Checkmate in Boulder

Having a strategy is good. Sometimes.

La French Café on Arapahoe in Boulder, Colorado, is hardly an old Parisian coffeehouse. Still, it carries none of the faint corporate perfume of a multinational Starbucks.

Colorful chairs and small tables spill from the interior onto a wooden deck outside. No smog of chain-smoking Frenchmen drifts through the air. The atmosphere remains undisturbed.

That said, no one is sitting outside.

The weather has turned cold, and the first flecks of an oncoming downpour are beginning to appear.

Two older men sit at what I assume is their regular window-side table. They are playing chess.

The style of play catches my eye.

I have been watching for fifteen minutes.

Neither of them has moved.

Henry, the waiter—his name offered with a French accent—drops another large espresso at my table and returns to lovingly polish the chrome machinery of the coffee machine behind the counter.

I glance at my watch, slightly annoyed that my wife is late, then return to watching the chess game.

The man on the left, playing black, looks smug. He offers a chuckle as his opponent lays a forefinger on the white Queen.

“Do that if you think you should, my old friend. Please do,” he says, leaning back with theatrical confidence.

The white player keeps his finger resting on the Queen. His face is thoughtful.

After a moment, he smiles.

“You do this every time,” he says calmly. “You try to psyche me out. You know what that tells me?”

Black says nothing.

“It tells me you’re panicking and about to lose.”

Black chuckles again.

“And you, my friend, fall for it every time. You think I’m on the run when really you’re falling into my trap.”

I sip my espresso.

Neither man looks remotely French. Both wear Stetson-style hats and look as if they have spent most of their lives comfortably retired.

Henry refills their cups without disturbing their thoughts.

I keep glancing at my watch.

Twenty minutes late.

Before we married, my wife-to-be laid out certain conditions.

First, she said, she never presses shirts. Ever.

Second, she had developed what she described as an “unhealthy interest” in Jimmy Choo and La Perla.

“Accept those moves,” she told me, “and I’ll say yes to marriage.”

Since the day we both said I do, I have studied her game carefully.

She is somewhere in Boulder right now, lingering deliberately so that when she arrives late, I will be too annoyed to ask what she bought.

I am not falling for that move again.

Across the room, the white player removes his finger from the Queen and lets it drift down to the Bishop.

The man playing black raises his eyebrows.

Is that a good sign?

Or is he bluffing again?

In chess, as in marriage, the difference is not always obvious.

With many women of passion who enjoy a good argument before lovemaking, my wife knows exactly which buttons to press to provoke the response she wants.

I know this about myself.

It annoys me.

My wife knows this, too.

It delights her.

Ten minutes later, Henry asks if I would like another espresso.

Outside, the heavens open with a violent downpour.

The two old men pause their game and stare thoughtfully through the rain-streaked window.

The drumming of the rain becomes hypnotic.

The white player suddenly jerks upright.

“Shit, look at that woman! She’s getting drowned!”

Instead of running into the café, the woman runs straight past the window and continues down the street.

I jump to my feet.

All thoughts of coffee vanish.

I rush outside.

“Jenny! Stop!”

The rain hits like bullets.

Within minutes, I am soaked through.

I catch up with her halfway down the block. She is equally drenched, arms loaded with shopping bags.

She looks at me with innocent surprise.

“Did I miss the café? The rain must have disoriented me,” she says. “Look at us. We’re both soaked.”

I take the bags from her, and we run back toward the café.

The anticipation of getting home, stripping off, and warming up by the fire begins to stir pleasant thoughts.

Henry brings us fresh espresso.

The old men have returned to their chessboard.

The man playing black lifts his finger, considers the board for half a second, then moves a knight without hesitation.

“Checkmate,” he says quietly.

His opponent leans back in his chair.

“Damn it. I didn’t see that.”

Later that night, the bath is deep and hot.

I wash Jenny’s back as steam curls up toward the ceiling.

It suddenly occurs to me that I never asked what she bought in Boulder.

I know nothing about her afternoon of shopping in this new town.

When I read the bank statement a week later, I’m certain I hear my wife whisper softly behind me:

“Check… fucking… mate.”