Antithesis, Chapter 11
Flap-p.
Flap.
Flap flap.
Flap flap SMACK!
"Gotcha!" Rosalie hissed.
"Damn!"
Flap flap.
"HA!"
"You know this isn't really a game of any skill," Edward muttered.
"Quiet! It is so," Rose snapped. "It's all about who is the fastest."
Flap flop, flap flap.
"And it's not even a game that comes close to needing quiet," he returned.
"Mine!" I cried, pulling the cards to myself from our double-down as I patiently explained, "Slap-Jack isn't about skill, Edward. It's about kicking my sister-in-law's butt." I grinned, but didn't risk glancing up at Rosalie as we smacked down two more cards.
"Dibs on the winner," Alice said as she walked through the dining room.
"No!" Rose and I said together making both of us laugh and lose our focus. We did not need to elaborate on why playing Slap-Jack with someone who could see the future was a exercise in futility.
Rose had come from an era when playing card games in the evenings, or any sort of game for that matter, was a welcomed family bonding event. Growing up as an only-child, however, did not give me a lot of experience playing cards other than solitaire or an occasional Gin rummy with Renee.
Emmett and Jasper hated cards, except for poker, but that was more for the gambling than the bonding. Edward, Esme and Carlisle loved chess. Alice preferred the longer drawn-out games. Even though she always knew who was going to win, she said it was fun to spend hours with each other just for the teasing and banter that took place.
Flap flap.
Flap flap.
SMackk-crk.
"Oh crap," Rose muttered, looking down the hall.
"Girls! Was that my dining table?" Esme asked from her study. She didn't need to raise her voice. We could all hear her.
I stared at my hand with my mouth hanging open afraid to raise my palm to see the damage under it. I could feel the fissure that I did not want to look at.
"Let's blame Emmett," Rose murmured. "He breaks stuff all the time."
"I heard that," Esme groaned.
"Sorry, Esme," I said, fessing up. My voice was tiny with guilt even to my own ears.
Edward chuckled behind me and rubbed his hands over my shoulders. "Blame Alice," he said. "She saw you doing that."
A pillar candle flew at Edward which he ducked to avoid.
"Blame Edward," Alice shot back. "He heard my vision and he didn't stop you, either."
Edward glowered at his sister. Esme groaned from her study. Rolle laughed from the corner where he stood tossing Alice's projectile up and down in his hand.
"You guys have all lived together for how long?" he questioned with open suspicion and a knowing smile. He tapped his temple. "I think it's starting to affect you."
"You should play against Edward," Rose said to Rolle, restacking the cards. "You're about as fast as him."
"Play what?" Rolle asked.
"Slap-Jack," Rose answered.
"It's the only game where Edward can't cheat," Alice added.
Edward had the good grace to look embarrassed, but did not try to deny it. My husband had a horrible competitive streak, especially when it came to games.
"I think we'd have to have another bonfire out of Esme's table if it had to suffer another round," Edward pointed out.
"When will the guys be back, Alice?" Rosalie asked.
"Any minute now."
Rose looked around at all of us. "How about Pictionary tonight? We haven't played in ages. We won't play teams, we'll just play as individuals. First person to get three right, wins."
Pictionary was one of the games we could all play — sorta. We made our own rules and didn't pick teams. Edward and Alice could draw, but they couldn't guess for obvious reasons. When it wasn't their turn to draw, though, they acted as judges: Edward would identify the winner if an answer was shouted out, and Alice kept track of the time for each play.
Just as the door opened, Alice called out, "Pictionary in five."
"Excellent!" Emmett chuckled from the front door. "I call alphabet!"
"Oh, crap," I mumbled. That meant Alice would draw first, and I would draw second. I loved playing, but I hated the drawing part. Nothing I drew looked like what it was supposed to. Normally, Emmett called age, meaning the oldest of us would go first: usually Carlisle, if was playing, but more often it was Edward. It all depended on how embarrassed he thought I would be being first or dead last.
If I was quick enough, I'd call height, but he beat me to it this time. I moved from the dining table to the sofa with a resigned sigh while Alice found a large stencil pad.
Emmett came in and flung himself onto the sofa, and my lap, rubbing his hands together. "Prepare to get poned, sis," he grinned.
Jasper grabbed Emmett's feet and pulled him down the sofa, making room for Edward to sit with me.
"Thanks, Jazz," Edward said as he flopped a pillow onto Emmett's upturned face.
"Hey!" he pouted.
"Move your feet, lose your seat," Edward reminded him.
"I didn't move my feet! Jasper moved 'em for me."
"Semantics, Em. It's all semantics," Edward repeated, sitting next to me and pulling my knees over his legs.
"Come sit by me, baby," Rose called to him with a wink, setting the game box on the coffee table between us all.
"Score!" It took less than a second for him to materialize next to her on the sofa chair.
Alice placed one of Esme's large stencil pads using a dining room chair as an easel. She grinned at Jasper and uncapped a marker with a flourish. Reaching into the box, she pulled out the first card, read it, and rolled her eyes.
Edward snickered next to me.
"Stop it," I snapped at him, teasingly.
"I didn't say anything!" he teased back with an enormous grin on his face.
"No cheating!" Rose scolded.
"Okay, okay," Alice called to quiet us. "This is an object." It was the only clue she could give us. She thought for a moment, nodded to Jasper to start the timer, and drew two lines.
"Two words," we all said together. She nodded and then drew a square.
"Pizza Hut!" Emmett shouted.
The square became a box.
"Shoebox," Rose tried.
"Birthday present," was Jasper's guess.
Alice kept drawing. Now there was a smaller box inside the big box.
"The dichotomy of good versus evil," Emmett guessed again with a laugh.
"A coffin," I said.
"Eww," Rose said, wrinkling her nose at me. I shrugged back.
Alice drew a curly line from the small box to a long bent line with balls on the end.
"Barbells?" Jasper said in a disbelieving voice.
"Barbells in a box," Emmett muttered. "A SoloFlex?"
"Noo," Alice moaned.
"Eh! No talking," Edward warned her.
She shot a scowl at him and drew tiny circles near the small box with the barbells, then arrows from the circles to the small box.
We stared blankly at her and she tapped the marker furiously against the paper, drawing more lines between the circles and the small box. As the silence continued, she flapped her arms at us and huffed, tapping the paper again.
"BING!" Jasper called. "Time's up."
Alice slapped her hands to her legs, staring daggers at us.
"Phone booth," Rolle murmured from the back of the room.
Alice's face immediately brightened. "Yes! Yes! Why didn't you guess?"
Rolle opened his mouth, his eyes wide and just shrugged, shaking his head.
Alice strode across the room and snatched Rolle's hand, dragging him into our circle.
"Sit!" she commanded.
Rolle's face was a mask of repentant chagrin with just the right amount of fear as he quietly took a seat. "Sorry," he whispered.
I smiled at him a moment, then turned and caught Edward's eye. He returned my smile with a wink. I sighed, happily trapped in his gaze when his expression changed to one of pointed expectation. I felt myself frown an unspoken 'What?' at him.
"Bel-la!" Rose said brusquely. "Stop mooning over Edward and get up there!"
"Oh! Right. Sorry." I swatted at Edward who wouldn't let go of my legs. "Stop it," I hissed at him, giggling. He still wouldn't let me go. "Edward!"
Jasper reached over and helped me escape my husband. Edward pouted prettily and reached over to smack Jasper for aiding and abetting me.
"You have to play this time, Rolle," Rose instructed him. "You, too, Edward."
Shaking my head, I flipped over the paper to a clean sheet and drew a card out. It said Bono and was a 'P.'
"Person, place or object," I told them, and Alice flipped the sand-glass timer a second before I drew a single line.
"One word," they all repeated.
I stared at the paper, trying to figure out what to draw next. Bono? What the hell?? What did I know about Bono?
The grains of sand crashed to the bottom of the timer. They sounded like asteroids crashing into the earth.
The paper was still blank.
This was a heck of a time to get writer's block...
"Pizza Hut!" Emmett shouted at my lack of drawing.
"You actually have to draw something now, Bella," Jasper droned.
I stomped my foot, mad at myself. Okay, okay... he was a guy. My 'guy' was a stick figure.
"Chicken!" Emmett tried again.
He played for U2, so I started drawing more guys for the band.
"More chickens!" Emmett shouted with a laugh.
I pursed my lips and ignored him. Drawing a guitar and donuts. It was supposed to look like drums, but they looked like donuts, so I scratched them out.
"The dichotomy of good versus evil," Jasper said and the room broke into laughter.
"Not helping!" I said in a high, tense, sing-song voice.
Oh, right! Bono was really big into donating money, so I drew a dollar sign. And he did something with Apple computer once, so I drew an apple. Okay, it looked like another donut, but... skewered from the top.
"Wow, Bella, I just..." Rose stammered. "I can't even begin to..." She looked helplessly at Alice.
"Don't look at me. I'm still trying to figure out the herd of chickens attacking the fat woman."
"Oh," Jasper said suddenly. "It's a circus!"
"A circus?" Edward exclaimed. "How do you get a circus out of that?"
Jasper pointed at my drawing. "The chickens, the fat lady, a candy apple, the donuts."
"Oo!" I said, hearing him say apple. I pointed at him. He was so close... Wasn't he?
"What?" Jasper recoiled in surprise. "Donuts?"
"Fair!" Rose tried instead as I shook my head at Jasper. "It's a fair!"
"How do you know what a candy apple is?" Emmett asked.
"Uh, guys," Alice interrupted slowly. "The timer is out."
"What?" Rose said, looking down. "When did it go out?"
"I don't know."
"Weren't you watching?" she accused.
"No, sorry... I was sucked into the trauma of Bella's artwork." Alice's voice was heavy with guilt, but not over her remarks about my drawing.
"Thanks," I said with as much sarcasm as I could, handing the pen over to Edward. "It was Bono," I confessed.
"Bono?" they almost all said together.
"How is that Bono?" Rosalie cried, laughing at me. They all launched into their own guesses about what I was trying to do, and I wasn't going to help them. Emmett was still hung up on the chickens in my drawing.
Rolle leaned toward me and asked, "Was that a band?"
My head snapped around to face him, my mouth hanging open.
"Yeah," I stammered with a nervous laugh. It died in my throat when I looked up and saw Edward looking oddly at Rolle.
The others were calming down and focusing on Edward now, who took a deep breath and flipped the stencil over to a new page. He picked up a card.
"Keep your eye on the timer this time," Rose warned Alice.
"D," Edward said. "Difficult."
"Oooo..." Emmett said impressively, showing us his jazz hands.
Edward studied the card a long moment, then set it face down on the coffee table. He didn't do anything for a long time, thinking. I stifled a smile. Even in little things like this, he was very deliberate.
"Any time you're ready, there, Edward," Jasper teased. "Just because we're immortal doesn't mean you can abuse it like this."
Edward seemed not to be listening, but I knew better. His lips pursed just a little more, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. I loved knowing him well enough to see the difference.
He nodded once to Alice, who diligently started the timer, and drew a single, long line.
"One word. Big," we all spoke.
Edward nodded and started to draw.
I love my husband. I love him more than the moon and the sky, but the man does have his limits, and art is one of them. He once walked me through The Louvre and named almost every piece and artist in the entire hall of Italian paintings, but he was just as helpless as I was when it came to actually creating art or drawing.
Still, it wasn't hard to draw a single line with a circle on top of it.
"Pizza Hut!" Emmett yelled.
"Stop!" Jasper and I yelled back at him, which seemed to be exactly the reaction he wanted, and he burst out laughing.
Edward continued, undaunted and I began to wonder if he was better at this than I thought, because the awkward rectangle with lines and stars looked a lot like...
"A flag?" I asked.
Edward stopped and beamed at me, touching his nose, then waving me to continue guessing.
"Country? Uh, banner? Uh, flag pole? Emblem? Colors?" I kept guessing. Edward finally shook his head and turned back to the paper.
"What do we have? Just 'flag'?" Rose asked the rest of us.
"I guess," Jasper answered.
Edward drew a hill and closed the bottom of it with a straight line.
"Teacup!" Rose interjected. "A... melted... upside down teacup?"
Edward growled and added a lightning bolt, or maybe it was a crack.
"A broken teacup," Jasper said, trying to help.
"Who broke a teacup?" Esme called from her study.
We all laughed. "Nobody," Alice assured her.
Edward took a deep breath through his nose, jerking his head to one side in his frustration.
"At least this is a good indication that you deserve one another," Emmett snarked.
I threw a pillow at him. Edward paused in his drawing to hook his pinky in mine in a form of solidarity.
He turned back to his drawing and I can't even begin to describe what he was doing. It was more than painful to watch. Something with crossed sticks, with crooked sticks off the top of each stick. Everyone just started guessing wild random things. If there was a connection to Edward's drawing or not, I couldn't begin to guess.
"Bug spray."
"Galapagos Islands."
"International Olympic Committee."
"Shoe rack."
"Guys! Guys!" Alice shouted over them. "It's supposed to be one word."
"Under-wire bra!" Emmett shouted. This time, Rose hit him with the pillow.
Edward trudged on relentlessly, adding two little circles and something that could have been the back end of a cow with only one leg.
"Independence," Rolle said.
Edward straightened up and stared at him, his expression mirroring mine from only a moment ago.
"Time!" Alice said.
"He got it," Edward said.
"Who? Rolle?" Jasper asked. "What was it?"
"Independence," Edward repeated.
I looked at Edward's tense expression. Rolle's was mildly pleased, obviously happy to be joining the fun. I didn't understand what was going on.
"Damn, that's two to nothing," Emmett grumbled.
"The first one he guessed doesn't count," Jasper was explaining as he rose and took the marker from Edward. "It was after the time limit."
Jasper picked up a card and the game began again, but Edward did not return to his seat next to me on the sofa. Instead, he sat on the arm of the sofa between me and Rolle.