There's a church about a block away. Not the one that Alma belonged to, the one she stopped going to after Allston left. The one she never took Beth to. A different one.
The bells have been chiming quietly since the stroke of midnight. Beth rolls over in bed and faces the far wall. The air in the room is chill.
Alice didn't celebrate Christmas. When Beth was still going to school, the tissue-paper trees and egg-cup ornaments that came home with her went quietly into the trash. "Religion is a delusion," she said the first time, "a psychological comfort blanket," and Beth didn't understand, but Alice's face had the set look that meant that no explanation was going to make things any clearer, so she didn't ask for one. After that, Beth used to crumple the things quietly in her pocket before she got home, and put them in the trash behind the trailer herself, and then there wasn't any more school anyways. Alice made scrambled eggs on Christmas day, or baked potatoes. "It's just another day," she said, when she said anything at all.
Alma liked eggnog on Christmas eve. She mixed it fiery, and let Beth take a nip. She liked to watch sentimental movies, and after dinner she always fell asleep.
Beth moves her hand over her bare skin under the quilt. It's been so long. Her own thigh, soft to her fingertips, fine sensitive hairs. Her belly, hollowing inwards from her hipbones. Her breasts, small and sensitive, the nipples drawing tight under her fingertips as she circles one.
Mrs. Deardorff liked to see them dance on Christmas. There would be carols in the chapel at dawn, before breakfast. The littlest ones would be swaying on their feet by the time the prayers were finished. After their meal, Mr. Fergussen would lead them to the hall. "We welcome our Lord," Mrs. Deardorff would say, "by dancing, like the ladies I hope you will all grow to be."
Benny behind her, teeth in the back of her neck, one hand wrapped around her thigh.
Step, turn, dip.
Cleo between her legs, avid wet mouth, small fingers pressing in.
Step, slide, point. One leg advancing into the other's space.
Jolene's sly, collusive smile, her strength, slippery but unbreakable. Townes smiling ruefully with a lock of hair falling into his eyes.
Step, turn, bow. "Again, but faster."
Her fingers are slick. Her breath quickens. Her body tightens. Around, in, forward.
Merry Christmas.
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Beth gets there first, and lays her purse on the table. The waitress bobs over, bored and rushed. "Just coffee," she says, and the woman slops it over the edge of the cup as she pours, staining the paper doily. Beth drops a sugar cube in, and crumbles it against the cup with her spoon.
She feels Jolene before she sees her, a palpable warmth and a threat all rolled into one. She's wearing sunglasses, and big round earrings. She sits down opposite Beth, that smile on her face.
"Cracker."
"Jolene."
"Who'da thought." Jolene puts her own purse down on the table, and slowly draws the round glasses off. "You and me, drinking coffee together like ladies. Deardorff'd have a fit, if she could get her crippled self in here."
"I'm not sure she'd want to come in here even if she could."
"You got that right." Jolene gestures at the waitress, who ignores her. "And I guess you're a big deal now, Cracker. Can get your coffee on a silver salver in fancy hotels, you got a mind."
"I wrote you a check." Beth extracts the thin slip of paper from her purse. "For the whole thing, and ten percent interest. It's all here." She slides it across the table.
Jolene's eyes narrow. "Bitch, you think I'm making money off your ass on this?"
Beth opens her mouth, then closes it again. "It seemed…" she stumbles, "...only fair. I mean, you invested in me. You risked your law school money. I just wanted to say thank you. For believing in me. For taking the risk." She hides the rest of her confusion behind a sip of the gritty coffee, feeling the undiluted rush in her blood.
Jolene's face softens into a grin. "What's this risk shit? You're the Michelangelo of chess, or so I heard from some arrogant white girl or other. No risk in putting your money on a Michelangelo." She takes the folded paper from under Beth's hand and gives it a smacking kiss, leaving a lipstick imprint. "This is going straight in the radical disobedience fund."
"I can't wait."
"So what's next, Big Deal? Hollywood? World domination? Marriage to some white-ass prince or other?" Jolene drops two sugar cubes into her own coffee and drinks two-thirds of it in one gulp.
Beth stirs the black sludge in her own cup, feeling a terrible need to keep her hands busy. "More chess. It isn't over. I beat Borgov once, but those matches didn't count, they weren't formal competition. I have to beat him again this year. And I'm going to Italy. Next week."
"Italy? Italy. Shiiiiiiiiit," says Jolene, drawing out the vowel with relish. "You gonna love that." She laughs.
Beth hides her smile behind the rim of her own cup.
"You gone all Susan Hayward again? 'Cause I got to tell you, I got plans. I can't be sitting around waiting for you to go damsel in distress. I have an establishment to take down." Jolene studies her frankly across the table, her nails tapping staccato.
Beth surprises herself by reaching across the table and taking Jolene's hand; Jolene startles, but she doesn't look away. "I won't," Beth says, feeling the flush start to climb from the neck of her sweater. "I'm… I'm doing okay. I did it in Moscow. I can do this."
There are fine lines of tension around Jolene's eyes, and her mouth is set, but not hard. "You better. 'Cause I told you, I got enough on my plate already. I'm not your savior. Nobody is."
The waitress clomps by in her ill-fitting heels, and pauses by their table pointedly; Beth feels her flush intensify, and hastily pulls her hand back into her lap. "Just the check, please," she says to her purse.
"Man, this coffee is bad," says Jolene, swallowing the rest of it. "I'll pick the place next time. Just 'cause you don't want to look like you up yourself doesn't mean we gotta drink swill."
Beth draws a rook in the scattered sugar on the table with quick rough strokes. "Did you bring your car?"
Jolene nods.
"Let's go for a drive, then. And talk. Tell me about the radical plans. And your lover. And play me some music." Beth can almost feel the sun on her skin already.
Jolene grins, and flashes the key in her hand. "It's gonna blow your mind, white trash."
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Thirty minutes until her cab to the airport. She's pacing in the hallway. Her suitcase is packed. The phone hasn't rung for days.
There's an itch in her blood, a nag in her mind.
Enough of it. The hell with it. She lifts the receiver and punches in Benny's number.
It rings. Again. Hollow. On and on.
She clicks the receiver back in and dials again. It rings out.
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It's the first thing she sees when she steps out of the airport onto the chilly tarmac: the people. The furs. The clothes. She feels her whole self dilate as she breathes out. Now this is what she has always known she was made for. She leans back against the seat in the cab and lets herself soak in the dog-walkers, the men in suits, the women in dresses that make her fingers itch.
Salvioli, the Italian champion, is waiting for her at her hotel with a translator, and bows extravagantly over her hand when she offers it. She's seen him at tournaments and invitationals before, although they haven't really played; he wasn't in Moscow. The Russians don't invite the Italian champion.
"Good evening, Miss Harmon," the translator says, in smooth English. "Mr Salvioli hopes your travel proceeded smoothly. Is there anything you need tonight?" Salvioli bows again, and adds something in Italian with a broad smile.
Beth withdraws her hand and tucks it awkwardly into the strap of her purse. "Thank you," she says. "It was a long trip. I'm quite tired. But I appreciate Mr. Salvioli's kindness." The translator (young, dark, and dapper) turns in his direction and unleashes a stream of Italian; Salvioli smiles paternally.
Beth edges towards the elevator. "I think I'd like to go to my room for now."
"Of course, Miss Harmon. Mr. Salvioli hopes you'll spend tomorrow relaxing and will have dinner with him in the evening before your matches on Thursday."
Beth slides the bolt on the door to her room behind her, and exhales. The room is plush and tasteful, like the suite they gave her in Paris, but more modern. She kicks off her shoes, throws herself on the bed, and takes a long, long breath.
Then she takes the small flat bottle of vodka she bought at Malpensa airport and pours it down the bathroom sink.
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Walking the Via Montenapoleone the next day is like walking in another world, the one she always knew, somehow, was waiting for her, all those days when she and Alice ate cheese sandwiches, when she wore rough wool pinafores that didn't fit and slept on lumpy mattresses with the sound of other children's snores and cries. The rich leather goods, the jewelery. The shoes. The salesgirls smiling, holding the door for her. Bringing her what she wants, in halting English, smiling again. The men on the street who look her over from head to foot, and their inviting gestures. The women on the street, impossibly poised, whose looks are less charitable. The clouds of Italian and cigarette smoke and espresso.
If she wins the World Championship. When she wins it. She'll never have to think about money again.
What then? What will she do, every night and every morning?
Ridiculously and impossibly, what she wants is Cleo. She keeps imagining that one of the dark heads she sees moving around her is Cleo's sleek bob; that Cleo will appear out of nowhere, as she likes to do, and link her arm through Beth's and tell her secret disparaging things about the women. That Cleo will pull her into one of the cafes and somehow order them two espressos in Italian and they can sit in a bubble of Cleo will lead Beth up to her own room, and stay with her, even. Cleo must have come to Milan to model before. Cleo would know the women's secrets, and the men's. She would know what to do.
She wears her new shoes when she meets Salvioli for dinner, late, as arranged; he and the translator are both waiting for her in the hotel bar, and both stand up as she approaches. Salvioli says something to the translator which sounds short and irritable, but the man's face is as smooth as ever when he turns to Beth and says, "Miss Harmon, Mr. Salvioli thanks you for meeting him and wishes me to tell you that you look beautiful tonight."
Beth smooths the dark blue dress down over her hips and sits carefully on the high stool, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach. "Thank you," she says, feeling torn between addressing the small slight translator and the taller and slightly grim-faced Salvioli. She doesn't even know the translator's name.
Salvioli clicks his fingers at the waiter and makes a confident request, gesturing to all three of them; the waiter disappears behind the bar, but returns quickly with a tray of three fat short orange-tinted glasses. "You must allow us to offer you a Negroni," says the translator, as Salvioli, restored suddenly to good humor, offers her the glass across the table. "It is a classic drink of my city. A wonderful mixture. Please try."
Beth inhales; the bitter, orangey, wonderful scent of the drink hits her straight in the face. She can see the viscid slipperiness of the liquid as it sloshes at the edge of the glass. Hear the ice clinking. "Oh, no, I can't accept the night before a game…"
"Please allow us to do you this courtesy," the translator says, in his precise English, with a theatrical gesture of regret.
Beth takes the drink from Salvioli's hand.
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By dessert, her mind is fuzzy and her tongue is thick. The food tastes like cotton. Salvioli has disposed of at least a bottle of wine and he and the translator are working on another. The faces of the waitstaff keep swimming up suddenly, in their dark uniforms, against the dark velvety walls. Beth closes her eyes and pictures an enormous mouth, cavernous and dark. The ring of pale faces around the walls, the teeth. And the tongue, moving and ready to swallow.
The translator had started out by asking her courteous questions about her home and questions, relayed from Salvioli, about her match in Moscow, but now he and the translator are having what sounds like an argument in Italian, with much waving of hands and shouting. Beth pokes at what's left on her plate, and takes another swallow of her wine. It doesn't taste of anything.
What she wants… what she wants most in the world, right at this moment, is not to be here. Not to be sitting at this table with a man whose name she doesn't know and another man she doesn't understand. Not to feel that every moment in her life has somehow been this moment, this moment with men who don't speak her language and places that aren't her home. She would give so much, right now, for this table to be her pillow at home, or even in the Methuen home, with the sound of the other girls breathing in the dark. She's alone, and she doesn't know what to do, and the only man she's ever really wanted didn't want her...
"Miss Harmon," says the translator, and Beth jerks her head up, startled. Salvioli is already signing the bill, and pulling on his immaculate jacket. "Perhaps you have finished your dinner? We thank you for your company."
Beth coughs. "Yes," she says, and fumbles for her pocketbook. "I should… Yes. Thank you for dinner."
They are almost to the elevator when Salvioli speaks again, a few quiet, pointed words in the translator's ear. The translator clears his throat. He seems sober, or close enough. "Miss Harmon," he says, impassively. "I will retire for the evening, but Mr. Salvioli would like to offer you a nightcap, if you like. In his suite."
Beth turns, stumbling a little on her new heels, and stares at Salvioli, as though she's never seen him before.
He's around thirty, maybe. He's tall, and built solidly. His hair is dark and still thick. His eyes are nondescript enough. His lips are thin. He wears a dark suit, impeccably cut, and an open-necked white shirt out of which curls dark hair. His shoulders are solid. His arms -
Beth swallows, hard. "Thank you," she says. "Please - please thank Mr. Salvioli for the evening, but I need, I need to lie down now. And rest, for our match tomorrow. Thank you."
Her hand is shaking when she pushes the elevator button. When the doors start to close, cutting off her sight of them, both men are still looking at her, wearing polite smiles. "Buona notte, Miss Harmon," says the translator, and the doors click shut.
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The chess is mechanical. The reporters are a chattering mass. Salvioli is distant and dour. At least there is one language she can never forget how to speak.
She opens with the Queen's Gambit. Salvioli plays the Slav Defence. Knight to queen three. Her head is full of noise and her palms are slick. But she keeps moving the pieces, pawn to king's bishop five, capture his rook. He concedes after ninety-four minutes. Beth shakes his hand sharply twice, pauses to smile at the press cadre, and takes a brief break to vomit in the restroom before the reception.
The Italian press are noisy, but polite. Several of the questions relayed to her are about whether she likes Italy, and would she like to live there, and fishing for her to compliment the Italian game. Beth murmurs something about the wonderful fashion and the privilege of being invited to a friendly match, the wonderful history of Italian chess. Salvioli says something with a wide grin, and the press corps all laugh.
She's in the cab to the airport, feeling the sweat dark and hot under her arms, when the pieces join up with an audible click.
Salvioli had been in Paris. He wasn't invited to play, but he was there, watching, when she played Borgov. She remembers being introduced to him, remembers someone exclaiming, "...must meet the Italian champion…" as she stumbled through the reception. He was just a dark shape to her then, a feature of the nightmare she seemed to be in, another of the pairs of relentless eyes that had been skewering her since she sat down and locked gazes with Borgov.
Benny's voice plays in her head: There's a rumor you were drunk.
He knew. He must have known. He knew. And she took the bait.
As soon as the seatbelt light turns off, she hits her call bell, and the stewardess promptly appears, with a lipsticked rectangle of a smile. "Vino rosso, per favore," she says, and pours the first one straight down her throat.
Next time: Benny, Borgov, and painful sobriety.
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Author's note: Yes, this is Paris-redux of a sort, but that's not coincidental. Some lessons have yet to be learned. Stay with me.
Sorry for the delay in posting; life has been rough. On the plus side(?) it's becoming clear this story is longer than I originally estimated.
I considered naming "Salvioli" after the actual Italian chess champion of 1968, but since I intended to commit a character assassination of sorts, that seemed hardly fair. Instead, champion "Luca Salvioli" is named in honour of the 1881 Milanese champion of one of the first Italian tournaments, Carlo Salvioli.