Fiction Friday

Back from summer vacation...tanned, rested and with its face looking mysteriously younger...it's Fiction Friday! Hopefully this will inspire me to keep writing. This is from "The Role Model."

Here's some background: Mostly because he'd been unfaithful, Ted is separated from his wife, Diana. He's living with his friend and co-worker, Mike, who is currently on vacation with his girlfriend. Diana has become the national spokesperson for a major weight-loss program and off on a PR tour. Ted wants to try to get back together with her and have a baby (she'd miscarried their first attempt and they stopped trying) but Diana won't return his calls. Nursing a broken foot from a car accident, alone and feeling sorry for himself, Ted drives to his younger brother's house. He has mixed feelings about his brother (whom he'd helped raise since their father was absent most of their childhood), but has nowhere else to go.

-------

When Ted pulls into the driveway, he sees Billy watering some sparse-looking foundation plantings with the garden hose. He waves out the open window, and his brother bursts into a smile.

“Dude, man. Check you out, back in the saddle again.”

“Yeah.” Ted extracts himself from the car. “It sucked not being able to drive.”

Billy gestures with the dribbling hose. “How’s the foot taking it?”

Ted forces a smile. It still hurts sometimes, especially when he has to shift or brake suddenly. “Great, just great. Doc says after PT I’ll be good as new.”

“Excellent. Good to hear.” Billy is still standing there holding his hose, grinning. Maybe coming here had been a mistake. “Though I gotta tell you, man, I was surprised when you called. But happy. That you wanted to come by. We don’t see enough of you.”

Ted shrugs. “You know how it is. Lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

Billy nods, kind of glazing over. Then seems to snap to attention as if he’d remembered something. “Hey, man. Come inside. We got video. Of the ultrasound. You can see both of them.”

-----

Louise is getting huge, and has to be helped in and out of chairs. And with two future Bliskos pressing on her bladder, she has to get in and out of chairs a lot.

Guided back into her chair by Billy, she lands, letting out a huge breath. “All that stuff about pregnant women glowing, I want to know who started that. It was probably a man.”

“But it’s true!” Billy says. “You’re beautiful.”

“You are such a liar.” She turns to Ted. “Your brother is such a liar.”

But he hadn’t been lying. Louise looked good. She’d always been a pale, waifish sort of girl. Now her face had filled out, there was color in her cheeks, and her chest...well, Ted had been trying not to stare. She was huge. And her eyes. There was a slow-lidded, dreamy quality to them. He remembers when Diana was pregnant, those first few weeks, how she’d sit with her hand on her belly and that faraway look on her face, her eyes just like Louise’s. And he’d just feel humbled by it all. Looking at Diana he’d fill with this deep, profound sense that he was exactly where he needed to be in his life. That he’d chosen the right partner, that everything would finally be perfect. He’d have his own family and he’d do things differently. He’d give his children everything he never had. Starting with a father.

“Lunch will be ready soon,” Billy says. “You like lentils?”

“Let me—“ Louise tries to get up, but Billy stops her.

“Don’t you move. Ted and me, we’ll take care of everything.”

-----

Their kitchen is half the size of the one in Mike’s condo. A cracked and mildewing wooden dish drainer sits to the right of the sink. In it are several poorly-washed and chipped pieces of what Ted recognizes as his old dishes, the “bachelor china” (as Diana called it) that he had before Jack and Iris gave them a new set as a wedding gift. It makes Ted shiver thinking of the drainer filled with almost-clean bottles and tiny dishes and spoons. The guy has no clue. His dopey, hapless, grinning little brother who Ted had diapered and bathed and fed and put to sleep has no idea how his life is about to change. It’s one thing to live like this when it’s just the two of them, but if Billy thinks he and Louise can continue to survive on love and hope and whatever’s on special at the food coop when the twins make their appearance, then he’s in for a cruel awakening.
“I’m buying you a dishwasher.”

“Man, you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes,” Ted says. “I do. You’re going to have enough to deal with.”

Billy smiles as dreamily as his wife as he gathers up a set of almost-matching and slightly bent silverware. “Yeah. I can hardly believe it sometimes. Twins.”

Ted sucks in a breath. “Bill.” It was always “Bill” when Ted was serious. Having copped to this by now, Billy arranges his face into an appropriately serious expression. “All kidding aside, how are you guys planning to get by?”

Billy examines one particularly bent fork, flicking off a particle of dried food. “We’ll be good, man. I can pick up extra hours whenever I need to. And Louise’s folks will help out.”

Sure, they’d help out if the ultimate outcome meant getting Louise and her future children away from Billy. “Look. If you ever need money...”

Billy’s gaze drops to the floor. “Yeah. Yeah. OK. Thanks.” He looks up at Ted. “I’ll pay you back. Every penny. I swear.”

Ted nods. Even though doesn’t expect to see the debt repaid, at least this brother offers.

-----

After lunch Billy pops in the video. The screen is too dark to see a thing, and all Ted can hear is this rhythmic whooshing sound. Something is poking Ted’s left buttock, and he realizes that it’s a spring from their Salvation Army sofa. Christ. He doesn’t even want to think about his niece and nephew crawling around on this piece of junk. Maybe he should buy them some furniture, too. Something that pulls out into a bed. Maybe when he goes to Charleston he’ll give Billy the one from his office. It reminded him too much of Diana, anyway. And Lucy.
“There’s Sky!” Louise says.

Ted frowns. “Sky?” He’s almost afraid to ask. “Is that the boy or the girl?”

“The boy,” Louise tells Ted. “He’s the little crescent shaped blob on the left. You have to turn your head and squint a little to see.”

Ted turns his head and squints, not just to humor her, but can’t make out exactly which crescent-shaped blob is baby and which crescent-shaped blob is merely a crescent-shaped blob. Sky. What happened to real names, like Robert or Steve or Jim? Jim isn’t bad. James. Jimmy. Jimmy Blisko, it had a nice sound. It was the name he’d picked for his own son. “You’re naming my nephew Sky. What, like the gangster from Guys and Dolls? The one Sinatra played in the movie? Or was that the other guy?”

“No, man. Like, Sky, like,” Billy makes an overhead dome with his fingers. “You know, the sky.”

“It’s where he was conceived.” Louise reaches out to squeeze Billy’s shoulder. “Where both of them were conceived.”

“If my niece is named 747 or Freefall, I don’t want to know about how it happened.”

Louise’s dreamy-eyed look deepens. “Meadow,” she says.

“We were hiking,” Billy says.

“We taped it,” Louise says.

Ted shifts on the sofa cushion. “You taped it.”

“So we’ll always remember the moment,” Louise says. “You want to watch it? Billy, honey, it’s right there, next to Bowling for Columbine.”

Billy has his finger on the tape’s spine.

“No!” Ted says. “Jesus, why would I...?”

“You don’t really see anything, man. We were in a sleeping bag.”

Ted holds out his hands. “Really. That’s OK. I’ll take your word for it. It was a beautiful thing. Let’s just leave a little mystery to the process, all right?”

“Whatever, you don’t have to freak about it.”

“Oh, look!” Louise squeals. “You can see them both now!”

Grateful not being forced to watch his baby brother procreate, Ted turns his head. And squints. And he can see them. Two distinct shapes, nesting together. Two heads. Two mouths sucking two thumbs. Two sets of legs. Something clutches at his chest. This is his niece, his nephew. His family.

But not really his. Feeling the pressure build behind his eyes, the tightening of his throat, he looks away. Maybe another one of those headaches coming on. Christ, like he didn’t have enough to deal with. Now he’d been getting migraines.

Billy is riveted to the screen. “Wow. This is so totally amazing.”

“It’s like I have a porthole!” Louise says. “Billy, maybe I could borrow one of little monitors and we could make home movies!”

“Dude. You gotta be seeing this. There’s Sky’s little unit. Look. Hey. Hey, man, you OK?”