Let's Be Frank (3 page)

So, at this rate, I’ll be about… oh, eighty, by the time I’m ready.

I was ready once, though.

Snapping from my indulgent reverie, I gasp-whisper, “Shit!” when I realize how much water I’m wasting and that I have a blind date in less than an hour. And a lot of grooming to do between now and then.

My cell phone rings in my carrier bag as I walk past it. “Fuck,” I continue my stream of obscenities, digging through the bag for the device. With any luck, it’s Frankie calling to cancel.
Her
luck, anyway. Let’s face it; she’s not going to be missing out on any charming conversation, based on my vocabulary tonight.

When I see my brother’s name flashing on the screen, I carry the phone into the bathroom with me, set it on the edge of the sink, and activate the speaker phone, despite his immediate protests.

“Speaker, Bro? Really?”

“I’m jumping in the shower, so it’s either speaker or nothing,” I insist.

He sighs. “Fine. Whatever. You can’t delay your de-boogering for five minutes to talk to me? I get it.”

I step into the stall and pull the door closed behind me. “No, I can’t. I just got home, and I’m supposed to be meeting a date in less than an hour.”

“Oh, yeah… That’s tonight. Where you taking her? Please, don’t say Chuck E. Cheese’s. It’s
not
the best way to show you’re a fun-lovin’ guy. It doesn’t say, ‘I love kids;’ it says, ‘I’m a pedophile.’”

“Did you have a purpose for this call?” I prompt, squeezing shampoo into my palm and rubbing it vigorously into my hair.

He’s quiet for a few seconds, so I think the call’s been dropped. “Hello?” I check.

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. I actually do have a reason for calling. I… Well, it’s funny…”

While he dithers, I place my head under the stream to rinse and wait for him to get on with it. It’s unusual for my self-confident big brother to have such a hard time expressing himself, so I figure this must be about someone of the fairer sex.

Sure enough, he finally says, “I’m calling to invite you to something. Something important.”

“Yeah?” I massage conditioner into my head. “Well, I already told you I’m never going to one of your girlfriends’ interpretive dance recitals ever again, so if that’s what this is about… I’m busy. Whenever.”

I expect him to laugh, so when he doesn’t, I hold my hands still against my head and stare at the tiled ceiling. “Aw, man! No. Tell me you’re not back together with that nutjob. What’s her name? Zanzibar?”

“Zaskia. And no, I’m not going out with Zaskia.”

“Zaskia! That’s right.” I continue conditioning. “Oh, my gosh… Thank God. She was crazy! Remember how proud she was of being from Transylvania, and she always said she was here to meet and marry a rich American, because that was what she always dreamed about, growing up? And that recital… that wasn’t dancing, by the way. That was—”

“Nate!”

I freeze, then pinch water away from my eyes. “What?”

“Bro. Shut up. Just… Okay, here’s the deal. I’m inviting you to my engagement party on Sunday.”

“Hardy har har. Good one.” I tilt my head back under the water again, and warn, “Seriously, if you don’t have something real to talk about, I need to let you go. I haven’t even thought about what I’m going to say to this woman tonight that doesn’t have to do with puking kids or our weirdo parents.” I turn to face the stream and grab the bar of soap from its shelf on the wall.

“I’m serious. I’m getting married, and the engagement party is on Sunday.”

None of this computes. None of it.

Well, I take that back. Some of it does. Now that Nick’s finished with med school and is part of an elite surgical team at the area’s biggest hospital, it makes sense he’s settling down in his personal life, too. Everything goes according to plan with Nick, after all.

“Where’s this party going down?” I inquire, still waiting for him to say, “Just kidding!”

“At the Plotzlers’ house,” he answers matter-of-factly.

I don’t want to think about my former fiancée or her family tonight, of all nights, so his mention of them is extremely unwelcome. That being said, I can’t ignore it or pretend it’s completely normal for that name to come up in everyday conversation between the two of us. Gripping the soap as if my life depends on it, I stare at the rushing water in front of me while I try to make what Nick’s said make sense.

“You there, Bro?” his voice cuts through the steam.

“Um. Yeah. But… wait a second. What… I mean, why are the Plotzlers hosting your engagement party? To this person I’ve never heard about, much less met?”

The growing cramp in my intestines tells me I’m sure I know why, and I don’t want it confirmed right now, so I quickly say before he can answer, “Listen, I bet it’s a funny story, but you’ll have to tell me later.”

Unfortunately, it occurs to me I can’t reach my phone from in here, so there’ll be no hanging up on my brother before he says, his voice shaking a bit, “I’m marrying Heidi.”

I say, equally shaky, “You’re not marrying Heidi.”

As if staying in motion will mean none of what he’s saying is true, I scrub the now-mangled bar of soap against my chest to work up a lather.

His tone is firmer, more like him, when he says, “Yeah, I am. I’m sorry to tell you on the phone, but… it’s not an easy conversation, you know? I’ve been trying to think of how to tell you for a long time.”

The soap slips from my grip and lands squarely on the top of my foot. I barely register the pain. And it’s just as well I’ve dropped it; I need both hands to brace my weight against the wall as he explains about running into Heidi at The Cheesehead “a while back” and how they didn’t mean for anything to come of it, and he hoped it wouldn’t be weird, because “the last thing we want is to hurt you, Bro.”

A part of my brain comes alive and helps me say, albeit in a more robotic manner than an acting coach would have preferred, “Of course. It’s fine. I’m happy for you two. Obviously.”

“Really?”

Injecting a skosh more enthusiasm into my tone, I claim, “Yeah. I mean… it’s been three years, right? It’s not like I still… Anyway! This is great news!” I’m on a roll now. “Of course, I’ll be at your engagement party… on Sunday. Wow. You weren’t kidding about waiting to tell me.” I reanimate, retrieving the soap from the stall floor and getting back to the task at hand.

“And you’ll be my best man, right?”

Again, I pause, my hand hovering protectively over my foamy private parts. I close my eyes and count to three, silently begging my voice to remain steady when I answer, “Sure. Absolutely. If that’s what you want.”

“I do,” he solemnly states, then chuckles. “Ooh. Good practice, huh? ‘I do.’ But really, I’d really like that, for you to be my best man.”

His repeated use of the word “really” tells me something else, but I don’t push it. I can’t possibly continue this conversation another minute, anyway.

“Great. It’s settled then. I’ll see you Sunday, huh?”

“Yeah! And, hey, good luck on your date tonight. Lief Heineman says he knows this Frankie chick, and she’s hot.”

Normally, I’d ask how the heck Lief “I-still-live-in-my-parents’-basement-and-think-hockey-mullets-are-the-height-of-style” Heineman knows anyone “hot,” but I simply say, “Good to know. Thanks,” and I’m glad when Nick gets the hint and hangs up without any more lingering goodbyes.

Fortunately, this is yet another thing I don’t have time to obsess about right now. I can’t get too carried away, imagining what everyone in our families is thinking and saying about all this. I can’t worry about the pitying looks I’ll be receiving at the wedding, at the reception—
at Sunday’s engagement party,
I think with an audible groan as I rinse the suds from my body, turn off the water, and fumble for the towel hanging over the shower door. I can’t think about how many times people—namely, my mom—are going to ask me if I’m okay. I can’t think about how “Heidi Bingham,” a name I’d relegated to my list of “could have beens,”
will
be. Just not because of me.

I can’t.

I lurch from the shower, drying off while I walk into my bedroom, where my uninspired clothes still await, looking blander than ever. Whatever scant hope I had for tonight (a one-night stand would have been cheap and sleazy, but at least it would have been a result) fizzles. After all, what’s this “hot Frankie chick” going to see in me? My clothes are the generic dust jacket on a textbook about abnormal psychology.

Historical events prove I’m incapable of normal interaction with the opposite sex. I’m going to babble about the bread sticks or confess I don’t like football or admit my addiction to chick lit or blurt my desire to get married and have kids as soon as possible. Or any number of other things that have had past dates nervously eyeing the door and muttering excuses about “early mornings.” Early mornings that have nothing to do with waking up next to me.

Gosh, I’m suddenly about a million times more insecure than I was before I talked to Nick. This date holds so much more—yet so much less—significance somehow. A part of me wants to call her and cancel; nothing’s going to come of tonight, anyway, except more opportunities for me to humiliate myself in front of a stranger. But another part of me taunts that this could be my last chance at that life I desperately want.

I have three choices: I can stay home and sulk, go on the date and do my usual sabotage job, or show up and prove everyone wrong.

I dress with the urgency of someone escaping a burning building, my fingers shaking as they work feverishly on my shirt buttons. Screw sulking.

Chapter Three

Good news: I haven’t made any of my usual first-date verbal gaffes so far.

Bad news: That’s because I haven’t been able to get a word in edgewise.

Worse news: I don’t care.

Worst news: Sulking at home alone would have made for a more interesting, enjoyable evening.

So I nod and make encouraging noises from my side of the table while Frankie yammers on and on about her job as a traveling corporate trainer for Green Bay’s only pharmaceutical drug supplier, and I swallow the food I don’t taste, and I pray for time to speed toward a socially-acceptable date-ending hour.

It’s not that she’s awful; she’s actually quite attractive, or “hot,” as less evolved members of my sex would say. And I suspect her verbosity has more to do with nerves than her natural personality. But my heart’s not in this. My heart is at home, under the covers, wallowing.

My brain’s pretty pissed off about it, too. After all, I’m botching what I know is my best chance at getting laid in… well, I’m not going to do the math, because that’s crude. Suffice it to say, it’s been a long time. And I wasn’t expecting it to happen tonight (hoping, maybe), but it’ll never happen if I don’t get past the first date with anyone.

Nick claims I’m impossible to please, and nobody will ever be good enough, and I’ll die alone. (Okay, I added that last part.) I’m
not
impossible to please. Do I have standards? Yes. Everyone does. The women I’ve dated had their standards, too, and they seemed to spend a lot of time trying to mold me to fit them. (Ahem, Heidi!) So I don’t think it’s asking a person too much to cover her cough if we’re going to have a chance at forever.

Anyway, let’s say I
did
get past the first date. And even the second and third dates. Even if I’m willing to invest the time and energy it takes to form a bond strong enough to lead to physical intimacy, then further, a long-term relationship, who’s to say that person won’t tell me it’s still not good enough, after months of my trying to be everything she wants me to be? Frankly, it’s not worth it. That’s what I read in a self-help book about commitment-phobia and self-sabotage.

Fine, it was an article in Cosmo, and it was written with a female audience in mind, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply.

Tonight, the scene outside the restaurant window—a usually-bland view of the strip mall parking lot—repeatedly pulls my attention from my date’s face. Mini mountains of plowed snow lend an otherworldly, unfamiliar feel to the view. Everything’s already decked out for Christmas in this town, although we’re still a week away from reaching Thanksgiving. With all the snow on the ground, though, we feel more justified hastening the arrival of the holidays than cities in more temperate climates. Winter is more than a season here; it’s a way of life.

Looking at the white scene out there makes me cold. I’m not sure I’m ready for the next six months of snow chains and snow plows and snow shovels and snow and snow… and snow. As if on cue, the flurries ramp up their intensity into a full-out shower, coating the cars in a matter of seconds. I sigh.

That’s when I notice how loud it sounded. Because for the first time all night, the other side of the table is quiet.

As if in a trance, I slowly turn my head to look at my dinner companion.

Her jaw juts to the side then resets so she can suck her lips into her mouth, clamping her teeth down on them. Not a good look, even on someone as pretty as she is.

After an awkward pause that I’m too apathetic to fill, she opens her mouth and says primly, “I’m sorry… Am I boring you?”