Rock, Paper, Scissors Read online

  At home Patricia’s sitting in front of the computer, her coat on. Her striped scarf has fallen to the floor. She leans forward, craning her neck, her face to the screen. The hallway light spills into the half-lit living room. She’s put a bowl of oranges on the coffee table. The cat sleeps in the armchair. Thomas stands in the doorway observing her. “Hey,” he says finally. She glances up. “Oh, hi baby. I’m almost done. Sorry, it’s just these pictures for the catalog. The graphic designer keeps putting them in wrong . . .” She stares silently at the screen, he stares at her back. The living room: still life of woman with averted face. Thomas goes into the kitchen, where a tower of dishes is stacked up. He washes his hands and drinks a glass of water as he gazes out the window. He can see the river and the lights on the other side of it. A lightning bolt flashes across the sky, a thunderclap booms far away. It begins to rain. “How’d it go?” Patricia calls out. “Okay,” he mumbles, putting down his glass. He walks into the bedroom and sits on the bed. He picks up his pillow and buries his head in it. This is how I smell, he thinks, it’s me, this aroma, the smell is me, it’s what I give off and what I leave behind, traces of my aroma: me. I am here. I am in the pillow. It’s frightening. Then Patricia appears in the doorway. “What are you doing?” He tosses the pillow aside. “Is something wrong?” She’s taken off her coat, and her hair is gathered in a ponytail. There are wet splotches on the knees of her stonewashed jeans, and her mascara has left black marks around her eyes. Must be from the rain. “You look tired,” he says. “Have you even had dinner?” “I had a sandwich on the way home. We don’t have any bread.” She sits beside him. “You have sauce on your collar.” He nods. With her nail she scratches a little at the dried sauce. She strokes his cheek. She puts her arm around him. “Where’d you eat?” she asks softly. “At Luciano’s. Jenny insisted.” He puts his arm around her, and they sit like that for a while. He can’t stop thinking about how stiff and clumsy it feels. They undress in silence, she brushes her teeth, naked—he’s already in bed—and she brushes her hair. “How’s Jenny? Was she impossible? And what did the lawyer say?” Patricia sits on the edge of the bed and touches his arm. She has goose bumps on her thighs. Her dark hair scatters across her face when she yanks the hairband from her ponytail. “Are you free of your father’s debt?” He closes his eyes. His body is heavy as lead. His heart beats languidly, as though drugged.

  “Yes. If there is any,” he says, his voice raspy. “We’ve renounced everything. There shouldn’t be any problem. The county will pay for his funeral. But Jenny’s insisting that we have a ceremony.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Why ‘oh, no’?” He speaks with difficulty. It feels as though half his mouth is anesthetized. Patricia lies beside him on her back. The duvet rustles when she gathers it around her.

  “It’s just . . . the people who’ll attend. You know. That guy Frank,” she says in disgust, “do you think he’ll come? I’m sure he will. And the fat one, what’s his name again?”

  He’s almost asleep now, his leg jerking, halfway into a dream about a circus. In it he’s moving slowly through high grass, getting closer and closer. He hears music. The grass is crawling with grasshoppers.

  “Thomas?” She tugs at his arm. “Thomas. We should have sex now. It’s been weeks.”

  “I can’t,” he mumbles, “I’m sleeping . . .”

  He hears her distant sigh, then rolls onto his side. And he’s back with the circus. A girl on a carousel screeches with joy; she resembles Jenny. He senses the grasshoppers’ presence, a tickle, a sound, at once claustrophobic and alluring, and in the dream he regards his dirty, sunburned hand and realizes that he’s a boy, not a man as he first thought.

  The next morning he wakes at dawn. The sun’s shining through the slats in the blinds. Patricia’s fast asleep, her mouth open. Apparently she’s been pulling at her hair again, which she sometimes does in her sleep, because it’s completely rumpled on the left side. A strange habit. Carefully, he touches her shoulder. Her breasts look like two pink cupcakes. For a moment he feels a strong desire for her. Then it fades. He crawls out of bed, makes coffee, showers, shaves, and gets dressed. Patricia stumbles sleepy-eyed into the kitchen and sits at the little table in the corner. He pours her a glass of juice. “When will you get home tonight?” she asks. “Can you stop at the store on the way back? We don’t have anything. Buy some good bread.”

  She has a late meeting, so they arrange to make dinner at eight. He slurps the last of his coffee, then kisses her neck and cheek; she pulls his mouth to hers and pushes her tongue into it. He’s brushed his teeth, she hasn’t. “Get a bottle of wine, too,” she says, smiling. He removes his coat from the hook and stuffs the folder under his arm. He leaves the umbrella. Outside the air is mild and fresh after last night’s rain, the plane trees’ dense cluster of branches providing comfortable shade all the way to the train station. He loves their mottled trunks. He smokes a cigarette, and feels wide awake. He cuts across the street. Thomas O’Mally Lindström cuts across the street whistling with the sparrows circling overhead, after which he turns the corner and disappears into the darkness, down a long, dingy stairwell on his way to the train.

  Dressed in a light-blue shirt, Maloney kicks the coffee automat. His curly hair is still damp following his shower, or maybe it’s his sweat. Thomas suspects that he’s screwing Annie, their employee, and maybe they’ve just had a tryst in the back room. Maybe Maloney’s got high blood pressure. He’s grown heavier over the past few years, and he sure likes his fats and salts. These are the kinds of thoughts rumbling through Thomas’s head when Maloney shouts: “I hate this machine! Peter! Peter! Go get some coffee. Milk and sugar. You need money?”

  Thomas shakes his head, smiling.

  “It’s always on Fridays, have you noticed that? Always on fucking Friday when you fucking need your coffee the most. I’m calling the company to let them know they can pick up their machine and shove it up their asses. I won’t pay another penny on the installments for this piece of shit.” Maloney’s already on his way out of the office. “Are the deliveries arriving today? Did you talk to them?” he shouts. Thomas follows him. Maloney flicks the switch for the chandelier, Eva rolls up the vacuum’s hose; they exchange a greeting. She says, “Have a good weekend” in her oddly whispered, self-effacing way, bowing her head shyly—but what could she be shy about?—and dragging the vacuum cleaner into the hallway. She can’t be the one he’s fucking, Thomas thinks, inserting the key in the register. Now Maloney’s on the phone with the company that delivers their stock, and it sounds as if they aren’t coming today. He slams down the receiver and sighs. “Why does everything have to be so fucking difficult?” It’s a big store, a desirable location, and it’s been a paper and office supply shop for nearly one hundred years; they’ve maintained as much of the old, dark wood as possible. The chandelier hangs from the huge rosette on the ceiling, which is cleaned thoroughly with a toothbrush, and they’ve carefully renovated the built-in cabinetry with room for especially fine decorative paper and gold leaf. The broad wooden planks have been polished and lacquered. When they opened the store, Thomas spent weeks lying on the floor sealing the cracks with tar. That was a warm summer, he recalls, and I hadn’t met Patricia yet. Maloney was young and trim in those days, and he was dating a nougat-skinned beauty whom he consistently referred to as “the sex kitten.” In the evenings they drank beer at a café around the corner and discussed how rich they’d be if they did everything right. Right. What the hell is right? Thomas wonders. For a moment he feels the urge to kick the coffee automat—since it’ll have to be returned anyway. Instead he sits behind the counter and turns on the cash register screen. Pale sunlight cascades through the tall windows. Morning traffic rumbles in the distance. “Soon people won’t have any need for paper,” Maloney says. “Who writes a letter nowadays? Who can even write by hand? Tell me. And books? They’re on the way out, too. People sit around fiddling with their stupid digital devices on the train. Have y
ou noticed that? Wuthering Heights and Thomas Mann. It’s a joke. He and the Brontë sisters would turn in their fucking graves.”

  “Maybe they do.”

  “What?”

  “Turn in their graves.” Thomas looks out the window. Sees Peter balancing coffee cups and a bakery bag, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  “Did you know that Peter smoked?”

  “No. Nor do I fucking care,” Maloney says. “What a goddamn morning. I think I’ll go home.”

  “That must be why he’s always chewing gum. To hide it. The smell.”

  Maloney calms a little once he’s had two cups of coffee and gobbled a chocolate croissant. There’s an enormous zit on Peter’s cheek. Annie’s wearing a red dress that accentuates her wide hips; her arms are thick, and her mouth is small and narrow, with thin, tight lips. “Okay, we’re doing inventory today. You do rows one through four, Peter. Annie, you do the rest.” Thomas nods at her. “Don’t count the pasteboard. We’ve ordered more.”

  “But they haven’t arrived yet,” Annie says.

  “No, they haven’t,” Maloney says, sourly. “Turn in your lists to me before 1:00 P.M. We need to send our orders by 3:00.”

  “It’s usually before 4:00, isn’t it?” Annie raises her chin and looks at Thomas.

  “But today it’s before 3:00,” Maloney says, and Thomas asks: “Are we doing the books?”

  Maloney nods, then dries his cheek with the back of his hand. “I’ll start.”

  A moment of silence. Everyone’s thoughts seem to turn inward, sleepily holding their breath as if it was very warm. But it isn’t very warm.

  “What time is it?” Peter asks.

  Maloney points at the wall clock behind them.

  “Oh, yeah,” Peter says. “Sorry.”

  Annie stands and moves her big butt into the store.

  They open at 9:00 A.M. Annie and Peter begin, shelf by shelf, holding their lists under their arms. They look like two well-behaved students. Or assistants at a library. But Annie already looks older than when they hired her only a year ago—as if working in the store has worn her down. Thomas cleans the pen and pencil jars. Standing behind the counter, he gazes around the high-ceilinged room, letting his eyes roam across the products. He thinks: Half of everything here is mine. I have done it right. Then the door opens, and a mother with two small boys enters. They’re looking for tissue paper, felt-tip pens, and a printer cartridge. Between customers Thomas reads the newspaper, and at 10:30 he goes out to the sidewalk to smoke. It’s windy. Rotten leaves billow in the air and swirl around the street; the sky is suddenly dark and overcast. Earlier he’d found a notice in the local paper: “Convict Found Dead in Prison.” He tore it out and shoved it in his pocket. As long as Maloney doesn’t start in about selling party supplies, he thinks, extinguishing his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. That has never been the purpose of Maloney & Lindström. I should also quit smoking.

  Annie hands in her list before Peter does. Thomas is hungry. He drifts about aimlessly, adjusting things on shelves. Not surprisingly, the two small children left their greasy fingerprints on the silk paper. He flips over the two most visible packages. A group of twelve- or fourteen-year-old girls tumble through the door giggling and at once filling the store with their exclamations and shrill voices, their all-encompassing noise. With their eyes made up and clinking armbands. He doesn’t have the strength to deal with them. He makes eye contact with Annie and signals for her to watch them. It’s not unusual for girls that age to steal. Small flocks of girls, and always during lunch break. He suspects they go into all the stores on the street, one by one. Last time a girl stole a handful of panda bear erasers and one of the big electric pencil sharpeners. She had hidden them in her hat. He would have called her parents, but she cried in such a shameful, desperate way that he let her go. He finds Maloney staring out the office window. “What’s up?”

  Maloney starts. “Halfway there.” Thomas closes the door and sits on the edge of desk. “Are you sleeping with Annie?” Maloney stares dumbly at him, then bursts into laughter. “Thomas!” he says, “What are you talking about? Annie! What thoughts you have in your little head.” Grinning, he leans back, stops laughing. He eyes Thomas. “What’s going on with your dad? Did you talk to the lawyer? Yesterday, right? Let’s go get some lunch.” Maloney’s in the habit of asking questions and not waiting for a response. They retrieve their coats from the hallway closet and tell Peter they’re going on break. Maloney orders a sandwich with extra bacon, Thomas the soup of the day and a salad. They sit in the far corner, as usual. “They’re coming to pick up the coffee automat on Tuesday,” Maloney says, shoving a rather too large bite (bacon smothered in mayonnaise) into his mouth with his finger. “I let them have it, this little underling who sounds like someone jammed a carrot up his ass, telling me all about the rules—when the fucking piece of shit doesn’t even work.”

  “Maloney . . .”

  “Someone has to make sure things work.”

  “My sister’s taking the death pretty hard.” Thomas hears how formal he sounds—the death—but he can’t say “my father’s death.” He can’t say “my father.”

  “Oh, Jenny with the blonde hair,” Maloney mumbles, chewing energetically. “I did bang her, though it was a long time ago now. But Annie? How could you think that? Ha! She’s gained weight, hasn’t she? Your sister? So has Annie for that matter.”

  “She has to go to the apartment, she said.”

  “Jenny’s so . . . emotional. Isn’t she? Tears and laughter mixed into one. It’s like she can’t quite control which emotions connect to which expressions. What is that called again?”

  “Histrionic.”

  “No, sensitive. It’s a charming character trait.” Maloney looks at him while cleaning his teeth with his tongue.

  “It’s almost over, Tommy. When are you dumping him in the ground?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I’ll come if you want me to. You haven’t touched your soup.” Maloney wipes his mouth with his napkin and drains his soda. With two fingers he lifts a leaf of lettuce from Thomas’s plate, then lets it drop. “I remember Jacques. His glistening gray suit. Was it grease? Was it greasy? Is that why it glistened?” He glances up from Thomas’s salad. “I’m coming to that shitty funeral, whether you want me to or not, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  They stop a moment to admire the show window, which they’re both happy with, before they enter the store. It’s 2:00 P.M. Customers are beginning to arrive. It’s already busy: Annie works efficiently behind the register, while Peter advises people, retrieves items from the storeroom, and crawls up the ladder if anyone wants something from the top shelves. Thomas feels a momentary pang in his stomach, a rapping in his soul, a delight for the store, for its bustle, for the fact that they actually own this place. That he’s made it this far. That he’s risen out of the shithole he grew up in. That the store’s actually successful, the employees, their employees, his shelving system (his own certain sense of style). That they don’t have carpet on the floor. Satisfaction for his satisfaction, oh, satisfaction for satisfaction. Because recently a kind of lethargy has crept into him, a certain undefined disquiet or boredom (is it boredom?). But at this moment a twinge, a pang, when he strolls through the store nodding at customers and warmly greeting the sweet visual artist with the studio around the corner; she’s looking for colored acrylics and can’t find the magenta or the ultramarine. He calls for Peter, and Peter immediately goes to the basement, and the visual artist smiles gratefully. Walk down the short hall, open the office door, get the rest of the accounting done before closing time. He’s just sat down to it when Jenny calls.

  “Oh, Thomas . . .” He can’t tell whether she’s sniffling or there’s some other sound in the background. “Oh God, it looks awful here . . .”

  “What looks awful?”

  “This place looks AWFUL, Thomas.”

  “Are you in the apartment?”

  A strang
e sound emerges from her.

  “Of course it looks awful there. What did you expect?”

  She snorts hysterically.

  “Call a taxi, Jenny, go home. I’m hanging up, and you’re calling a taxi. Okay?” He hears her sitting down on something soft and creaky. Must be the armchair.

  “C’mon, Jenny.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t what?”

  “I can’t stand up.”

  “But you just sat down.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can hear you.”

  “What can you hear? You can’t hear anything! You have eyes in the back of your head, you spy!”

  “You’re sitting in Dad’s moth-eaten armchair staring at the television.”

  “There’s no television here anymore.” Her voice quivers. “Someone took the television, Thomas. The apartment’s been ransacked. Everything’s gone, everything. It’s so dusty here, so disgusting . . .”

  “Of course it’s dusty. I’m hanging up now. Call a taxi.”

  “Don’t you give me orders! You always give me orders. I’ve never been allowed to decide ANYTHING for myself. Always you. Or Dad. Or some other fucking stupid bastard!” Jenny breathes excitedly into the phone, seething. He has never heard her say fucking before. Now her mouth is close to the receiver, her voice dark and husky, thrusting the words: “They have ta-ken the tele-vis-ion, Tho-mas.”

  Maloney enters the office. He glances curiously at Thomas. Thomas writes “Jenny, hysterical” on a slip of paper.

  “I’m hanging up now. Bye, Jenny. Bye.” He hangs up.

  “I need to pick her up,” Thomas grumbles. “I don’t know if I’ll be back today.”

  He gets to his feet, snatches up his briefcase, and removes his coat from the hallway closet. Then he rushes through the store without saying goodbye to anyone, despite the inquisitive look Annie gives him. The glass door glides closed behind him. He lights a cigarette, hails a cab. Before the cab arrives, he gets Jenny on the phone again. Howling now and incoherent.