Family Affair

by Caprice Crane

  “What’s gone, Lay?” Ginny asks, and she stands and walks toward me, placing her hands on my shoulders to steady me as I shake. She gently takes the serving spoon I’m using to desecrate our feast from my hand and moves my hair out of my face. My eyes dart back and forth, staring into hers.

  “My ring!” I say. “My wedding ring! It’s somewhere in this meal.”

  “Holy symbolism, Batman,” Scott mutters.

  “No kidding,” Trish adds.

  “It’s kinda coming off anyway, right?” Scott says, and I glare at him.

  “Engagement or wedding?” Brett asks. “Because one is a much more expensive digestive.”

  “Good band name,” Trish says. “Expensive Digestive.”

  “The band,” I clarify. “The symbol of our marriage.”

  I realize I’m falling apart, but I can’t stop it. I’ve totally lost control of myself, my relationship, my life. All I can do is maniacally dig through food.

  “Honey,” Trish says. “Step away from the soufflé.”

  “It will all still be edible,” I say, unable to stop. Trish sees the gravity of the situation, takes my hand, and guides me into the kitchen to calm me down. At which point I start bawling uncontrollably. Even harder when I spot my ring on the floor.

  scott

  To hell with it. To hell and back, then back again to hell, with a stop in Vegas for a magic show.

  I used to write songs about Brett in my head. They reflect my long-held belief that he’s a dumbass in most respects. They were stupid, and they made no sense. But I see now it was more than sibling rivalry—mainly because he’d never consider me his rival at anything. (Well, maybe Madden, since I started kicking his ass. I practiced good and hard to do that.)

  Anyway, I love him—yeah, yeah. And maybe there’s been some envy of his genetic advantages, and his luck with Layla, and his charm, and his athletic ability, and his Fisher-Price plastic lawn mower he wouldn’t let me borrow (I’m going back a while on that one, but I can hold a grudge) … but there is a limit. So I took the whole situation as inspiration.

  “Every Little Thing He Does Is Spastic.” “Black Hole Scum.” “Sweet Child O’ Moron.” “He Ain’t Heavy (He’s My Butthole).”

  That last one I sang to him. He called me a jealous little man, I called him shit-for-brains, and we agreed to disagree. Just before he punched me so hard in the shoulder I had to wear a sling for a week.

  But now it’s reached a climax. I’ve watched my brother destroy a perfectly good thing. I didn’t ever—not once—get involved in their relationship in any way except to hang out as the dutiful little tagalong.

  But you know what? If he doesn’t appreciate her, it’s his loss. And I don’t see why it can’t be my gain. I’m not stepping in when they’re having some stupid fight. He brought a freakin’ date to the corn maze. Which I won’t even go into. But really? If he can date, then so can she. And I’m a grown person and she’s a grown person. He gave her up. It’s not his business who she dates. Or who I date.

  And maybe it’s just me imagining or exaggerating something, but I think the table is at least partially set, as they say. For instance, she’s always saying things to me like, “Sweetie, can you get me some paper towels?” or, “Sweetie, we’re out of paper towels—can you go get some?” or, “Sweetie, can you run an errand for me if you’re not doing anything?”

  Not like anyone’s lusting after anyone. I’m not saying that. That would be crazy talk.

  layla

  So, Saturday Scott calls me and tells me he ran into his ex-girlfriend.

  “I could really use a talk,” he says. “Could you meet me at the Apple Pan?”

  “Of course,” I say, and I throw on my Adidas.

  The truth is, the Apple Pan is a bittersweet choice of restaurant. Brett loves it, and we’d go there at least once a week. He’d wax poetic about their burgers with as much enthusiasm as he’d describe the most amazing eleventh-hour football miracle he’d ever seen. If you ask him why he loves the place so much, he’ll say it’s “because it doesn’t change.” Or his favorite expression, every time he walks in the front door, just after he’s taken an inhale deep enough to suck all of the air out of the place: “It’s like coming home.”

  I suppose it makes sense that since they grew up together going there, Scott would love it as much as Brett, but when he asks me to meet him there, although I say yes without hesitation, I feel a stabbing in my heart.

  I walk in, and Scott’s sitting at the counter with a seat saved next to him. He waves me over and smiles awkwardly. I feel bad for the kid and wonder which ex he ran into. None of them stick out in my memory, because none have lasted all that long, so this is actually somewhat surprising—this sudden need for a chat about a girl.

  “How’s the burgeoning artiste?” I ask.

  “Not burgeoning so much,” he says, with a shrug.

  “Why not?” I prompt. Scott’s really talented, and yet he sits on his ass in college, waiting for someone to discover him but never putting his stuff out there. He needs to enter shows and really push himself—or maybe start on a comic book, which is one of his real dreams.

  “I need a partner” is his excuse. “Without Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean was just … Dave McKean. Together they made The Sandman. Without the story, I just draw pictures. I need someone to make it all make sense.”

  “Well, until you find that person you should keep drawing,” I tell him. “You’re too good not to be exercising that muscle.”

  He laughs. “You said ‘exercising that muscle.’”

  “Ugh.” I groan. “Why do I try?”

  We make small talk from the time I sit down until our burgers arrive. Rather, his hickory burger and my grilled cheese sandwich. Scott peels back the paper his comes in and starts in on a Brett-like seminar.

  “You only peel back as much as you need,” he says. “They wrap the burgers in this paper for a reason, and if you unwrap the whole thing and try to eat it, it falls apart. I love watching rookies come in and take the whole thing out.”

  He snickers as he nods toward a guy three seats down doing what Scott just warned against. It’s a sloppy burger, that’s for sure. Better, the guy is hunching his shoulders to try to conceal the damage, so it looks as though he’s praying over it.

  “There’s never an off day in this place,” Scott marvels, as he opens his mouth extra-wide to take a bite. “The burger is homemade, yet it tastes exactly the same every time. But not in a fast-food, McDonald’s way.”

  “I get it,” I interrupt. “You love it here. You love the place, you love the burgers, you love the waiters, you love the institution.”

  scott

  I love you.

  layla

  “You love the familiarity,” I go on. And before I can say, “Oh my God, this must be a sign of the apocalypse,” Scott puts cash on the table, under the bill, and covers it up with a salt shaker.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “What’s going on? You just bought my sandwich.”

  “It’s five bucks.” Scott shrugs and looks away. “No big deal.”

  But it’s a very big deal. “You never pay for anything,” I say. “What’s up? What’s going on?”

  “Okay, fine,” Scott says. “She didn’t break up with me. I broke up with her.”

  “Oh, we’re finally talking about the girl?” I tease. “So okay, you broke up with her and … what? You regret it? You saw her and she looked great and you realize you made a mistake? You want her back? You can get her back. You weren’t wearing that shirt when you ran into her, were you?”

  “No, I don’t want her back,” he says, almost seeming disgusted by the thought.

  But isn’t that why we’re here? I wonder.

  It’s almost as if he reads my mind. “Wanna know why I asked you here?” he says, ripping his burger wrapper into little itty-bitty pieces. “Because I saw that girl and it reminded me of why I broke up with her. I broke up with her because she was nothing like yo
u. Because I wanted a girl like you.”

  “That’s sweet, Scotty,” I say. “I’m sure you’ll find the right girl one of these days.”

  “There’s only one right girl,” he says, now looking right at me. “And now that you and Brett are over—”

  “Whoa, buddy!” I interrupt, and suddenly I’m tasting spoiled mayonnaise in my mouth and my eyes are stinging like I’ve just bitten into a lemon-crusted jalapeño sandwich. “Let’s not get crazy here.”

  “I’m not getting crazy,” he says. “I’m getting honest. You get one life. One shot at happiness.”

  “I think you probably get more than one shot at happiness. But yeah. Only one life.”

  “I’ve been in love with you since Brett brought you home in tenth grade. You were wearing a Skid Row T-shirt with a tiny hole in the neck. It said Youth Gone Wild on it and had a picture of a dude who looked like a chick, and I asked you about it and you said Sebastian Bach was the only guy you’d ever kiss besides my brother if given the chance, and I wished I was Sebastian Bach. And I fuckin’ hated that band. And then that song ‘I Remember You’ came out and I couldn’t escape them. It seemed almost ironic. I’d have daymares—”

  “‘Daymares’?” I ask.

  “Nightmares during the day when you’re awake,” he explains. “I’d be in love with my brother’s girlfriend and I’d become this sad Bukowski-like drunk, and I’d wind up on skid row and it would all come full circle.”

  “A lot of that was exaggerated for artistic effect,” I say. “But to the issue at hand, Scotty, I’m kinda feelin’ a little like Dorothy on this one—meaning totally flipping blown away. I don’t want to be insensitive, but I’m not one hundred percent sure you’re not fucking with me. Because this is so out of left field.”

  “Are you blind?” he says, and his voice goes up about two octaves. “Have you really been oblivion this whole time?”

  “Oblivious, and yes, I guess I have,” I say, wanting to shift time forward to a month from now.

  “Well, now you know, then,” he says, and takes his snow-cone cup out of its holder, pours the last bit of Coke he has left into it, which is not even a sip’s worth, and drinks.

  “You don’t want me,” I say. “I’m the path of least resistance. You think you want me because I’m nonthreatening. I’m around all the time. I’m familiar. Like this restaurant. But the truth is the food here may not be as awesome as you think. You’re just conditioned to think so because your dad and brother took you here as a kid and hyped it up. It’s this landmark institution, and people come here and are willing to wait, Lord knows why, to sit at the counter and eat burgers that I’m not sure are better than In-N-Out’s but cost twice as much. You follow?”

  “You insult my favorite restaurant and my taste in women?”

  “C’mon, Scott,” I say. “You know you don’t mean this.”

  “Okay, if you say so,” he says, oddly letting go of the notion of our relationship like a dirty napkin. I’m trying to be sensitive to him but also not blow this up into an awkward mess.

  “I do say so,” I say.

  “Fine,” he allows, and then cracks a smile. “You’re not that hot, anyway. I was just seeing if I could get sloppy seconds and hold it over Brett’s fat head for the next ten years.”

  “Please,” I tease back. “You were five minutes away from pulling out a mix tape.”

  Scott laughs. “Yeah, that would have been really embarrassing.”

  scott

  And as she gets up to hit the ladies’ room, I slip a perfectly good CD onto a passing busboy’s tray.

  layla

  I wonder if it was Thanksgiving that did it. That, or Heather at the corn maze. Either way, it’s not every day you have your mother-in-law suggesting she fix you up with potential dates, so I’m certainly not taking her seriously, nor am I prepared when I answer my cell phone to find Eric Ehrlich—a would-be suitor—on the other end.

  “Didn’t mean to catch you off guard,” he says, after the very long pause from my end. “Did Mrs. Foster mention that I’d be calling?” he asks.

  “You know, she did, but I didn’t think it would actually transpire,” I reply.

  “Hard luck with the gents lately?”

  “No,” I say. “I mean, yes, I suppose, but not the way that sounded. It’s not like I can’t get a date or anything. I just haven’t been trying. I’ve been … not dating for a while. I only just recently got separated.”

  “Sometimes you just gotta get back on the horse,” he says, and I can’t help but visualize all the many images this unfortunately conjures up.

  “Right.”

  “So when do I get to meet you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and start to think about it. This is going to be the first date I’ve been on since … high school? The thought of this sends me into a conversational tailspin. “This is weird. Is this weird? I don’t know. I just haven’t dated in a really long time, and now that this is becoming a reality, I’m just thinking that maybe—no offense—but maybe my first date shouldn’t be blind.”

  “Well, that’s good news for both of us because I have twenty-twenty vision,” he says, completely undeterred by my mini-meltdown. Which I’ll admit is slightly promising. Or slightly frightening. He’s either patient and understanding or desperate and ugly.

  “That is good news,” I say.

  “Good. We both feel better, then. How’s Friday?”

  “Friday? As in this Friday?” I echo stupidly.

  “Yes,” he says. “Friday, this Friday.”

  “Um, yeah,” I finally spit out. “I think I can do Friday.”

  After all, none of the shows I watch are on Friday. Then again, all of my shows are readily available on DVR, and I have enough shows right now to keep me busy for the whole weekend. But I suppose a few hours with Eric on Friday couldn’t be too painful.

  “Great,” he says. “Do you like Greek?”

  “Food?” I ask, and immediately regret it. What do I think he means, the language? Did I just make a very unfortunate sexual remark to a guy I just met? Of course he means food.

  “Yes. Greek food.”

  “I do like Greek food,” I say.

  “You hate Greek food,” Trish says from behind me, and I wonder how long she’s been listening. I wave her off and turn to give her a dirty look.

  “Greek sounds great,” I reiterate.

  “Perfect,” he says. “I’ll touch base on Friday and we’ll arrange to meet.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. “Thanks for … calling.”

  I hang up. Big sigh. My mother-in-law is pimping me, and I’m sure she thinks it’s for my own good.

  I spin back around to Trish. “Do you mind?”

  “Do you?” she asks. “You don’t like Greek food.”

  “So what?” I say. “I was on the phone. That was a conversation between me and not you.”

  “Greeks like to butt-fuck,” she says.

  “Lovely,” I respond, but I cringe at the thought of the Greek-related sexual innuendo that transpired sixty seconds earlier. I forgo the riposte of a lesbian joke, knowing Trish’s sometime sensitivity.

  “I’m just sayin’. So who were you lying to?”

  “Eric?” I say, as if I’m asking a question rather than answering one.

  “Eric Ehrlich?” Trish asks. “Yeah, I think that’s what he said.”

  “Why were you talking to Eric Ehrlich about Greek food? Oh my God …”

  “Oh my God what?” I ask, as Trish bursts into a laughing fit. “Your mom gave him my number. She’s fixing me up. Which is totally awkward. When Ginny said she had someone she wanted me to meet, I didn’t really think she was being serious.”

  Trish won’t stop laughing.

  “Why is that so funny?” I ask.

  “Because Eric is not your type. He’s not anybody’s type. Well, I suppose that’s not fair and he’s gotta be someone’s type, but he’s certainly not my type, and Mom tried to fix me up wi
th him when I first started dating women.”

  “Wow. Didn’t you start dating women freshman year of college?”

  “Yup.”

  “And he’s apparently still single.”

  “Yup.” She laughs. “And he took me for Greek food, too!”

  “Terrific,” I say. “So back up a bit. Why is he ‘not anybody’s type’?”

  “He’s pear-shaped,” she says. “Come on.”

  “Seriously. He’s pear-shaped. We know how unfortunate it is when a woman is pear-shaped, but it’s far more devastating when it’s a man. If anything, that date pushed me even further to the other side.”

  “Okay, how pear-shaped?” I ask.

  “Like a big, giant, humongous, gargantuan pear.”

  “That’s very pear-y.”

  “Very pear-y indeed, my friend.”

  Our doorbell buzzes, and I’m glad to be excused from the conversation. I walk to the front door and see a midforties blond woman in a navy pantsuit barking into her cell phone. “I’m here, I gotta go, I gotta go!” she says, and then hangs up. “Hi, I’m Debbie.”

  “Hi there, Debbie,” I say, and can’t help but look expectant because she seems to be missing the one thing we need for our photo shoot. “Come in.”

  Debbie walks in and answers her phone as she does. “I told you I had to go,” she hollers into the phone. “What?”

  I look at Trish, who shrugs, and we both stand there and wait for Debbie to finish her call.

  “No, I’m at the photo place!” she screams. “I’ll call you later.” She hangs up and looks at us blankly for a long moment. Neither of us knows what to say, because we’re both uncomfortable about this woman yelling at whoever keeps calling her, and we don’t see a pet to photograph, so we’re kind of at a loss.

  “I’m Layla,” I say. “This is Trish.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Debbie says. “It’s been one of those days.”