Mon frere

“So, I take it you and your brother are pretty tight?”

Tight. My hands pause over my keyboard before responding to my friend. Tight. My brother is one of my best friends, but…

“My brother is one of my best friends but…it’s not like we gab on the phone every day, you know? I mean, he doesn’t call me to gush about girls and I don’t call him to gossip.”

In between my online chatting, I browse my digital picture collection. There I find an image of my brother and I on the Santa Monica Pier, less than one full week after my boyfriend broke up with me. He traveled up from San Diego despite the fact that his girlfriend at the time sort of threw a fit about it. We are both holding ice cream cones, large and sloppy and double-scooped. It is a sunny day and crowds troll the beach behind us, in the distance, and the scent of cotton candy hangs in the breeze. His right arm is around my shoulders, something I usually have to remind him to do for photos, but not this time. I am wearing flip flops and the wind brushes my hair back.

We both have goofy grins on our faces.

* * * * * * * * * *
“How was your weekend in San Diego?” my friend asks.

Groan. “It was good, but Greg and I got into a fight.”

“About what?”

“Something really stupid. You know, those stupid sibling fights. I left early.”

He laughs. “C’mon, what did you fight about?”

“It was a misunderstanding. I told him to stop being a jackass and he told me I was being a fucking idiot.”

Laughter again. “I see.”

“No, but it was good though. I called him 30 minutes up the highway and we actually talked it out. His apology was kinda funny, too.”

“Oh, yeah? What was it?”

“He said, ‘Joanna, I am sorry I called you a fucking idiot.’ And then he paused. And then he said, ‘But you were really being a fucking idiot.’”

We both crack up.

“Hey, I thought it was cool. I took it,” I say.

* * * * * * * * * *
When I am home in Arizona I lie on my brother’s bed. This is something I tend to do, a trait both Walter (dog) and I share. I am not sure what it is. If it’s the fact that his bed is made and mine is not; or perhaps because it’s firm and the lighting in his room is a certain kind of softness.

It’s a twin bed, sort of interesting for someone who is 6’2”. I lie there on my back, usually, hands behind my head. Eyes to the ceiling.

Sometimes he strolls in and ignores me. He’ll go straight to his computer and browse the Web for an hour and pretend I’m not there. Other times, he’ll immediately say, “Joanna, can I have my room back?” He’ll even say these words, loudly, before he enters, when he is about 20 feet away. It’s gotten to the point that he just assumes I’m in his room, as though I am a sort of mold, or a pillow case, maybe. A shoe, stuck under the bed.

Yet, other times, he’ll come in and play music and I start to randomly dance, goofy and eccentric, to make him laugh. He tries hard not to smile.

The times I am not on his bed, I am attached to his computer. Not because it’s new and high-tech but because it’s simply ON and available.

“Joanna, this is getting weird,” he said one time when he saw me staring at the lighted screen.

“Yup, I know.” I sigh. “I think I have an online addiction or something.”

“You have a Greg’s Room Addiction.”

* * * * * * * * * *
I am wearing a shirt that my brother gave me, a purple golf shirt. I like the way it fits, the excessive buttons on the front. On my head sits a red TaylorMade hat, also from my brother. In my hands, I hold the driver he put together for me. I am at the driving range in Manhattan Beach and it’s a perfect sunny California day.

When I first pick up my clubs, I often think of him gluing them together late at night after work. I imagine him picking out the grips and the color, even the tees.

I pull back the driver and I imagine my ass sticking out, since Greg told me I do that sometimes. I can hear him telling me to keep my eyes on the ball, so I keep my head down. And with a quick twist (okay, barely a twist since we all know I don’t have the flexibility) my club makes contact with the ball and the result is that perfect ping!

“You’re hitting that driver pretty good,” my friend says.

And I think of my brother, two hours south from me, how impressed he might be if he could see it and hear it, too.