The Queen's Gambit

It wasn’t being an asshole to refuse to be bullied, to call that woman’s bluff

Nobile stared at her a minute, as though she had suggested something illicit. “Russia’s murder,” he said finally. “They eat Americans for breakfast over there.”

Back in Lexington, Mrs. Wheatley’s voice would sometimes have a distance to it, as though she were speaking from some lonely reach of an interior childhood. Here in Mexico City the voice was distant but the tone was theatrically gay, as though Alma Wheatley were savoring an incommunicable private mirth. It made Beth uneasy.

If you are in any way remiss in this, Miss Lonsdale has been instructed to report to me

She had been training alone for most of her life.

She might be alcoholic, but she was not a fool.

She had flirted with alcohol for years. It was time to consummate the relationship.

You’re all greedy cocksuckers!”

orphanage gave her.

lying on her cot in her faded blue pajamas