A Messed Up Brunch in Brooklyn

On a bench outside of a café on the corner of Lafayette and Grand, a young man of twenty two years was becoming increasingly anxious around all the other people who were waiting outside for their sandwiches and salads and iced coffee’s and things. He was sure that once he stood up they would notice and stare at the wrinkles that were forming all across the waist area of his professionally pressed white oxford shirt and behind the knees of the brand new gunmetal suit he’d bought specifically for the day’s main event. The small brunette in the beach dress and no shoes, reading Lucire Magazine did little to ease his fears.

Having withstood the bench and its unforgiving crowd for as long as he could, and ignoring an informal request to wait outside, he stood up, flattened out the bottom half of his shirt and maneuvered through the crowd inside the small eatery who were still waiting to place an order. Luckily when he spotted his brother Julius, he was already at the register.

“What did you get?”

“Cheesecake brownies.”

“How many?”

“Five.”

Roman started to ask one question but stopped, shrugged, and came up with another.

“What happened to cake?”

“It’s the same shit.”

A small woman with indeterminate ethnic features and a white scarf wrapped around her jet black hair called out Julius’ name from behind the counter with what Roman felt was definitely a French accent, passing him a brown paper shopping bag. Had it not been for the accent, Roman would have sworn that she was of Latin decent.

“How much is that?” Julius said as he looked around him to see if Roman was still peering over his shoulders.

“That is your brother?” The woman asked, grinning. “You are twins?”

“Yes we are. How much do -”

“Are you Moroccan?”

The woman looked back at Roman mildly impressed.

“Yes I am.”

“How much is this?” Julius inquired for the third time.

“It’s $18.75.” Roman interjected, while the woman punched numbers into the register.

“How would you -”

“It is! Okay, so you are the sharp twin, huh?”

Roman smiled proudly at the woman and then at Julius who was handing her a twenty dollar bill and contemplating not even waiting for the change.

The two brothers exited the café in single file and age order. Roman slowed his step just a bit to get one more glance around the neighborhood, trying to determine the vibe and taking note of the street names. When a question for Julius popped into his head he looked up and saw that his brother was already a ways ahead of him and so he quickened his pace until, in no time, the two were side by side.

“That shit was expensive.”

“I thought you came here all the time.”

“I do but I’ve never bought five of these at a time. You’d think there would be a bulk rate or something.”

“You should’ve just gotten a cake. It probably would’ve been cheaper and anyway, you don’t bring individual desserts to a brunch. Unless its cookies or -”

“Says who?”

“That’s just common knowledge.”

Roman had a brief inclination to also comment on Julius’ inappropriate attire, a woven baroque short sleeve and blue jeans, but acted on better instincts instead.

“How come you’re the only one who knows all this ‘common’ shit? Doesn’t that make it categorically uncommon?”

“Everybody knows you’re supposed to bring something when you’re invited to meal. Have you ever watched a sit-com?”

“What time is it anyway?”

Roman jerked his arm straight out in front of him in an effort to get his wrist out past the cuff of his white shirt sleeve. This irritated Julius (who had argued on several occasions to several different people that in the age of the cell phone – watches had been rendered obsolete) beyond measure.

“Twelve twenty-two, which means we’re gonna be at least fifteen minutes late.”

“If it’s after twelve how is this brunch? It’s officially afternoon. That means its lunch; doesn’t it?”

“We’re still late so it really doesn’t make a difference.”

“It’s like two blocks away. Relax.”

Roman took a long look at the scenery around him: town houses next to brownstones which were next to newer more modern looking apartment houses that had obviously been built within the last five years, all on the same street, surrounded by tall leafy green treetops. It was so quiet he could hear the leaves brushing against each other even though the breeze was light at best. Circulars from Fine Fare and Target that hadn’t been chucked onto doorsteps were stuffed into front gates or simply dropped at their thresholds. Where there were black men in their golden years chewing the fat on stoops or playing chess in front of their buildings on lawn chairs, there were young white college girls passing by them while walking their dogs on very generous leashes. Some made the exchange with cordial, neighborly smiles. Some did not.

“Did you like living around here?”

Julius didn’t respond immediately, which wasn’t something that Roman was not used to.

“I know you said before that it’s a nice neighborhood but did you enjoy it?”

“Yeah. I loved it.”

“Yeah, I think I would too. The people at that restaurant were a little too bourgie for me but I really think I could live around here. Why didn’t you just try to find a one bedroom in the area?”

Julius made a sudden stop, ignoring the last remark entirely.

“This is it.”

They stopped in front of a red brick town house that had a rather steep set of cement steps going up to the front door. The panels around all the windows of the house as well as the front door were a clean, brilliant white which, cast against the bright red of the brick, made the house somewhat of a stand out near the corner of the block.

There was a sense of hesitation in both young men as Julius and Roman hadn’t seen their big sister in approximately eight months and one year respectively.

“You ready?”

“It’s not the fucking SAT’s.”

Julius undid the latch of the black gate that extended around the perimeter of the front yard and they proceeded leisurely up the mountain of steps. Once they reached the top and were face to face with the door, the weight of the situation came down on the two of them for the first time.

“So what exactly do you know about this guy?” Julius asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the one she called to invite us.”

“I know but I’m just saying, maybe you’ve spoken to her since then. You speak to her more often than I do.”

There was an air of melancholy attached to this last statement that, coming from anyone else would have been barely noticeable, but coming from Julius, was painstakingly barefaced and could only have been overlooked by someone who had known him intimately for just about every second of his natural life.

“Not recently. I’ve only seen her once since she’s been back to New York and she didn’t even have a boy –”

“Which bell is it?”

Roman turned his attention to what Julius was now staring at. There were three white buttons lined up vertically in a gold casing underneath the mailbox. None of them were labeled.

“I don’t know. Let’s call her.” Roman replied.

“Fuck that.”

Julius pushed the button in the middle and they both heard the two note ring that it triggered.

“Why would you do that? You don’t know whose bell you just rang. You could’ve just woken someone up.”

“If they’re not up by 12:30 in the afternoon I guarantee you they’re not waking up for any doorbells. Besides,” Julius reasoned, “it’s always the middle one.”

Seconds later they heard, quite clearly, the footsteps of someone roughly one hundred thirty pounds on carpeted hardwood floors that were probably older than their parents, behind a wooden door that was obviously not very heavy. And then seconds after that…

Karla appeared in all her splendor, slimmer than they had seen her in years, with a smile just as wide as her open arms in a candy striped, short sleeved button up and white jeans. She was by all accounts, Glowing.

“My boys!”

Roman was the first to step into the invitational embrace, followed pensively by Julius. Karla had them each in a firm headlock and even though they’d both crouched down toward her, she had to stand on her toes in order to rest her chin on their conjoined, opposing shoulders.

“Romie and Jules! When was the last time I saw you at the same time?” She said as she turned into the house holding one of each of their hands in each of hers.

“I wasn’t sure if I told you which bell to ring. We’re right down this hallway so no more steps. There’s one apartment above us and one underneath, in the basement. They call it the basement even though it’s not underground. ”

The carpeting on the floor of the vestibule was a mud shade of brown that seemed to have been there since the houses erection and sorely needed a good shampooing. There was a door to the hallway that led to Karla’s apartment which was open, although the door to her apartment itself was closed, even though she had only come out to open the front door, which seemed a bit sketchy to Roman. The light fixture in the ceiling of the hallway consisted of one dull bulb that was enclosed in a dusty glass casing that may or may not have been meant to resemble some kind of seashell. Roman and Julius looked at each other hesitantly as they braced to see just what surprises Karla’s new life might present.

However, once Karla opened the door to her apartment, the boys were pleasantly surprised at how much different her little world was compared to the outside. For one, it was much brighter than they had expected, as the place was narrow and only had windows on one side. But then they looked down the same hallway they had just walked (except that they were now on the inside) and realized that the huge window they saw outside, to the right of the front door with the navy blue drapes parted at the bottoms, actually belonged to her dining room.

“So this is the living room but we’re not staying in here ‘cause I know Julius will get right on the TV to watch basketball and you won’t be able to say two words to him the rest of the day.”

“How big is that TV?” Julius asked in veiled awe. “I do have $50 on the East semi-finals.”

Karla’s living room wasn’t a particularly big one but it had just slightly more than the adequate space for two young adults to host two guests. There was a window at the back of the living room that had a view of the backyard from one flight up, and a door off to the right that was closed, which the boys assumed to be the bedroom.

“Ugh! I’ve been watching basketball with James every night for a month already.”

James. This was the first time they’d even heard his name.

“Speaking of – James…” Said Roman.

“He’s getting dressed in the room. Come on.”

She led them down the narrow hall, past the kitchen and into the dining room. The wall paper was some kind of pale blue with a floral pattern and there seemed to be plants, all different kinds of plants, covering every square inch of the room: on the floor, on the shelves up near the ceiling, rolling carts and even hanging from hooks on the walls. The oval shaped table was dressed in a white linen cloth with stitch patterning and in the center of it was a big punch bowl filled with pineapple juice and mandarin oranges, and the handle of a gold plated ladle resting on the rim.

Roman and Julius sat down across from each other at one end of the table in front of the window. The sun light that poured through the opening in the drapes all spilled onto the little area of table between them. In front of each of them was a china plate underneath a saucer, underneath an even smaller plate presumably used for tea; a folded cloth napkin that served as a bed to two forks of different size and proportion, a butter knife and a tea spoon; and a short barrel shaped glass with a blue stripe around the rim.

“Jesus H. Christ.” Roman blurted.

“When’d you get so damn fancy?”

“Excuse me Mr. Slade” She said, while standing over Julius’ chair with her hands on his shoulder. “But I haven’t seen you in almost a year, so you don’t get to ask me about when anything happened. Okay?”

“Well I only saw you a few months ago so –”

“Hold on Romie, let me start bringing the food out. I made a lot so don’t get filled up on juice.” She said specifically to Julius who incidentally was just about to reach for the ladle.

From his seat at the table Julius had a view straight down the hallway and he watched his sister walk away, as brisk and bubbly as he had seen her since she was about twelve years old.

“Is it me” Julius whispered to his brother. “Or has she lost a lot of weight?”

“Yeah, I think so. She’d already lost some weight when I saw her on Thanksgiving but she definitely wasn’t this skinny.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s…” He stopped short after a quick look down the hall.

“What?”

Julius turned back to Roman grinning deviously. Roman mindfully noted that this was the first time he’d seen his brother genuinely smile in close to two years.

“It’s him.”

Roman sat up a trifle straighter but Julius motioned to him that it wasn’t necessary.

“He went in the kitchen with her.”

Though they didn’t know it, they both, simultaneously had the thought, accompanied by the image, of Karla and James in the kitchen kissing, and shuddered at the notion.

Once he saw Karla and James emerge from the kitchen, Julius pulled his chair in forward so he’d be out of view and warned Roman that they were en route. When the two of them finally did appear in the doorway, they seemed to be the picture of happiness at its peak. James seemed to be just the right amount of inches taller (but not years older) than Karla was as he stood closely beside her with his arm wrapped around her shoulders and their smiles matching. They were also conspicuously color coordinated as James was wearing a red t-shirt with faded white lettering. As Roman was noticing the ear length dreadlocks that James sported, he coincidentally became aware of the fact that his sister had gone back to perming her hair.

“Romie, Jules – this is James. James – these are my brothers!” She presented them as though he were a game show grand prize.

Julius and Roman both stood up from their chairs, as straight as arrows (the way their mother taught them); Julius subtly straightening the bottom of his shirt and Roman flattening the lapels of his blazer. The three young men exchanged the necessary pleasantries and just as James had gestured to Roman that he’d just as soon reach across the table to shake his hand, before having him walk around, he felt hospitably obligated to ask Roman if he wasn’t hot with his jacket still on. On instinct, Roman smiled with his mouth and frowned with his eyebrows while assuring James that he was “fine” when in fact he had planned the whole time on taking the jacket off and placing it on the back of his chair once everyone was seated; which now, of course, he could not do. The first seed of unwarranted resentment had now been planted.

James sat at the head position at the other end of the table, leaving a distance between he and the twins that felt larger than it actually was. Karla stood beside him in his chair just briefly before she excused herself and slipped back into the kitchen, but made sure to give a cautionary look to Julius upon exiting.

“Well…” Julius started.

“Yeah, I mean, we haven’t really been told much about you, James…”

He looked back and forth between the two of them, playfully playing the part of the bemused.

“Oh, so you wanna ask me some questions?”

James laughed (and not very softly) at his own attempt at humor, totally oblivious to the fact that he’d just written himself off altogether in both of their books. It was a chilly moment before Roman was stricken with enough pity to break the brotherly wall of silence with a question. Julius, on the other hand, would have been perfectly content never speaking another word to the young man.

“You from here?

“You have to ask that nowadays, right?” Julius interjected. “No one’s actually from New York anymore.”

“Don’t you think that’s a testament to New York being the embodiment of what America’s about?”

Just then, Karla walked in holding a tray of buttered croissants and blueberry-oatmeal muffins. The smile she was sporting suggested that the muffins were meant to be a surprise treat for her boys when in fact; they had both a) smelled the muffins the second they came in b) had very distinct memories of them from their teenage years and c) had no illusions toward them being any more edible than they remembered.

“Don’t worry, I’m gonna put the juice back on the table after I put the muffins and stuff down.” She said as she set the tray at the edge of the table to remove the punch bowl. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Out-of-towners, transplants…” Julius replied distractedly after looking up from the two forks he was studying in front of him. “James was about to tell us where he’s originally from. Right?”

James grinned and as the term goes; bared it - in an almost theatrical way, but still, he bared it. Roman, meanwhile, was busy observing Karla and how busy she was at keeping busy. She went around the table and poured juice into everyone’s glasses since no one had gotten around to doing it on their own. He got the impression that she was intentionally keeping her head down and away, which he characteristically attributed to something he must’ve done.

“I’m from New Jersey but I’ve been in New York for about three years now.”

“Jersey. I’ve always felt a way about Jersey.” Said Julius, before biting into a croissant.

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“Does anybody need butter? The croissants are already buttered but for the muffins?”

“Why don’t you sit down and eat?” Roman insisted.

“Let me get the butter first, ok?”

Roman shrugged.

“It’s like, it’s right next door. It’s about as close as Long Island is. It looks like New York as far as how it’s constructed and everything…”

“Don’t all cities look the same?” Roman cut in, trying to catch Julius’ eye.

“Yes and no. But I’ve been to parts of Jersey where you really can’t tell the difference. And then it’s like, people there go out of their way to separate themselves from New Yorkers.”

James sat back in his chair with his arms folded, chin in hand, still grinning. When Karla reentered the room she set the butter down on the right side of James’ plate and continued past him, opting to sit in the chair at the opposite head of the table, between Roman and Julius.

“It’s like Canada and America – but the small scale version.”

“So you agree then?”

Julius looked lost.

“About New York capturing the essence of America…”

Julius mentally acknowledged the small scale defeat, but then…

“Not sure I argued it … but, point well taken.”

With the first round apparently over, the challengers retreated to their respective corners. James reached toward the middle of the table for a muffin and split it open with his butter knife. The twins maintained focus on their croissants, Roman in particular, hoping that Karla wouldn’t notice.

“You guys don’t want any muffins?” She asked, looking at the plates to her left and right as she put pieces of one into her own mouth.

“I don’t really-”

“Too heavy. I won’t be able to eat anything else.” Roman cut in, loudly, in an effort to strike Julius’ attempted comment from the record.

“What’s wrong with you? You don’t eat anymore?”

“I eat. I’m just saying, I had a good breakfast and if I eat a muffin-”

“You don’t eat breakfast if you’re gonna have brunch, Roman.”

With that, Roman threw himself against the back of his chair and slumped downward with his chin in his chest, which had been his signature reaction since the age of four, whenever his sister felt compelled to use his given name.

“What exactly is the time frame for ‘brunch’?” Julius added. “It’s already well after 12 which technically makes this lunch; doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know the ‘exact time frame’. Does it really matter?”

While the three of them were engaged in their little familial spat, James happened to notice Roman shoot Karla a very pouty look when her response to the question wasn’t punctuated with a contemptuous “Julius”. Feeling somewhat territorial, he attempted to save his lady from the teeth of circling wolves.

“Babe, I think we’re ready for the main course now.”

“I’m talking to my brothers.” She shot back.

Once the bomb had been dropped, Roman and Julius each instinctively looked in two opposite directions: Roman at Karla, Julius at James. James’ reaction however, was to look back at Karla with an eyebrow raised, as though she might want to reconsider, or maybe redirect her animosity.

“You can get it if you want.”

She did not.

“Okay.” James replied; still grinning, still bearing it.

As he headed down the hall into the kitchen, Karla turned to Julius, her face very well lit with a smile that was huge and yet showed no teeth, and then punched him square on his right shoulder.

“What?!”

“Why don’t you call me?” She said, heartbroken.

“I don’t know… you don’t call me either.” He said, staring at his forks again.

“That’s no excuse!”

Karla grabbed two muffins off of the tray and handed one to each of them.

“I told you I can’t.” Roman protested.

“Ugh! Here Jules, eat his.” Karla said as she dropped the two muffins on his plate.

“I don’t even want one. You’re gonna give me two?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like them. Neither does he.”

When Karla turned to him in shock, Roman had already seen the headlights but could do nothing to stop the collision.

“You don’t like my muffins, Roman?! You asked me to make them for you for your first day in high school!”

“I didn’t ask you to make them. You asked me if I wanted -”

“The omelets were cold. I put them in the oven.” James said, sitting down in his chair at the table, unnoticed until he spoke.

“The oven? Now they’re gonna get dried out. You should’ve put them in the microwave.”

“I guess I wasn’t the best person to handle that situation.”

On her way out, Karla gave James not one but two very evil eyes and then turned to give Roman the same, just in case he was feeling like their little confrontation might be over. For Julius – this was the Karla that he was most used to and he was now much more at ease than he had been since they’d arrived.

“I’m sure you’re used to this by now.” He said while pointing toward the kitchen, at a volume that was too low for Karla to hear but too loud to be considered by the men left at the table as a whisper.

“No, not really.” James replied, possibly implying that there was blame to be laid.

“Well we are.” Roman offered, in what was also not quite a whisper but clearly a mumble hidden under breath.

It was true. The girl that had just stomped off into the kitchen wasn’t the new Karla with fantastical décor who threw “brunches” at 12:30 in the afternoon and served juice in punch bowls with golden ladles. Their mother had never set a table with two forks and he couldn’t see any reason why his sister would start to all of a sudden. It just wasn’t how they were raised.

In that way that siblings do, especially twin siblings, each of the boys made the slightest of a gesture for the other’s attention and together, without words or even any exaggerated facial expression and without even as much as circumstantial evidence, came to the conclusion that it was him.

In what must have been no time at all, James had effectively brainwashed their older sister. Julius, having already determined that James was not the sharpest knife, concluded that he must have done it with his sex, which only increased his dislike for James exponentially. Luckily, it seemed that this whole mix up with the omelets had managed to flip a switch for her. The fact that it was dried out omelets that woke her from her apparent stupor didn’t seem to trouble him, or rather, he wouldn’t let it. In his and Roman’s elementary years, when they were left mostly in Karla’s care, the reaction that this kind of mishap ignited usually consisted of cold stares and dinner plates prepared without love. So when she returned from the kitchen with the kind of face that Norma Arnold had been known to wear while she served dinner to her family, what little hope he had left for Karla had just about been depleted.

“Ok, the omelets were supposed to be a surprise but somebody ruined it so…”

Roman, shocked, looked across the table at Julius who had his chin in his chest and the bridge of his nose pinched tightly in between his thumb and forefinger.

“There’s one specially made for everybody…”

All the omelets were on one huge china plate that was of a different set than the ones they were all eating off of. She set the plate down at the edge of the table where James sat and then moved down to the middle to remove the tray of croissants and muffins, making sure to give Roman a terrifying glare in the process – to which he very nearly responded to with a nostalgic smile.

“I have spinach and mozzarella for Roman, because he likes spinach calzones – unless that was a lie too.”

“Is this gonna be all day now?”

“No, I’m just saying, I made everything based on what I thought you guys liked and now I find out that I don’t really know anything.”

“Because of the muffins?! I didn’t even say anything!”

“But it’s not like I made the calzones so I guess you wouldn’t lie about that… And we have steak and mushroom for Jules because Jules likes mushrooms, right?”

She held the omelet out on the spatula in front of Julius and looked at him with wide, inquiring eyes, requiring an answer to her question before she would set it down on his plate. He laughed half to himself and half aloud, at her facetiousness.

“Yes. And thank you.”

“Okay…” She turned away from Julius and toward James. “And ham and cheese for you.”

Roman and Julius both looked up from their plates and at James, then to each other and shook their heads in disapproval. Karla walked down to her seat at the other end of the table with the big plate and the spatula and set up her own plate. After picking up her utensils she looked around at the blank faces staring back at her and with a refreshing smile, assured them all that it was safe to begin. Before Roman started at his own plate, he looked perplexedly at Karla’s as if something about it was extremely off putting.

“What’s in yours?” He asked with a frown.

“Cheddar, onions and bacon.” She said very matter of factly.

“You’re eating pork?!” Roman and Julius cried in unison.

“It’s turkey bacon.” She replied casually, eyes fixated on her plate.

“You don’t eat pork?” James asked, dropping his fork and knife just as he was about to cut into his eggs. He appeared to be taken aback but only mildly so.

Karla merely shook her head, her eyes still transfixed to her already half eaten omelet. James leaned back in his chair and stared quizzically at her down the other end of the table. He couldn’t fundamentally understand how he could not have known that she did not at all indulge in a fairly large facet of the average American’s diet. But the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed to him that he had managed to not notice this, or even particularly care to. Roman and Julius on the other hand, found it ethically reprehensible that their sister’s fiancé had no knowledge of her dietary habits.

“This is really good.” Roman said after his first bite.

Karla looked up from her plate at Roman with a mouth half full of food and a triumphant grin on her face. “Thank you, Romie!” She said slowly. Then she reached over to grab his face with both hands and kiss his left cheek. She knew he was telling the truth because as kids, Roman would always wait until he had struggled all the way through something their grandmother had made before telling her how “good” it was. The lies she had accused him of earlier had somehow managed to have never taken place.

As Karla went back to what could almost be described as shoveling her omelet into her mouth she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that Julius’ omelet had not yet been touched. And although she couldn’t tell from just a peripheral view, she felt like he might have been staring at her. Once she looked up at him he took his eyes off of her hands and hastily picked up one of his forks, even though he still wasn’t sure it was the right one. Karla snickered.

“You know what that reminds me of?”

“What?” Julius answered, defensively.

“How you used to -”

“No, I mean what reminds you of…what?”

Karla didn’t answer verbally but looked down at the fork in his hand, then back up at him and waited so that he could continue to challenge if he so chose.

“How you used to wait until I checked your homework before you put your name on it.”

Karla laughed at the recollection of it and Roman chuckled at the possibility as it was the first he had ever heard of it. James, not amused, continued to eat his omelet and rub his beard. In fact, he was only partially aware of the conversation going on.

“What are you talking about?”

“You!” Karla shot back, looking and pointing at him with her knife, laughing almost to the point of crying.

“I didn’t do that. What does that even mean?”

“I didn’t get it either. It doesn’t quite make sense when you think about it but you did it.”

There was a short silence where Karla went back to finishing up her omelet, Julius sat fuming with embarrassment and contempt and Roman, thoroughly amused by it all, sat chewing with the hand he held his fork in covering his mouth. During this intermission, James decided he should probably try to jump in with something to say so as not to appear to these two young men, who clearly would like nothing more than to intimidate him, as intimidated. But Karla suddenly cut in to breathe new life into the old topic. The opposite of his instinct was to force the issue and speak over Karla’s much smaller voice to display the assertiveness that he was sure her brothers had determined he lacked, but ultimately decided to return to his own thoughts.

“You think I made it up, don’t you? Because I swear I didn’t.”

“I don’t remember that.” He said, trying to end it.

“Jules, I swear! As soon as I was done checking the last question you would say ‘Is it good?’ and as soon as I said ‘Yes’ you’d start writing your name at the top as fast as you could.”

“That sounds like it might be coincidence to me.” Said Roman, the ever bleeding heart.

“Nope, every time. I’m positive.”

Catching only this last exchange between Karla and Roman and seeing Julius sitting seemingly isolated and unengaged, James took this opportunity to show some consideration to the brother that had shown him the least.

“So Julius, I heard you were going out with ______ _______.’Til just recently right? Isn’t that why you moved back home?”

The room fell silent – a dead kind of silence that usually only occurs in empty rooms devoid of living things and ticking clocks. Roman and Karla both looked at James with dead eyes and partially opened mouths. For him of all people and under the current circumstances, to bring up this particular topic of all topics, was too shocking for overstated awe and jaw dropping. Roman couldn’t believe that, if she had told James the story, she didn’t avidly remind him not to mention it around Julius. And Karla couldn’t believe that James didn’t remember that she did.

Julius propped his elbows up on the table and interlocked his fingers together in a bridge in front of his mouth. Slowly he began to reply to James, who waited carelessly for a response.

“I’d call it ‘engaged to’ before I’d say ‘went out with.”

“Oh… I didn’t know that. So what hap -”

“You were engaged?” Karla said, more offended than stunned.

Julius looked over at Karla without addressing her question and then gravely turned back to Marvin.

“I’m guessing Karla told you this?”

“Yeah…” James said, finally showing signs of confusion.

“Um hm.” He said very carefully. “Did she also mention that it’s a touchy subject for me?”

“Yeah? Why?” Marvin replied brazenly.

With that, Karla shot him a scathing look that he did not see but rather felt, and chose to ignore.

“Excuse me?”

“C’mon, man. She’s kinda well known. I’ve seen like two or three movies she’s been in. You gotta tell something.”

“Is he serious?” Julius asked his sister, implying that she might find it in her best interest to referee the situation.

“James! That’s enough!”

James began to laugh, audibly, but more so to himself than at anything or for any apparent reason. The last words Karla had spoken, her demand, lingered in his head as well as all throughout the rest of the room while she cut and chewed the last portion of her omelet. He could feel coming from his right, the anger that emanated from Julius, who was clearly still soar about his mentioning ______ _______, and apparently everything else in life. He could see out of the corner of his eye, to his left, Roman projecting objection in his disposition – in the passive aggressive way that exemplified Karla’s description of him. Now James was really becoming aware of the wall that the Slades had built up down at the other end of the table. And it seemed to be getting taller and wider by the second.

“So what about you Roman? What’s your situation like?”

Roman looked up, surprised that anyone had spoken and more so at who was doing the speaking. Before he answered he looked to Karla, hoping for some type of intervention on her part. But when he got none; he proceeded to answer James’ question.

“As far as…”

“You know… your female situation.”

“You know what; I don’t think he wants to talk about that with you James. Why don’t you just go back to not having anything to say, ok? Can I go bring the dessert out and we can finish this peacefully please?”

Karla looked around the table at each of their faces and had more than just an inclination that her request wouldn’t be met, but she’d decided that for better or worse, she wasn’t gonna be around when it – whatever it was going to be – happened. She hurried into the kitchen with her head down, fanning herself with her hand. Neglecting to even open the refrigerator for the dessert that she had promised to return with shortly, she went straight to the washing machine in the corner by the window and hoisted herself up on top of it. She gave fleeting consideration to the idea of leaving, possibly because she was sitting next to an open window, which was also probably the reason why she suddenly could no longer suppress the urge to have a smoke. She had a pack of Parliaments hidden on the top shelf of the cabinet above the sink, directly in front of her. Even though she knew it wasn’t physically possible, Karla pulled herself to the edge of the machine and reached out as far as she could to grab the knob on the cabinet door – which turned out to be at least two inches out of reach, let alone the fact that the shelf inside the cabinet where the cigarettes were hidden was almost a foot higher than she was where she sat. Feeling defeated on several levels, Karla just sat, hunched over with her arms folded across her stomach. She told herself that she was an idiot and that even though in the grand scheme of things, this was only a small incident which could be largely attributed to mere laziness, it was still a perfect example of the way she went about life: without a plan. “You have no plan.” She said to herself. “What the fuck is your plan?”

She had managed to successfully fight off crying for the last five minutes until she remembered that she’d left her brothers in the dining room alone with James, waiting for her to serve the dessert. And then the tears began to fall; patiently, one at a time. Just as she had started to gather her composure, she saw Roman walk past the kitchen in a rush, followed by the sound of the door to her apartment opening, then closing. Karla jumped off of the washing machine and hurried out of the kitchen into the dining room where she found Julius leaning on the back legs of his chair with his hands behind his head and a huge grin on his face; and James standing, apparently about to make an exit.

“What happened?!” She demanded.

James started to answer her but realized that there wasn’t much he could say, so he just maneuvered around her and walked out of the room. Karla watched him go down the hall for a moment before yelling “You better find him and fix it!” and then turned her attention back to Julius.

“What happened?” She repeated, this time slightly more restrained.

“Your fiancé happened.”

“Julius…”

“Well, no – I take that back. He was obviously only repeating what you told him. I don’t know why he -”

“Which was?”

Julius dropped the grin and repeated word for word what James had so maliciously said to their notoriously thin-skinned brother.

“I heard you like to fall for the girls that are already taken. You know, so you never have to make a move – or like, take any risk.”

The face that Karla made was not the one that Julius was hoping for. Instead of betrayal and embarrassment, he watched shock and disgust pour down her face just before she ran outside. In a move that was very unlike him, Julius instantly got up and followed her all the way out to the front door where he found her sitting on the first step, staring out into the street. Without saying anything, he sat down next to her on the same step, staring at her, waiting for her to speak. The sun was straight ahead of them, right between their two heads. And when she looked over at him, they both squinted at each other.

“Do you really think I told him that?”

“You didn’t?”

She shook her head and shifted her gaze back into the street.

“No, Julius.”

“Then where did he get that from?” He asked, skeptically.

“I told him Romie was in love with that girl with the boyfriend and that’s it. That’s all I told him. I don’t know why the hell he would’ve said that.”

“But he did.”

It took Karla a second to respond, as she processed that very truth. It almost made her laugh.

“I can’t fucking believe he did that. I can’t even – ugh! Where did Roman go?!”

“I have no idea. I doubt he knows how to get back to the train from here. We took a detour to pick up the brownies.”

“What brownies?”

“There’s a place a few blocks from here I used to go to a lot. I bought brownies from there… in the bag I came in with.”

“Choice?”

“Yeah. You been in there yet?”

“Yeah, where’s the bag?”

“Where we ate. I think I left it under the table.”

“You don’t leave food on the floor Ju-”

“Really?”

“Okay.” She yielded. “Sorry.”

“So, tell me all about James.” He said with a Queer Eye accent.

Karla couldn’t help herself. Before she could even think not to, she was busting at the seams with laughter and she couldn’t stop. Julius watched her with affection but also caution. He knew what it looked like when she was smiling to keep from crying.

“Sometimes I just – I hate him!”

“What?”

“I do. He just gets on my last nerve sometimes and I wanna – punch him in the face! And he’s not from New Jersey. He’s from San Diego. He lived in Jersey for like five years but he always tells people he’s from there.”

“Where’d you find him? I even like Malik more than him.”

“At work.”

“You mean the job you just started?”

“I didn’t just start. I’ve been there six months already.”

“But it doesn’t really sound like this was love at first site or anything…”

Karla didn’t answer; she just pushed air out of her mouth through her closed lips.

“So why are you marrying him?” He asked, more concerned than curious. “Is he rich?”

With her elbows on her knees and hunched over so that her head was almost between them, she lifted her head a little and looked at Julius with the intention of saying what she couldn’t. The look that he responded with only validated all of her fears.

“Oh shit.” He said, shaking his head. “But you’ve lost so much weight.”

“Thanks.” She said, smearing a tear into her cheek. “I’m only two and a half months in. It’s starting to come back.”

Julius, aware of his reputation as the insensitive brother, waited and thought carefully before saying anything that he intended to be encouraging but could be misconstrued as tactless. When he had it, he put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed gently.

“You know, you don’t have to -”

“Yes I do!” She yelled and slapped at his shin.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I mean you don’t have to get married. It’s fucking 2007. It hasn’t worked that way for about forty -”

“So what should I do then? Or maybe you’ve seen daddy sometime in the last ten years that I don’t know about.”

“Alright. And marriage takes care of that problem, right? “

“Shut up.” She uttered, weakly.

“I know I certainly don’t know anyone with divorced parents. Do you?”

“Shut up, Julius.”

And he did. He stood up, brushed the dirt from the steps off of the seat of his jeans and looked over his shoulder at the house behind him.

“You want dessert? I made crepes. You know how hard it is to make crepes? And I made enough for -”

“Why did you invite us through Mommy?”

“I called to talk to you but you weren’t home.” She groaned.

“Yes I was. I was sitting right next to her when you called and you never asked to speak to me.”

She huffed and sniffed before she answered.

“It’s hard to talk to you Julius, Okay? You would’ve asked me a whole bunch of questions that I planned on answering in person and you would’ve made me cry on the phone like you’re doing now. That’s why. Okay?”

“Yeah. Fair enough. Except that you avoided us for most of the time we were here.”

“Alright, Julius! I don’t wanna be interrogated right now. You want dessert or not?”

“Hell no. I’m not going back in there.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to you later then.”

She got up off of the steps to go back into the house but Julius put his arm out and caught her around her belly.

“No.”

“What?”

“Come to the house with me.”

“Hell no. I don’t wanna see Mommy right now. If I see her I have to tell her and I can’t do that yet.” Besides being frustrated, she looked like she was going to be sick. “Can you move, please?”
“Then let’s go to Roman’s. We’ll meet him there – eventually. Come on, I wanna talk to you about something.”

“So talk inside. I really don’t feel like going anywhere right now and it’s hot outside. I just wanna sit -”

“No.” He said emphatically. “I don’t want you to go back there. Listen… this was his place first, right? Like, you’re not on the lease or anything, right?”

“No. I moved in with him. Why?”

“Because – I think we should move in together.”

“What?”

“I need a roommate. I can’t keep living with Mommy and -”

“So move in with Roman.”

“And I wanna come back to this neighborhood. So it would work for both of us. You would still be near the father or whatever. And I’ll help you out too, of course.”

“Oh my God. ‘The father’?”

She stood quietly on the step for a moment with her right hand over her mouth, staring at her left. In her mind she knew that she should be wholeheartedly against this. Not only for the fact that she was of the ilk who believe that one of the first visions her newborn child should register in its fleeting memory is a wedding ring on its mother’s left hand, but also because the thought of being bailed out by her little brother, and the most indifferent of the two at that, was absolutely foreign to her. However in her heart, his assuredness on the matter was intrinsically calming to her.

“When did you decide this?”

“When Fuckhead first opened his mouth.”

“And that fast you’re absolutely positive you want us to live together?”

“You know I don’t care if you told him about what happened or whatever but you could have at least told him not to bring it up at -”

“You don’t think I did?” She snapped back at him, still staring at her hand.

He gave her a quick ill tempered glance, similar to the way she had done to him once upon a time when he would stumble during multiplication repetition, and then turned away toward the street.

“Look, there’s really nothing to think about. It makes no sense for you to stay here. If you want me to leave you here, then you’re gonna have to give me a good enough reason.”

Karla took a step backward and leaned against the railing of the staircase, twisting her engagement ring back and forth on her finger.

“Should I give him back the ring?”

“Well, from far away” He took her left hand and held it up closer to his face. “It doesn’t even look real – if you don’t mind me saying.”

Karla didn’t laugh but she did put on sort of a half smile as she pulled the ring off of her finger and dropped it in the mailbox next to the doorbells.

James, who had been struggling to listen to their conversation from the window in the dining room, started to run out of the apartment once he saw them leaving the gate to the house. By the time he got to the front door they had already reached the corner and were waiting for traffic to pass to cross the street. He called out Karla’s name but got no reply.

“Where are you going?!”

When Karla stopped and turned back toward the house, Julius did too. She turned to Julius and told him something, which he repeated loudly for James, who was still standing at the door.

“She’ll call you later!” He yelled as they turned around and continued across the street.

“Karla! Karla, what are you doing?!”

“Later, James!” Julius called back. “Have some brownies! And check the mail!”