Being Alive: A The Queen's Gambit Story

Chapter One

It's six months after Russia and nearly that long since her last drink. All those months ago, sitting across Borgov with her face tilted up to the paneled ceiling, she learned that she didn't need alcohol to quiet her mind. The chess board still appeared, the pieces moving with a grace that Beth still hadn't witnessed elsewhere. But, it didn't mean she didn't want the drink, and Beth had bore witness to a casual alcoholic for enough years to understand that both the need and want weren't pre-requisites to addiction. Because while she didn't need a drink, she also knew that once she started she wouldn't be able to stop.

She's at the US Open Chess Championship in Chicago and she keeps walking past the bar, her pacing taking her steps closer to the wooden counter with each pass. It was all because of damn Gorsky. He was new. An up and comer out of Bloomington, Indiana and he almost beat her. She faced off against the giants in Russia, and yet somehow, this Midwest nobody threw her. Dimly, somewhere between her fourth and fifth pass in front of the bar, she reminds herself that she had once been that nobody, but she quickly dismisses the thought.

At her sixth pass, she almost gives in, her mouth already anticipating the heady combination of the gin and vermouth tempered by a refined pearl onion (Mrs. Wheatley had been right about that part), but then a young girl recognizes her and asks for her autograph. The girl holds out an old copy of Life magazine with Beth's face on the cover. The magazine was about two years old, and Beth thinks about how this girl must have seen the Open was taking place in the city and made a special trip just for her to sign the magazine. Her face burns with shame as she recalls the one to three Gibsons she had been on her way to consume, and she makes a point to strike up a conversation with the young girl, trying to replace her guilt with a good deed.

When she's finished, she heads back up to her room, but she can already picture the room service menu and she can feel her finger moving the heavy dial of the rotary phone, and so she makes a detour, ending up at hisroom. She doesn't know if he'll be there, but he answers after one knock. He's shirtless, his striped pajama pants slung low on his hips, but it's nothing she hasn't seen before.

"Hi Benny."

"Beth Harmon, to what do I owe this honor?"

The tone of his voice reminds her of the distance between them. While he helped her in Russia, she was well aware there was still damage between them to be repaired, but all the calls she meant to make didn't happen, and then her phone didn't ring, either. She hasn't seen him since before Russia.

"Can I come in?"

"If you're here to take more of my money with speed chess, you'll be disappointed."

Attempting levity, she says, "Does that mean you got better, or we're not playing?"

He smiles slightly and steps back to let her in. Behind her, he flips open a suitcase and she turns around just as he's pulling a worn grey t-shirt over his head. "So, what are you doing here?"

She doesn't answer, suddenly feeling foolish for going to him at all, and he says, "It's Gorsky, isn't it?"

"I still beat him," she returns sharply.

"Yeah, well, you almost didn't."

She bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood and sits on the edge of the bed.

"Do you want something to drink?" Benny asks, and while she knows he doesn't mean alcohol, she says, "I want a Gibson. I might as well, right? You warned me that if I kept drinking like I was, I'd end up washed up by my twenties. But, it looks like that may be happening, anyway."