Claus Trilogy (Boxed Set)

by Tony Bertauski

  “Olivah. Be so kind as to greet our guests.”

  He opens the large door, and a bitter breeze hits him.

  Grandmother goes out to the porch.

  Mom continues staring, as if the ghost of her mother is still in front of her. In a few words, Grandmother kicked the legs out from Mom’s life, spilling her emotions all over the floor. She picks them up, though, and gives Oliver a half-empty smile before going to the porch.

  A slender woman gets out of the driver’s side, with a low-cut blouse. Round sunglasses, lenses the size of coasters, are perched on Aunt Rhonnie’s pointy nose. She waves, fingers only, but her bright red lips don’t move as she strides around the front of the car, her heels spiking the sidewalk, with a furry coat over her arm.

  “Mother,” she says.

  They don’t hug, but rather loosely take each other’s arms and air-kiss each cheek. She’s a stretched and younger version of Grandmother with a wrinkle-free complexion that’s smooth, yet plump and expressionless—courtesy of her plastic surgeon.

  Mom’s twin sister—fraternal twin sister—approaches her.

  “Welcome home, sister,” she says. They embrace like normal people, without the fake kisses. Aunt Rhonnie holds her at arm’s length. “Look at you with all your earrings and inner beauty. You look wonderful, you really do.”

  “And you, with your Michael Kors sunglasses and perfect skin.”

  “And who’s your date?” She lowers her sunglasses. “Don’t tell me…oh my Lord! This handsome young man can’t be! It just can’t be!”

  Her lined lips form a circle that swoop in to plant a sticky kiss on Oliver’s cheek. She wraps her bony arms around him, pulling him against her engorged chest until he smells like a cosmetics sampler.

  “You look wonderful, Oliver,” she says. “You really do. You remind me of your handsome father, all dressed up like a grown-up. Let’s go inside before I catch pneumonia. I’m not made for this weather; I don’t know why I live here.”

  She rushes into the foyer.

  Grandmother and Mom follow. Oliver is last, wondering how long she’s staying with the car still running.

  “Where are the twins?” Mom asks.

  “They’re finishing their games. They’ll be inside as soon as they’re done. Oh my Lord, I am so happy to see you. It’s so nice to have the family together. When’s the last time we had tea?”

  “A while,” Mom says.

  “Actually, never,” Aunt Rhonnie says. “Oliver was too young. This is going to be so much fun, I can hardly stand it. Let me powder my nose. I must look dreadful after being in the car. Really, Mother, you need to move into the city. There’s no point staying on the property.”

  Aunt Rhonnie, still wearing her sunglasses, sways down the hallway. Oliver waits for one of the pointy heels to hammer into the floor.

  Grandmother goes to the kitchen.

  Mom licks her finger to wipe the lipstick off Oliver’s cheek.

  “You wait here,” she says, as if there’s a war zone down the hallway. She rubs his hair, kisses his head, and goes headlong into the battle.

  Oliver stays put as a draft creeps under the door and up the pant legs crumpled around his shiny shoes. A door slams outside, followed by another.

  Henry adjusts his tie as he waits for Helen to come around the car. The twins open the front door without knocking. They stand across from Oliver, shoulder to shoulder like a pair of aliens. A few years older and just as many inches taller than Oliver, they have blond hair that, if he’s not mistaken, is too blond. Almost gold.

  Their features are angular, like Aunt Rhonnie’s. Helen’s hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail that, seventy years from now, will be gray and wrapped in a bun. She’s sort of sucking in her cheeks.

  They look like a commercial.

  “Where’s Mother?” Henry slicks his hair to the side without disturbing the part.

  “They went that way.”

  And then the two, side by side, walk down the dim hallway. Oliver stays at the front door until his legs turn cold.

  ***

  Mom is in the kitchen.

  She’s hyper-focused on arranging silver pots and bowls and miniature spoons on an oval silver tray with intricate etchings. Muscles are bunched on her shoulders. She doesn’t notice him standing behind her as she fills one of the bowls with sugar cubes.

  “Are you all right?” Oliver asks.

  She drops the last sugar cube and curses. She covers her mouth and giggles, letting the tension fall away as she rubs her face and curses quietly again.

  “Oooh.” She sighs. “It feels like we’ve been in this house forever.”

  Strangely, this still feels like an adventure to Oliver. Parts of Mom, though, have never left this house.

  “Can I help?” he asks.

  She directs him to fill the other tray with scones and condiments from the refrigerator. He puts it together, but Mom starts methodically changing the placement of the little pitchers and plates.

  “Grandmother’s thing is tea,” she says. “When I was little, I’d focus on the details to make it go faster. If I didn’t think about it, just engaged in the action one hundred percent, no matter how I felt about it, then it was over before I knew it.”

  She tweaks the orientation of a small knife.

  “We did this every time we had company. It’s her ice breaker.”

  “More like ice maker.”

  Mom snorts.

  She pinches her nose, but it doesn’t help. Oliver smothers his laughter. She turns away, twice, before getting herself under control. Straightening the wrinkles in her dress, she says, “Let’s get serious.”

  Once the trays are ready, they exit the kitchen and stop at the dining room, where company sits properly in their high-backed chairs. Grandmother is at the head of the table. Aunt Rhonnie and the twins are to the left.

  “Tea,” Mom announces, “is served.”

  The sarcasm is skillfully camouflaged, yet highlights the absurdity of bizarro world. Oliver waits for Mom to place her tray before putting his down.

  “Very strong boy,” Aunt Rhonnie says. Her sunglasses are hooked on the neckline of her blouse, exposing more of her very bony, very tan chest. Her eyes are intensely blue, like they’ve been Photoshopped.

  Once they’re seated to the right of Grandmother, tea begins.

  They pass around the sterling silver decanter and pour the stringent, hot tea through a screen to filter the loose leaves. The small boats of lemon wedges and pitchers of milk are passed around. The twins, sitting ramrod straight with eyes cast down, drop three cubes of sugar with silver tongs into their cups and stir with miniature spoons without making a sound.

  “You two, stop it,” Aunt Rhonnie says. “Oliver can’t have sugar.”

  She says it as if he’s an alcoholic and they’re guzzling booze. He pours creamer into his cup and remains unnoticed until his spoon clinks the porcelain.

  Grandmother’s lips tighten.

  Rule #954: Don’t clink your cup.

  Everyone samples the tea with pinkies properly curled inward and not, as Grandmother explained, extended. That sort of nonsense is for the movies. They sip silently, staring down so as not to spill a drop. There’s a long pause before the scones are passed around.

  “So, Mother,” Aunt Rhonnie says, “how do you like your new roommates?”

  “There have been no surprises.”

  Oliver doesn’t know what that means, but Mom flinches.

  “Sometimes predictability is nice,” Aunt Rhonnie says. “Lord knows, my life could use some. I was just saying that the other day.”

  She plies a scone with strawberry jam and talks about her divorce lawyer’s counterproposal to her soon-to-be ex-husband’s ridiculous offer. They’ll just end up paying the lawyers more money, and, Lord knows, lawyers already make enough.

  “I mean, what I offered the first time was more than fair. It could’ve ended right there. But if he wants to play games, then okay, let’s
play.”

  She tears a piece off the scone with her long, red fingernails.

  “How’s school?” Mom asks.

  The twins look up, but Aunt Rhonnie answers. Helen had the lead in the school play and received a standing ovation. She posted pictures on Facebook, didn’t they see them? Mom really needs to move into the twenty-first century and get an account. If she did, she’d also know that Helen just got her first modeling job. There’s a chance that she’ll end up in J. Crew’s fall catalog.

  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

  Mom watches the twins dress their scones with jam and clotted cream and dab their mouths while Aunt Rhonnie describes Henry’s violin concert.

  “He received a standing ovation, and, believe me, he deserved it.”

  “School play, huh?” Mom says to Helen. “Was it hard memorizing your lines?”

  “We practiced every night,” Aunt Rhonnie says.

  “Were you nervous?”

  “Nervous?” Aunt Rhonnie says. “This girl has ice running through her veins.”

  Helen takes a carefully measured sip of the sugared tea while Aunt Rhonnie describes how much the costumes cost. Helen focuses on placing the cup back on the saucer without a clink. Is she doing the same as Mom, keeping her mind empty to get this over with?

  “Henry.” Mom pauses until he makes eye contact. “Did you bring your violin?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  He hides behind his teacup, and Aunt Rhonnie describes the magical concert. They just have to come to the next; it has to be seen to be believed.

  Mom exhales very slowly.

  In the meantime, Grandmother cuts her scone into bite-sized pieces and chews twenty times apiece. She may as well be having tea alone.

  Oliver’s scone tastes like a clod of flour.

  Against his will, he swallows a gulp of tea to wash it down and receives a glance from Grandmother. You don’t wash down scones with tea.

  “What do you do, Oliver?” Aunt Rhonnie asks.

  All attention turns to him. He’s slouching. This time, he pretends to sip from the cup.

  “What do I do?” he replies.

  “In your spare time.”

  “Mostly read, I guess.”

  “Smarty pants, huh? You hear that, Henry? Oliver likes to read. Henry read all of the Hunger Games books in a day and the Harry Potter books, all seven of them, in a week and, let me tell you, those last two were ridiculously thick. I mean, there’s like 200,000 words or more in each one. Can you believe that?”

  Oliver fakes another sip. He likes Aunt Rhonnie. No one looks at you when she’s in the room.

  “What else?” she asks.

  “Ma’am?”

  “What else besides reading? Surely, you’ve been doing something else in this house besides reading. What else do you like to do?”

  “Oh, um.” He thinks about the journals in his room and feels his face warm. “Chores.”

  Mom snorts. She quickly lifts her cup.

  Aunt Rhonnie’s perma-grin falters. “Chores? You like chores?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The funny thing is, he sort of meant it. He didn’t mind the shoveling and making his bed and all the ritual that went with preparing meals and cleaning. Before they moved, he was glued to his phone. Maybe he wouldn’t feel the same if he hadn’t discovered the garage and the mystery in this bizarro world.

  “How is our chore master, Mother?” Aunt Rhonnie asks.

  Grandmother dabs her mouth. “Olivah has done a fine job.”

  And that’s all she says. It’s all she needs to say. It’s as close to a compliment he’s ever heard. It makes him feel warm and fuzzy.

  “Chores and reading, then,” Aunt Rhonnie says. “Good…that’s good.”

  “Don’t forget handsome,” Mom adds.

  They finish tea and learn more about Rhonnie’s new career opportunity as a model consultant. Oliver doesn’t have to talk. And that’s just fine. Instead, he imitates the twins’ mechanical tea performance, lifting and sipping, eyes cast down. He even finishes the scone by chopping uniform slices and chewing twenty times. Before he knows it, tea is over.

  Later, he goes outside for exercise.

  That’s when he meets the real twins.

  F L U R Y

  seven

  Henry’s on the back porch, dressed in a wool coat buttoned just past his waist. He tucks a black scarf around his neck and, looking up at the clear sky, slides on a dark pair of sunglasses. With his hands in his front pockets, he passes Oliver and peeks through the garage window.

  “Wish we could go in there, right?” he says. “That’s the one door the old lady never forgets to lock.”

  Oliver doesn’t comment. Maybe I got lucky.

  “You see that car?” Henry spits a hole in the snow. “We ever get the keys to that, Ollie, we’re going on a road trip and never coming back.”

  The back door closes again. This time, Helen comes down the steps, pulling on gloves. Her sunglasses came off the same rack as her mom’s.

  Henry starts towards the windmill.

  “Are we taking Ollie?”

  “We can’t leave him.”

  “We’re not taking him with us, Henry.” Helen still hasn’t looked at Oliver. “I don’t trust him.”

  “He’s family.”

  “You’re hilarious.”

  Henry looks back at the house, then at the windmill. “You a rat, Ollie?”

  “What?”

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on, walk with us.”

  Helen leads them toward the windmill that, mercifully, continues its silent mechanical churn. Despite the sunny day, the cold air pinches Oliver’s nose and cheeks. Henry hooks his arm around Oliver’s shoulders.

  “We’ve been coming out here since we were born, Ollie. We’ve done more chores than indentured servants. You seem like a smart kid, doing your work without complaining. That’s how you work the old lady, just do what she says and shut your mouth. But how long have you been out here? Two weeks?”

  Oliver nods.

  “That means you don’t know squat. Am I right, Helen?”

  She’s ten steps ahead. Henry stops at the foot of the windmill and, with lips forming a circle, exhales a column of steam.

  “I like your cap,” he says. “Where’d you get it?”

  “My mom.”

  “Yeah? Like an early Christmas present?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Nice. Let me try it, see if it fits.”

  Oliver’s legs get colder.

  “Come on,” Henry says. “I’m thinking about getting one. That’s all. Don’t be a selfish turd.”

  Oliver hesitates before pulling the cap off. He can feel the heat seep from his scalp. Henry pulls it over his product-stiff hair. He checks his reflection in his sunglasses.

  “Helen, what’d you think?”

  Now thirty steps away, she turns around, hugging herself. “You look like a douche.”

  Henry chuckles before scooping up a handful of snow and heaves a snowball at her. She starts for the open field again.

  “Come on.” Henry whacks Oliver in the chest. “You going to let her get away with insulting your hat? Nail her one, why don’t you.”

  Oliver keeps his hands in his pockets. The cold fear seeps into his stomach. Henry smacks him again and points in his face.

  “Don’t leave me hanging, Ollie. You throw a snowball.”

  Oliver bends over slowly, giving Helen enough time to get well out of range before throwing one short.

  Henry snatches two fistfuls of his coat.

  “What are you doing, throwing a snowball at my sister?” His eyebrows furrow behind his sunglasses, his teeth clenched between tightly drawn lips. Oliver stares at his black reflection in the lenses, the cold fear creeping into his arms. They’re still in view of the house.

  Henry lightly slaps his cheek. “I’m just playing.”

 
He drags Oliver with his arm hooked around his neck. They follow Helen’s tracks around the trees. She’s yelling at them to hurry up.

  When the house is out of sight, Henry straightens Oliver’s collar.

  “You’re a good kid. You’re smart, you read and all that good stuff. I trust you can get lost for an hour. Don’t let the old lady see you wandering around on your own.”

  “What if she comes outside?”

  “Grandmother? You joking? Have you ever seen the old lady outside? Besides going to the garage, I’ve never seen her come off the front porch. And I mean never. Don’t let any of them see you, for that matter.”

  Helen has already started across the open field, her shoulders hunched.

  “We’re going that way, Ollie. Don’t follow us.”

  Oliver nods.

  “I mean, don’t follow us ever.”

  Pause. And nod.

  “Good.” Another playful slap. This time it stings. “This is your test. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  Oliver stands near the trees, watching Henry catch up to his sister. The cold is feasting on his ears, but he doesn’t move until they reach the other side and slip between the trees.

  He has one hour to kill.

  ***

  Oliver had no intention of coming to the garage.

  It would’ve been safer to wait. But Henry took his stocking cap, and his head feels like a block of ice. Oliver goes to the house and, after knocking off the snow, goes inside. He announces that he’s just come to use the bathroom and do a quick blood test. Henry and Helen are waiting for him in the field.

  He sneaks up to his room and, listening for footsteps, stuffs one of the journals down his pants.

  Aunt Rhonnie is in the kitchen, pouring liqueur into a cup of coffee. Oliver rushes out before she starts talking, and finds himself, after wandering through the trees, going to the garage door.

  Once again the doorknob turns easily.

  Oliver opens his coat. He’s got an hour before he needs to be at the field, pretending to wait for the twins to return. He sets the alarm on his phone and crawls under the bench.