Free The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

at her distractedly, as though she were thinking about something else. Beth had lived with her a week now and she noticed that Mrs. Wheatley was often that way.
    “I used to play chess,” Beth said.
    Mrs. Wheatley blinked. “Chess?”
    “I like it a lot.”
    Mrs. Wheatley shook her head as though shaking something out of her hair. “Oh,
chess
!” she said. “The royal game. How nice.”
    “Do you play?” Beth said.
    “Oh, Lord, no!” Mrs. Wheatley said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I haven’t the mind for it. But my father used to play. My father was a surgeon and quite refined in his ways; I believe he was a superior chess player in his time.”
    “Could I play chess with him?”
    “Hardly,” Mrs. Wheatley said. “My father passed on years ago.”
    “Is there anyone I could play with?”
    “Play chess? I have no idea.” Mrs. Wheatley peered at her for a moment. “Isn’t it primarily a game for boys?”
    “Girls play,” she said.
    “How nice!” But Mrs. Wheatley was clearly miles away.
    ***
    Mrs. Wheatley spent two days getting the house cleaned for Miss Farley, and she sent Beth to brush her hair three times on the morning of the visit.
    When Miss Farley came in the door she was followed by a tall man wearing a football jacket. Beth was shocked to see it was Fergussen. He looked mildly embarrassed. “Hi there, Harmon,” he said. “I invited myself along.” He walked into Mrs. Wheatley’s living room and stood there with his hands in his pockets.
    Miss Farley had a set of forms and a check list. She wanted to know about Beth’s diet and her schoolwork and what plans she had for the summer. Mrs. Wheatley did most of the talking. Beth could see her become more expansive with each question. “You can have no idea,” Mrs. Wheatley said, “of how marvelously well Beth has adjusted to the school environment. Her teachers have been immensely impressed with her work…”
    Beth could not remember any conversations between Mrs. Wheatley and the teachers at school, but she said nothing.
    “I had hoped to see Mr. Wheatley, too,” Miss Farley said. “Will he be here soon?”
    Mrs. Wheatley smiled at her. “Allston called earlier to say he was terribly sorry, but he couldn’t come. He’s really been working so hard.” She looked over at Beth, still smiling. “Allston is a marvelous provider.”
    “Is he able to spend much time with Beth?” Miss Farley said.
    “Why, of
course
!” Mrs. Wheatley said. “Allston is a wonderful father to her.”
    Shocked, Beth looked down at her hands. Not even Jolene could lie so well. For a moment she had believed it herself, had seen an image of a helpful, fatherly Allston Wheatley—an Allston Wheatley who did not exist outside of Mrs. Wheatley’s words. But then she remembered the real one, grim, distant and silent. And there had been no call from him.
    During the hour they were there, Fergussen said almost nothing. When they got up to leave, he held out his hand to Beth and her heart sank. “Good to see you, Harmon,” he said. She took his hand to shake it, wishing that he could stay behind somehow, to be with her.
    ***
    A few days later Mrs. Wheatley took her downtown to shop for clothes. When the bus stopped at their corner, Beth stepped into it without hesitation, even though it was the first time she’d ever been on a bus. It was a warm fall Saturday, and Beth was uncomfortable in her Methuen wool skirt and could hardly wait to get a new one. She began to count the blocks to downtown.
    They got off at the seventeenth corner. Mrs. Wheatley took her hand, although it was hardly necessary, and ushered her across a few yards of busy sidewalks into the revolving doors of Ben Snyder’s Department Store. It was ten in the morning and the aisles were full of women carrying big dark purses and shopping bags. Mrs. Wheatley walked through the crowd with the sureness of an expert. Beth followed.
    Before they looked at anything to wear, Mrs. Wheatley took her