Family Affair

by Caprice Crane

  “No.” Yes.

  “That’s my boy,” she says, and looks out the window. “What do you and Layla have planned for the weekend?”

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “Do you have any plans for the weekend?”

  I ignore the fact that she’s pretending that Layla and I are somehow seeing each other and emphasize the I in my response. “I plan to sleep, watch some football, and maybe sleep.”

  “How exciting.”

  My dad walks in and takes off his baseball cap. I see him before he sees us and wave him over. “There they are,” he bellows.

  “Hey, look—it’s Larry King!” My mom points. I gently nudge her finger back down.

  “Hey, now!” my dad says. “Biggest ass-kisser next to James Lipton.”

  “Don’t say that, Bill,” my mom says.

  “And Jeffrey Tambor on The Larry Sanders Show,” I suggest.

  “He’s a fluffer,” my dad continues, razzing King. “He never gives anyone a hard time. He never questions anyone or digs deep. He just accepts their answers as they give them.”

  I laugh. Then, “Dad,” I say. “Since I have both of you here …I was just trying to explain to Mom. It’s almost like I see Layla more now than when I actually wanted to see her. We’re separated. And I don’t want her to be everywhere I turn. No matter what your personal feelings are on this breakup, you’re my family, and you’re supposed to stay loyal to me. Whether you agree with my decision or not.”

  “I understand,” my dad says.

  “Neither of us can move on with our lives with the situation as it is now,” I explain, because I finally feel like I’m being heard. “Which is making me think that’s what you want.”

  “I get it,” my dad says.

  “Thank you,” I reply. I’m not sure he’s going to amend his behavior, but at least I don’t feel like everyone is either siding with Layla or denying that they’re siding with her.

  “Now, what’s here for me?” he asks, as the waiter delivers what my mom and I both ordered—the Leon Chopped Salad. It’s legendary.

  “This was a mother-son lunch—you should have agreed to come right away if you wanted to horn in on the grub.”

  “That’s rude, son. Though with the way your boys have been playing defense lately”—he picks up a fork—“I might just be able to sneak something up the middle.” He reaches over and snags some of my salad.

  I pretend I’ve just been stabbed in the heart, and my mom playfully nudges my dad for saying such a thing. I’m not sure if this has made us all closer, but I’m certain that I still want to throttle Layla.

  • • •

  Later, at home, I’m thinking very seriously of canceling cable. It took me so long to get it connected at my new place. And after all that work, there is nothing on. Not even a Rockford Files rerun or an old Steve McQueen or Charles Bronson movie that can be stomached. Nothing. Not one thing.

  I’m staring at the on-screen guide, and what is half of the stuff? “Paid programming.” Well, I already paid for the programming, so where is it? And I think this infomercial guy is paying for his ad (“Learn Cooking by Hypnosis”?), and I’m not watching his shit … so one of us is getting screwed. Or both.

  There’s no good music on my iPod—none that doesn’t make me think either of Layla and how angry I am at her or that I’ve already listened to it until I want to barf—and I have no good DVDs. Nothing in my refrigerator looks good. I leave the light off when I get ready in the bathroom, because I can’t stand to look at myself.

  Come to think of it, I’m thinking very seriously of canceling the electricity.

  layla

  At work, the days are as easy as finding Birkenstocks in Portland—and as hard as finding a clock in a casino. It goes up, it goes down, in no particular order. Trish and I are still waiting to hear the details regarding the prototype we want to deliver to PETCO, and we haven’t heard anything more about our loan.

  Brooke and I meet at Quality, a favorite place of ours on Third Street, for an early breakfast before work and to catch up. She nonchalantly says to me, “You look good today,” and it floors me. Feeling so much like purple ooze inside, how could I possibly look good?

  “I’m so annoyed,” Brooke announces next, as we sit down. “Why?” I ask.

  “I bought a brand-new dress for a job interview. It was on sale. What I didn’t realize was that it was on sale because there was a hole in it. No returns. And I didn’t get the job.”

  “Where was the hole?” I ask, knowing her interview technique. “A strategically placed hole could have helped you get the job.”

  “I was talking with a woman, and the hole was in my armpit.”

  “Oh, yeah, that sucks,” I admit. “Are you sure you didn’t get the job because of something you said?”

  Brooke exhales and stares for a moment too long at the guy at the next table. His girlfriend and I both notice. Finally, she turns her attention back to me and answers, “I might have told her that her letterhead looked like it belonged to a little girl, her computer system was outdated, and that she should consider having the dark mole on her arm looked at for cancer.”

  “Oh my Christ.”

  “I was doing a good thing. What if it was cancer?”

  I can’t argue. Partly because she has a point, but mostly because the word mole reminds me of the flesh-colored mole the therapist had when Brett and I attempted our one session of couples counseling. When I thought we might actually be okay. When I still had hope.

  The rest of our breakfast I’m like a zombie.

  “Just cry,” Brooke says, when she notices my chin twitching uncontrollably. “It’s only me. I don’t care. I mean, I care. But you know.”

  “Thanks.” I sniffle as the tears stream down my face. “I’m sorry I’m such bad company lately.”

  “It’s fine,” she says. “Kinda makes me feel better about myself.”

  “You’re not a very nice person.” I grunt. But I smile for the first time in what feels like forever. She’s at least consistent.

  “Part of my charm,” she replies.

  I stretch our breakfast as long as I can, as I suddenly dread going to work. It’s a mixed bag of the merely irritating and the suicide-inducing, as my anxiety and depression cause every pre-Thanksgiving Chihuahua-dressed-as-a-turkey photo shoot to make me want to pound a wide-angle lens into some dog owner’s mouth—and a drumstick somewhere less pleasant.

  In the week or so since the debacle with Matt’s cousin-cum-therapist/mediator, not a word from Brett. All I know for sure is that his team is not doing very well. That I find out from the local paper. Not that I was expecting anything direct. But anything personal I now have to get secondhand. And the little news I can get is maddeningly sparse. It’s USA Today condensed.

  “It’s hard, but he’s soldiering on,” Ginny said, when I asked.

  “I think he’s a lot stronger than we all gave him credit for,” Bill says, with a knowing smile, but knowing what, I’m not sure.

  “He’s fine,” Scott says. “Who cares?”

  “The word that comes to mind is ‘peachy,’” Trish adds.

  Zilch. So naturally my mind sees him already remarried with a daughter and a house in Rancho Cucamonga.

  brett

  Did you ever stop to consider what a lonely thing a bus stop is? All those people keeping a safe distance from one another, not making eye contact, walking to the curb to squint down the road every eight seconds, longing for the bus to come and liberate them from the excruciating awkwardness of standing there with other strangers who, like you, are too broke or too self-righteous or too close to their last DUI to drive a car? Hoping against hope that this isn’t the time one of them turns out to be an escaped serial killer, doing thirty years to life for a mess of killings at lonely bus stops, using only the sharp edge of a fare card?

  Or how lonely a streetlight is, helplessly resisting the dark?

  Or a diner when you’re eating alone?

/>   I think I miss Layla.

  Or maybe I don’t.

  I don’t know.

  trish

  It’s becoming clear. Painfully. Brett is fucked in the head.

  I visited him at his apartment, which is a fetid swamp far beyond the laziest college freshman’s wildest aspirations, and I swear to God, when I got to the door, he was playing that Spandau Ballet song on the stereo. Loud. And he was singing along.

  “‘Why do I find it hard to write the next line? Oh, I want the truth to be saaaid.’”

  Well, I know this much is true: That boy needs to get laid. Too bad I’d have to beat his ass if he ever seriously touched another woman.

  Of course it’s frustrating. Much as I love Layla, and much as I consider her a better sister than he is a brother (most of the time), I have to admit to feeling some deep protectiveness about Brett. It hurts me to see him hurting. I think he’s crazy for instigating the whole divorce thing, and stupid for being angry about that thing with Doug so long ago. God, how fragile is the male ego? (I think Shakespeare said that: “Oh, shall I compare the male ego to the shell of an unboiled egg? So fragile, and so easily crushed.”) But Brett’s the only one who can make peace with that.

  Thank God I don’t date men. They’re all crazy.

  ginny

  November 3

  Dearest Ev,

  Something’s wrong with Brett.

  He never calls, and when he does, I cringe. Cringe, Evy—me, his own mother! I feel ashamed to say it, but sometimes when he calls, I see his number come up on the thing that shows the numbers of whoever’s calling and I don’t answer. Don’t ever tell him! We’re doing our best to keep it from Layla, to avoid seeming to meddle too much, but he’s changed from my tough, lovable rascal into I don’t know what. He sounded like that guy on public television who sells the books about discovering The You Inside. I can’t remember, but you know what I’m talking about.

  This afternoon, he dropped by after practice and walked past me into the kitchen without saying hello. He sat down, refused coffee and soda and Lorna Doones, and stared out the window for about six minutes. Maybe it wasn’t six whole minutes, but it seemed like a good long time. Then he said, “Tell me something,” and I said, “Okay,” as if I have anything to tell. “Tell me,” he says, “how you define happiness.”

  And then I was in for it. Because I was always so bad with abstract concepts. I can use the word in a sentence, but he wants philosophy, and you know that was never really my thing. But I do what he really wants—which is for me to ask him how he defines happiness. And then I’m really in for it. Twenty or thirty minutes of doom and gloom, all poured out with a rueful smile. “The promise of a dream that’s inevitably crushed,” or some such nonsense. The phone rang, but I couldn’t answer it. He looked at it like it was objecting to his interpretation and he didn’t care for the interruption so it could just shut up. And it did. I hope it wasn’t you.

  I couldn’t even go to the bathroom. I kept looking for an opening, but he seemed so intent, and so out of sorts at the same time. So I listened and listened. I love him with all my soul, and it pains me so to see him like this—but I really had to go!

  Of course it’s an awful situation, and I get teary if I even let myself think about it. So I won’t. I truly believe in my heart of hearts that much as I love him, he was at least partly the cause of this mess. But I feel he’ll be okay again someday, someday soon. Of course I hope they’ll stop behaving like stubborn children long enough to see that what they have is worth fixing. I never stop hoping.

  Oh, I’m using this address for you because, when we were kids, I used to hear Dad ask Mom where you had gotten to, and Mom would always say “Heaven knows!” Now Bill has taken it up. I thought you’d get a kick out of that.

  Love you always,

  Gin (no tonic!)

  brett

  Now I understand why kids hate divorce so much: It often replaces the illusion of a cohesive, united pair of superheroes with the reality of two clueless, disoriented anger junkies who are not any more well adjusted than—shudder—the kids themselves are. I’ll never forget the story Jared told me about when he was eight years old and his parents divorced. Apparently, they were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs in the very next room for three hours. The kids heard every heartbreaking syllable. When they finally came out, they sat Jared and his older brother down and calmly told them they were going to be separating. And that it would be “nice,” because now they’d have two houses instead of one. Jared and his brother ran and locked themselves in the bathroom, holding each other and crying for the whole night. The parents couldn’t even get the kids out of the bathroom to go to school the next day. It wasn’t until four p.m. the following afternoon that hunger got the best of them and they were coaxed out by peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches on the other side of the door. That was the last peanut-butter sandwich he ever had. To this day Jared won’t touch anything with peanut butter. A perfectly delicious food. Divorce fucks you up.

  My family has taken to answering my calls like this: “Oh, it’s you, Brett.” Well, like it or not, they’re going to have to deal with me. At least occasionally. Because a key stipulation of the agreement drafted by Burt—among about five things he worked up to make the whole absurd process and resulting nonbinding agreement seem official—was a continuation of Layla’s “custody” scheme. Each of us gets the family on a designated weekend. I get them; she gets them; I get them; she gets them. This basically will keep Layla and me from running into each other accidentally, but it also has the effect of laying out ground rules for what was already becoming a grueling competition for the family’s affections.

  I take this very seriously, wanting to plan a get-together or special event. But I’m kind of stuck. Layla was always better at this sort of thing. I’m racking my brain, trying to dream up something that won’t immediately be eclipsed, so I call my dad to see if I can trick him into coming up with a brilliant suggestion.

  “No ideas?” he says, busting me about three minutes into the call. “Well, it’s a tough situation, I know.”

  Then he says something that hits me like a fire hydrant in the crotch. I know he’s joking—I think he’s joking—but it still makes my blood boil.

  “Maybe you should call Layla.”

  “What does that mean?” I snort.

  “Nothing, nothing. We’re just … The family has something special in our near future. When we go to the Sunday—”

  “You made plans for this weekend,” I challenge, “knowing that it’s my turn?”

  “For Pete’s sake, it’ll be on Layla’s weekend!” he says. “But she’s already arranged a doozy: Sunday at the spa for your mom and your sister, and Scott and I get a round of golf at LACC.”

  “Good for her,” I say.

  “Well, I’m just saying. If you two really are planning on buying our affections, you’re falling behind good,” he remarks with a laugh.

  “LACC is private,” I mutter, hardly hearing him. “How the hell did she swing that?”

  “Some couple with a membership came in for photos, and apparently they loved the way Layla caught the moment where their dog’s little tongue was just showing a bit—”

  “That cheap trick?” I cut my dad off. “She gives them peanut butter, for crying out loud.”

  “Brett,” my father says, suddenly serious. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. This all just seems silly, and we don’t expect you to match Layla’s—”

  “Fine. I won’t,” I toss out. And I hang up.

  layla

  Through the grapevine, I hear a rumor that the family is free this Sunday. It’s a Brett weekend, but without actually coming right out and saying it, Scott strongly hinted that the Fosters were being kicked to the curb.

  Wasting no time, I hatch a plan to throw together a picnic lunch at the park. Nothing fancy. I’ll prepare a few things, maybe watercress-and-cucumber sandwiches to start, grilled porto
-bello mushrooms with roasted-pepper rémoulade, marinated corn salad, Southwestern-style chicken, a homemade forest-berry torte. Maybe there’ll be some badminton or boccie. No big deal. And the whole thing will be a surprise; I’ll tell them I’m picking up a bucket of KFC and a twelve-pack of Coke.

  I call Ginny Thursday night and hash out plans. She’s over-the-top agreeable.

  “So, one o’clock, then,” I say.

  “That’s fine,” she says.

  “Or would later be better? Would that give you more time?”

  “Whatever you said before is fine.”

  “Because you and Bill and the guys don’t have to do anything,” I tell her. “I’ll take care of everything.” And then I think, here it comes: her pointless little insistence on doing something, contributing a dish, bringing a cooler, calling the city for a picnicking license.

  “Okay,” she says.

  It’s a first! For a moment, I can’t believe my good fortune. There’s no battle over whether I’m doing too much or going out of my way. But almost immediately my feeling changes. It’s not relief but almost, almost, resentment. No pledge of Bill to get the grill going? No offer to throw together a dessert? Not even a store-bought Jell-O mold?

  Still, I don’t let my obvious hypocrisy get me down. I’ve got a date with the Fosters, and that always makes me feel better. Plus, Brett will be on the sidelines. Winning this round will be sweet.

  brett

  God, I hate losing.

  Saturday evening, after my Condors get clobbered by St. John’s at an away game, I’m talking to Scott in my usual postgame state of nervous exhaustion, too tired to move and feeling very guilty that I’m not doing anything but lazing around playing video games. It’s hell. We’re playing Grand Theft Auto IV: the Lost and Damned because I got sick of Scott clobbering me at the new Madden. (WTF? Has he been practicing? He’s making JaMarcus Russell look like Peyton Manning. Little bastard.) My senses are dulled, yet I’m irritable. Layla used to say I’d get PMS all game day, meaning I was “a little moody.” Behind my back she’d say it, and my family and friends did a terrible job of keeping her secret. Privately, it made me laugh—every day except game day.