THE BRO-MAGNET
Authors: Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Tags: #relationships, #Mets, #comedy, #England, #author, #Smith, #man's, #Romance, #funny, #Fiction, #Marriage, #York, #man, #jock, #New, #John, #Sports, #Love, #best, #Adult
Lauren Baratz-Logsted
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
eISBN: 978-1-937776-24-4
for adults
The Thin Pink Line
Crossing the Line
A Little Change of Face
How Nancy Drew Saved My Life
Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
Vertigo
for teens
Angel's Choice
Secrets of My Suburban Life
Me, In Between
Crazy Beautiful
The Education of Bet
The Twin's Daughter
Little Women and Me
for kids
The Sisters 8 series
Visit Lauren online at
www.LaurenBaratzLogsted.com
!
Interlude I: Goes to Character
Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long
(and I begin as life intends me to go on)
Right from the start, I’ve been a disappointment to women.
Here’s me at my own birth:
On January 1, 1977, after thirty-two hours, fourteen minutes and fifty-three seconds of labor, most of it during a heat wave so bad there are citywide power outages – a heat wave that would have been perfectly normal in Florida, but in New England, not so much – my mother, Francesca Smith, gives birth to me at home at exactly 2:19 p.m.
She insisted on the home birth because she said it would be more natural.
Alfresca Tivoli, Francesca’s sister, is present as Francesca’s birthing coach because my father, John Smith, says it’s women’s work. Plus, he’s scared shitless.
As I emerge from between my mother’s legs – all thirteen pounds, eight ounces of me – Alfresca catches me. Then I do the usual baby stuff: I get my cord cut, I’m slapped, I cry, I get weighed and measured, someone wipes the cheesy stuff off my hairy head, and finally I get handed off to my mother.
“Oh,” Francesca says, gently parting the swaddling to examine my body further, “it’s a boy. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I was so sure, all along, I was going to have a girl.”
Then, she dies.
“If you’d been a girl,” Alfresca says, taking me from my dead mother’s arms as the midwife tries in vain to resuscitate my disappointed mother, “this never would have happened.”
I know all this, not because I was born with some kind of precocious baby-genius capability to instantly understand language, but rather, because Aunt Alfresca has spent the last thirty-three years reminding me, at fairly regular intervals but with surprisingly little malice, that I killed her sister.
As I said, right from the start, I’ve been a disappointment to women.
Some people would tell you it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
All of those people would be men.
* * *
Here I am in grade school:
You’d think my father would hate me for, you know, killing his wife, but such was not the case.
Occasionally, feeling guilty about my part in my mother’s death, I’d say that it sure would be nice to have a woman around the house; you know, someone other than Aunt Alfresca.
“But we can tell fart jokes as much as we want to,” he’d say back. “Hell, we can fart as much as we want to! Drink orange juice straight from the carton, burritos every night, leave the seat up in the toilet, no need to pick up our dirty clothes from the floor, sports on the TV all weekend long, scratch our balls without embarrassment – now,
this
is living!”
Don’t get me wrong. He’d loved his wife, still keeps their wedding picture on his night table to this day so he can kiss her goodnight last thing before going to bed and greet her first thing in the morning, but he also loved us being just-two-guys-together-in-this-thing-called-life, which was pretty much what we were all the time. Well, except for whenever Aunt Alfresca came for a visit.
“Go outside and play, Johnny,” Aunt Alfresca directs me. “After killing your mother, it’s the least you can do.”
I’m called Johnny because my mother had intended to call the baby that was supposed to be a girl Johnesca to honor my father. Since there was already one John in the family, to honor her wishes my father put Johnny on my birth certificate, restyling himself Big John.
Not wanting to make Aunt Alfresca any madder than she always is, I go outside.
It’s not hard for me to get other kids in our Danbury neighborhood together for a game of kickball. At least, it’s not hard to get other boys to play. Tall for my age and lean, despite the thirteen and a half pounds at birth, at eight years old I have the athletic prowess of a far older kid. Every boy likes to play with me, especially if they get picked to be on my team. So before long, I’ve got six boys who are eager to play.
“We need one more,” says Drew Bailey, “so sides’ll be even.”
But we don’t have one more boy on our street.
“I’ll go ask Alice,” I say, referring to the girl who lives right next door to me.
“Aw, don’t do that,” Billy Keller whines his disgust. “We don’t need her. You’re so good, you could count as two people on your team.”
But I’m already at her door.
Knock, knock
. Press my thumb on the bell until someone answers.
And there’s Alice – Alice who is eight, like me, and damn cute.
“Um, you wanna come play kickball with us?” I shuffle my feet. “We kinda need one more player so sides’ll be even.”
“Nice way to ask, Smith,” she says with a toss of her chestnut hair and a glare of her chocolate eyes. “‘We kinda need one more,’” she mimics me, and does an incredible job of imitating my voice I might add. Then she sneers, “You don’t want me, specifically. You just want your stupid sides to be even.”
“Go outside and play,” I hear Mrs. Knox yell from within the house. “It’s a beautiful day. The exercise will do you good.”
Alice narrows her eyes at me. “Thanks a lot.” Then she comes outside, slamming the door behind her.
After we join the others, it’s decided that me and Billy Keller will be captains. I win the shoot-out to see who picks first – natch – and I’m about to pick Drew, who’s the third best after me and Billy, when I get a brilliant idea.
Alice, for all her cuteness, sucks at sports. Alice, therefore, whether in the neighborhood or at school, is always picked last. As my finger’s about to point at Drew, it occurs to me how lousy that must feel. And I, who have never been picked last at sports in my entire life, have my first real flash of human empathy. No wonder Alice never wants to play with us! No wonder she’ll only do it if her mother makes her.
I decide right then to make her day.
Today, Alice will be
first
.
As Drew stands there looking smug, expecting to be tagged first, as the other four guys around him strain their arms in my direction – “Pick me! Pick me!” – I point my thumb at Alice before jerking it over my shoulder. And so there’s no mistaking who I’m picking, I specify, “Alice. My team.”
I don’t know what I was expecting. A kiss on the cheek? An enthusiastic hug? No, probably neither of those, certainly not with everyone else watching. But some form of gratitude. Home-baked cookies, maybe just a sweet smile…
As Alice trudges to take her place behind me, Drew thrusts his arms out, palms up, as if to ask, “What the fuck, dude?”
And as Billy immediately moves to tap Drew for his team, Alice leans forward to whisper in my ear.
“You suck, Smith. Way to make me look bad. Everyone knows you only picked me first because you felt sorry for me. Now – whoop-de-doo – I get to be the weakest link on your team.”
Even though Alice doesn’t get to base once, even though she never catches one ball or throws another player out, even though she gets hit in the head and later knocked over by a teammate trying to make a catch, we still win 18-7. Like Billy says, I’m as good as having two players.
“You suck, Smith.”
No. Definitely not gratitude.
* * *
Here’s me in middle school, just barely middle school, so sixth grade to be exact:
I’m in the cafeteria with Billy and Drew and the rest, waiting in line to get my orange tray. Mm, sloppy joes… I’m not even kidding about that mm… – I
love
those things!
Standing right in front of me is, yeah, Alice Knox. It’s the first day this year with a real promise of spring in the air and, like a lot of the other girls, she’s dressed as though it’s the middle of summer, instead of, you know, fifty-three degrees. She has on a pink tank top, not loose in the slightest I might add, and in the past four years since that kickball game her figure has, um, changed.
Alice Knox has the nicest breasts of any girl in our class. Hell, the nicest breasts of any girl in the whole school – throw in seventh and eighth grades, because those are some amazing world-class breasts!
Which is why, as she receives her tray with a salad on it and I reach for my own orange tray with one hand, I reach out the other hand, place one finger under the suddenly blinding white bra strap that’s peeking out from beneath her pink tank and snap it.
Snap
.
Which is almost immediately followed by…
Slap
.
Oh yeah, and that’s almost immediately followed by Alice dumping her tray over my head.
And that
is
immediately followed by Alice seething, “I hate you, Smith,” before helping herself to a fresh tray.
You’d think the guys would laugh at my humiliation, being covered with no-calorie, fat-free Italian salad dressing and all, never mind the lettuce leaves and shredded carrots on my shoulders, but such is not the case. Instead, there’s high-fives and choruses of “Awesome, dude!” all around. At least from the guys.
Now here’s the thing: I do know that was a colossally rude thing to do to Alice, but, in the moment, I couldn’t help myself. Something came over me. And it’s not like I did anything borderline illegal like, say, reach out and actually grab one of her breasts, which you can’t blame a guy for wanting to do since, in the entire history of the world and if God really did create the human body,
nothing
has ever been invented yet to rival the beautiful glory of the female breast. (And if you’re about to psychoanalyze that sentence, maybe try to tie it in to the fact that my mother died on the date of my birth and therefore was never able to breastfeed me, well, don’t.) But I would never do that. I would never disrespect Alice in that way. As a matter of fact, respect was exactly what I’d been trying to show her. Just like if Billy stole second base, I might give him a pat on the butt to signify, “Yo, nice job,” with nothing sexual about it at all, I was simply trying to give Alice a similar compliment; you know, something along the lines of, “Yo, Alice, nice job – great work on those breasts!”
OK, so maybe that does sound sexual, but that’s not how I meant it to come across. I swear.
Now here’s the other thing: The guys may think it’s hysterical – like, pretty much every guy in the whole school hears about it by the end of the day – but the girls don’t. From that day forward, the girls christen me The Snapper and mostly they stay far away from me.
* * *
Senior prom:
I’d be lying if I said I’d had no female contact since The Snapper incident six years ago, but I’d also be lying if I said any of it could be categorized as something more than cursory, fumbling, brief or “before the girl in question found out I was The Snapper.”
The theme song for prom is Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”
No, Elton, I’m sorry to say, I really can’t.