THE BRO-MAGNET (25 page)

“That already happened to me,” I say, “when I went from Johnny to John, at least with certain people.”

“I hardly think that’s the same thing,” Sam sniffs. Geez, now the two of them are in league together. What is it with women? No matter what their age…

“Do you swear?” the little girl asks.

“What?”

“Do you swear not to change Fluffy’s name to anything else?”

“Yes, I swear,” I say, figuring there was no harm in lying about my nonexistent male neighbor needing a leash for his dog so surely there’s no harm in lying about this. Just let me get out of here with this cat.

“Pinky swear?” the little girl insists, holding out her pinky.

Shit. Now she wants to bind me to a solemn oath? A person can’t lie in a solemn oath. Shit.

I hold out my pinky, entwine it with hers. “Pinky swear,” I vow.

And now I am bound.  

“I can’t believe how good you look – you look
amazing
!”

No, I did not just direct those words at Helen, although I’m sure when she does get here she’ll look even more amazing. I directed them at Sam, who’s stopped by on her way out for Lesbian Speed-Dating.

“I didn’t know you could wear dresses,” I say. “I thought it was against your religion or something.”

“You don’t think it’s too much?” she asks, twirling in a circle as she holds the skirt of her dress out. The dress is sleeveless with skinny straps, close-fitting through the waist but with a flared skirt, the fabric something rich-looking like a satin or a silk, the color a vivid dark red. Sam’s bare legs are already tan in preparation for the summer just around the corner and on her feet are high-heeled sandals with lots of straps. No wonder she had me paint her toenails dark red last night.

“Not too much at all,” I say. “If you weren’t my best friend and a lesbian, I’d do you.”

“Thanks.” She stops twirling, looks around. “You ready for the big date?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Just putting on a few finishing touches.”

Sam cocks her head. “Who’s that you’re listening to on the stereo?”

“Michael Bubble.”

“I’m pretty sure his name isn’t Bubble. It’s Michael Buble, pronounced boob-lay.”

“Yeah, that guy. Alice told me to get him. She says the chicks love him, say he’s the new Frank Sinatra.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m pretty sure the old Frank Sinatra was just fine without being renovated. Hey, are those real flowers on the dining room table?”

I look where she’s looking. In the middle of the new dining room table, which is set with the dinnerware I bought earlier in the day at Pier 1 Imports, is the new crystal vase I also bought there. In the vase is a multicolored arrangement of long-stemmed flowers.

“Yeah, they’re real. Alice’s idea. Ponies, I think she called them.”

“Peonies,” Sam corrects. “Huh, that’s a nice touch. I never would have thought to put fresh flowers in my place just because someone special’s coming over. Oh, and look, you’ve even put a little green bow on Fluffy.”

Fluffy’s on the couch, sleeping, which is mostly all that Fluffy ever does. That, and go to the bathroom and eat. I’m told babies are like that too.

“Yeah, Fluffy’s pretty excited about our big night,” I say.

“So what did you finally decide to make for dinner?”

“Some shrimp dish. Aunt Alfresca gave me the recipe.”

Sam sniffs the air. “I don’t smell anything. Helen’s due any time now and you haven’t started cooking yet?”

“I figured I’d wait until she got here. I want it to be as fresh as possible.”

“Have you ever made this recipe before?”

“No, but how hard can it be? Aunt Alfresca always says that any idiot can follow a recipe. She says if you can read you can cook.”

* * *

“I can’t believe how good you look – you look
amazing
!”

This time it really is Helen. She’s not wearing a fancy dress like Sam had on. Really, there’s nothing fancy about it at all – just white capris and a green and blue blouse in this floaty fabric. Still…

“I mean, of course I can believe how good you look,” I go on, because I don’t want her to think she doesn’t always look good. “You always look good. I just meant – ”

Stop yourself, Johnny. You’re just a few words shy of being a horse’s ass.

But Helen doesn’t seem to notice, just offers the bottle she’s been holding in her hands.

“You didn’t say what you were making,” she says, “so I just brought a Malbec. This one’s from Argentina.”

“That’s terrific. I love a Malbec.”

I’ve never had a Malbec. I don’t even know what one is although from the shape of the bottle I’m guessing it’s wine. Hell, I don’t even know where Argentina is right now, I’m so happy to be looking at Helen, so excited and nervous that she’s here. 

“Oh. You have a cat.”

“You could call it that. Mostly it’s just a furball that sleeps a lot. Do you want to pet him?”

“No, thanks. Maybe later. Does he have a name?”

“Fluffy.”

“That’s kind of a funny name for a boy cat.”

“It is, isn’t it?” I never really thought of that until she just pointed it out. Since getting Fluffy, mostly I’ve just thought how absurd it is for a man my age to have to call any cat that. But I did pinky swear. “And there’s a funny story behind that name. But maybe I’ll save that story for another time. After all, I have to retain some air of mystery, don’t I?”

Now where the hell did that come from?

But Helen doesn’t seem to notice my penchant for the occasional bizarre statement.

“Here,” I say. “Let me put that wine in the kitchen and open it. It needs to breathe first, right?” I’m sure I’ve read that about wine before. Wine is unlike beer which you just open and, thank God, drink right away. “Then I’ll take you on a quick tour of the place.”

The quick tour – another suggestion from Alice. She says women love quick tours, that sometimes they like nothing better than going to a new person’s home and looking around at all their stuff. Go figure.

* * *

The quick tour goes by fairly quickly since there’s not a whole lot to show her. Alice said I should leave out the second-story portion of the tour, which would involve the master bedroom, second bedroom and upstairs bathroom, since showing Helen the master bedroom might be regarded as presumptuous. This leaves us with really just the main floor.

It’s amazing how much you can do in a week if you set your mind to it. Since the party here for Big John’s birthday, in addition to acquiring throw pillows and a cat, I’ve also repainted the whole place. I selected a different shade of green for each room – Helen’s favorite color – so that now it’s like eternal springtime in here all the time.

“Wow,” Helen says, “all this green. It’s like eternal springtime in here.”

Exactly the effect I was striving for. Too bad I can’t come right out and ask her, but I’m hoping she was impressed with the little shell-shaped soaps Alice told me to put in the little bathroom between the living room and dining room.

“So that’s the whole place,” I say. “Well, except for the upstairs and the basement.”

“Is it a finished basement?”

“Sure. You want to see it?” I ask magnanimously. I’ve no longer got anything to hide.

Figuring the wine has breathed for long enough, I pour us each a glass – thank you, Pier 1 Imports, for giving me something with which to replace my old collection of NFL glassware, the only glassware I used to own – and lead her downstairs.

“A pool table,” she says, running her hand along the baize.

I can’t tell if she likes it or not.

“You play?” I ask.

She shrugs. “A bit.”

I take a sip of the wine. Not bad for a drink that’s not beer.

“Do you want to shoot a game before dinner?” I offer.

Another shrug. “I guess.”

I still can’t tell if she’s enthusiastic or not as she begins to rack the balls. I do notice she racks them perfectly, just like I would do it.

“Would you like to break or should I?” I say.

There’s that shrug again. “Either way is good.”

Sam’s a good shooter but hates to break, and I’ve noticed other women are often like this too, so I figure I’ll do Helen a favor and do the honors so she doesn’t scratch on the first shot.

The break is clean, sinking a solid and a stripe. Stripes are definitely the easier game with this spread, so I go for a solid, not wanting to run the table on her. But there’s a lot of green on the seven ball and it caroms off the edge of the pocket.

Then Helen surprises me by also going for the more difficult game with solids, tapping in the seven I just missed. And then in a methodical blaze of pool shooting she sinks the other six remaining solids before double-banking the eight clean for the win.

To say I’m dumbstruck is to put it mildly. I don’t know what to do with this new information about Helen.

“Wow,” I say finally. “I guess you really do play a bit.”

“All those older brothers.” She shrugs again as she replaces the cue stick in the wall rack. “It was either learn or be laughed at all the time, but it’s not exactly my favorite thing to do.”

Suddenly I feel like I can’t get a read on this woman. To do a thing so well, as well as she just shot that game, and yet I still can’t tell whether she enjoyed herself or not, whether she even likes the game at all.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” I say, “if you’re that good at something that’s not your favorite thing to do, I’d love to be there to see you do something that is your favorite thing.”

Immediately recognizing the oddness of what I’ve just said, rather than wait for another shrug, I offer, “Din-din? You ready?”

* * *

Upstairs, I leave Helen comfortably ensconced on the new living room sofa with Fluffy in the corner and Michael Buble on the stereo while I go into the tiny kitchen to start the prep work for dinner. Alice told me to get a brass magazine rack for the living room to store magazines and newspapers so there should be plenty for Helen to entertain herself with in the way of reading material while I’m slicing and dicing. I thought to lay in a supply of gender-neutral periodicals, like
Fortune
and
Architectural Digest
, while taking my issues of
Sports Illustrated
and hiding it in the dryer in the laundry room. And of course I left the day’s
New York Times
in the rack as well so she’ll know I’m down with the paper of record. But even when you think you’ve thought of everything, there’s always one thing left to trip you up…

I’m in the process of chopping parsley when Helen comes into the kitchen, extending a section of the
Times
toward me.

“What’s this?” she asks.

Oh, shit. It’s the Sports section and it’s folded open to page four, a preview of tomorrow’s Mets game. A person doesn’t have to be a D.A. to deduce that if the Sports section is folded open, the person whose home in which the folded-open Sports section is currently residing must have been reading something in it.

When I don’t immediately respond – I’m too busy doing that deer-in-the-headlights thing – D.A. Helen Troy proceeds casually with, “I thought that you said you weren’t interested in sports at all? How come you’re reading about the Mets?”

“I wasn’t reading about the Mets,” I say hurriedly.
Think fast, Johnny
. “I just try to be a really well-rounded person. While I’m mostly interested in the front section of the paper, I look over at least one thing in every section – you know, Business, Arts & Leisure, even Sunday Styles, just in case Mom jeans for men come back into style when I’m not looking – so naturally I have to look over at least one thing in Sports too. You know, to be really well-rounded.”

“So what’s the one thing you look over, if you say you’re not interested in sports at all? I mean, you’re not spending time reading whole articles on something you’re completely uninterested in, are you?”

“No, of course not.”
Think faster, Johnny!
“What crazy person would do such a thing? The one thing I look at in the Sports section is” –
think faster than you’ve ever thought in your life, Johnny!
– “is those cute little round things they put at the top of the articles.”

“Excuse me? The cute little round things?”

“Yeah, here, let me show you.” I take the paper from her. “See, here at the top of this article – what’s this article about? Oh yeah, it looks like it’s about the Mets. Do you see that little round thing?”

“Oh, you mean this blue circle thing that’s got,” she pauses for a second, “what I guess must be a Mets logo inside it?”

“Exactly. They do this for all the teams, no matter what the sport. In this case they’re doing it for the Mets and, see there, there’s another one in a different color. That must be the team the Mets are playing against. I can’t quite make out what their logo stands for.” Like I don’t know who the Mets are playing tomorrow. Sheesh. The lies I am willing to tell.

“And that’s all you look at the Sports section for? The cute little round things?”

“Well, sure. It helps me because at least then I’m familiar with all the team names, so that when I’m with the guys I can be sports-literate and not saying things like, ‘Who are the Mets?’ Plus, you gotta admit, those logos are cute, right?”

“Yes. Yes, they are, the way the paper does them. Also round.”

“Exactly.” She’s getting it. I can’t believe how relieved that makes me feel. “Now if you don’t mind.” I gesture at the chopping board – thank you, Pier 1 Imports. “I kind of want dinner to be a surprise when I’m finished.”

* * *

Oh, it’s a surprise all right.

It takes me a while to figure out where things went wrong. All I know at first is that as soon as I remove the lid from the top of the blender, an onion cloud wafts out, suffusing my entire condo.

“John?” Helen calls out, coughing a bit on the fumes. “Is everything OK in there? Fluffy woke up and he looks scared.”

“Everything’s fine!” I call back. “Everything’s moving along just perfectly!” Everything is not just fine. Nothing is moving along perfectly, I think, as I cover my nose and mouth with a dishrag and grab the blender by the handle.