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Beth doesn’t usually mind being the only woman at competitions. At most tournaments, the men she’s met so far respect her, even resign more quickly than they need to in fear of her.
Sometimes, however, clerical errors happen that leave her in an awkward situation. For the 1967 U.S. Championship, the coordinator forgot that one player was a woman and placed her in a hallway of dorms for men. Although Beth never went to college, she knows men and women aren’t in the same building, let alone on the same floor. Beth could stay in a hotel down the street, but she doesn’t feel like shelling out for a room and a cab every morning. She’ll cope. She’s not worried about privacy or anyone being a peeping Tom or even the smell.
What she is worried about is sharing a communal bathroom with seven men who seem to be striving as hard as she is not to make this weird. The school hadn’t had space or time or care to arrange for her to stay in a room with its own bathroom facility. When she runs into Theodore Griffin, some second-rate player she might face this week, on the steps of the dorm, he offers her a small bow. How polite.
There’s an outdated code of chivalry at tournaments toward her gender that, frankly, is so eyeroll-inducing she wishes Alma were here to click her tongue. Now, she’ll be privy to that every morning and night.
As she drops her suitcase onto a creaky twin-size bed, she goes over the competitors listed in the brochure from FIDE: #8, Jonathan Smith. #7, Andrew Turner. #6, Daniel Weiss. #5, Theodore Griffin. #4, David Friedman. #3, Matthew Manfredi. #2, Beth Harmon. #1, Benjamin Watts.
Why they used her nickname but everyone else’s real first name is a mystery to her.
Night 1
This first night, at 8:45 pm, she pads down the hall, swinging her basket of toiletries, appraises the bathroom for the week: old but not neglected, ash-colored tiles cleaned of all but the most stubborn stains, white walls purged of any distinct scent except baking soda. Four beige sinks on one side, three gray commodes on the other, and two showers with black stalls.
She takes the closest shower, which has better water temperature and pressure than her house in Kentucky and a knob that’s only a little unintuitive to figure out. It warms her instantly, and she scrubs dutifully, washing off any residual nerves or distractions. As she steps out, navy Ben Snyder’s bathrobe modestly covering her midriff, short hair dripping on her shoulders, she gets ready to brush her teeth. It’s a relief that the bathroom is so empty.
She starts to wash off the remnants of her eyeliner and lipstick, halfway through wiping when she hears the door swing open.
She knows the eyes of Benny Watts in so many ways, smoldering at her through the cover of countless Chess Review magazines, casually wishing her luck all those years at her first tournament in Cincinnati with Alma a staircase away, twinkling as he’s surrounded by men hanging onto his every word on a couch in the Hotel Mariposa. But she remembers most vividly: his pity, the sadness twisted in his mouth when he said, “Tough game,” cameras flashing in the background as he fixated on the tremble of her lip and the shake of her hands. She’s always called him arrogant, and he most definitely is, but that moment has always stuck with her as something that doesn’t fit so neatly into her portrait of him.
Still, she can’t read his eyes right now, because she’s too busy taking in the rest of his body in his towel. She’s never really paid attention to shirtless men – she grew up in an all-girls’ orphanage and high school gym class was a tepid affair she would occasionally bless with her presence. Tim had kept his clothes on for the entirety of their pathetic tryst and Harry hadn’t but, well, there wasn’t a lot for her to enjoy there. When they’d lived together, most of the cohabiting had been clinical, just scheduling who took showers when. Beth doesn’t even remember seeing Harry in a towel or getting dressed, ever.
The novelty is probably what’s throwing her off. Benny Watts is coming up behind her in nothing but a towel snugly tied around his waist and a pair of flip-flops, every sharp angle of his emaciated frame fearlessly on display. He’s carelessly holding two bottles with one hand, presumably some shampoo and soap.
Beth realized it isn’t the man’s bare chest that’s the most jarring in this scene. It’s the lack of his usual black cowboy-pirate getup, the leather coat and hat and necklaces. With only a single silver necklace, he seems less like the man who humiliated her with her first professional loss, and more like a normal…person.
Every time he’s crossed her mind these last few months, she searches for even a flicker of her fiery teenaged Las Vegas rage, coming up empty. She used to spend hours cursing him and his pirate costume, buying his magazines just to deface them and shred them while Alma watched. But now every feeling since Alma’s death has been dulled, Mexico City a black hole that sucks away her ability to feel anything but loneliness. It’s a relief to travel to Ohio, away from Kentucky, where the walls of her house echo with reminders of her mother, and Harry, arriving and staying and reading and leaving with a grim goodbye.
Maybe this numbing sadness is what it means to grow up.
She hasn’t paused in removing her makeup, but there’s a more deliberate wariness to her movements now. She needn’t worry. Benny doesn’t do anything but cock an eyebrow and smile as he takes the shower she had just used. He turns on the shower, heated so fast she sees the steam rise instantaneously. (Not that she’s looking in his direction.)
She isn’t expecting him to call to her from his shower. She’s surprised at the volume of his voice. The acoustics of this bathroom are impressive. “You figured out that all the others shower in the morning, too, huh?”
She had not, but she laughs, duly noting this insight, as she leaves the bathroom for the night. She’s not as self-conscious of her damp, snarled hair around her shoulders as she thought she would be.
Day 1 of US Championship / Beth vs Manfredi, Benny vs Friedman
Beth wakes up in the morning and dresses in black pants and a new silk geometric print blouse from a new designer at Ben Snyder’s named Diane von Fürstenberg.
At 7 am, when she walks to the bathroom to freshen up, she doesn’t see Benny, but she spies Manfredi, in his towel, combing his mustache and chest hair proudly. He doesn’t even glance at her. She’s struck again by how unbothered she is by the human body. If anything, she’s proud she can adapt to all kinds of circumstances: chess tournaments in high school classrooms, chess tournaments in high school gymnasiums, chess tournaments in hotels, chess tournaments on college campuses…the possibilities are limitless.
Night 2
Beth doesn’t want to emerge from the reverie that is her focus on winning, winning, winning, but she needs to shower at some point, which will give her head just long enough of a break. Beth goes to shower fifteen minutes earlier than last night, at 8:30 pm, because maybe that’ll be too early in the evening for Benny. However, as she’s walking out, she hears the sound of a shower turning off, and she sees him exit what she has come to call her shower. His towel is wet, his hair is caught in strangely mesmerizing tangles, and his flip-flops squeak on the bathroom tiles.
They nod at each other, he leaves, and Beth isn’t studying his back as he disappears around the corner. She steps into the shower, enjoying the warm water cleansing away the musty, dusty smell of lecture halls from her body, reliving the joy of her opponent’s laugh then horror three moves later as she’d won their game handily. She soaps down for, well, maybe fifteen minutes? Once she’s finished, she puts her robe back and steps out to brush her teeth and finish her nighttime routine.
She hears his voice again as she’s squeezing the toothpaste onto her toothbrush by the leftmost sink, her preferred sink. “Why, hello, Beth,” echoing his words from earlier in the day, even more playfulness belying every syllable. A second appearance in the bathroom and a callback to earlier today? What kind of game is he playing?
Nevertheless, as her eyes catch his in the mirror, Benny holding his slightly worn toothbrush and nearly-empty mini travel toothpaste bottle and dressed in a basic black tee shirt and gray plaid pajama bottoms, she can’t help but reply warmly, “Why, hello, Benny.”
She will not associate simple phrases like “Why, hello, Beth” with the thought “well, at least you’re not half-naked this time.” She suppresses any desire to grin and puts her toothbrush into her mouth.
She stares at her feet to ponder why he seems to have stilled and crossed his arms to study her with her mouth still full of toothpaste. It seems so far when they talk, they do not touch on things like the night before or the day’s games. Beth supposes this bathroom isn’t the place for talking chess. Beth isn’t sure what it’s for, exactly, but she doesn’t quite mind.
Hugging her free arm across her chest, she takes a second to throw a glance at him, also brushing his teeth at the middle sink next to hers. He’s admiring his face in the mirror. Of course he is. She’s kind of into his hair. No, she’s not.
Suddenly, a man walks in, footsteps thudding loudly on the tile. He’s wearing a towel that’s so sloppily swaddled around his waist he looks like Ohio’s most unfortunate burrito, wrapper about to fall apart, to Beth’s alarm. She vaguely recognizes this man as Turner, who wore a full suit to his match today and plays Benny tomorrow. The contrast between Respectable Turner earlier and Burrito Turner now is striking, though she’d still say she’s most fascinated by Benny stripped of his regalia. Turner claps Benny in the back to say, “Benny! Bang-up job today!” Benny turns to him and nods, looking like he’s about to start speaking with a mouthful of toothpaste.
Any hint of a spell broken, Beth spits a tad harder than she intends, washes her mouth out, and tries merely to flee, not stumble out of the bathroom.
Day 2 of US Championship / Beth vs Friedman, Benny vs Turner
Beth bites the inside of her mouth to keep from smiling when she catches Friedman shooting finger guns in the mirror, making small pew pew pew noises. She’s glad he’s jazzing himself up, but she needs to forget this sight if she wants to keep from laughing when they play today.
Night 3
She wants to time her ablutions to be away from distractions, so she goes at 8 pm, half an hour earlier than last night and forty-five minutes earlier than Night 1, almost as soon as she’s finished dinner and studying for the night, no dawdling allowed. If she showers fast, she can be out before anyone (read: Benny) comes in. Alas, twelve minutes is too long a shower, because as she’s stepping out of the shower, robe wrapped gingerly around her body to dry her off, Benny’s coming in through the door.
Beth pretends not to notice that he’s in his towel. She’s been fine around Manfredi and Friedman in the mornings and Smith and Turner when she’s passed them in the hallways. She’s fine around Benny, too. Although his towel covers his naval and below, he could be a life drawing model, the muscles on his arms clearly defined, along a collarbone so sharp it probably stabs whoever he leans up against – and Beth Harmon will be taking no more questions.
When their eyes meet long enough to qualify as a “prolonged stare,” Beth thinks she’d call his expression something like antsy. Like he’s looking for some action, specifically from her. She registers his chest breathing and his hair a little more matted than usual today.
To herself, Beth wonders whether he’s seen her reading his book in the student lounge. She hadn’t exactly been trying to hide it.
Beth realizes two things: 1.) she can’t deny his hair is really good-looking anymore, and 2.) she likes that she can feel his eyes on her as she walks out the door.
Day 3 of US Championship / Beth vs Weiss, Benny vs Griffin
Today’s outfit: a blue-and-red chevron shirt, a miniskirt, and a feathered headscarf. No, her fashion choices have not gotten bolder and funkier since she’s realized she finds Benny’s hair attractive.
After her match with Weiss ends with another easy victory, she changes back into her most comfortable tee and slacks to study. She has to win, and she has to study. No flirting or even asking what self-respecting chess player carries a knife allowed. (She grabs her new cat-eye sunglasses on the way out the door.)
Night 4 / Speed Chess at the Student Union
That night, Beth doesn’t shower, a decision she knows she’ll regret in the morning but right now it’s so late and she can’t bring herself to care. All of the anger at Benny she was searching for earlier this week – she’d found it, and it’s like he’s lit a fire beneath her heart. You take a sip of that coffee, and I’ll punch your clock. For five dollars a game, the pirate had taken sixty dollars from her.
Beth feels furious, humiliated, helpless, outraged, and the most alive she’s felt since Mexico City. She falls back on her comfort fantasy, of kicking Benny’s skinny kneecaps out beneath the table so he buckles, skull cracking on the chessboard. A new one is emerging, too, and Beth drifts to sleep with dreams of cornering him in the hallway outside the auditorium, his lips an inch from hers, his hand on the small of her back, her fingers knotted in his stupid blond hair, before she stabs him through the chest.
She wraps herself more tightly in Alma’s housecoat and allows herself to miss her mom’s company some more. Alma would know how to calm her down right now.
Day 4 of US Championship / Off
Beth wakes up early in the morning to shower, before anyone else does. She’s finally alone. She needs to shake off any strong emotions, because she needs her brain in top form. Contrary to what she’d coyly told Benny yesterday, she doesn’t really need to study. She has already mostly finished going over the games from yesterday. Or more likely, she’s just not in the mood after everything last night.
Maybe she’ll go for a walk. As she steps outside, the breeze presses the silk of her blouse to her skin. In the summer heat, she welcomes it.
Night 5
Yes, Beth has forgiven Benny for beating her at speed chess when he apologized, and, yes, she’d enjoyed what felt like hours of comfortable, companionable silence outside on the park bench and then dinner together. Still, as she heads to the communal bathroom at 7:30 pm for this last night before the final, Beth contemplates using up all the hot water just to mess with him. Just a small thing before their final match. He can always go to the other shower if it bothers him so much.
When he walks in with his towel hanging a little lower than usual at 7:45, Beth keeps her eyes away from the stupidly enticing Vs of his hips. It’s not hard, since she’s a little distracted by his fingers tapping on his leg and his voice carefully saying, “I wanted to say – I’m sorry about your mom, too.” It’s the first time they’ve said more than polite greetings to each other here. And it seems this bathroom is easier than a park bench to talk about things outside of chess.
His sympathy reminds her of that first night, when she’d been awash with shock that Benny Watts was, well, human underneath. Every day this week, she’s learned something new about him: his empathy, his desire for a challenge, his quick mind, his apology, his compliments, his confidence in her. At this point, she even likes Benny, the human. “Thank you.”
“I would’ve told you on the first day, but I didn’t want to throw you off.”
“And you don’t think you will now?”
“No.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to throw me off?”
He grins wickedly, his bared teeth evoking a jaguar so clearly Beth is startled. He answers, “What’s the fun in facing anyone but you in the finals?”
With her stomach somersaulting, she places her hairbrush primly back in its case and heads back to her room.
Day 5 of US Championship / Beth vs Benny (Final Match)
In the bathroom, voices that sound vaguely like Griffin’s and Smith’s are singing a rousing chorus to a song she doesn’t know, loudly enough to wake her up. Easy for them, they don’t have a final match today. Covering her ears with her pillow fruitlessly, Beth grumbles, cursing Griffin’s radio which has been blasting music through such thin walls the last few nights. It is a miracle she hasn’t gone insane.
She’s pretty sure once she walks into the bathroom with her robe, Griffin will stammer out something like “G’day, ma’am” like a gentleman before stumbling out of the room, and Smith will follow after him. As she trudges reluctantly to the bathroom, loathing this pair of chess players, she is viciously glad the mere sight of her can shut them up, and then she can go back to bed and sleep just a bit longer in the quiet peace of dawn.
Night 6
As Beth wraps up her shower at 9:30 pm, the latest she’s had to take a shower here, she accidentally spills her toiletries to the ground, the clattering such a nuisance. As she crouches down to recollect her toothbrush, hairbrush, makeup, makeup remover, skincare, and so on, she takes the opportunity to go over the salient events of today: Benny had lost the US Championship, Beth had won, she had finally won, in a match that left her heart rushing with elation and giddy energy. She had resisted being drawn to his lithe, graceful fingers and wrists to defeat him in a whopping twenty-nine moves. Benny had invited her to get a drink at a bar, she had gladly walked with him for several blocks, Benny had convinced her she has what it takes to beat Vasily Borgov, Benny had invited her to drive fourteen hours to his apartment in New York to train with him for five weeks, she had said yes, and Benny had banned any sex with an unambiguous “Forget it” right when she thought he was about to kiss her. She’d walked back to her dorm room alone and grudgingly started packing to leave after the ceremony tomorrow.
Well.
Could be worse. At least she knows Benny can talk to her not-about-chess in bars as well as bathrooms.
Just as she’s dropping her loofah case back into the basket and preparing to brush her teeth, speak of the devil. She spies him and his pajamas behind her like he’s freaking Bloody Mary, summoned in the mirror when you think his name six times. She does nothing but sigh wryly as he patters in, looking slightly sheepish. She raises a single eyebrow.
Benny clears his throat and asks, “Hey, uh, it seems the other guys are out, but I used up all my toothpaste. If you’re not comfortable I can run to the convenience store but I was wondering if I could –”
Understanding, she lifts her mint Ipana toothpaste bottle, and he obligingly holds out his toothbrush while she squeezes a dollop on.
As she turns back to her mirror, silently singing Happy birthday like she learned at Methuen, she shifts her feet deliberately so they’re not pointed at him.
She remembers the second night, of glancing at him while he was brushing his teeth. She tries this glance again, swings her head back fast before he realizes, and then steals one more look at him. Her hand almost freezes, she’s that inexplicably pleased to catch his eyes back on her this time. He smirks at her but says nothing, like he knows she likes what he sees. And yeah, he does, she already laid those cards on the table like a fool. Then, he glances to his feet briefly, almost shyly, smiling through the swishing of his toothbrush. Lightheaded, she tries not to blush as she turns back to her mirror.
Beth would be disappointed that this is the last time they’ll be encountering each other by chance in this bathroom, but she can’t say she’s not excited for New York. This is only the second time they’ve brushed their teeth together but probably not the last.
She processes some residual sadness, which she’ll deal with later, but also the last few days have ignited a lot of things in her. She’s smarting particularly from the no-sex rule, like hello? As if she can’t focus on studying while making love to a guy. She’s not even that attracted to Benny. Okay, she’s not not that attracted to him. But it’s mostly just because of his hair and her loneliness. That’s all. (Tonight, she’ll dream of writing a game to him in the steamed mirror to see if he catches on, then his hands roaming her body while they make out in their shower, and she’ll realize she is so fucked.)
And since she’s shown herself to be so coherent when Benny’s torso is partially covered in a towel, she hopes she doesn’t ever have to see his bare chest too often in New York. (No, she’s definitely hoping she does.)
He spits out his toothpaste a few beats after her, and they rinse together, then floss. Benny’s floss breaks halfway through, his hands apparently straining to break his teeth, and Beth chooses not to read into that. She should swish her mouthwash, but she’s nervous to drop something again, so she figures making a hasty exit as soon as possible is her most ideal option.
She studies Benny next to her from her mirror. It’s all too easy to exchange smiles with him like two knights in the Gurgenidze System, to feel the flutter of butterflies she thought had died after her photo session with D.L. Townes at the U.S. Open so long ago. Benny’s hair looks as good as it has all this week. She can’t help noticing his feet and his flip-flops are angled toward her.
“Thanks, Beth,” he says finally, as huskily as he had spoken in the bar. This time, because there are tiles and toilets and shower stalls, his voice echoes. She clocks their proximity, his intensity, and swallows a lump in her throat as if that will cut the tension in this room. Is this how his shield falls – not with a brush of hair in a bar, but with some toothpaste?
Then, he bids her a quick “Good night,” turns on the heel of his flip-flop, and leaves Beth wondering whether she had imagined this whole encounter. He doesn’t even look back, closing the door after him.