Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“And now that Dad’s dead. .” Jenny looks at Thomas, her eyes wet.

“But Jenny. He was gone before he died.” Thomas smiles at Kristin.

“I remember how anxious you two always were whenever you visited me in my apartment with the roof terrace. Remember? We used to eat ice cream up there when you came by during the summer. Jenny didn’t like strawberry ice cream. Do you remember that, Jenny?”

“But why did we see you if Mom didn’t want to see us? Did she even know we were visiting you?” Jenny interrupts fervently, raising her hand to her mouth.

“Of course she knew,” Kristin says. “Our father was furious that she wouldn’t see you. There was a lot of drama. But he was already an old man by then, you know, and Jacques had custody, so there honestly wasn’t much we could do. Like I said before you got here, Thomas, Agnes was at a very low point when she left. And I never saw much of her after that, either. She refused to come back. She believed that distance would make it all go away. Don’t you think I tried to convince her to come back? Of course I did, but it didn’t help. I was so young. And I only saw her a few times during those years, with the exception of when she was dying. And then it was always me who visited her—”

“Did you bring pictures of us with you?” Jenny cuts in.

“Yes. But to be honest, she didn’t want to see them.”

Sobbing soundlessly, Jenny lowers her head.

“That’s how it was, Jenny. It didn’t have anything to do with you two. It was all about Jacques and your mother.”

Automatically Thomas reaches for Jenny and pulls her close, as he has so many times before. Her tears don’t affect him. What matters is only that he make her stop crying. Alice approaches with a washcloth in her hand and large, worried eyes.

“What’s wrong with Mom? Why are you crying?”

“It’s just all this about our mother,” Thomas says. “She’ll be okay in a bit. Right, Jenny?”

“Yeah,” Jenny sobs, drying her eyes with her sleeve. Thomas makes eye contact with Alice; she nods and heads back to the dishes.

“One time I visited her we did something fun,” Kristin says. “God, it was actually really hysterical. Let’s have a glass of wine!” She goes off and returns with glasses and a bottle of Bordeaux. She pours. Jenny takes a big swig, tossing her head back. She smiles. The role of victim, Thomas thinks bitterly, it’s a rehearsed grimace, a bad habit of hers. Jenny sniffles. Kristin leans back elegantly in her chair, glass in hand: “We’d dressed up in men’s clothes and gone to a huge party, the opening of some exhibition. She used to hang out in artist circles, and I’m sure you’ve already figured out that I was the one who most looked like a man. By the time we arrived we were pretty drunk, and the whole time I had to keep forcing Agnes’s hair back up under her bowler.” Kristin sniffs her drink.

“You were wearing hats ?” Jenny says.

“Of course we were wearing hats. Well, but anyway, we were very giddy and pretty self-absorbed. But then there’s this very attractive woman who was basically blitzed. She’d probably snorted some coke too — pretty much everyone at that party did — and it seemed like she really believed we were men. She buzzed around us, and then she began hitting on Agnes, in a drunk and sweetish way. We tell her that we’re brothers, and I grab champagne for the three of us, and this girl, have I mentioned that she’s super hot?” Kristin drinks, laughs. “At some point people begin to dance, and we ask the girl to dance. We have a really great time pretending to dance just like men do, and the girl, she’s just crazy about these two gallant brothers she’s run into. Then it happens: She wraps her arms around your mother’s neck and kisses her.”

Jenny: “Kisses her how ?” And then, shocked: “With her tongue ?”

Kristin: “Oh, yes. And there’s nothing left to do but to continue the joke, so your mother gives me a look of desperation, but she needs to kiss her back. Meanwhile I’m howling with laughter inside. It was just too funny. Your mother’s arms are rigid with fear. But what’s worse, as the night wears on the girl wants to come home with us. Naturally, I’m really interested in her, so your mother and I squabble in the men’s room. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea at all, but I always won those kinds of arguments, even though I was the youngest. And I won in this situation, too. We managed to get the girl maneuvered to a cab.”

Thomas and Jenny hang on Kristin’s every word, riveted. From the kitchen Helena calls out, “Are you telling the Chaplin and Chaplin story?”

Smiling, Kristin nods.

“Chaplin and Chaplin?” Thomas says.

“Because of the hats,” Kristin says. “Helena thinks we must have looked like two Charlie Chaplins.”

“What happened next?” Jenny’s mouth is set grimly now.

“Well, we take the girl home. I’ll spare you all the intimate details. But after a lot of fuss, I’m the one who tries to seduce her. We’re all lying on Agnes’s mattress. But in the dark the girl can’t tell the difference between us, so she’s willing enough at first. By this point, your mother has long since fallen asleep in her fancy suit.”

“And she realizes that you’re not Mom?” Jenny asks.

“You can bet your bottom dollar on that. But most importantly she realizes I’m not a man! So she shoots out of bed like a rocket and gets dressed.”

“Was she ticked off?”

“Oh, yeah. But she was so drunk that it wasn’t an especially convincing anger. And even though I was disappointed, it was just so funny that I had to wake your mother. For the rest of the night, we sat there bawling with laughter. Ha! Agnes definitely had a sense of humor when she felt like it. I can still see it clearly. The girl’s name was Denise. We were constantly making Denise jokes after that.” Kristin shakes her head, laughing, and drains her glass.

Thomas doesn’t know what to say. Jenny’s folded her arms on the table and dropped her head onto them. She sighs. “Well!” Kristin says, standing. “Is it time to set the table, Helena?” They call the twins downstairs, and they begin to set out the plates and silverware. Luke places a large bowl of salad in the center of the table. “Where can I smoke?” Thomas asks.

“It’s okay if you smoke in the sunroom,” Helena says.

“Come,” Thomas says to Jenny, pulling her along, first through the kitchen then through the enormous living room, with its wood-frame couch and beanbag chairs. Hanging on the wall over the couch is one of Helena’s tapestries. Its color scheme is olive-green, yellow, and reddish-brown. Jenny pauses. “Is this a new one? Do you think it’s made of wool from the sheep?”

“No doubt,” Thomas mumbles, rooting around in his pants pocket for his cigarettes.

“I bet she dyed it herself with plants and bark or something.”

Jenny throws open the sunroom doors and sits in a wicker chair. She’s surrounded by geraniums. Her salmon-colored dress is stretched tightly across her chest. She crosses her legs and looks at him. “Well?” she says.

Thomas lights a cigarette and sucks the smoke into his lungs. “Why in the world is Luc here?”

She shrugs. “Ask Alice. And his name is Luke.”

“He has no business being here, whatever the hell his name is.”

“You don’t get to decide that. Let me have a drag.”

He hands her the cigarette, but she does nothing more than shift the smoke around in her mouth before blowing it out.

“Are they dating?”

“No idea.”

“So what then?”

Jenny yawns. “I really don’t know, Thomas. Does it even matter?” They can hear the wind in the trees. A breeze. For a moment they both relax and are silent. The weak soughing of the leaves is calming. But then Jenny says, “It’s incredibly upsetting for me to hear about Mom. Kristin’s so brutally honest. She’s totally insensitive.”