"You know," he said quietly, just loud enough for those still nearby to hear, "I haven't lost a game in this club in three years. The last person to beat me here was an international master visiting from Russia."
Maya helped him set up the pieces, her movements automatic after years of practice. "You nearly had me at move twenty-seven. If you'd played bishop to a3 instead of knight to d4, I would have been in serious trouble."
Harrison's eyebrows rose. "You saw that variation?"
"I see everything," Maya said simply, without arrogance. It was just a statement of fact.
Richard Whitmore hadn't moved from his position near the table. Something about this girl nagged at him—something beyond her obvious talent.
"Miss Thompson," he said suddenly, "that technique you used in the endgame, the rook coordination on the seventh rank... where did you learn it?"
"My grandmother called it the lawnmower," Maya replied, a small smile touching her lips at the memory. "She said when two rooks work together on the seventh rank, they cut down everything in their path like a lawnmower cutting grass."
"Your grandmother," Margaret Sinclair said skeptically, having returned despite her earlier indignation. "And what was your grandmother's name?"
Maya hesitated for just a moment. "Rose Thompson."
"Rose Thompson," Harrison repeated thoughtfully. "Wait... Rose Thompson? Oh, my God." He stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. "Richard, do you remember the story from the 1960s? The woman who was banned from competitive chess?"
Richard frowned vaguely. "Some scandal about a colored woman who wasn't allowed to compete in segregated tournaments?"
"Not just any woman," Harrison said, his excitement growing. "She was supposedly phenomenal. There were rumors she beat several masters in unofficial games, but the chess federation wouldn't recognize her results because..." He trailed off, looking at Maya with new understanding.
"Because she was black," Maya finished quietly. "And because she was a woman, and because she was poor. Three strikes in 1962."
The room had gone quiet again. Even Charles Hoffman seemed to be processing this information with something approaching humility.