I'm with Stupid (32 page)

“Might be funnier,” Henryk says, nodding. “At least in print.”

That scrappy underdog. What did he just say to me? “You could at least be modest about it, Henryk,” I offer. “You’re not very modest.”

“I’ll try to be more modest,” he tells me.

“That’s all I’m asking.”

Our eyes lock again. I like my brother! He’s . . . cool.

I compliment Henryk on his ability to keep a secret. Why did he not tell me? Henryk says that he considered it but that he didn’t want to compete with William and his book. He asks if William is my boyfriend. My brother and I have never discussed our personal lives. It never occurred to me that he had a personal life to discuss. Not in a million years could I see the two of us at a table debating my love life. I’m not sure I’m ready to start now. “Don’t make me explain the whole thing to you, Henryk, it’s too ridiculous,” I say. “And no, he is not my boyfriend.” Henryk asks if William knows that. What kind of question is that? Of course he doesn’t. I stare at my linen napkin. “Don’t make me explain the whole thing to you, Henryk,” I repeat, “it’s too ridiculous.”

I roll my eyes. My seventeen-year-old brother wrote a book. My live-in South African “boyfriend,” meanwhile, snores loudly while pretending to write one. We need a new topic, and I need a new South African.

And then I remember the play. I ask what play he’s in. “I’m not in a play,” he says, squirming in his seat at the very thought. “I’d have mad stage fright. No, I want to go to your friend Manuel’s play in Brooklyn tomorrow. He gave me a flyer when he came to the deli. That guy is pretty entertaining.”

I nod. He sure is. I tell him that I recently found out that Manuel is not only “entertaining” but the son of a drug lord. I rehash the story for his amusement. Henryk frowns: “So the tube sock factory is a front for drugs? That seems pat. It plays into every stereotype out there.” I laugh and begin to tease him. My brother the author could come up with a million imaginative twists. His head is swollen! I offer that sometimes people are as obvious as they seem, present company excluded, of course. “I don’t know about that,” he concludes.

While we eat lunch Henryk drinks a full glass of wine and asks that I not rat him out to our mother, who would have a fit. My brother is all grown up—he talks and he lies! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I am. Seventeen isn’t that young. Obviously it’s not. But we are a decade apart in age. He never struck me as someone I could have a conversation with. I always dismissed him, treated him like an annoying baby. And so he grew up without me, or without my noticing.

When he announces that he has to get back to school to take a test my boss stands and shakes his hand. “What do you say then,” he asks Henryk hopefully. “Do you want to come into the fold, sign with the agency?”

Henryk nods. “Sure. It would be cool to work with my sister. Thanks.”

I adjust my gross business trousers as my boss considers me with something approaching—well, at least not approaching hatred and annoyance. “This is some secret weapon,” he offers as Henryk smiles sheepishly. I think my boss thinks I planned this. And I certainly did not.

I walk Henryk out of the restaurant and give him a long hug. “I’m really proud of you, man. Really proud,” I say. I don’t remember ever squeezing him so hard. In fact, I can’t remember ever hugging him, though it must have happened. Right? I assume he’s going to pull away but he doesn’t. He enthusiastically hugs me back, like he’s been waiting for me to make this move. I push open the door and ask about the letter he submitted with his manuscript: “I wrote this book to impress a girl.” I want to tease my little brother about it. Now that he’s met William it’s all fair game. I ask who the girl of the letter is. She’s a lucky son of a bitch to know someone so thoughtful. Henryk laughs and tells me it’s not what I think. He shouldn’t be so sure. I’ve heard it all before. He flags down a cab. “The letter was referring to you,” he says, getting in. I cover my mouth with my hand. “You’re my favorite only sister and I look up to you. Writing is the only thing I’m good at. It was nothing.”

It was nothing. After the cab speeds off I look down at the ground so passersby can’t see my eyes well with tears. It was nothing. I begin to sob. When Henryk was about five or six he shadowed me constantly. It was nothing. I was too old and wise to pay him any mind. One day I was typing a research paper for school and he kept asking for permission to push a few of the keys. It was nothing. He wasn’t even nagging, he was urging quietly. He was a kid, just a little kid, and I wouldn’t let him. It was nothing. I kept impatiently putting him off, trying to get my homework done. I didn’t stop until he left the room. It was nothing. This is the kind of sister he looks up to. Me. I didn’t even turn my head to check if he was okay. It was nothing, after all. Who cared?

For the last seventeen years my brother Henryk—the only sibling I will have in the world—has been trying desperately to be my friend. For some reason a moment we recently had at the deli pops into my head. I was cleaning the blade on the meat-slicing machine when he rushed over to unplug it so that I wouldn’t accidentally hurt myself. Remembering him standing over me that day makes me cry harder because I don’t know if I said thank you.

I really need to open my eyes. I’m so stupid.

Part Three

T
hat evening after work I find William on the water bed, eyes closed. Talk about a whole lot of nothing. Wake up, meathead, I think to myself as I shake him awake, it’s six thirty. The liquid mattress begins to swoosh back and forth. I’m rocking a cradle. I’ve never made time for my brother, never once gave him a fighting chance, and yet I opened my home to a stranger. It’s fucking pathetic, the way I’ve been behaving. I need to make this up to my brother. William opens his eyes and assures me he wasn’t sleeping. Right. He tells me that earlier in the day, while on his way to the store, he thinks he saw Victoria Principal. Right. Okay. I tell him Henryk’s news. William’s reaction is a little off. I expect him to be ecstatic. He loves everyone and everything, after all, but he looks, well, concerned, if that’s the right word, though I suspect it isn’t. I study his face. “Are you jealous?” I ask. William avoids the question. He may not be able to tell a lie, but it seems he is quite capable of dishonesty. I did not know that. But then it’s been that kind of day.

“I’m just worried about my future,” he explains. “Writing is so hard.”

He is jealous. Huh. If he were any greener he’d be a field of Astroturf. William begins asking all sorts of questions: How long did it take Henryk to write the book, how long did it take to find an agent? Within five minutes he is pacing across the kitchen deep in thought about his own writing career. He needs to get the book done, there’s no time to lose. His fez, his flag, Miss Celeste, his dead uncle, and my brother are his inspirations. Now all he needs is talent.

I dial my parents’ number. I wonder if Henryk told them. If he didn’t I have to keep mum, which is going to require the assistance of a Zen master. My mother picks up. “Henryk is a novelist,” is the first thing she says after I greet her with a hello. I stare at my pack of cigarettes but don’t light one: “I know,” I say. “Isn’t it great.”

“It certainly is great,” she continues. “He’s a child prodigy.” Now he’s a prodigy? I remind her that just last week he was a bum. She protests the very idea. She never called him a bum. She just wanted him to clean his room once in a while, maybe take out the trash and take off that hat that hides his handsome face.

I ask if she’s been calling everybody in the family to spread the news. It’s a rhetorical question, of course she has. “Here and there,” she answers. “I have to call a few more people. It’s so wonderful.” My mother sighs. “Where is that phone?” she mumbles. I point out that she’s already on the phone. “Oh, right,” she says. “Where is my head? I’m looking for the phone and it’s in my hand.” I tell her to go make her calls. She’s obviously distracted. We’ll talk again later.

“Hold on, don’t go anywhere,” she says. “Your father wants to talk.”

My father gets on the phone. “My son is a writer,” he says. “How do you like that?” I like it, old man, I like it. “The first writer in the family,” he adds with pride. My father goes on to say that he will be joining my brother during the negotiation process. I remind him that that’s what agents are for. My father doesn’t trust agents, they’re just after money. I remind him that that’s the point. He tells me we’ll figure it out on Wednesday; we’re all going to the play
Fiddler on the Roof
.

“
Fiddler on the Roof
?” I ask. “Why do we all have to go?”

“Your brother wants to go so we’re going, too. We’ll celebrate. It’s free.”

I suggest that we go out to dinner instead. He tells me we just went out to dinner and reminds me that the play is free. I throw my head back: come on. “Hold on,” my father says. “Your mother is tearing the phone away from me.”

My mother gets on the phone and tells me that we are all going to see
Fiddler on the Roof
because that is what my brother wants and it’s his day. I ask her to put him on. She tries but he refuses to pick up the receiver. “He won’t get on the phone,” she tells me, then strongly urges him to get on the phone already and talk to his sister for goodness’ sake. He relents. Our conversation is familiar in its brevity.

“I want you to see
Fiddler on the Roof
with me,” he laughs and gives the phone back to our mother. Brat! I guess I owe him one. I’ve been such a lousy sibling. I tell my spastic mother to go make her calls. “I’ll see you tomorrow night I guess,” I add. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says. I hear my father scream I love you in the background. “Did you hear that?” she says. “He said he loves you.” Ditto. I hear another scream in the background. “Your brother says he loves you and that he will see you at the play,” she reports. Such a brat!

I hang up the phone and turn around: “William, your dream is coming true. Guess where we are going?”

He looks up from the laptop. “Monaco?” he asks hopefully.

I shake my head. What? “No, keep dreaming,” I answer. “We are going to see
Fiddler on the Roof.
” Monaco. I wish. William looks back down at the computer screen. “Sure,” he softly says. Envy, envy.

I race over to Libby’s and tell her the news. “So exciting!” she squeals and immediately decides to bake him cookies. I then use her phone to call Max. “That’s sexy!” he says. “He is going to get majorly laid now.” I frown. I don’t want to know about that. “Let’s take him out,” he adds. As Libby begins banging pots and pans and pulling out cookie sheets, I tell Max he can see Henryk tomorrow if he’d like. My family and I are going to Manuel’s play in Brooklyn—I emphasize that it’s absolutely my brother’s idea and I can’t say no. Not now. He moans. “I have my date with Phillip tomorrow.” Gross. I wish him good luck. “But you know,” he carefully adds, “maybe I’ll bring him to the play. That’s a date, right?” I laugh. Max wants to go to Manuel’s play? I never would have suspected that. “Believe me, I don’t want to see Manuel,” he points out. “But if I take Phillip to the play I won’t have to be alone with him. And I totally have to see him tomorrow because I already canceled one date and he’s getting impatient. This might be a really good idea.” Libby places a hand mixer in a bowl and turns it on. It’s loud. Too loud to hear Max talk. I end the call as a fine cloud of flour rises into the air above her.

William is typing furiously when I return to the apartment. The phone rings. I walk over and check the caller ID. Max again? It’s Richard. Shit. I stare at the phone, willing it to stop ringing. William stops typing and asks if I want him to answer the phone. I shake my head no. Why is he still calling here? The phone rings two more times then stops. Richard does not leave a message.

Thanks to my mother, we arrive at Brooklyn Community College with way too much time to spare.

William, once so eager to see the play, is now expressing concern that it will interfere with his writing schedule. He has brought the binder and laptop and tells me that he’ll work on the book during intermission. He keeps mumbling that it’s almost time to find an agent and hints that he’d like to be introduced to my boss. I lie that my boss isn’t taking on new clients. No one, as far as I know, is taking on clients like William. William seems bitter over my brother’s success, and that’s not cool with me. Another thing that’s not cool: Last night he was grinding his teeth in his sleep between episodes of mumbling. “I have to help all the poor people” was all I could make out. I’d rather have him snoring. The grinding and mumbling are spooky.

An actor dressed as a rabbi is at the door, serving as both the ticket collector and the will-call booth. Manuel, he tells us, has arranged front-row seats and “backstage passes.” I ask him to put three aside—for Libby, Max, and his new buddy Phillip—when Libby walks in with a huge plate of cookies for Henryk. She hugs and congratulates him. The cookies smell divine and when Henryk is not looking I plan to eat them all in one sitting. That’s what sisters are for. Libby tells me that Max called: He and Phillip are on their way.

Before handing William his ticket the rabbi pauses as though considering a work of art and tells him he should model. Now, this is about the fifteenth time someone has suggested that William should model since he arrived in New York. It must be some kind of record. William smiles meekly before delivering his stock response: “I have a higher calling,” he says and shows the rabbi his binder. The sage fake rabbi twirls his ringlets as William explains that he is writing a book about the political situation in Monaco. He offers that people are really suffering over there. “From what?” Henryk and the rabbi ask in unison. “You see, the area has legalized gambling,” William explains. “Gambling devastates populations and promotes greed. Nothing good comes of—” I push William past the rabbi. Come on already, the show’s about to start, in twenty hours.

As expected, this
Fiddler on the Roof
will be a low-budget affair. The play is taking place in a gymnasium, and there is a basketball net over the stage. We walk to the first row of folding chairs. Ten are marked
RESERVED FOR LIBBY
. I guess that means us. My father sits down and my mother moves one of the chairs in front of him so he can prop up his leg. She rests his crutches under her seat. I grab the aisle. Manuel runs over with his fiddle before we can get comfortable. He is wearing a tuxedo; a mustachio is glued to his upper lip. William greets him with a distracted “Hi, Bob,” and gets to work on his book. He is hacking away, type, type, type, type, type, type, typetypetypetypetypetypetyping, when Manuel asks Libby if she would like to be seated closer to the front. He offers to move her. She tells him she’s fine, thanks, but I’m tempted to ask where he means to move her. Closer than the front row? Where, to his pocket?