Naja Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors

“But Jenny, as you can tell, has immense and underappreciated musical talents,” he says, which makes Alice laugh without restraint.

“I love you all the same, you idiot. You know that,” Jenny says. “That’s the problem, of course.” And she looks as though she’s about to cry again, but no tears come.

“So you love him even though he can’t play guitar?” Alice teases her mother.

“No. I love him even though sometimes I don’t want to.”

“Hey, thanks. Right back at ya,” Thomas says, smiling at his sister. Maloney raises his voice: “I’m going to let you two figure that out together, that’s a little too intimate for me.” He glances cheerfully at Thomas. Jenny drains her glass.

They sing more songs. The twins do this silly dance, keeling over laughing the entire time. Finally they throw themselves into the beanbag chair. Kristin hammers on the bongo that Helena uses to meditate. Then Maloney and Jenny go to bed. Jenny gives Alice a long goodnight hug, which seems to surprise Alice, who rests her slightly baffled face stiffly against her mother’s shoulder, until at last she wraps her arms around Jenny’s buxom body and surrenders herself. For a moment she appears blissful. It’s 10:30. Maloney bows to the group and keeps close to Jenny as she, stumbling in her high-heels, waves to everyone. Her dress is creased in the back. She’s walking inward , Thomas thinks, as if she were knock-kneed. They begin kissing even before they’re beyond the kitchen door, Maloney practically munching on Jenny’s mouth, her hands gliding up under his shirt. Thomas turns away in a kind of stunned disgust. And yet he looks again, but by then they’ve disappeared from sight, the door slamming shut behind them. “So!” Helena says to the twins, “bedtime.” The girls don’t want to go to bed, but after some complaining and nagging, they slink away after all. “Goodnight, Uncle Thomas,” Nina whispers sleepily.

“Goodnight, Niece Nina. Sweet dreams.”

“What do we do now?” Patricia asks, trying to stifle a yawn. “Maybe we should go to bed too?” “Wait,” Luke says, standing. Soon he returns with a bottle of tequila. He holds it up to the light so they can see the worm floating in the liquor. “Okay,” Kristin says. “I’ll get some glasses.” They each down a shot. And another. Then Helena decides she doesn’t want any more. She laughs and tilts her head back.

“Oh, do you remember that time you had to carry me home, dear? Because I remember it! Tequila makes a person so crazy, I went out like a light.”

“I carried her on my back. Luckily she was light as a feather,” Kristin says tenderly, rubbing Helena’s wrist and her imperceptibly pulsing vein. “You still are. .”

“Listen,” Luke says. “Let’s recite poetry. You guess the poem and score points for each correct answer.”

“Poetry!” Kristin refills her glass, then rolls her eyes. “I don’t know any poems by heart.”

“Of course you do.” Helena arches forward and whispers something in Kristin’s ear.

Alice leans back on the couch’s pillows. “How many points?”

“Five for the poet’s name, five for the title, and five for the name of the collection in which the poem was first published. You get five bonus points if you can name either the year the poem was written, or the publication year of the book the poem first appeared in.”

“Huh, that sounds complicated,” Kristin sighs.

“What about suites?” Patricia says. “What about literary journals? If it was printed in a magazine before it was published in a book? And if it was only published that way?”

“That doesn’t count. But you get a bonus for suites. What should we say? Three extra points?”

“Five,” Patricia says.

“You must be hoping for a suite, huh?” Alice nudges Patricia teasingly, who’s now leaning back with a cushion under her knees. Patricia smiles at her.

“What if you only know the first verse?” Alice asks.

“That’s enough. A few lines are enough,” Luke replies. He draws columns in his notebook for scoring.

So he carries a notebook in his pocket, Thomas thinks. I wonder what he writes in it? Luke looks at Thomas. “Who wants to go first?”

“We need another drink first,” Thomas says. “To kickstart our brain cells.”

“Ha!” Kristin slaps her thighs and extends her glass. Though this is her fourth shot, she doesn’t seem drunk at all.

They roll a die to determine who will start. Kristin wins.

“Okay,” she says. “Pay close attention: The opals hiding in your lids / as you sleep, as you mysteriously. . Oh, as you mysteriously . .” Kristin hesitates, glancing at the ceiling. “Ride ponies ! Yes. Ride ponies, spring to bloom/ like the blue flowers of autumn .”

Helena blushes a little. The others applaud.

“Wait,” Kristin says. “I remember some of the last part too.” She squeezes her eyes shut in concentration. “ Only by chance tripping on stairs / do you repeat the dance, and / then, impeccably dressed /, no, impeccably disguised! And then / impeccably disguised / so. . what is it?”

“ In the perfect variety . .” Helena says.

“Oh, yeah!” Kristin snaps her fingers. “ In the perfect variety of / subdued / white black pink blue saffron, ” she pats her cheek after each color, “ And golden ambiance, do we find / the nightly savage, in a trance! ”

“Wow!” Alice blurts out, “That’s awesome. Who wrote it?”

“Yes, who is it?” Kristin’s eyes gleam.

“You remembered it,” Helena whispers, squeezing Kristin’s knee.

“The nightly savage, in a trance,” Luke mumbles. “I pass. I don’t know it.”

“Come on! Thomas?”

Thomas shakes his head. They are silent. They glance curiously at each other. A new suspense, tension in the room.

“O’Hara,” Patricia says. “I don’t know where it was published the first time. But I’m guessing it was in the collection Meditations in an Emergency . Wasn’t it published in 1957? I can’t remember that at all. But in any case, it was in The Collected Poems , published after his death.”

“That’s right. It was in Meditations in an Emergency ,” Kristin says. “1957 is also correct. Well done!”

“What’s the title of the poem?” Luke has his pen ready.

Patricia shakes her head. “No — I can’t remember that.”

“Yes, you can, c’mon, babe.” Thomas is beginning to enjoy this game.

“May I help?” Kristin asks.

“No. You’re not allowed.” Luke is stony. He spins his pen around in his fingers.

“Well, I’m going to anyway. It was written to a female friend of his. She was in your line of business, Patricia. Sort of. He wrote more poems to her over the years.”

“Including a sonnet,” Helena adds.

Patricia considers. “Oh. .” she says. “Oh! It’s right on the tip of my tongue, I have it. . Is it. . hmm. . is it. . it’s Freilicher. Jane Freilicher. Isn’t it? The painter?”

Kristin nods. Alice and Thomas clap.

“But what’s the name of the poem?”

Patricia doesn’t know. “Something with Jane,” she suggests.

“Yes, but what ?”

“To Jane?”

Kristin shakes her head. Luke regards Patricia. “You give up?” She nods.

“ Jane Awake ,” Kristin says. “Doesn’t she get a point for getting half the title right?”

But Luke says no. Fifteen points for Patricia. You’ve got to follow the rules. A short discussion ensues about the fairness or unfairness of the rules, then they continue playing. Helena goes on and on about how important this O’Hara poem was for her and Kristin when they met, but no one’s really listening. Kristin needs to choose the next player. She points at Alice.