The Other Brother

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  When he was finished, I could scarcely breathe. It would be impossible to describe the sensation of having music created so close. It was like I was in another time or as though time had completely stopped. When I looked at my watch, I saw that two hours had passed.

  “Was that good?” his voice came up to me.

  How did he know I was here?

  “I could hear you breathing.”

  From all the way over there?

  “I have extraordinary hearing. People always assume, because of the loud amplifiers and all the years of arena playing, that my hearing must be shot. But the truth of the matter is, I started out in life with such extra-extraordinary hearing, it used to be downright painful for me. Sometimes, it would get frustrating, trying to focus while being distracted by every little sound. And a poorly running appliance could drive me nearly mad. So I thank the heavens that music has wrecked my hearing because now it’s merely exceptional.” Pause. Then:

  “So. Was it good?”

  Briefly, I flirted with the idea of saying “no,” of denying him. But Denny had known I was there. And still he had let me in in a way Jack never had.

  “Yes,” I said at last, again marveling at how much memory and meaning could be invested in one small word, “yes, it was good.”

  As I believe I may have mentioned, in two weeks, there was just one great moment. OK, maybe that moment lasted for two hours. But still.

  Something had to give.

  • • •

  I’d had enough of the beach, enough of cooking meals for others at all hours, enough of having to find a place to simply be where others weren’t. I wanted to take my book upstairs and spend the afternoon reading. So what if Denny was there, working and thinking? He could work and think somewhere else for a change. Whose house was it anyway?

  I mounted the stairs fiercely, book in hand, determined to have my way for once. But as I climbed higher, I heard the sound of voices and female laughter coming from the front of the house. What was this? For the whole time we’d been there, I was the only female in the house, and I certainly wasn’t doing any laughing.

  As far as I knew, Denny hadn’t been out of the house, unless you counted him running on the beach at night, which I didn’t. I always watched him when he ran, and I never saw him speak to anybody, probably because he went out so late, there was no one else there. So where had he commandeered a woman from then?

  Entering the boys’ bedroom, I saw that the door to the dayroom was wide open. How irresponsible! What if one of the boys had come back to get something from their bedroom, only to stumble upon their uncle and some woman having it off in the dayroom? Couldn’t Denny have brought the woman to his own bedroom like a normal person and, you know, closed the door? I was so incensed I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t even hear what Denny and the woman were saying, not over the roaring in my own head.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” I demanded without preamble as I burst into the room. I don’t know what I’d expected to see exactly. Certainly something more gymnastic than what was on view.

  As it was, Denny was seated on a white wicker chair he must’ve pulled into the room, a towel draped around his shoulders. Behind him stood the woman.

  I think it’s political correctness gone mad to say that exotic is a word that should no longer be used to describe a woman. Exotic, among other things, means “strikingly, excitingly, or mysteriously different or unusual,” and this sensationally tall woman standing before me was certainly all that. As for one of the other definitions, “of or related to striptease, as in dancing,” given her crotch-high short shorts and her baby T that was more bra than actual clothing, she had that covered too, if nothing else.

  Their heads swiveled toward me as one, and they spoke at once too.

  “I’m getting my hair cut,” he said.

  “I’m cutting his hair,” she said.

  There are times, when a person is angry about something but then becomes aware that things aren’t what they thought, that anger gets defused and everyone has a good laugh. There are other times, though, that no matter how unreasonable—perhaps because it is unreasonable—the person instead forges forward, full steam ahead.

  Which way was I going to go?

  “This is just too much!” I yelled.

  “Do you really think so?” Denny asked mildly. He held out his palm and the woman placed a hand mirror in it. Denny studied his reflection seriously from all sides. “But this is how much I always have her take off.”

  “Not the bloody haircut, you idiot!”

  “What then?”

  I was so exasperated. “Where did she come from?”

  “England of course. I’m sorry! Where are my manners? Lulu, this is my sister-in-law, Mona. Mona, Lulu.”

  Lulu? His previous girlfriend had been named Lalaina LaLani. Didn’t he know any women besides me whose names didn’t begin with L?

  Lulu shifted a pair of scissors to the hand that was already holding a comb and reached out the now free one toward me. It was a beautiful hand. And when she smiled, she could have lit up the silver screen. “Charmed,” she said.

  I had no choice but to shake her hand.

  “Perhaps you’d like to get your hair cut too?” Denny suggested. “I’m sure Lulu wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Lulu added.

  “You look like you could use it,” Denny said.

  “My hair is fine the way it is!”

  “OK, then, tell you what,” Denny said. “It’s becoming increasingly clear there’s something on your mind. How about we let Lulu finish her job, and then I’ll meet you downstairs, where we can discuss whatever that something is?”

  Was I being dismissed?

  I opened my mouth to protest but then stopped.

  Did I really want to be having this fight with him in front of gorgeous Lulu?

  Apparently, I did not.

  “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

  • • •

  Downstairs in the living area, I paced and fumed, fumed and paced.

  The nerve of that man!

  A part of me knew I was being unreasonably irate, knew it to my core, but what sort of person accepts an invitation for one only to bring a whole entourage and then adds a personal hairdresser to the mix? My brother-in-law, that’s who. Not to mention, a big part of the part of me that knew I was being unreasonably irate suspected it was due to being upset about him bringing another woman here.

  But I didn’t want to think about that part.

  Ten minutes later, I heard the sound of feet on the stairs accompanied by lots of male and female laughter.

  “So, right,” Denny said, “see you in two weeks?” There followed the bang of the back screen door slamming shut. A minute later, Denny joined me.

  “Two weeks?” I asked. “You mean you’re not moving her in here with all the rest of your entourage?”

  “Of course not. Why would I do that? That would be excessive.”

  “So what do you do exactly? Every two weeks you just fly her to wherever you are in the world so she can keep your hair trimmed the perfect length?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

  “But that’s insane!”

  “Do you really think so? Because I think it would be insane for a person not to have perfect hair at all times if a person could afford it.”

  I tried to calculate what he must spend—the plane fares, other travel expenses, not to mention what he paid Lulu for what must be an enormous amount of time—just to get his hair cut. I simply couldn’t fathom it.

  Suddenly I was sure that, whatever this insane man was doing here, it had nothing to do with wanting to get closer to my husband.

  “What are you doing here really?” I asked him tiredly, the fight having gone out of me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Did you have a fight with Lex?”

  “Why would you say that
?”

  “Because it’s what you two do?”

  “Again, why would you say that?”

  All of a sudden, I saw things clearly: the reason Denny had come here at all, that song I’d heard him composing—Denny was working on a solo album.

  Everyone knew the story of how the nexus of the band first formed. Lex beat Denny up on Denny’s first day at school. While waiting to see the headmaster, they began physically fighting again, but then they cracked up laughing, began talking about what sort of music each liked. Before the headmaster came out to yell at them, they’d already worked out that Denny would be lead singer and Lex would play lead guitar. They’d even come up with the name of the band and the beginnings of their first song. That became the general pattern of what was to come. Fight, make up, get creative. They’d been together now for so long, they were more to each other than any romantic partner ever could be. Over time, though, the wash-rinse-repeat pattern of fight/make up/create had taken its toll. Sometimes, there was no make-up period at all, and instead they went off to create separately. They’d even each done a few solo albums—never nearly as successful as those done together. So that’s what Denny was doing here. It was the only thing that made sense.

  I knew all this from reading the mags, but of course I couldn’t tell him that.

  “Because it’s the only thing that makes sense,” I said finally. “Call it a lucky guess.”

  “Guess? Sense? Don’t be daft! How many times do I have to tell you, I came here to spend time with my brother.”

  “Oh, really? And just how much time have you spent with Jack so far?”

  He sighed. “Really, Mona. What’s this really all about?”

  And, just like that, the fight was back in me.

  “You! You come here with your bodyguards and your drivers and your hairdressers—”

  “Just one driver, just one hairdresser, and the hairdresser’s already gone away.”

  “Do you have any idea how many meals I make a day? You all eat at different times, none of you can be bothered to make your own food—”

  “We don’t want to intrude on your kitchen. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Which is absolutely insane. Do you have any idea how many hours a day I’m spending in the kitchen?”

  “I so wish you’d said something earlier. I’m happy to send for my personal chef. It’ll take him the better part of the day and night to get here—first the private jet has to bring Lulu back before collecting him—but I assure you—”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is?”

  “Bringing your private chef here will be just one more person using the bathroom.”

  “Well, not exactly. I mean, he will reduce drastically the time you’re spending in the kitchen, so he’ll be doing much more than just using the loo…”

  “But I don’t want another person here! Gack! You and all your people—it’s like dealing with King Lear!”

  “At the risk of angering you further, I feel the need to point out: Aren’t you exaggerating, just a tiny bit? After all, Lear arrived at his daughters’ homes with one hundred men. So I hardly see where this qualifies—”

  “It’s bloody close enough!”

  To his credit, he wasn’t physically blown across the room like a cartoon character by the foghorn quality with which I’d invested my voice. He didn’t even flinch.

  “I suppose, Mona, next you’ll be quoting at me, ‘What need you one?’”

  “If the entourage fits…”

  Or doesn’t, I thought.

  “Again,” he said, in that maddeningly reasonable tone of voice, “I do wish you’d said something earlier instead of letting things fester.”

  “I’m saying something now.”

  “Yes, and I’m hearing you now. I just don’t know why you didn’t bring it up when things first started to bother you. I mean, you can’t just expect other people to read your mind, can you?”

  “I just wanted to have a peaceful summer. Is that too much to ask? It’s fine that everyone else is having a good time, doing whatever they want, but is it too much to ask that I be allowed to do the same?”

  “Of course not. I’ll make arrangements to put the boys and Jeeves up at a nearby hotel. I’ll only call them when I absolutely need them. Will that do?”

  “I actually like them all.” I was starting to feel guilty. But not much. “But they spend so much time in the bathroom!”

  “Matt and Walter can be very vain that way.”

  “And the boys, my boys, enjoy playing board games with Matt and Walter at night.”

  “Then they can come for occasional visits. But no more taking over your living area. Will that do?”

  I thought about it. Would that do?

  I must have thought about it for too long because at last he said, “Unless of course you want me to leave too?”

  And I thought about that even longer.

  “No,” I said at last, “you can stay.”

  • • •

  “What’s going on? I could hear you fighting from the beach! Well, mostly I heard you, Mona.”

  Denny had departed, presumably to give his workers their temporary walking papers, and now Jack was back, wanting to know what all the fuss had been about.

  “Your brother.” I tempered the impulse to speak the words in a raised tone since, apparently, my voice carried.

  “What harm’s he causing?”

  “What harm?”

  “Well, on the whole, I’ve found him to be surprisingly quiet. I mean, he doesn’t really say very much, does he?”

  Quiet? Jack only thought that because he was never around when Denny and his entourage were all jabbering at once on their mobile phones.

  “So, as I said,” Jack said, “what’s the harm?”

  Denny had destroyed the peace I’d initially found there, he’d completely disturbed the fabric of our time in Westport, changing every second of every day. That was the harm.

  But I couldn’t tell Jack. It was too much somehow, too big of an admission of the effect Denny had on me.

  So I settled for a rehash of the things I’d told Denny: about being tired of cooking for everybody, about being tired of having so many people using one bathroom, about how I thought it only fair that I should get to enjoy a relaxing summer too. I got so caught up in my own rant that I stopped thinking about what I was saying, stopped choosing my words with care, which is how I ended up adding:

  “I never should have invited him here in the first place.”

  “Wait. What? You invited him here? But I thought he came on his own steam.”

  Ah, crap.

  I had no choice. I was forced to admit to having invited Denny back at Easter.

  “How,” Jack asked, “could you have neglected to tell me something like that?”

  “I forgot.”

  “You forgot? That seems like a pretty big thing to forget.”

  “It’s true, though. I issued the invitation and then I somehow forgot all about it.” When Jack just continued to stare at me, I added, “Well, I never really thought he’d come, did I?”

  A moment ago, Jack had looked as though he were growing angry. Now he merely looked a trifle sad, wounded.

  “Then all that stuff about him coming here to spend time with me, to ‘bond’”—he spoke the word scornfully—“that was just a load of malarkey?”

  I could have pointed out that it wasn’t as though Jack had exactly bent over backwards to spend time with Denny since he’d come either—Jack hadn’t bent at all—but it didn’t seem like the time, not when Jack looked so upset. Probably not the right time to point out what a ridiculous word I thought “malarkey” to be either.

  “No,” I said. “Your schedules just haven’t meshed yet. I’m sure it’ll be easier now that his entourage has gone.” I explained how Matt and Walter and Jeeves would henceforth be staying at a local hotel. “But I’m s
ure he came for you. I’m positive.”

  I said the last even though I was not.

  “When I invited him,” I added, “I did say it was so you could bond. So, in showing up, that must’ve been what he wanted.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “but it wasn’t his idea.”

  • • •

  That night, for the first time since his arrival, Denny sat down with the family for dinner. The five of us ate at six because the boys had come home earlier than usual saying they were starving. Despite their initial bonding over preferred cereal choices, the boys had not warmed up to Denny and were no more comfortable around him than they’d ever been. So conversation was limited and strained as we all sat on the porch, eating the burgers I’d asked Jack to barbecue. To Denny’s credit, he didn’t object to the fare, didn’t ask if the beef was organic or the rolls whole grain. I wouldn’t normally give credit to another adult for exhibiting basic good manners, but I figured that, having had my say earlier in the day, some exceptions did have to be made in his case.

  If the usual festive dinnertime air was constrained by Denny’s presence, he didn’t appear to be aware of it. He simply ate his burger in peace, looking out at the water. It occurred to me that, with the exception of his late-night runs, this was the first time he’d been out of doors in over two weeks.

  “So, Jack,” he said at one point, “how’s the songwriting going?”

  It took a long moment before Jack answered. “In fits and starts.”

  “Yeah.” Denny sighed, world weary. “It can be like that.”

  Here’s progress! I thought. They’re having an actual exchange—it’s even about music…sort of!

  “I used your basement a while back,” Denny said. “That’s quite a nice setup.”

  Jack looked startled.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Denny added.

  “No,” Jack said. “Any time. By all means.”