Read Online The Best American Short Stories® 2011 by Geraldine Brooks - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Geraldine Brooks
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rubbing. "Let the record show that the pregnant lady would like to see the Borghese Gallery."
The single drum of his fingers on the tabletop made a sound like a gallop. "One way to settle it."
She slammed her fork to the table with mock finality. "I'm not playing. Seriously. I won't do it."
He was nodding. "One way to settle it."
The man loved games of all kinds. Obscure board games, video games manufactured prior to 1990, any and all word games, but he also enjoyed purely biophysical games such as rock, paper, scissors—the "essential fairness" of which he claimed to particularly admire. He was, however, miserably bad at rock, paper, scissors, the reason being that he almost always took paper. She had once been told, as a girl, by some forgotten Hebrew school playmate, that while playing rock, paper, scissors you were allowed, once in your life, the option of a fourth component. This was fire, which was signified by turning up your hand on the third beat and wiggling your fingers. Fire destroyed everything. That this thermonuclear gambit could be used only once was a rule so mystically stern that its validity seemed impossible to question. She had told him of the fire rule when he first challenged her to rock, paper, scissors on their earliest date, which was not that long ago. At issue had been what movie to go see.
Now she said to him, "You do realize you always lose? You're aware of this."
He readied his playing stance: back against the chair, eyes full of blank concentration, right fist set upon the small shelf of his left hand.
She picked up her fork again and began to eat. Probably she would indulge him. "I'm not playing because it's boring. And it's boring because you always pick paper."
"I like its quiet efficiency. I could ask you why you always take scissors."
"Because you always take paper!"
"I am aware that you believe that, which means I'm actually taking paper to psych you out. Statistically I can't keep it up."
"But you
do.
The last time we played you took paper
four
throws in a
row.
"
"I know. And I can't possibly keep it up. Or can I? Now, best out of three. No. Five. Three. Best out of fthree." He was smiling again, his teeth no longer quite so stained by the wine and pepper oil. She loved him, she had to admit, a lot right now.
He threw paper for the first two throws. She threw rock for her first just to make the game interesting. After his second paper she fished an ice cube out of her hitherto untouched water glass and threw it at him. On the third throw she was astonished to see her husband wiggling his fingers.
"Fire," he said, extending his still-wiggling fingers so that they burned harmlessly beneath her nose. What he said next was sung in hair-metal falsetto: "Motherfucking fire!"
She pushed his hand away. "You didn't even know about fire until I told you about it!"
"Look on the bright side," he said. "I can never use it again, and you've still got yours."
"Please, honey,
please
button your shirt."
They descended in silence the zigzag stairs of the apricot building she now knew was called the Capuchin Crypt, passing a dozen American student-tourists sitting on, around, and along its stone balustrade. The boys, clearly suffering the misapplications of energy that distinguished all educational field trips, spoke in hey-I'm-shouting voices to the bare-shouldered and sort of lusciously sweaty girls sitting two feet away from them. She was upsettingly conscious of the adult conservatism of her thinly striped collared shirt and black skirt—she was not yet showing so much that her wardrobe required any real overhaul—and her collar, moreover, had wilted in the heat. She felt like a sunbaked flower someone had overwatered in recompense, and wondered how much older she was than these girls, who seemed less young to her than another species altogether. And yet she was only twenty-six, her husband thirty-four. Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the
The single drum of his fingers on the tabletop made a sound like a gallop. "One way to settle it."
She slammed her fork to the table with mock finality. "I'm not playing. Seriously. I won't do it."
He was nodding. "One way to settle it."
The man loved games of all kinds. Obscure board games, video games manufactured prior to 1990, any and all word games, but he also enjoyed purely biophysical games such as rock, paper, scissors—the "essential fairness" of which he claimed to particularly admire. He was, however, miserably bad at rock, paper, scissors, the reason being that he almost always took paper. She had once been told, as a girl, by some forgotten Hebrew school playmate, that while playing rock, paper, scissors you were allowed, once in your life, the option of a fourth component. This was fire, which was signified by turning up your hand on the third beat and wiggling your fingers. Fire destroyed everything. That this thermonuclear gambit could be used only once was a rule so mystically stern that its validity seemed impossible to question. She had told him of the fire rule when he first challenged her to rock, paper, scissors on their earliest date, which was not that long ago. At issue had been what movie to go see.
Now she said to him, "You do realize you always lose? You're aware of this."
He readied his playing stance: back against the chair, eyes full of blank concentration, right fist set upon the small shelf of his left hand.
She picked up her fork again and began to eat. Probably she would indulge him. "I'm not playing because it's boring. And it's boring because you always pick paper."
"I like its quiet efficiency. I could ask you why you always take scissors."
"Because you always take paper!"
"I am aware that you believe that, which means I'm actually taking paper to psych you out. Statistically I can't keep it up."
"But you
do.
The last time we played you took paper
four
throws in a
row.
"
"I know. And I can't possibly keep it up. Or can I? Now, best out of three. No. Five. Three. Best out of fthree." He was smiling again, his teeth no longer quite so stained by the wine and pepper oil. She loved him, she had to admit, a lot right now.
He threw paper for the first two throws. She threw rock for her first just to make the game interesting. After his second paper she fished an ice cube out of her hitherto untouched water glass and threw it at him. On the third throw she was astonished to see her husband wiggling his fingers.
"Fire," he said, extending his still-wiggling fingers so that they burned harmlessly beneath her nose. What he said next was sung in hair-metal falsetto: "Motherfucking fire!"
She pushed his hand away. "You didn't even know about fire until I told you about it!"
"Look on the bright side," he said. "I can never use it again, and you've still got yours."
"Please, honey,
please
button your shirt."
They descended in silence the zigzag stairs of the apricot building she now knew was called the Capuchin Crypt, passing a dozen American student-tourists sitting on, around, and along its stone balustrade. The boys, clearly suffering the misapplications of energy that distinguished all educational field trips, spoke in hey-I'm-shouting voices to the bare-shouldered and sort of lusciously sweaty girls sitting two feet away from them. She was upsettingly conscious of the adult conservatism of her thinly striped collared shirt and black skirt—she was not yet showing so much that her wardrobe required any real overhaul—and her collar, moreover, had wilted in the heat. She felt like a sunbaked flower someone had overwatered in recompense, and wondered how much older she was than these girls, who seemed less young to her than another species altogether. And yet she was only twenty-six, her husband thirty-four. Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the