Belonging (4 page)

“It’s really pretentious and uptight.
You’ll spend the whole meal being so worried about using the wrong
fork that you and your date won’t enjoy yourselves,” I explained.
“At Dante’s restaurant, you’ll not only be perfectly relaxed,
you’ll also be treated like a bigshot. Win-win.”

We reached my brother’s bedroom, and
Yoshi and I went straight to the closet as Mikey sank down on a
corner of his bed and said, “I feel like throwing up.”

“Why?” Yosh asked. “It’s not like
you’ve never gone on a date.”

“Let’s just say I’m really out of
practice.”

“What about Claudia? You two were
really close before she moved to Dallas.”

“She was just a friend.”

“Oh. I totally thought you two were a
couple,” Yosh said.

“Claudia was a lesbian actually,
making me most definitely not her type. This will be the first real
date I’ve been on since high school,” Mikey admitted.

“Holy crap,” Yosh muttered. “No wonder
you’re nervous.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Nana’s still
talking about the box of XXL condoms that the kids found in your
nightstand. They asked her to make balloon animals out of them.
Why’d you have those if you haven’t been dating?”

“My friend Darren house-sat for me
when I took the boys to Disneyland, and apparently he really made
himself at home,” Mikey explained. “He left a few interesting
things behind, including those condoms.”

“Ah.” I grinned at him. “I thought the
XXL part seemed a bit ambitious.”

He knit his brows at me as Yosh
brought Mikey a black cashmere sweater (that I’d given him for
Christmas) and a pair of black tailored pants and said, “This is so
much sexier than the suit. You don’t want her to think you’re there
to do her taxes.”

My brother sighed and started to
change while I looked through his shoes for something without
wingtips. “Why does your entire wardrobe look like you shop at
nursing home rummage sales?” I asked.

“Oh come on,” Mikey said as he tossed
his suit jacket and tie on the bed, then started unbuttoning his
shirt. “It’s not that bad.”

“You have two categories of clothes,”
I told him. “Accountant and Dad. That’s it.”

“Well, yeah. That sums up my life,”
Mikey said. He was wearing a white t-shirt under his dress shirt,
and kept it on underneath the V-neck sweater.

When he pushed off his shoes and
stepped out of his pants I exclaimed, “Oh, come on!”

“What?”

“So in other words, you want to make
completely sure you don’t get laid tonight,” I said.

“What are you talking
about?”

“The baggy, stretched out,
no-longer-tighty whities. Those briefs are tragic. As soon as you
take them off, I’m throwing them away.”

“They’re not that bad,” Mikey
insisted.

My friend and I looked at each other
and sighed. “Are all hetero men like this?” Yosh asked. “It’s
amazing that any of them manage to get women in bed,
ever.”

“They can’t all be this bad,” I told
him. “It’s up to them to procreate, after all. If they were all
this clueless, we’d be dwindling as a species.”

“Okay, first of all,” Mikey cut in,
“these briefs are fine. It’s not like they’re full of holes. I
throw them out when they get to that point. And secondly, I’m not
planning to have sex on the first date anyway, so what does it
matter?”

“But what if things heat up
unexpectedly?” Yosh asked while I turned back to the closet. “You
never know, it could happen. You and this woman start heading for
sexy time and then boom! She takes one look at the droopy drawers
and her legs clamp shut like the vault at Fort Knox.”

“You know nothing about women,” Mikey
told him flatly.

“Like you’re an expert? You married
the first woman you dated. It’s not like you have tons of
experience with the opposite sex,” Yosh countered.

“Where do you keep your underwear?” I
asked, opening a couple built-in drawers.

“Oh my God,” my brother exclaimed. “I
don’t need you to pick out my underwear for me!”

“The droopy drawers beg to
differ.”

He grunted in frustration, went over
to the dresser on the far side of the room and pulled a drawer
open. After rooting around for a few moments he said, “They’re all
like this.” I started to walk over to him but he held up his hand,
palm facing me. “No. Don’t help.” I sighed and sat on the edge of
the bed with Yosh, and finally Mikey said, “I found a newer pair.
They’ll have to do, although I’m still not planning to take my
pants off tonight.”

I looked the other way to give him
some privacy as my brother switched out his briefs. My friend
didn’t though, and whispered, “Well, damn. Those XXL condoms would
have been right on the money, turns out. Shame your brother’s
straight.” When I raised an eyebrow at Yosh, he smiled
pleasantly.

Once my brother was dressed (and
looking a hundred percent less uptight), we went back downstairs
and I said, “Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ll call Fonte for you and cancel
your reservation,” Yosh said as he pulled out his phone. “Have fun
tonight, Mikey.”

“Thanks.” My brother went into the
dining room and hugged his sons before heading to the garage. To me
he said, “I won’t be late.”

“You can be late if you want to,” I
told him. “Don’t hurry home.”

He waved as he stepped through the
door in the adjoining kitchen and Yosh whispered, “I bet you five
bucks he’s home by ten.” No way would I take that bet. My friend
was totally right.

*****

After dinner (during which Markie
tagged Yosh’s leather jacket with a greasy little handprint), we
moved to the living room and I took out the surprise I’d brought
the boys. It was a DVD of E.T. and a big box of Reese’s Pieces.
Mitchell curled up in the crook of my arm as we watched the movie,
wiggling his loose tooth with his index finger. Meanwhile, Yosh
drew an elaborate pirate ship on MJ’s arm with his temporary tattoo
pens while Markie leaned over him and watched closely.

We were surprised when we heard the
automatic garage door opening a little after nine. “Busted,” I told
the boys. “I was supposed to put you to bed ten minutes
ago.”

“But the movie’s not done yet,” MJ
pointed out.

The door connecting the garage to the
kitchen opened. For just a moment, before he thought any of us saw
him, my brother looked really defeated. But then he pulled up a
smile as he stuck his head into the family room. “Hi guys. I’m
going to go upstairs and change. I’ll be right back.” Yosh and I
exchanged looks, and I followed my brother upstairs.

When I reached his bedroom I asked,
“That bad, huh?”

He pulled off his shoes and socks,
then grabbed a pair of sweat pants from the shelf in his closet as
he said, “We had absolutely nothing to talk about. It was so
awkward that Dante kept trying to intervene, but it was no use. I
suck at dating, but maybe that’s for the best. I need to
concentrate on the boys, they’re what’s important.”

“I know you’re lonely, though,” I said
gently, and he shrugged. “So, you didn’t click with this woman. You
can try again with someone else.”

“The date was an unmitigated disaster.
I should take that as a sign,” he said as he changed from the dress
pants and sweater to the grey sweats.

“That was no sign, it was just the
wrong person. If you want to, I can help you get back out there,
maybe set you up on a blind date or two.”

“I don’t know about that idea,” he
said as he crossed the room and sat beside me on the
mattress.

“Don’t you think it’s time, Mikey?
Jenny’s been gone over five years.”

“But it still hurts. Not a day goes by
that I don’t miss her.”

“I think you’ll always miss her, but
that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be alone. Even Jenny would
have wanted you to start over.”

He grinned a little. “I don’t know
about that. She was pretty possessive.”

“Still though. I remember one New
Year’s Eve that all of us spent together. Jenny and I were talking
about her widowed dad, and she was saying how sad it made her that
he hadn’t tried to find anyone after her mom passed, even though it
had been years. Don’t you think she’d want the same for
you?”

“I really don’t know.”

“What about you, don’t you want that?
Five years is a long time, Mikey.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you miss the intimacy? I’m not
just talking about sex, although don’t you miss that,
too?”

“Of course I do, but I’ve only ever
been with one woman. The thought of going to bed with someone
else....” He stopped talking and shook his head.

“Okay. So, baby steps,” I said. “First
we need to find you someone you can talk to and that you like
spending time with. There’s no need to rush the other stuff. I
mean, hell, you’ve waited this long.” I grinned at him and he
offered me a little smile.

“You don’t have to help. It seems
pathetic that I’d need my brother to fix me up on
dates.”

“It’s not pathetic at all.”

He thought about it for a while before
saying, “Okay, but do me a favor. Don’t involve our grandmother in
this. Remember a year after Jenny died, when Nana decided I needed
to get back out there? The women she found for me were downright
scary.”

I chuckled at that. “They weren’t
scary, exactly. They were just eager.”

That made him smile again. “If we
could avoid that overall level of eagerness, that’d be great.” He
got up and started heading toward the stairs as he changed the
subject. “How much candy did you feed the boys? Is it going to be
impossible to get them to bed?”

“They shared one box of Reese’s Pieces
almost two hours ago, they’ll be fine. Also, just FYI, I forgot
there’s a little swearing in E.T. They might have learned a couple
new words.” Mikey shot me a look and I smiled at him. “You know the
stuff we used to say at their age.” As we headed downstairs I
added, “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but you’re an
amazing dad, Mikey. The proof of that is those three incredible
little people you’re raising. I’m proud of you.”

“What brought that on?” he
asked.

“I dunno. I guess I just wanted you to
know that.”

“You’re getting sentimental in your
old age.”

“Hey, don’t throw the word ‘old’
around like that! The fact that I’m turning thirty in a couple
months is kind of a sore subject.”

“But you still look like you’re
twenty-two, so whatever.”

“I don’t. I look twenty-five,
twenty-six.”

“Tragic.”

“Just wait until you turn thirty. I’ll
be sure to have zero sympathy for you,” I said.

“But by then, of course, you’ll be
almost thirty-one.”

“You suck,” I told him as I went to
the hall closet and retrieved my change of clothes. “Also, we need
to make a deal. I promise not to tell Nana that you’re looking for
dates if you promise to disrupt any and all plans of hers to throw
me a thirtieth birthday party.”

“That ship has sailed, Johnnie,” he
said, and I sighed and thudded the back of my head against the
closet door.

“Damn it! I don’t want to celebrate
turning thirty, I want to mourn it.”

“Tough. Nana’s already making plans
for a big party. You’re just going to have to suck it up.” I sighed
dramatically.

After I changed, I went to say
goodnight to my nephews and found them in various states of
consciousness on the couch. Their dad sat in the middle with a
sound asleep Markie on his lap, flanked by his two older sons. Yosh
got up from the loveseat to join me, and Mikey whispered, “Thanks
for babysitting, guys. And thanks for the tatts, Yoshi. I always
wondered what my kids would look like if they’d been raised by
pirates.” He grinned at my friend as he said that.

“Any time.” Yoshi smiled
cheerfully.

We left my brother’s house
and headed down the street to Yosh’s truck. The part of the Sunset
District where my brother lived was quiet even on a Saturday night.
It was also cool and damp as usual since we were just a few blocks
from the ocean. After a while my friend said, “What do you think
the chances are that Mike’s one hundred percent straight? I mean,
the gay gene is pretty damn strong in your family.”

I glanced at him. “Are you
crushing on my baby brother?”

“Baby brother. That’s
funny, since he looks like he could be a defensive tackle in the
NFL.”

“Still.”

“Are you surprised?” Yosh
asked. “He’s really good-looking, and that Clark Kent thing he’s
got going on with those glasses makes me giddy.”

“Dork.”

“Maybe. And you never answered my
question. Do you think Mike has any interest in guys?”

“No.”

“Damn.”