Revision Notes
I find I’m mad at Bjorn and Trish. Their marital problems are ruining my romance novel. I know there’s supposed to be tension, but not theirs! I feel like taking them out. But then why would Richard be a guest in our house? And if I didn’t have a brother, I couldn’t be in love with his friend, could I?
I could just take Trish out, but that’s kind of hostile. I mean, she’ll read the book and wonder why everyone’s in it but her. I shouldn’t have to be worrying about all this.
I don’t want you to think that I’m one of those naive narrators who are the last ones to know what’s really happening in a story. I know who my antagonist is as well as you do, and in Chapter Seven she will accelerate her obnoxious behavior, increasing the level of dramatic tension ever so slightly. What are friends for?
I know why Ashley has been my friend. The trouble is I know how this book ends, and I’m not in any mood to give Ashley the benefit of the doubt. Still, I do, sadly, remember why I liked and, yes, needed her for my friend. A short list:
1. It was Ashley who allowed me to drop my owly, smart-girl self and entertained me with makeovers. She could do this thing with my eyes using pencils, creams, and little brushes, and suddenly I had dramatic eyes magnified by the glasses. She painted on cheekbones. “You look like Greta Garbo,” she’d say in her Greta Garbo voice. And the honest truth is I really do look better with lip gloss.
As long as I can remember, Ashley has had a closet of costumes—feathery boas, old hats with veils, and gold high heels with straps and glittery bows on top. We’d strut in front of the mirror and call each other Ashley dahling and Kate dahling. For hours at a time, Ashley showed me glamour. I will miss that.
2. She introduced me to trashy television, trashy reading, and trashy food, all of which I loved. Last year we watched Geraldo every afternoon. “An hour with dysfunctional people is so invigorating,” Ashley would say. “It makes me feel so emotionally stable. I think I’m turning into Joyce Brothers!” We criticized Geraldo’s mannerisms—“He strokes his own chest, he’s so proud of himself”—and laughed while stuffing down pounds of cheese puffs.
And, of course, those romance novels, which I didn’t have to read but did, because I, like a voyeur, really liked those three-paragraph, sweat-inducing kisses.
3. Ashley knew how to have fun. If it hadn’t been for her, I never would have rented Rollerblades and skated around Lake of the Isles. I never would have spray-painted minor obscenities on the faculty bathroom walls in middle school, the only act of vandalism of my life. I wet my pants, I was so scared. And so thrilled.
She was like having Pandora for a friend. I was never sure what would come out of her box to entertain or horrify me.
Last Christmas I found out what was in the bottom of that box.
* * *
TRISH WAS AT breakfast Christmas Eve morning, but not Bjorn. He had left the house earlier; no one knew where he’d gone. Divorce lawyer would have been my bet.
“I’d like to take individual Christmas portraits of everyone over the next couple of days. Would that be okay with you guys?” Trish spoke shyly, self-consciously. Perhaps she was embarrassed about walking out on us the night before. Perhaps she wondered if we had heard them fighting. I wondered what Mother and Dad had said to them.
“You can take my picture if you’ll be kind with the light,” my father said, handing her a plate of sausages. He held her shoulder. “This is my good side,” he said, tilting his head.
Trish smiled at him.
“I hope you’ll take us as a group as well,” Mother said.
“You want to remember the Christmas of the invaders?” Fleur was stabbing at a sausage.
“Yes, I do,” Mother said.
It was past ten o’clock, because we’d all gotten to bed so late. I wasn’t surprised when the back-door bell rang.
“Hello, Ashley,” I said, sounding like a school principal. My body blocked the doorway. The freezing air raised goose bumps on my skin immediately.
“Guess what?” she squealed. “I found the diamond earrings! My mother had them hidden in a drawer in the laundry room. They look gorgeous on me.”
“Great,” I mumbled. Ashley had never once been surprised on Christmas day. Manipulators don’t like surprises.
“Can I come in?” She glanced over my shoulder.
“We’re in the middle of breakfast,” I said, trying to keep from shivering. I folded my arms for warmth.
“Are you mad at me?” She seemed truly shocked.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.” I was glad suddenly to be six feet tall, looking down my nose.
“Because of what I said yesterday? I was just being honest.” She tried to peer over my shoulder.
“And now I’m being honest. You’re just using me to get to Rich when you know—you know”—I lowered my voice—“that I like Rich. I thought you were my friend.” I was shivering hard now, and suddenly I was afraid I would cry. The cold made it worse. Expressing my disappointment out loud made it worse.
“Kate, close the door, you’re freezing us out in here.” Mother appeared in the doorway. “Hi, Ashley, come in and join us for breakfast.”
Ashley stepped past me into the back hall. “Thanks, Mrs. Bjorkman. Just coffee would be nice.”
I closed the door and stood in the hall, hunched over, hugging myself, until I stopped shaking.
“Hi, you guys. Hi, Rich.” Ashley’s voice grated. The shivering started up again.
As she’d done yesterday morning, she had taken Mother’s chair next to Richard and was semihuddled against him. “I’m still cold,” she said breathlessly, heaving her breasts under Richard’s nose.
He smiled benignly.
“Why don’t you put your coat back on?” I said and wished I hadn’t. It sounded sullen, the way I felt.
“Do you still want help with your Desdemona paper?” Could Fleur sense my misery?
I nodded.
“Let’s run down to the university library the day after Christmas. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here after that.”
“Aren’t you leaving with the others?” I had heard Bjorn say they would leave after New Year’s because he wanted Trish to experience New Year’s Eve. It’s a kind of joke in our family.
“I was going to—” She smiled, embarrassed. “I was thinking maybe I should attend my mother’s wedding.”
“Oh, I forgot.” I had wondered last night why she would choose this Christmas to spend in Minnesota if her mother was getting married, but then I figured that a family with parents marrying over and over again operated under different rules.
“Don’t say anything to the others.” She had lowered her voice. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
I nodded.
The garage door opened, and a few minutes later Bjorn burst into the room with an armload of packages.
“I hope you bought me something small and expensive,” I said.
“Diamond earrings!” Ashley said.
Stuff the diamond earrings.
“Have you eaten?” Mother asked.
“No, and I’m starving,” Bjorn said.
There wasn’t a vacant chair in the room. “Sit here,” Richard said, standing. He moved over to the counter to make more pancakes.
Ashley looked disappointed.
“I drove past Como Lake this morning.” Bjorn’s look took in everyone, but Trish got the most repeated glances. “The snowplows have cleaned one section of ice for skating. I thought it might be fun to go—you know—” His eyes shifted again and again to Trish. Hadn’t they made up yet? “Go skating. What do you think?”
“I’ve never been ice-skating.” Fleur made it sound like bungee-jumping.
Richard turned away from the frying pan. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? To experience winter?”
“No, I think it’s great. Let’s do it.”
“Fleur and I don’t have any skates,” Trish said.
“I’m sure we
can find some around,” Mother said.
“If not, there’s a place where you can rent them,” Bjorn was quick to add.
“I’ll bring some cocoa in a thermos for everyone.” Ashley had found a way to be included.
MOTHER HAD FOUND skates that fit Trish and Fleur and was wiping them off in the front hall when she saw a boy carrying a large white box tied with a red ribbon walking up the front steps. “What’s this?” She opened the door before he had a chance to ring the doorbell.
“Delivery for Ms. Trish Bjorkman?” the boy said.
“Trish?” Mother turned.
“For me?” Trish rose from the stairs where she’d been sitting. She signed the receipt and took the long box from the boy. “Merry Christmas!” she called to him as he hurried down the walk. Her voice was the cheeriest I’d heard it in the last twenty-four hours.
She lifted the lid and folded back the tissue paper. “Oh, oh, how beautiful, how exquisite!” She leaned her face into the box to smell the roses.
Fleur picked up the card that had fallen to the floor and handed it to Trish. “Bet they’re not from Santa Claus,” she said, lips pursed.
“What’s holding up this show?” Richard came in from the kitchen, followed by Bjorn, who was working hard to keep his face neutral.
Trish, having read the note, swung on Bjorn, embracing him with her one free arm. “Of course I forgive you.” She kissed his lips. “Bjorn, they’re so beautiful.” She kissed him again. “I’ve never had such a lovely gift. Thank you!” Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Smooch. Smooch.
Bjorn had his arms around her. “Things okay now?”
“Yes, I love you so much.” Smooch again.
Mother, with a tight-lipped smile, was already on her way to the kitchen. “You’ll need a vase,” she said.
Something was wrong with this picture, but what? I felt exactly the way I had felt in Sims Market a few nights before, when Ashley and Kirk had “performed” in front of me. The roses were lovely and, yes, romantic. Trish was happy. Bjorn was happy. Why this feeling of mine? Perhaps it was that I was acutely aware that Mother thought a dozen roses were a profound cliché. She had said this many times. “A dozen lilies are far better.” Mother’s voice was loud in my head. Hadn’t Bjorn heard her say it?
He and Trish followed Mother into the kitchen, clinging to each other.
Fleur heaved what seemed to me a disgusted sigh. “Forgot my gloves.” She ran upstairs.
Richard stood at the edge of the dining room watching me, his hands in his coat pockets. “Bribery seems to be a strong aphrodisiac,” he said.
Bribery?
“I guess,” I said. I followed Fleur up the stairs for a second pair of wool socks in case I got cold.
In my bedroom, Fleur was ripping at her hair with a hairbrush. As usual, our eyes locked in the mirror. She stopped brushing. “Roses don’t solve anything. It’s just a bribe to get her to be nice to him again. My mother fell for it all the time. Geez.” She set the brush on the chest and turned around to face me directly. Her expression softened. “I’m sorry. Bjorn’s your brother—I have no right—”
My hand fluttered up. “No, it’s okay. In fact, Richard just called it a bribe too.” I didn’t quite understand. If Bjorn and Trish were now speaking to each other, wasn’t that a good thing?
Fleur read my thoughts. “The roses were a nice gesture, really. But they need to talk about how they’re going to make decisions when they don’t agree.”
Then lilies, I thought, even though they’re not a cliché, would have been a bribe too. They just would have been in better taste (according to Mother). Love was confusing. Even dangerous. I had sensed this when the roses arrived and Trish had forgiven Bjorn so easily. I believed Fleur, but I couldn’t help thinking that I would like a dozen roses or lilies from Richard. Or just a nod.
“Maybe they need marriage counseling,” I said. Depressing to think about.
“Years of it,” Fleur said. “Come on, let’s go. They’ll be waiting.”
Downstairs Ashley had returned with a thermos of hot chocolate, and we were on our way, finally. Fleur, Ashley, and I shared the middle seat this time, because Richard had offered to sit in the very back. I saw Ashley struggling with the notion of getting in the back with him, but she sat with us girls.
Even though it was well below zero, the weather was perfect: blue sky and no wind. Pristine white snow crystallized the trees, which glinted in the sun. The ice rink was jammed with people, all of them well muffled against the cold.
“Looks like everybody in St. Paul had the same idea today,” Richard said as we entered the warming house. We changed into our skates and headed for the ice. Trish knew how to skate, and she and Bjorn sped into the crowd holding hands.
“I think I’m going to regret this,” Fleur said. She walked stiffly, elbows out.
“Come on,” Richard said, taking her hand. “Just keep your ankles vertical.” They stepped onto the ice.
Richard laughed quietly. “You have to move your feet, Fleur!”
She stood rigid. A tiny kid, almost a toddler, whizzed past her on miniature skates.
“Why?” Fleur demanded.
“Otherwise it’s not skating.” He tugged at her arm. “Relax,” he said.
She grasped Richard’s arm with both hands, and he more or less pulled her around the ice like a tugboat pulling the dead weight of an ocean liner. “Move your feet!” he yelled and then laughed.
Ashley stood by me, squinting in the bright sun, watching the two of them.
“What exactly is their relationship, I wonder.” She looked at me.
“They’re secretly married, I think.” I shoved off onto the ice.
“Very funny,” she called after me.
It looked like an ordinary friendship to me, but it baffled me. Fleur was the most beautiful and likable girl I’d ever met and Richard was—well, he was Richard. How could they resist each other? I didn’t know anything.
I skated alone mostly. Ashley found Mike Nelson, a guy from school, and skated with him for a long while. She was animated and sexy—I could see it. She kept glancing at Richard to see if he noticed her with Mike, but he never did.
Trish and Bjorn were completely enchanted with each other—the magic of roses and all. Fleur was right. No decision had been made about future Christmas tree purchases. The roses seemed like a cheap reconciliation. Bah humbug.
“Why so grim?” Richard came out of nowhere and took my arm.
“I don’t ever want roses to soothe over a fight.” I said it out loud. I hadn’t meant to.
His eyebrows rose and he looked at me in “amused wonder,” as the phrase book says. “I’ll just include that on my list,” he said, a smile edging his lips.
“I mean—” What do you mean, birdbrain? “I mean I would prefer directness.” Brilliant.
“It takes two people to be direct.”
“I always am.” Was that self-righteous tone coming from my mouth? I hoped he hadn’t noticed.
He smirked. “Were you being direct yesterday when you walked blindly about without your glasses?” He pulled me aside a little to keep a kid from skating into me.
I felt my face flush. That’s what I got for listening to someone as transparent as Ashley.
I attacked him with both fists. “You don’t know anything, Mr. Man!”
He warded off my blows, laughing, and, finally catching my fists, held them. “Did I say something wrong, Ms. Woman? Tell me I’m wrong. Come on,” he said, pulling me along the ice. “Everyone’s in the warming house having cocoa.”
We held hands as we headed across the rink. I thought I would explode with joy.
“I think we should come skating early tomorrow morning before breakfast,” he said.
“Christmas morning?”
“No one will be here; we’ll have the place to ourselves. Might be nice, don’t you think?”
Did he mean just the two of us? My pulse quickened. “Sure,” I said.
�
�Good. I’ll ask everyone.”
I smiled secretly at my foolishness.
We joined the others in a corner of the warming house.
“Here’s yours.” Ashley was quick to hand Richard his mug. “It has amaretto in it.” Had she always been so transparent, or had I been brain-dead these past ten years?
Fleur handed me a mug and made room for me on the bench.
“How do you like ice-skating?” I asked her.
“Frankly, I hate it,” she said. She reached down and rubbed one of her ankles.
“Boo and I were thinking—” Richard began.
“We were just talking about Aunt Eve’s dinner-dance,” Ashley cut in.
I knew what was coming. Ashley was going to go for the jugular right now, here in the warming house, and it would work for her as it always did. I knew what was coming even before she invited Richard out for New Year’s Eve.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” She was speaking to Bjorn.
He nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it. I want Trish to see the Pink Palace—the Hearst Castle of Lake Minnetonka.” He grinned.
“Fantasyland,” Richard agreed.
“I’d really like you to be my partner,” Ashley said to Richard.
Richard spilled cocoa on himself. “Uh,” he said. He looked at me for help.
“I think Mother was expecting Rich to take Fleur,” I said.
“Fleur is flying home before New Year’s Eve,” Ashley announced grandly.
I looked at Fleur. “I decided to go to the wedding after all.”
“Good,” Richard and I said together.
“I thought you asked Kirk,” I said to Ashley.
“He can’t go,” Ashley said quickly. “Will you go with me?” she asked Richard again, keeping her voice light.
I don’t know why, but Richard looked at me again. “Are you going?” he asked.
“She’s going with Helmut Weiss, so they can discuss transformational grammar.” Satisfaction on her smug face.
I sighed. “Helmut is good company, Ashley.” Which was more than I could say for her.
“You will go, won’t you?” Ashley fluttered the eyelashes. Gag, gag, and throw up.
The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman Page 7