Of Troy Fame? (2/4)

Felt like writing a dialogue scene. No value brand cyberpunk today, sorry chummers!

I don't know if I hate the last line or love it. I think hate, but hate with a positive affectation.

        Max jostled the door handle to no avail. Cold days like this, the door tended to get stuck without some percussive persuasion. He turned the key again, gripping the cold tarnished brass in a gloved hand. His shoulder bounced off the door. He groaned, sending a torrent of steam into the air in front of him. His ears were burning. He’d forgotten his hat and was reaping the consequences. The wind picked up, as though he needed the reminder.

Another shove and he stumbled into the front door of his apartment. There was hardly any difference in temperature, but at least the wind was no longer sending needles into his exposed ears. He shouldn’t have forgotten his hat.

“Y’ello!” a voice called in greeting from the kitchen. The doorway was hidden behind a shabby folding screen, an attempt to give the dusty front room more of the ambience of a foyer. Half functioning fairy lights from Connie’s dorm fitfully illuminated faded sakura blossoms.

“Green!” Max responded, kicking off his shoes. His hands were clamped over his ears to attempt to return any sensation that wasn’t a dagger-sharp cold. Stupid to forget the hat.

“BLUE!” the voice wailed. It was a game they’d been playing since childhood. Connie had overheard their father answer the phone and wondered why he always said “Yellow” since she knew his favorite color was green. It had morphed, as childhood misunderstandings do, into a game of Marco Polo by way of Joseph’s Coat. Max slotted his shoes into the rack, which stood tall and solitary amongst a haphazard pile of Connie’s footwear.

“Maroon!” Max called back, rounding the corner of the screen. Warm wool flew into his still open mouth. He choked, ripping mustard yellow crochet from his face. He spat and sputtered like he was trying to call a cat, picking a few loose threads off his tongue.

“You forgot your hat,” Connie was at the kitchen table, opposite two overturned plastic cups. To her right was a bowl of pistachios, the shells scattered in front of her. Occasionally she’d flick one towards the plastic pylons. When one went through, she’d scream in a whisper, mimicking the roar of thousands of fans.

“Peuce,” Max said the customary concluding color, ending the game. He picked a yellow fuzz off the corner of his beard before pulling the hat over his head. His ears thrummed with warmth already.

“Did you know,” Connie began, flicking another shell towards the goal line. The fans were left disappointed, “That I’ve hooked up with four Helens this year alone?”

“What’s a Helen?” Max opened the fridge and peered inside. It had been a long, shitty day.

“Like a person. A person named Helen. I’ve hooked up with four people named Helen this year,”

“And?”

“Isn’t that weird?” another shell skidded gracelessly across the worn and water-ring stained table, “That’s a lot of Helens,” Max grunted an affirmative from behind the yellowing fridge, “How many Helens have you met. Like, in life,”

“Uh shit….” He grabbed a beer from the fridge and peeked his eyes over the top of the fridge’s door. He waggled the can, silently requesting permission to imbibe. Connie didn’t take her eyes off the field in front of her, waving a limp hand magnanimously as a sign of assent. The beer was hers; the fridge, kitchen, and the electricity were all his. She was so generous, in her way. “Helen Choi and I went to elementary school together,”

“So one Helen in thirty years?” Max winced at that, “In twenty nine years? And not only have I met four-and that’s crazy to meet four Helens. Most people are lucky to meet a Helen and they don’t even realize it!-but I have met four Helens. Not only,” she continued, cracking open another pistachio and popping it in her mouth, “not only have I met four Helens, I have met four queer Helens. What are the odds of that?”

“Pretty high since their name’s Helen,” Max replied, cracking open his beer.

“I have not only met four queer Helens,” Connie continued unabated, “but I have slept with two and kissed three,”

“Your math sounds off,”

“Third Helen and I never kissed,” she crinkled her nose at the absurdity of his statement.

Click as chipped nail polish collided with pistachio shell. A throng of adoring fans lost their minds in the stands, Connie drumming the table to the White Stripes.

“Third Helen?” Max grabbed the broom off the wall, taking a long sip from his beer. His ears got much warmer now, “You’re telling me you number them?”

“Yeah, after First Helen I had to keep track of them somehow,”

Max looked up from his sweeping.

“You called her First Helen?”

“Yeah, she was the first… Helen Prime? Is that better?”

“But when you met her you called her First Helen in your head?”
“And in my phone, yeah”

“So from the jump she was First Helen?”

“Yes dude, what?”

“How did you know there would be more? You were already calling her First Helen when the others hadn’t even come around?” a shell ricocheted off plastic, clattering to the dusty hardwood. Connie stared long and hard at the shells. Her hands shot upwards and she gave them a quick once over, before placing them down on the table. For reasons that escaped both her and Max, she looked at them again.

“Woah… Am I psychic? Do I have ESL?” she focused intently on the shell pile, fingers pressed to her temples. Her face reddened, veins swelling on her neck, eyes wide as dinner plates.

“Okay Eleven,” Max laughed, swiping a hand across the table and sending the shells into an awaiting dustpan, “Let’s cool it, okay?” He picked his beer back off the table and finished it in three noisy gulps. Connie gave a wayward shell a momentary glare, nostrils flaring. It remained stationary. Bastard.

“Fine,” she sighed, cracking another pistachio to begin her pile again.

“What’s goin’ on?” Max arced the beer can into the recycling bin, and it rattled against the heap that already crested the rim, “Why all this Helen talk?”

From the doorway behind Connie came a blur of fabric and tousled hair. Someone who clearly was not expecting guests.

“Oh um… hi!” the blur said. Connie stood and nearly sent the chair clattering.

“Yes, hey! Sorry-yes! um-this is my brother Massimo, he’s the name on the lease,” Connie grinned and scooched aside, laying a hand on the young woman’s shoulder as she guided her towards Max.

“Oh yeah I saw the picture of you in the mascot costume,” a violent nonverbal conflict took place in the split second glance between Max and Connie, “Nice to meet you. My name’s Helen,” she extended her hand. Max stared at it. “So what were you guys talking about?”

Max swallowed and smiled. He couldn’t bear to tell Fourth Helen that he was wishing he could plead the fifth.