“Here,” I said, in a voice that could have been more gracious.
I don’t know what I expected—that he’d laugh at the paltry offering or perhaps raise a sardonic eyebrow? Whatever the case, he immediately tried it on.
“What do you think, Willie?” Denny turned his head to show off several angles.
“S’great,” William said.
“Cool!” Harry added.
“I think so too,” Denny said. “In fact, I’m going to wear it on my next tour.”
I hardly believed he’d remember, or even do it if he did remember, but I had to grudgingly admit: it was nice of him to say so.
“OK, boys.” Denny clapped his hands together. “Time to wash up. Your parents must be starving after their long flight—I know I always am—and Super Mario should be serving up dinner soon.”
It was only then I noticed, for the first time, the heavenly combination of aromas in the air.
“Wait,” I said. “Is Super Mario extraordinarily thin? Because I swear I didn’t see anyone in the kitchen when we passed through there.”
“Super Mario extraordinarily thin?” William echoed, breaking into giggles.
“More like…” Harry giggled too as he blew out his cheeks and made a gesture with both hands indicating the shape of an enormous pregnant belly.
“He was probably just in the bathroom,” Denny said.
• • •
The foods served at dinner that night were all my favorites: a frisée salad with cranberries and sugared walnuts, balsamic vinaigrette on the side; she-crab soup (“I asked Super Mario if he couldn’t make it he-crab soup, since I was sure that would be better,” said Harry, “but he said there was no such thing”); broiled lobster with drawn butter and fresh corn on the cob; green beans amandine; there was even a chocolate mousse for dessert.
Someone had dug out a pristine white linen tablecloth I hadn’t seen before—the dining table had been bare all summer—along with matching napkins, and there were even lit candlesticks on the table.
“What about Matt and Walter?” I said when we first sat down. I hadn’t seen them yet.
“The boys ate already,” William said.
“Then Uncle Denny sent them out to the movies,” Harry added.
“Ah, I see,” I said, tucking in to my salad.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d be hungry again so soon—I’d eaten on the plane while Jack slept—but Denny was right: I was. And if I was hungry, Jack was ravenous.
“This is incredible,” I said, lifting my soupspoon, knowing the courses to come because Harry had informed me. “And all my favorites. Jack, did you call ahead and tell them?”
“No.” Jack looked surprised. “I didn’t even know you liked she-crab soup so much.”
But if Jack hadn’t known, and the boys certainly wouldn’t, then how…
I looked over at my brother-in-law only to find him studying my face, and that’s when it hit me: It was all Denny. He’d been paying attention all summer, making mental note of it whenever I expressed pleasure with a particular food item. Then he’d stored all that info away, to be used when the moment arose. It was incredibly thoughtful—right from sending us on the trip in the first place to the table settings and the perfectly prepared meal. Of course, I’d been thoughtful too, but in a different definition of the word.
“Is it OK?” he asked now, just a bit anxiously.
I tasted the soup.
“It’s perfect,” I admitted.
And, of course, accompanying it all was that special red wine, the most expensive to be had.
But having looked at him once, I found I couldn’t again, nor could I bring myself to speak. I was too busy dwelling on that ticking time bomb in my carryall, trying to convince myself things weren’t as they seemed.
My lack of speaking drew no notice, however, because Jack took up the slack, detailing for the boys everything we’d seen and done during our time away—well, except for all the extraordinary sex.
No sooner were the dessert plates cleared away than:
“Who wants to play Monopoly?” William asked.
“With Matt and Walter gone, we could use more players,” Harry added.
“How about giving your parents the night off?” Denny said, not unkindly. “You know, whenever I come home from being away, first I want a good meal and then I want a good sleep.”
The boys looked at him with a lack of understanding. Surely, they were no doubt thinking, this wasn’t true. Surely, when a person came home after a long absence, they’d first want to do all the things they hadn’t been able to do while away, like, say, play a rousing game of Monopoly?
But finally the boys just shrugged.
“S’OK,” William said. “But then can we go next door for a sleepover? Only, they asked us—”
“But Uncle Denny said we should spend time with you your first night back,” Harry finished.
“Go on,” I said. “But first, give us a kiss.”
They both rushed in, hugging me at the same time, and I wished I could freeze the moment: all the love in the world right there in my arms. Soon, they’d think themselves too old for this.
And then they were gone, banging up the stairs to get their things and then banging out the door.
“So?” I looked across at my husband, ignoring the Denny between us. “Sleep?”
Oh, how I wanted him to say yes. As much as I’d wanted to confront Denny, I wanted to avoid any confrontation that much more.
“You go on,” Jack said, suddenly looking excited. “I thought I might go downstairs, get a little work done. All those different sounds we heard in Morocco…”
“It’s like that,” Denny said.
“Do you want to come?” Jack offered, eager to get started. And yet somehow, for the first time, it struck me—was there something slightly…insincere about Jack’s offer?
“Maybe in a bit,” Denny said. “I thought I might go for a walk on the beach first. All that food.”
Jack turned to me. “Do you mind?”
Well, of course I minded. Hadn’t he seen how much tension there had been during that dinner, however wonderful the food? Couldn’t he see how much tension lay between me and Denny still?
But no. Apparently, he couldn’t see, and I couldn’t tell him.
“Of course not,” I said, forcing a smile, feeling the quick kiss on my cheek, listening as his steps took him away. Then came the sound of the basement door opening and closing.
“So.” Denny removed the fez, which he’d worn all through dinner, carefully laid it on the table. “Why don’t you tell me—what seems to be the problem?”
• • •
On the beach, it had gone full dark, but there was still a strong moon overhead as we walked.
“Look,” Denny broke the silence, “if this is about William’s arm, I don’t blame you in the slightest for being upset that it happened on my lookout. I was upset myself, still am. But surely you can see that it wasn’t my fault. Once a boy has learned to ride a bike, you can’t keep him from falling, not unless you walk beside him the whole time. And you can’t do that once he knows how, can you?”
“It’s not about the arm,” I said.
“What then?” Denny was perplexed. “Because I can’t think of anything else that I—”
“It’s this,” I said, producing the two-month-old mag from the bottom of my carryall, which I’d grabbed before leaving the house. I thrust it at him.
“Well, this is nice,” he said, taking it from me, barely looking at the cover. “Of course, after getting me the fez, you really didn’t need to get me a second souvenir. But it is always good to have spare reading material, although I do tend to prefer Proust, possibly a little Martin Amis if I’m feeling like something a bit more modern—”
“Turn it to page eighty-seven.”
He looked a question at me and, when I didn’t say anything more, commenced riffling th
e pages.
But I no longer had any patience for this.
“Here.” I snatched the mag from him, went straight to the required page, and turned it around so he’d be able to see it right-side up. I jabbed a finger at the article with its picture of Tiffany Glynn. Then I thrust the magazine close to his face so that, never mind the dark, he couldn’t possibly miss it. “This.”
He looked down, saw what I was pointing at. “Oh.” Then back up at me: “Oh.”
I hadn’t said anything to Jack yet—because what if I was wrong?—but in that moment, the recognition on Denny’s face, I briefly pictured how such a conversation would go.
Me: Your forty-two-year-old brother slept with a minor.
Jack: How minor?
Me: Minor. Isn’t that bad enough?
In fact, I hoped never to have such a conversation with my husband. But the look on Denny’s face now—whatever else there was in that sordid article, there was some truth in it too.
“How could you?” I demanded.
“Look at her!” Denny countered. “Does she look fifteen to you?”
I had to admit, she didn’t. Still…
“Didn’t you think to ask?”
“No, I didn’t ask. If you’re offered a huge, juicy steak, do you ask how old it is? I don’t think so. Not unless there’s some indication it’s going bad.” He waved a hand. “Ah, you wouldn’t understand.”
“I suppose I wouldn’t.”
“Too right.”
“No, I meant, I don’t suppose I’d understand how you can be such an enormous prat.”
“Prat? That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think.”
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me then?”
“Everywhere I go, there’s not a woman I can’t have.”
“Ho! Is this you trying to get me to feel sorry for you?”
But it was as though he hadn’t heard me.
“Even at that first party you took me to, all those women there—do you think there’s one that wasn’t thinking about it? Even your friend Marsha, with all her au pair problems—did you know she invited me to the lav with her to discuss it further?”
“She did not!” Marsha loved Biff. She wouldn’t—
But then I saw it clearly. Of course she would. She did.
“Of course I said no,” he said, “politely of course. But I’ve been leery of her ever since, made sure not to accept any invitations out while you were gone. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned: never underestimate the determination of a fan.”
“I’m not talking about Marsha!” I jabbed the mag again. “She was fifteen!”
“And I already told you: I thought that she was older! As a matter of fact—”
“No. You said you never asked.”
“Because I assumed! Look, one thing we need to get straight here: I didn’t go after her. She came after me.”
“And that’s supposed to make it all right?” And now, suddenly, I was no longer angry. Rather, I was incredibly sad when I said, “She was only fifteen. Fifteen. Is that some kind of regular thing for you?”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said again.
“Actually,” I said, “I know exactly what it’s like.” Pause. “But then, you know that, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about, Mona?”
“I’m talking about me.”
Finally, the moment of acknowledgment, brewing all summer, had arrived.
Remember when I said girls had been known to walk on broken glass to get to Denny?
That was not a figure of speech.
• • •
The train from Paddington Station in London to Cardiff Central in Wales took just a little over two hours, and we remained giddy the whole time.
Stella had told her parents we were spending the weekend at Bria’s. Bria told her parents they were spending the weekend at mine. I told my parents we would be at Stella’s until Sunday. It would all work out so long as no one’s parents called anyone else’s house to check up. Since that had never happened in the past, we weren’t too worried, although we’d never tried pulling off the ruse for quite so long before. Still, as we sped toward our appointment with fate, we were no longer concerned with what our parents might think. By the time they twigged to anything, if they ever did, it’d be too late. And besides, we had a concert to get to.
• • •
We’d never been to see the band before, although God knows we’d tried. But every time we had, either our parents said no because of the location, or tickets sold out before we could get to the front of the line. This, though? At the Coal Exchange? The arena only held a thousand people, max. Denny and the band hadn’t played anywhere this small since their first months together so many years ago. But they’d decided to do a small-arena tour as part of some “Get Back/Give Back to the People” thing or some such, and I’d won the tickets by being the nineteenth caller to a call-in radio program. The prize was actually four tickets, but I didn’t have a third friend I loved half so much as I loved Stel and Bri, didn’t want the evening compromised by feeling the polite need to make sure one who wasn’t part of our regular group was having just as good a time as we were. So I did a crazy thing. Having failed to invite someone to be our fourth, I didn’t try to profit by selling the ticket, I didn’t even bother to just give it away. Instead, I kept it. Unlike the tickets we’d be using, which might get torn or stamped at the door, this one would remain pristine forever. Who knows? I thought. If I were ever asked to put something in a time capsule, this would be my contribution.
• • •
Once upon a time, with Cardiff being the leading coal port in the world, the Coal Exchange had been what its name implied—a place where screaming men struck deals and traded in coal—with as many as ten thousand people passing through each day. Some said the world’s first million-pound check was written in that building. But none of that mattered to us as we sat there in awe, scarcely able to believe our good fortune.
“Can you believe this?” Stella screamed, her eyes wide as saucers as she handed me a joint that was coming down the row.
“I know!” I shouted back. Then I took a hit, handed the joint off to Bria.
“This is insane!” Bria’s eyes were dilating before she’d even taken a hit.
“I know!” I shouted back.
And I did know. Those other times I’d wanted to see the band and it hadn’t worked out—none of that could’ve compared to this night. This small arena, the closeness, the sheer intimacy of everything. With so few people, you really could close your eyes, if you dared to, and imagine that every single song had been written for you, that every single word was directed at you. And me being right in the very center, as I almost never was. I felt special, chosen in a way.
The night was beyond perfect. It was magical.
On such a night, anything could happen.
• • •
Borne along by the sea of a small tide of humanity, we spilled out of the concert hall, giggling.
After a few more rounds of “Can you believe this?” and “I know!” Bria, ever practical, said, “So? Back to the hotel?”
Hotel was a rather euphemistic word to describe the below-rate flophouse we’d secured a room in for our weekend stay, but it’d been all we could afford with our whatever-we-saved-from-babysitting bank balances.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t we go round back and find the stage door? The band’s got to come out sometime. Maybe we could catch a glimpse?”
Turned out, we weren’t the only ones with that idea. From the looks of it, the entire small sea from inside the hall was now out back, waiting. Still, I thought, weren’t the odds greatly improved? After all, following most concerts, I’d be competing with tens of thousands of people, while here it was just a singular thousand. My chances of
being up close were never going to be this good again, and I was still feeling special, chosen.
When the band finally did come out, however, they were so quickly hustled into the back of a waiting van, if I’d have blinked, I would have missed that flash of Denny’s shaggy hair.
“That’s that then,” Stella said as the van sped off.
“Not necessarily,” I said.
“So?” Bria suggested again. “Back to the hotel?”
“Excuse me.” I placed a hand on the arm of the guy closest to me. “Are you from around here?”
“No, sorry.” Then he gave me a salacious grin and added, “But I could be.”
I ignored him, as I had Bria, proceeding to pose my question to various strangers until one answered in the affirmative but without making any sexual suggestions.
“Can you tell me,” I asked, “what’s the most expensive hotel that’s also the closest to here?”
“That’d be the Angel, over on Castle Street. Do you need directions?”
“Yes,” I said enthusiastically. “Please!”
“So,” Bria said, “not the hotel?”
• • •
In the end, peculiarly enough, the thing that worked in my favor was that I was not dressed like a fan.
“We can’t just go in there,” Stella said as we stood outside the Angel Hotel.
“We’re not guests,” Bria added. “They’ll toss us out.”
“Course we can,” I said, “course they won’t. Just convince yourselves we’re guests with reservations who checked in earlier in the day, then just act the part. If we look like we belong, we’ll belong.”
I don’t know where my bravado came from as I led us under the exterior arched portico and into the hotel, sailing through the marbled lobby with its soaring crystal chandelier on toward the lift. Their giggles in my wake nearly betrayed us, but I kept my head held high, all the while repeating the mantra in my head I belong here, I belong here, I belong here—as I instinctively pressed the button for the penthouse. That bravado. I think it stemmed from the feeling of being chosen I’d derived from winning the concert tickets, the feeling of being special I’d had sitting in the arena. I’d been chosen, made to feel special, once. It could, would, happen again.
The Other Brother Page 20
