by S. G. Browne
So I just nod and say, “Yes, sir.”
In addition to teaching me how to properly chew my food, my father coaches me on brushing my teeth, tying my shoes, loading the dishwasher, and a bunch of other practical things every kid should know how to do. He’s never taught me how to throw a baseball or a football or how to play any games.
“Life isn’t a game, son,” he always tells me. “It involves choices and sacrifices and commitments. No one gets to sit around and watch. Everyone has to get involved. Everyone has a role to play.”
He tells me that it’s up to me to figure out what my role is going to be.
“No one’s going to figure things out for you or solve your problems,” he tells me. “Not Santa Claus or Peter Pan or your fairy godmother. So you’re going to have to figure them out for yourself.”
Since I’m only six, I haven’t figured out my role yet, but at least I’ll know how to chew my food properly for healthy digestion.
My mother and father spend the rest of the meal talking about local news and national politics and a bunch of stuff that doesn’t interest me. Occasionally I share my thoughts on something Nat said or about something that happened in kindergarten, but for the most part it’s just my parents talking.
I’m not really part of the conversation.
After a few more minutes, my father gets up and throws his napkin on his plate, signaling the end of his meal and leaving most of his green beans untouched. Even though the question pops into my head, I know better than to ask my father why it’s okay for him to leave food on his dinner plate when I have to finish all of mine.
My father kisses my mother on the cheek. “I’m taking a shower and then calling it a night. Early flight tomorrow.”
Then he grabs his coat off the back of his chair and exits the kitchen, leaving my mother and me to finish our dinner.
My father travels a lot on business. I still don’t know what it is he does for a living, but his work always takes him someplace for a few days a week.
Des Moines. Phoenix. Reno.
Always someplace I’ve never been. But since I’ve never been anywhere more exotic than Venice Beach, every place is someplace I’ve never been.
Every time my father goes away on a trip, I can’t wait for him to come back. Even though he can be overbearing and distant, I miss my father when he’s not around. The house just seems empty without him in it. Mostly, though, I keep hoping he’ll bring me something from one of his trips.
But my father never brings me anything. No stuffed animals or stickers or baseball hats. Not even a postcard. Nada. Zip. Zero. My other friends, the ones at school, all have T-shirts and toys and memorabilia they bring to show-and-tell from the places they or their parents have gone on vacation. Places like Hawaii and the Grand Canyon and Disneyland.
My father never takes me with him. Me or my mother.
Whenever I ask my father about the places he visits, whenever I ask him what it’s like in Sacramento or Portland or Las Vegas, he tells me they’re all the same, just in different locations on the map.
“If you’ve seen one place, you’ve seen them all,” he says.
But since I haven’t seen any of these places, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
I’ve asked my father if I could go with him on one of his trips, but he said I’d just get in the way.
“Besides,” he always says, “the road is no place for small boys.”
So I don’t ask anymore. Instead, I just say yes, sir and eat my green beans.
My mother and I sit in silence for the remainder of the meal—eating the mostly real meat loaf and the prepackaged potatoes and the frozen vegetables. We spend a lot of time like this: my mother looking over at me and smiling with her mouth closed and me picking at my food, waiting for my mother to say something. To say anything.
How are things at school?
Would you like to go see a movie?
What would you like to do for your birthday?
This last question is the one I want her to ask me the most. And for the past two years my answer would be the same: I want to go to Disneyland. I want to meet Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Goofy. I want to eat cotton candy and watch the parades and visit the Enchanted Tiki Room. I want to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean and Peter Pan’s Flight and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
Instead, every year we spend my birthday at home.
No Mickey. No pirates. No parades.
No balloons. No hats. No party.
Just the three of us eating a Duncan Hines chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.
But my mother doesn’t ask me about Disneyland or my birthday or anything else. Whenever it’s just the two of us, neither one of us seems to know what to say to the other. We just sit there in an awkward silence, smiling at each other or looking away. It’s as if without my father there, we don’t know how to communicate.
And when my father’s out of town, my mother spends most of her time curled up on the couch watching television or reading books. Romance novels, mostly. Sometimes she invites one or more of her friends over and they drink wine and eat cheese and crackers and talk about things I’m not allowed to know.
We don’t go out to the movies or go shopping at the mall or play any board games. We don’t even watch television programs together. There’s not a lot of quality mother-son bonding going on.
So I spend a lot of time playing over at Nat’s or reading in my room, which is probably what I’ll end up doing tonight.
When my mother finishes her meal, she gets up and clears her plate and my father’s, then she stands with her back to me at the sink while she scrapes the food into the disposal and puts the dishes in the dishwasher. All without so much as a question or a sentence or a word.
CHAPTER 7
“What do you think about a new couch?” Delilah stands in the middle of the living room, wearing that look women get when they decide they want to change something. Like your haircut or your wardrobe or the way you show her that you love her. “I was thinking we could upgrade the entire living room to something with a European flair.”
I take off my Google 3-D glasses and look at the black leather couch, upon which I happen to be sitting while watching the news. “What’s wrong with this one?”
On CNN, someone is talking about the twenty-year anniversary of 9/11.
“It’s just so pre-postmodern,” she says, running a hand through her mane of red hair, which is nearly half the length of her five-foot, two-inch frame. “Oh, and I was also thinking we should repaint the master bedroom.”
“What’s wrong with the color of the bedroom?”
“White doesn’t exactly lend itself to a sizzling sex life, sugar. Feng shui recommends soft colors of red for the bedroom to inspire a healthy sex life. Like brick or vermilion or rose.”
“I didn’t realize there was a problem with our sex life.”
She walks up to me and leans down and kisses me on the lips. “Men never do, sugar.”
Ever since we moved into this place in January, Delilah has been suggesting ways to fix it. To make it better. But I like it the way it is. This is the place I’ve always wanted. The home I’ve always imagined. It’s as if someone plugged into my subconscious and designed a floor plan and an interior exactly to my specifications—right down to the hardwood floors and the decorative ceiling with crown molding and the walk-in shower with dual showerheads.
The bathroom is about the only room in the house Delilah hasn’t suggested we paint, change, or upgrade. She does love the kitchen, though, even if she’s not really sure what to do in it.
When I bought the house and moved into it with Delilah, I didn’t realize I’d be getting a live-in interior decorator who wanted to remake my home in her own image with my money.
“You don’t think it’s a little too much?” I ask whenever she suggests buying the latest style or insists on the best designer brands.
“Darlin’,” she always says, “nothing’s ever too mu
ch.”
Delilah appreciates the finer things in life and encourages me to do the same.
Personally, I prefer the classic look. Fashion with a timeless quality. Like white dress shirts and denim blue jeans. Converse All-Stars and Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Hamilton watches and 1959 T-Birds. Things that never go out of style.
Delilah, on the other hand, is a fashion trend addict, always reinventing herself to adapt to the latest style or fad. I should have known better than to think she would have been satisfied with keeping my place as is, even when she told me how much she loved it.
I remember how Delilah wandered through the empty house when I first bought it, oohing and aahing at everything. It was like watching a kid walk through Disneyland—if Disneyland was a three-bedroom ranch-style house in the Hollywood Hills and the kid was a twenty-six-year-old redheaded actress with a southern accent, a pierced tongue, and no panty lines.
While I never had any interest in being an actor, Delilah has always wanted to be in the movies or onstage or on a television show. That’s her calling. How she defines herself as a person. The role she was meant to play. But when you think about it, one way or another, we’re all actors and actresses. And everyone plays the role of the hero in his or her own story.
The devoted mother who takes care of her family. The hardworking husband who cheats on his wife. The star varsity quarterback who torments the freshman nerds.
The CEO. The factory worker. The aspiring artist. The drug addict.
They’re all the main protagonists, starring in their own sitcoms and dramas and made-for-TV movies. Me? I’m still trying to figure out the role I’m supposed to play. And over the past twenty-seven years, I’ve played more than my share.
Friend. Lover. Employee.
Athlete. Politician. Buddhist.
James Bond. Indiana Jones. Elvis.
Truth is, I’ve played more roles than I can remember.
Although Delilah hasn’t landed any lead roles yet or done any feature films, she’s made a small career out of doing television commercials and has a minor recurring role in a series on the CW. She plays a high school goody two-shoes from the South who is always preaching abstinence and encouraging the stars of the show to treasure their virginity.
It’s not exactly typecasting.
“And I was thinking it might be nice to hire a maid or a cleaning service to help out around here,” she says. “Maybe even a personal chef to cook us up some nice meals every now and then. What do you think?”
I hadn’t thought about hiring a maid or a personal chef, even though I can certainly afford it. If someone had told me I would own a place like this before I turned twenty-eight and be making enough to think about hired help, I would have laughed and asked them where I could get my hands on the drugs they were taking.
Funny thing is, this still doesn’t seem real to me. It’s like one of the games Nat and I used to play when we were kids, only this time it’s just me and I’m playing Grown-Up and leaving Nat on his own.
Nat and I lived together all through college and for the first four and a half years after we graduated, so he was more than a little disappointed when I told him I was getting my own place with Delilah. As a result, we haven’t seen much of each other since I moved out nine months ago.
But even before I moved out, Nat and I hadn’t seen much of each other the last two years we lived together. Between Delilah and my job, I just didn’t seem to have any free time. On numerous occasions, Delilah suggested we get our own place, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave Nat on his own. Until finally I decided it was time to cut the cord.
Even though my job played a role in the decreasing amount of time we hung out, Nat and I started growing apart from the moment I met Delilah.
“Why don’t we go out this Friday,” I say, changing the subject from redecorating my house and hiring skilled labor. “We’ll go to Spago.”
“Ooh, I like the sound of that.” Delilah climbs onto my lap with a thigh on either side of me. “Can we Ego?”
Delilah always wants to Ego. Always. That’s another reason Nat and I started to drift apart. He felt I was spending too much time as an alternate persona and that more and more often, Delilah was encouraging me to be less and less of myself.
“How am I not myself?” I say to Nat near the end of last year, not long before I start looking for my own place.
“Hey, isn’t that a line from a movie?”
“Yes, but stop deflecting.” Whenever I call Nat on something he’s said or when the conversation gets too complicated or uncomfortable, he always looks for the nearest exit. “How am I not myself?”
“I don’t know. It’s like your personality’s not the same.”
“Since when are people’s personalities consistent?”
“Mine’s always consistent.”
“Is it?” I say. “How about when you’re teaching versus when you’re on a date? Drunk versus sober? Happy versus sad? Horny versus wanting to watch The Seth MacFarlane Show? In each situation, you’re someone different. You act different. You have a different personality.”
“Yeah, but I’m still me. I’m just me acting different under the influence of specific situations.”
“So you’re saying these specific situations cause reactions that alter the way you’d normally behave? That there’s Nat and then there’s Nat under the influence of various circumstances?”
“Yeah.”
“In other words, there’s a part of your brain that corresponds to you, or the default you, and your different emotions cause you to make different choices.”
“Yeah,” he says, not looking quite so confident. “Sure.”
“Then explain how there can be a default you and a separate emotion or reaction,” I say. “Take away your morality, your emotions, and your reasoning and what are you left with?”
Nat opens his mouth and then closes it, like a fish gasping for oxygen.
“I’ll tell you what you’re left with,” I say. “Nothing. No Nat. No default you. Just a big, fat zero.”
Nat purses his lips and nods once, then starts looking around for the nearest exit. “So what line was that movie from?”
“Hey sugar,” says Delilah, still straddling me on the couch. “Are we going to Ego Friday night or not? I was kind of hoping to try out something new.”
Since Delilah can’t afford to buy her own Big Egos, I help out by supplying her with some of her requests when I bring home Egos to test. It’s against company policy to share Egos with family or friends, but All-You-Can-Get Sex has a way of making men break rules they wouldn’t otherwise break.
“Sure,” I say.
Delilah claps her hands and bounces up and down on my lap like a little kid who just found out what she’s getting for Christmas. And even though I know he’s not likely to want to join us, because he’s on my mind: “I was thinking I’d invite Nat.”
Delilah stops bouncing and lets out a theatrical sigh. “Do we have to invite Gnat?”
Delilah always pronounces Nat’s name with a hard g because she says he’s bothersome and annoying. My dad used to say the same thing.
“I know you’re not a fan, but he is my best friend,” I say. “And I haven’t spent much time with him since I moved out.”
“Wasn’t that the point?” she says, tracing a finger along my jawline. “To spend less time with Gnat and more time with me? Plus he’s such an Eeyore when it comes to Egos.”
Delilah has never understood my relationship with Nat. She’s always thought of him as my needy, nerdy, socially inept friend. And, I have to admit, she’s spot-on with her assessment. Nat is nerdy and socially inept, and he has grown to depend on me more than your average friend, but that’s because he doesn’t have anyone else.
While both of Nat’s parents are still alive, he hasn’t spoken with either of them since he graduated from college and they sold everything they owned and moved to India to join an ashram.
Nat’s parents didn’t rea
lly want to be parents. They just played the role until their obligation was fulfilled, then they went to do what they really wanted to do.
“I worry about him,” I say.
And while I know it’s likely pointless, I’d like to see if I could get him to change his mind about Egos. Maybe get him to try one out so he can see that they’re not as bad as he thinks.
Delilah makes a pouty face. “You worry too much about Gnat. I think you should worry about me, instead.”
“Why should I worry about you?”
“Because I’m sitting here on your lap and you’re completely ignoring me. How do you think that makes me feel?”
Why is it that women are always asking about how things make them feel?
“Plus you’ve been spending all of this time working extra hours and coming home late,” she says. “I think you need to start spending more time with me.”
“Okay,” I say. “What did you have in mind?”
Delilah gives me a sly smile and starts unbuttoning her shirt and I completely forget about what’s-his-name.
CHAPTER 8
“Hey Dee,” says Nat as he walks in the front door.
Delilah hates it when Nat calls her Dee, and he knows she hates it, which is why he calls her that every time he sees her. I can almost see her pale skin turning red to match the color of her hair.
“Hey Gnat.” She closes the door and gives him a fake smile, which he reciprocates.
It’s always heartwarming to see how well my best friend and my girlfriend get along.
“So how’s life as a public high school algebra teacher?” says Delilah.
“Things are great,” says Nat. “How’s life as a TV commercial actress?”
They’ve been like this ever since Delilah and I started dating our last year in college. It got worse after I told Nat I was moving in with her.
After a few more unpleasantries, Delilah retreats into the bedroom as Nat joins me in the kitchen.
“Well, Dee seems happy to see me,” he says. “Did she dye her hair again?”
