That Wednesday, Eliot lost three chess games to Tom Ashby in Tom's cluttered office and told him about the woman he had met in the faculty lounge.
Tom was forty-seven, a social historian who specialized in the American labor movement and who had the physical presence of a man who had once been athletic and had made his peace with no longer being so. He was also one of the three people Eliot counted as genuine friends, the kind of friend who required no performance and offered none in return.
'Cielo,' Tom said, setting up the pieces for a fourth game with the optimism of someone who has learned nothing from the previous three. 'The new music person. I've heard of her.'
'You have?'
'Margaret on the faculty affairs committee mentioned her. Said she came very highly recommended — some festival in Europe, a couple of recordings. Serious work.' He moved a pawn. 'Why? What about her?'
Eliot moved his own pawn. He considered how to answer this and decided the honest version was the most efficient. 'I talked to her for two hours and didn't notice the time passing,' he said.
Tom looked up from the board. He had a particular look for important things — attentive, still, withholding judgment. 'Two hours,' he said.
'In the faculty lounge. We just talked.'
'About what?'
'Everything. Books, music, Paris. The nature of serious work. She's—' He stopped.
Tom waited.
'She's very present,' Eliot said finally. 'When she talks to you, she's actually there. It's rarer than it should be.'
Tom looked at the board for a moment, then back at Eliot. 'It's been eight months since Claire,' he said, not unkindly.
'I know.'
'And before Claire you were managing your father's estate for six months and not really present to anything else.'
'I know, Tom.'
'I'm just noting,' Tom said, moving his bishop, 'that it sounds like you may be ready to be interested in someone. Which is a good thing. A person shouldn't be uninterested indefinitely.' He paused. 'She's not married, is she?'
'No ring. No mention.'
'Good.' Tom took one of Eliot's knights. 'Check.'
Eliot looked at the board. He had walked himself into exactly the position he always walked himself into, not through inattention but through a habitual over-defense that left him exposed on the flanks.
'You know what your problem is?' Tom said, and it was not entirely about chess.
'Tell me.'
'You spend so much energy protecting what you already have that you don't notice what you might gain.' He gestured at the board. 'You've been guarding those back-row pieces for six moves while I've been taking the center. Same thing, I'd wager, in everything else.'
Eliot looked at the board for a long time. Then he tipped his king.
'Point taken,' he said.