Haircut (Beth Harmon X Benny Watts)

Chapter 4

I had put on one of my favorite dresses. A simple blue one with a neat white blouse underneath it. With my small purse in my hand, I walked the supermarket in.

I knew he needed to work today, because I usually avoided going here when he was. One time I totally forgot what day it was and he came up to me and confronted me about the bottles of wine in my bag in front a lot of people. I stopped talking to him for two weeks untill it was too exhausting to ignore him.

When I was inside I didn't look into the office, where I knew he was going to be sitting and walked straight to the vegetables section. When I didn't hear footsteps anywhere around me I got nervous. What if he was still too mad?

After I walked past most of the aisles, I stopped in front of a rack full of soda cans. My attention was quickly drawn to the row of beers that a dumb guy from my Russian class a couple of years ago, introduced me to. The red and white label was calling my name. I missed the beers already.

I lifted my arm to grab one but I stopped myself mid-air. It hovered there for a few seconds, before I moved to the right and let it drop on a can of Coca Cola. I sighed when I put it in my shopping basket.

Suddenly I felt eyes on me. When I turned around I saw a startled Harry looking at me.

"Beth, hey, how are you doing?" He asked nervously.

I smiled. My plan worked even though I wasn't paying attention at all.

"Fine. How long were you standing there?"

He hesitated. "Long enough to see you just chose a coke over a beer."

I looked at the coke in my basket. "Yeah, I did."

"You also look cleaner and you don't smell like my dad anymore."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment." I raised my eyebrow.

"Yes, you should!" He said quickly.

There was a short silence between us.

"Harry, do you have time to talk?"

Two hours later the doorbell rang and I let Harry inside. He had to finish his work, so I waited for him at my house. He dropped a black bag on the floor and looked around him. Harry's eyes widened when he saw how clean it was.

"Did Jolene help you with this?" He asked in awe.

"Not with cleaning, but she did kick my ass."

Harry chuckled. "Of course she did. If I knew that worked, I'd probably had done that ages ago." He smiled at me.

"You probably hadn't." I said, while I rubbed my head with the palm om my hand. When I looked at Harry he had a suspicious look on his face.

"But I know Jolene, she kicked your ass a couple of times. It never had this much input. So, what's the catch." He crossed his arms.

Shit. He saw through it. Even more quickly than I thought he would.

"Why so surprised? You might beat me in chess, but I'm not dumb, Beth."

"I didn't mean..." I started.

"What's the catch, Beth?" I heard the anger from our fight from last week build up again. He had absolutely every right not to have faith in me anymore. But I needed him to.

"I signed myself up for the Ohio tournament." I tried to make it sound reasonable and logical, but I had the feeling I was failing.

"That's in two weeks." Harry said after a few seconds.

"I know, but..."

"You haven't played in 8 months!" It annoyed me that he interrupted me again.

"That's not true."

"I saw you throw away all of your bords, pieces and books."

"I sadly couldn't throw my head away." I said, while I rolled my eyes.

It was true what I said. I wanted to forget about chess so badly, but it was in my blood and in my dreams. In my worst nights from the pills and beers. The world of exactly 64 spaces came back in those moments and I got wiped out by the king and queen. Everytime I closed my eyes to wipe them away, they came back the second after I opened my eyes again.

Harry's chuckle snapped me out of my thoughts.
"I get it now." He said.

"You get what." I replied confused.

"Why Watts called me this morning."

A rush of energy flowed through my body.

"What did he say then?" I asked trying not to sound too curious.

"He asked me if I had seen you in the last couple of days. It sounded like he was really trying to hide his anger when I told him I saw you last week. I didn't get it at all but he kept asking if I brought up any new ideas. Of course I had no clue what he was talking about, but now, now I know."

"He thought, you came up with my idea?"

"I guess so." He replied.

I couldn't believe it. Did he think I was teaming up with Beltik to annoy him, or something? What was he? Nine?

I scoffed and leaned back against the couch. Harry took two cans of coke out of my bag and opened them. He handed me one as he fell down on the couch next to me.

"You never told me what exactly happened between you and Watts."

I had only told Jolene what happened, but I was sure that Benny told Cleo as well.

"You don't have to know. It was a mistake."

"Yeah, I heard that one from both of you more than wanted."

"Than maybe you should stop asking."

I wasn't anything near to talking about my month with Benny after Russia. Only Jolene had that privilege. The whole thing made me feel bad immediately.

"Okay, okay, then I'll stop."

We both took a sip of our coke. It didn't taste as good as that beer would have been, but pushed the thought of it away. I glanced over to Harry. Even though he cared too much about everything, it was nice that he was sitting next to me. Just sitting, without arguing or getting a lecture.

He crossed his legs and turned over to me, making me have to turn to him as well.

"Okay, tell me your plan and how I can help." He didn't smile, because I knew he called himself stupid for a thousand times to trust me again.

"I need to get in shape again. I need to train against someone and not myself. And I need to do it sober."

"I can help you with the first two, but you know I've already tried to help you with the last one for the last half year." He sighed.

"I know... But Jolene kicked me hard this time."

I hoped he would laugh, but he didn't. He just looked at me wondering if I was being sarcastic.

"Let's start with the first two, alright?"

I nodded and he dissapeared in the hallway for a minute only to reappear with a chess set.

"How did you know?" I asked confused.

"I know you better than you think, Harmon." He smiled when he put all the chess pieces on the board. I slowly picked up the white queen and looked at it carefully.

"Welcome back, miss." I thought to myself.