CATHEDRAL, Patrick Sean Lee [most popular ebook readers .txt] 📗

how to fight, driven as they will be into confusion, fear, and slaughter by General Ash. I take my seat, grimacing, but then suddenly I feel just fine. I’m probably going to get my ass kicked by the most beautiful general in all of Europe, and I could care less.

She looks over at me expressionless. Waiting, probably, for me to make a move. Do I go first? Black, black, black…yes, I think I move first. Should I betray my ignorance, though, and ask her, or simply—what? Move one of the pawns, or jump out with one of my horses? I have no clue, and I don’t play it safe, nor do I ask a dumb question. I grab the horse on the left side and leap into battle.

She sits for a moment in thought, and then she looks at me and smiles. She is beating me already. She has pikes and cannon and swords, but she moves on me with her eyes. Christ, take my horse. Take the castles and the bishops. Take my Queen. Just take your time so that I can enjoy the most lovely…

“You haven’t played much chess, have you Matthew Ash?”

I parry. “Don’t count your chickens before they’ve even laid any eggs.” I’m clever, I think. I wonder what was the matter, though, with opening the game with a frontal assault by one of my real warriors.

“I move first. White moves first.”

Shit.

Isabella has an impish smile on her face after that display of my brilliance. I put the horse back where he came from and keep my eyes lowered to the board. She opens by moving the pawn in front of her King out one space, so I give it some thought and forget about getting the horse out so quickly. That was probably a stupid idea anyway. I move the pawn in front of my King’s Bishop out one space. I’m not sure why I do that, but she’s smiling ever so sweetly now, and her eyes are sparkling. They’re blue, and there is a tiny black dot at the bottom of the right iris. My own eyes are darting over her cheeks, her nose, her small mouth, and I’m not thinking of chess. I love her hair. I am all of the sudden thinking of a different kind of game and a different kind of strategy.

She moves the pawn in front of her King’s Bishop out two spaces. I don’t really consider that she’s up to anything serious yet. Her eyes catch mine again.

I glance down at her less-than-stellar opener and see that I can move my left-side horse pawn guy out two and take that pawn of hers—if she doesn’t catch on to what I’m up to.

She places her right elbow onto the table and slowly raises her hand—her index finger—to her lips. I know she’s thinking about what I’m up to. Her eyes have left mine and they are locked on the board, narrowed. She stares at it. Stares more. I think I’ve got her worried. Then she looks up at me.

“Are you sure?”

I don’t want to be, but I think I am. More certain than I’ve ever been—already. Raw beauty and intelligence do that to me. Which, regarding the intelligence aspect, makes me wonder how I ever got hooked up with Allison. Oh yes. Great sex.

“Yes. I think so. Yes, I am.”

Isabella shrugs. “Okay.” She takes hold of her Queen with delicate fingers, but firmly. She lifts her across the board all the way to her right on a diagonal.

“Checkmate.”

Chess and Books

 Isabella

 

 

When he walked into the dining room like a wounded soldier earlier, I was vaguely surprised by my first close-up look at him all cleaned up, but more so by who he was. It is true Matthew’s face mirrored the back flap photo, the one I remember seeing on his last smash-trash novel, which I certainly didn’t buy, but I somehow expected him to be much taller, though not more handsome. His features are placed pleasantly enough, yet seen all as one, not what I would call particularly striking. If I had to pick out one aspect of his face that stands out most I would have to point to his eyes. A softer shade of blue than mine, and sheltered a bit too much by eyelids that seem to be losing a war against sleep. Still, oddly mesmerizing. Some people describe eyes like his as mysterious, or bedroom. I think cunning.

His lips never appear to close entirely. Rather, the fuller bottom one seems to be playing for space, as though unsatisfied with the proximity of its stationary, thinner neighbor. I wait for him to speak, and I’m sure he is begging inside for me to do the same. We would make an interesting, quiet couple, as I have always leaned toward listening—the safer, less revelatory position. I want him to break the silence.

Matthew has become even less garrulous after the trouncing I handed him just now. I know he is terribly embarrassed, and that’s a male pride thing, I’m sure, as I watch his face turn slowly back from a hundred shades of red to simple ruddy tan. He tried very hard to convince me that he knew how to beat me at my game. Now he knows that I know all about that particular impotency of his. I really had no intention of smashing him so quickly—perhaps I should have made a few inconsequential moves. But how could I resist doing what I did after those first two strategic blunders he made?

The logs in the fireplace behind me pop and crack with a light, merry sound. I can see the quick brightening and then dimming reflections of the fire against the wood columns behind Matthew. At the temples, his graying hair lightens just a bit with each burst from the hot logs. His face remains stoic, though, unaffected by the cheery atmosphere of the room, the sweet odor of burning pine. I feel a little sorry for him, but not enough to show it.

I finally give in and decide to thaw the icy silence.

“You are a much better writer than you are a chess player, which isn’t really saying much.” I laugh with open friendliness and hope he takes that last statement in the spirit of levity. “Or was that real rustiness?”

“You thrashed me, Isabella…what can I say?”

I feel like I should be a gentler conqueror, now. I will not rub his face in his earlier narcissism. But on the other hand I will not cave in to contrived pity-mongering, a ploy that’s been tried on me before by Brad. No, Matthew Ash doesn’t exhibit a desire for that. At least it doesn’t show if he does. It’s real humble embarrassment he suffers, I believe. I’ll prop up his ego just a little.

“You needn’t say anything more about it. Like I said, I was a champion—if not exactly on a national level. I know the game well enough.”

“And I do not. I concede, and I bow in the face of your obvious superiority! I’ll recover in time; you can count on it.” He chuckles. “It will be a long time, though, before I accept your challenge again at that game.”

“It probably will be.” I see his brow fall after I say that. What might that mean, I wonder? I have a very good idea.

“You might consider hiking back up to the lake with me. You’d have to help me, of course, but the water is wonderful! We could go swimming. That I know how to do,” he says, and then he laughs.

Yes, I have a very good idea how he would want that to go—I haven’t been skinny-dipping in a long, long time—but I laugh with him.

“Tell me about your other books. Are you working on one right now?”

“Yes. It’s a mess, though. The worst pile of crap I’ve ever wallowed through. Terrible.”

I believe he means it. “Why is that?”

Mr. Davenport appears at the base of the staircase as Matthew begins to answer me. He has a bottle of wine in one hand, two glasses and a saucer-sized platter filled with cheese and crackers in the other. How appropriate this evening. He walks across the room to our small table and the board still filled with chess pieces, then with a wisp of a nod, sets the bottle, glasses, and platter next to the game board.

“I hear said that a good Merlot, a robust slice or two of Pecorino cheese, and some of these sesame crackers do wonders for bruised bodies.”

He says that to Matthew, and then he turns his gaze to me. “As well as rain-soaked ones.” His eyes, buried deep into a brow of overgrown hair, sparkle like jewels lying inside the mouths of twin caves, and his wrinkled and weathered cheeks rise under the pressure from the corners of his mouth. He doesn’t wait for a thank you, rather ambles over to the fire—it’s fine; he pokes once, twice at the crackling logs—then he leaves the room as quietly as he entered, looking back over his shoulder, smiling like a seventy year-old Cupid.

Matthew turns the dark bottle around and gazes at the label. He evidently approves, because he grins and then pours the rich, red wine into the two glasses. Handing one to me, he begins again to answer my question by asking one.

“Did you like my last book?”

“I didn’t read it, actually.” I needed to add that last word; it softened the blow somewhat.

“Did you read any of them?” He places a small square of cheese on a cracker and hands it to me as if we’d been married for twenty years; not asking, not even wondering if I eat the stuff. I don’t usually eat cheese and wave it off. He takes one for himself and waits.

“Yes, I’m not altogether illiterate, you know. Your books have always been displayed pretty prominently at the bookstores—and they have wonderful, enticing covers. How could a person not pick one up and consider buying it? Especially knowing that you’re one of the biggy writers in the world?”

“Which ones did you read?”

“You mean, which one.”

“Oh. Well, then, which one?”

“Your prize winner. ‘Saving Isabelle’. Forgive me, I found it trite; not very good at all. Is your new one suffering the same sickness?” That was a faux pas of sorts, and I want to bite my tongue. He didn’t deserve that slap.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I did mean that I didn’t like the book. Even so, it must have been written exceptionally well in someone’s opinion or else it would never have won that award. It sold a lot of copies, too, didn’t it?”

“Enough to enable me to buy a home in Massachusetts, and one in Venice. A lot of other stuff as well. Just that one book. It still sells in the thousands each year. I often wonder…but no, it was good—you somehow misjudged it. But the one I’m writing now…I don’t know. I’m suffering mental lockjaw, I guess.”

“Why don’t you stop writing for a while, then?”

“Can’t. I’m locked contractually into the next book—this one. Besides, it’s almost finished, even though I’m pretty sure it stinks.”

“Ah. So you’re locked in, almost finished, but you’re burned out.