. She reaches for the bottle of wine, drinks from the neck.
"The predictability of men. Their belief that everything is to be had with money. I find myself so… weary sometimes."
"I guess," she says, feeling lost. The elevator door dings open. "This is my floor."
Cleo holds her by the elbow as they stumble the length of the corridor to the door of her room. The strength of her fingers filters through the haze of pastis; strong, but so small. She keeps expecting them to be longer than they are.
The door seems both bigger and less permanent than it once did. The key, oh yes, the key. She digs in her tiny purse, turns it with clumsy fingers. Cleo flits ahead of her into the room, dropping her shoes by the door.
Cleo eyes the velvet draperies, the upholstered chairs, with approval as Beth backs against the door to shut it. She takes another long sip of the wine.
"You should move to Paris," she says, turning to Beth with flashing eyes. "You love the city, n'est-ce pas? You can be… alive here."
"The lights," Beth says. "And the cafes, and the clothes… Alive, yes. I've outgrown Kentucky. And I don't like New York." She should go to bed, she knows. "Can we order some drinks?"
"It's your room." But Cleo is already reaching for the phone. "Miniatures, no? And we should have some food sent up." She orders in a torrent of rapid French; Beth makes out only the word "vodka".
Cleo drops the phone and settles herself onto the plush couch, spreading her arms against its upholstered back. She rolls her eyes towards Beth, pulls her to sit beside herself. "Tell me about this Townes."
"I'm not sure I'm drunk enough for that yet." Beth shifts herself a little further away.
"That will be solved soon enough." Cleo smiles. "Where did you meet him? It is a him, isn't it?"
"Of course." Beth jerks back, mouth agape.
"Does he play chess?"
"Of course. Where else would I meet a man? Kentucky, Las Vegas, Cincinnati. Chess everywhere." She's in danger of feeling maudlin. Pieces dance in her head. The polite knock on the door is a merciful interruption before the tears start to gather in her eyes.
Cleo smiles as the bellboy wheels in the trolley. "Perfectly timed. So, you must teach me to play. You are much more talented than Benny, so you will teach much the better. We will play with these." She lifts the miniatures from the trolley and gestures towards the board on the table.
"With the bottles?" Beth laughs. "Cleo, come on."
"You will drink when you take a piece from me." Cleo's eyes glitter with laughter. "It will make it more of a challenge for you. And this time I will not turn the board over."
"Only if whiskey is the queen."
Cleo laughs. "No, the rest of the pastis for the queen. The red wine, he is the king."
They're a dozen moves in when Cleo stands up from the table suddenly. "You should sleep, should you not?"
Beth is wrongfooted, nine years old again, always the wrong shape, the wrong place. "Cleo - what -"
Cleo moves around the table to her, kneels on the floor. "You are not just beautiful, Elizabeth, you are real." Her hand, soft and gentle and tipped with red, is on Beth's face. "Now it is time for me to teach you."
Cleo's mouth is hot and wet and sharp with alcohol; delicate, so delicate, so artful, where men had always thrust and dominated. Teasing, provoking, there and then not. Beth feels her own mouth open against Cleo's; there is a hot rush between her legs. Cleo's hands are in her hair, then roving her body, over her dress; Beth's are still limp at her sides, helpless, overwhelmed.
Cleo breaks the kiss, with a last press of tongue, and regards Beth through sooty lashes, without saying anything. Beth stares at her, blank of thought. She looks at Cleo's face, her body.
Why not? flashes through her, like lightning. Cleo smiles, triumphant, and pulls her sweater over her own head. Her bra is filmy, elegant lace, black, so Paris, of course. She pulls Beth's hand to her and slides it underneath, arching her back as Beth feels the nipple, risen against her fingertips. She squeezes experimentally; Cleo shivers and moans theatrically. She is so soft.
Cleo leans in closer and kisses Beth again, soft, hot, intense. Her hands are on the back of Beth's dress, on the zip. "Let me teach you," she says, as she slides it off Beth's shoulders. "Let me show you how it can be."
Beth lifts her hips from the chair as Cleo eases the dress down over them; she's trembling. This isn't like with the men from college; it isn't like with Benny. For the men she was just there. A body and they wanted to have it. Wanted the obvious.
With Benny she understood, finally, what it was she was supposed to want. Why women would cut their eyes at men, linger, flirt. Why anyone would lie down with a man sober.
Cleo smooths her hair. Touches her breasts gently. Asks the question with her eyes. Beth closes her own and nods, and then Cleo's hands are tugging at her panties. Plain white cotton. She doesn't know why. Cleo's will be black lace. She has to move her knees together so that Cleo can pull the panties down over them; they part themselves again when Cleo drops the fabric to the floor. She holds on tightly to the chair edge as Cleo shifts closer, lower.
Then Cleo's mouth is on her and she almost yelps. None of them ever - ever - It's like someone who knows what she's always wanted, knows how she's always wanted to be touched, made to feel. As though she's doing it to herself. Maybe this is why Townes likes it with - "Oh," she hears herself gasping, "oh, oh - !"
Cleo licks delicately, in circles, then more pointedly, up and down, her hands lightly tensed around Beth's thighs and gently pushing them apart. Her fingers contract and relax, stroking, soothing. She glances up at Beth, her eyes avid, her mouth curled, and presses her tongue home, and Beth comes apart.
Her thighs are slick on the hard chair when she open her eyes again, and Cleo is smiling seductively, lips wet. She stands, unbuttons her slacks, and lets them fall. Her panties are black lace.
Beth reaches her hand out finally, shakily, wanting to give back, to come back to earth. Everything is blurred around the edges. Her body is buzzing with alcohol and release.
Cleo climbs onto the bed and kneels, facing her. She reaches behind herself and unfastens her bra, shimmies out of her panties, tosses both carelessly away. "You don't have to be afraid," she says, drawing Beth gently closer by the arm. "It is nothing you don't know how to do. Lie down with me."
Beth is still wearing her own bra. White cotton. It seems far too awkward to take it off now. Her legs are rubbery and strange. She crawls onto the bed and lies down shakily on one elbow. Cleo pulls her hand to between her own thighs. "Don't be afraid," she says, parting her knees and leaning back on her elbows. "You are beautiful. You know it. Show me."
It's so slippery, and feels so strange from this angle; the alcohol is weighing down her eyelids. She is truly drunk. She shouldn't have gotten drunk. Cleo is moaning now, and arching her back, slipping her little glances of encouragement, until she closes her eyes and lets out a sharp little cry, and then another, and another.
"I told you," she says, leaning over and kissing Beth, full and hard and deep. "You did magnificently. Tu es magnifique, my dear. Lie down."
Beth's head is heavy on the pillow. "Cleo… why did you do this?"
Cleo reaches out and switches off the lamp, but in the half-light Beth can see that her eyes are still open. "Because I wanted to. Because you are beautiful, and desirable, and I wanted to show you. To have you. And I knew that no man would have shown you." She laughs. "You should sleep. Good night, Beth."
Beth is half-asleep before any of the words can sink in, with her head a jumble of sensation and booze and Russian and openings and queen's moves. When she jerks awake again, she knows it is hours later, and it's a dizzy, still-drunk, spinning panic to find her dress, to the bathroom, to be clean, to not know.
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Townes grunts, and opens his eyes, lifting his head from its awkwardly angled position against the window. "Oh Lord, I'm going to pay for that tomorrow," he says, rubbing his stiff neck ruefully.
"Sleep well?" She forces a smile, putting down her magazine
"Too well, maybe," he says, amazed. "Are we landing? Beth, didn't you sleep at all?"
"I wasn't tired," she says, concentrating on the words on the back cover of Chess Review. "Too much excitement. Ready to escort me through the press?"
He smiles that smile that gets her in the gut every time, charming, shy, yet so sure of itself at the same time. "Of course, Madam Champion."
He steps off ahead of her when they get to the gate, reaching back his hand through the cold air.