I'm with Stupid (31 page)

I’m tempted to tell her to take my man, please. He loves everyone. She’ll have no trouble.

She wipes tears with her sleeve and hands me a moist business card. It reads:

Fred Stewart, Canine Coach

Specializing in small pet behavior manipulation techniques

Barbara goes on to relay the whole affair, explaining that Fred Stewart was hired to train Buddy the beagle, who’s been acting up. Seems he taught himself to open dresser drawers with his teeth and began pulling out Barbara’s delicates. She came home the other day to find him wearing a pair of Hanes Her Way on his head. He had torn the elastic waistband and he was angry. He demolished Barbara’s favorite chair, pulled a fern out of its soil, tipped over his water dish—on purpose, mind you—broke a watch, and lapped up a bottle of olive oil after knocking it off the dining room table (let’s just say this led to an “upset stomach”). Barbara bought renter’s insurance and stocked the kitchen with canned soup in case there was more trouble. And then she found Fred Stewart’s name in the phone book that Buddy had ripped in half in a jealous rage because, evidently, Barbara has been spending too much time with the cat. She called, he came. Barbara fell head over heels; she’d never met anyone like him. He’s wonderful and dear.

Over the weekend Fred Stewart “manipulated and modified” Buddy’s behavior using “logs of pepperoni and sedatives.” Buddy is already improving, Barbara assures me, but she is desperate. Fred was prepared to exit Barbara’s life immediately following Buddy’s round of treatment. Knowing this, she asked him out on a date. He accepted; she was thrilled. Yesterday they dined on steak and lobster and afterward Barbara said call me. Fred didn’t call but he did FedEx a letter today, which Barbara tore open excitedly the second she realized who it was from. She was expecting a little note thanking her for treating him to dinner, perhaps confessing his longing. Instead Barbara received an invoice. Not only was Fred not prepared to thank her for footing the tab, he was charging her for the date. “He billed me for four hours,” she wails, “but we were only together for two.”

I tell Barbara that I’m very sorry for her and hand back the card, which she folds in half and throws. It ricochets off my chin before landing on the carpet.

“Should I call him?” she asks.

I shake my head: No. That does not seem like the best idea.

“I’m calling,” she says and picks up the phone. “I can’t live this way. We had a connection. It was undeniable.”

Glad I could help.

That evening, William, looking subdued in an eggplant-colored jumpsuit whose zipper runs from navel to neck, expresses interest in seeing more of New York. I agree to help out. The alternative is listening to him report on the progress he’s making with the acknowledgments page of his book. We take a cab downtown and stroll through the streets. The downtown folk are categorically pretty people. While we are out, five different beauties, three blocks apart, give him their telephone numbers. Blindsided by his attractiveness, they don’t seem to notice that he resembles an inmate at a futuristic correctional facility, or that he’s already walking with a girl. Oh well. A confused William throws the slips of paper in the trash.

When William tells me he wants candy we stop at a bodega, where he examines the flowers displayed in green buckets around the entrance. “These are fantastic,” he says, smelling a bundle of lilies. “
Convallaria majalis.
” The con-who-what? I have to hand it to him: The guy definitely knows his nature. He considers a few more varieties then walks inside. I light a cigarette and wait. And then I see Richard walking toward me with determination. Where did he come from? I turn to flee. “I have to talk to you!” Richard calls out. He runs up.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. My heart starts racing.

“I’m on my way to get my hair cut,” he says. “But I’m glad I ran into you because we need to talk. You have not returned my calls,” he sternly continues. He seems shaky, nervous. He looks over his shoulder and back at me. “You—” Richard stops talking when William walks out of the store with a lollipop and puts his arm around me. “Who are you?” he asks William accusingly. He takes in William’s gorgeousness and his height. He seems annoyed by both. Now, why do short men take such issue with tall men? They do do it and it’s so lame. I happen to like guys who are my height. Come to think of it, I don’t trust anyone I can’t look in the eye. But you know what? I’m not here to comfort Richard. I put my arm around William’s waist and lean my head against his chest. “This,” I say, pulling William toward me, “is my boyfriend.” I wince when the word comes out of my own mouth. “He is a wonderful, very attractive, as you can see, South African who happens to be an amazing author currently working on an important book. He’s a genius.” William beams. I reach into one of the green buckets and pull out a rose. I hold it up. “William,” I ask, “what is the scientific name of this flower?” This will teach Richard.

“Rosa,”
William answers with a smile.

I put the flower back in the bucket. Okay, let’s try something a fly couldn’t figure out. I pull out a daisy. “What,” I ask William, “is the scientific name of this flower?”

“Chrysanthemum leucanthemum,”
he answers. “It’s a Eurasian plant . . .”

Aha! See that! “See,” I tell Richard, “he’s a genius. Mind like a sponge.”

“I have to talk to you in private,” Richard says to me. He begins looking around nervously.

“No can do,” I shoot back and pull William by the arm. Come on, let’s get out of here. I won’t be able to talk myself out of it if Richard accuses me of plotting revenge. I flag down a cab and push William inside it. “We have to go home and have a quickie!” I shout to Richard as the cab pulls away.

William turns to me: “What’s a quickie?” he asks.

“It’s a nap,” I answer without thinking. I tell the cabbie to drop us at Banana Republic so I can buy ugly clothes for work. I think my boss is enforcing that dress code to punish me.

“He still hasn’t called,” Barbara offers at work the next day. I am struggling to pull off my jacket, underneath which I’m wearing a white shirt and black “trousers.” They call them trousers at Banana Republic. I hate that place. I tell her I’m sorry. “Before I forget,” Barbara says, “I have something for you from the boss. He had to step out.” She produces a slip of paper. I take it and say thank you. The note is written in Barbara’s hand. Why not just tell me what it says, you stinking bureaucrat?

Meet at Clive’s Bistro @ noon today instead.

She adds that the author had a conflict. S. Konrad! Today! Shit. I was counting on it being tomorrow after work. I already had an outfit planned out and everything. I was going to wear a pair of less humiliating “trousers,” not to mention wash my hair. I wanted to wear it down! I look like greasy crap today; I figured I’d only be seeing Barbara. Damn! What if S. Konrad turns out to be a stud? What kind of impression am I going to make? Fuck, nothing ever works out right. I should go to the Gap and at least buy a different shirt. But I don’t want a Gap shirt. Maybe I should buy it, wear it with the tags, and return it tomorrow. But that would mean going to the Gap twice. I don’t even want to go to the Gap once. Besides, what if S. Konrad and I begin to make out and he discovers that I’m wearing a shirt with the tags still attached? Ah, forget it, I’ll have to make do with my fucking brilliant smile. He’ll have to fall for it the way everyone else does.

Once at my desk I check e-mail. I have three forwarded messages from William. Glad to see he’s working hard. Every last sentence is a bunch of nonsense. The first e-mail claims that if I count backward from ten to one in the next minute and make a wish, that wish will come true. If I want to make sure it comes true I must immediately forward the e-mail to ten friends. The second e-mail is some kind of mind-bender riddle requiring me to do advanced algebra in order to figure out who will get to some train station first. The third is a top ten list: top ten ways to tell if you are a real South African. How this applies to me is a mystery. I’m pretty sure I’m not South African. I don’t need a list to figure it out. Also I don’t need any mind-benders. Ever.

I spend the rest of the morning in the bathroom, trying to style my hair. It looks dirty no matter what I do to it. I finally throw a few bobby pins in and call it quits.

At five till noon I stand in front of Clive’s Bistro and smoke a cigarette, a way of prolonging the suspense. I read the menu encased in glass next to the door. I don’t know why they needed to encase it. It’s not the Declaration of Independence, it’s a list of overpriced salmon entrées. I extinguish my cigarette between the words
TARTAR
and
LENTIL
and walk in. Whas up, flunkies. The hostess points me in the direction of our table. I see my boss, talking on his cell phone. I sit down as a waiter delivers a bottle of red wine. My boss closes his phone. “The kid will be here soon. He has some kind of play to go to Wednesday so we moved up the day.”

“The kid?” I repeat.

“The author,” he clarifies.

“He’s a kid?” I ask.

My boss nods. “Well, I mean he’s young.”

“Like my age?” I ask hopefully, brightening up.

“Bit younger,” he responds disinterestedly as his cell phone rings. He looks down at the number: “Hold on, it’s my twins again,” he says. He flips open the phone. “Renee, Chris, Daddy’s at work. I can’t talk now . . .” He begins to lecture them.

I pour myself a generous glass of wine. Bit younger? I take one of the bobby pins out of my hair and begin chewing on the end of it. And on Wednesday he has a play?

I turn toward the door. The hostess is greeting a party of husky businessmen. I squint. I know the person at the front of that group. That looks like . . .

My boss calls my name. I glance over at him as he puts away his phone. “There’s Mr. Konrad,” he says and points where I was just looking. I turn back around. Mr. Konrad? I stare at the person he’s pointing at. The person he’s pointing at is certainly not Mr. Konrad. “Is this a joke?” I demand in bewilderment. My boss asks what I mean as “Mr. Konrad” parks himself in front of me. “Well,” I say, shifting in my seat, “this is my brother, for starters.” I almost didn’t recognize him without his baseball cap. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him without it . . .

My boss takes a step toward Henryk. “Your brother?” he repeats. Henryk nods: “Hi, Dan.” What is this? Mr. Konrad reintroduces himself as Henryk Sienkiewicz.
S. Konrad
was a pseudonym. My boss seems as confused as I. “Did you know you were related?” he asks me. I look at my brother. I dumbly shake my head no. I mean obviously I knew I was related to my brother, but clearly I never knew who my brother really was.

Henryk mischievously asks if I’m surprised. I would have to admit that that’s about right. I feel like someone is asking me to walk a straight line after spinning me in a circle. “Henryk,” I say, trying to take it all in, “did you really write that book?” He takes a seat and laughingly asks who else would have written it. Well, I don’t know. A writer, perhaps? “You didn’t plagiarize it, did you?” I press.

I had no idea Henryk could write, that he was even remotely interested in it. I ask if our mother knows and realize immediately that this is a dumb question. If my mother knew, I would know. She tells me everything.

“No one knows,” he admits. “What’s there to know? I haven’t sold the novel or anything.”

My boss nods: “I can sell that novel.”

“Cool,” Henryk says and takes a sip of my wine. My brother drinks wine! That’s illegal. What else is he doing behind my back? Underage voting?

My boss’s cell phone rings yet again. “Excuse me for a sec,” he says and gets up from the table. “Chris, calm down, and if Renee kicks you in the knee one more time . . .” A pause. “Put her on speakerphone . . .”

I look at Henryk. And I keep looking at him. I can’t believe I am looking at Henryk. I can’t believe Henryk is S. Konrad. I had dirty thoughts about my brother. This is following me to the grave. “Who’s S. Konrad?” I ask.

“I am,” he grins.

“I know that. I mean where’d you get the name?”

“
S
for Sienkiewicz,” he explains, “and
Konrad
is my middle name.” God.
Konrad
is his middle name? I don’t even think I knew that. “This is really freaking you out, isn’t it?” he adds when I don’t say anything.

I’ve never sworn around my brother, thinking it might negatively influence him, but this is as good a time as any. “Well, no shit,” I say. “It’s a strange thing, Henryk. How could you write a book? No wonder I liked the book so much, those characters were like our family members. They were our family members. Hey, was I the annoying sister who never shuts up?” Henryk tells me not to flatter myself. No problem. “Never mind. I don’t want to know,” I continue. “You wrote a book. But you never talk.”

Henryk shrugs; he’s still not much of a talker. “I don’t need to talk much to write,” he points out.

I stare at him as if for the first time. It’s incredibly weird. I’ve spent a lifetime ignoring this person. What do I do now? Should we pretend we just met? I feel as though we have. We’ve never had a conversation that went on for more than ten words. We have spent our lives passing each other like guarded strangers in an alleyway. I’ve had longer discussions with South African porters. I’ve always rushed him off the phone. Even when working with him side by side at the deli I usually addressed him only when I needed his help.

He’s supposed to be the teenage mute. But he’s not. How did I ever miss that? Was he trying to communicate with me and I just didn’t listen? Was he talking while I was busy cutting him off?

“Henryk, that book is funny,” I offer. “I can’t believe you wrote such a funny book. I mean I thought I was funny but you’re funny funny.” I lean in: “Are you funnier than I am? You are funnier, aren’t you?” Henryk tells me he might be funnier. That’s too bad. But how could I have known that? He never draws attention to himself. I guess he’s said amusing things on occasion. I ask if he’s sure he’s funnier because I’m funny. I know I am.