November 15, last year

 

I entered the clinic this third Friday of November fully expecting to be alone with Etta.  Instead, I was greeted by Andre and the rest of her staff of minions. 

“I thought Etta gave you guys the third Friday of every month off, Andre.”

“She does, but we all got together and asked her if we could switch to next Friday.”  He led me to the stationary bike and programmed it for my time and resistance.  “Since we get the week off for Thanksgiving, some of us liked the idea of having an extra day.”  I started to put my ear buds in, but he kept talking.  “Susie planned a trip to the Bahamas and she leaves Thursday night.  And Sam is going to Alaska to be with her Mom, who moved there last year.  Alaska during Thanksgiving?  No way.  Too cold for me.  I am driving to Austin with my girlfriend to spend it with her family.  It’ll be my first Thanksgiving away from my momma.  She is not taking it…”

“Andre,” Etta’s voice cut through his incessant rambling, “your 8:00 appointment is waiting for you.” 

“Oh, right, right, right.”  He patted Etta’s shoulder as he walked by.  “Sorry, Etta.”

I waited until he moved out of earshot.  “You’re right.  That big guy does love to talk.”

She smiled, checked the bike’s settings and walked away. 

We had made the Thursday lunches a regular thing since that first one.  I’ve been here almost every day of the week, and nothing has changed between us here, but at our lunches, we had established a comfort zone, almost as it used to be. 

She looked around the room.  We were alone, so she leaned over the bike and whispered, “Miles is spending the weekend with me.  He wants to see you.  Will you meet us at Hermann Park tomorrow?  He wants to go to the zoo.”

“The zoo in November, huh?  Aren’t the animals all hibernating or something?”

“It’s what he wants to do, Nate,” she retorted, a little too loudly.  She looked around again and lowered her voice.  “1:00 by the train depot.  Just be there.”

I smiled, remembering how we took him to the zoo before when he was four.  Either he remembers it, or she does.  “Okay.”

 

***

 

November 16, last year

 

1:10.  They weren’t here yet.  I was getting worried, but I had no way to contact Etta.  It was very unlike her to be late.  In fact, in the entire almost ten years I’ve known her, I’ve never known her to be late once.  Her quasi-OCD ways never allowed her to. 

At 1:15, I started pacing, sure I was stood up.  I replayed the conversation yesterday in my head just to make sure I got the location correct.  I was sure she said the train. 

Just as I turned to walk back to my car, the train stopped.  Etta called after me.

“Wait!  I’m so sorry,” she ran up to me, a tall kid chasing after her.  Based on the fact that he looked just like her but in taller boy form, I was sure he was Miles.  She stopped right in front of me.  “We were waiting at the train stop next to the zoo.  I remembered, after getting pretty angry that you stood us up, that you probably thought we meant the stop we always used to come to, the one closest to Rice.” 

“Yeah, I thought you stood me up, too.” 

She smiled.  “I should have made it clear.”  She turned to Miles.  “This is Nathaniel Slaughter, Miles.”

“Nice to see you again, kiddo,” I said, holding out my hand, which he shook. 

“I’ve been following your career,” he said, sounding pretty grown up. 

“Yeah, your sister mentioned that.” 

We walked to the entrance of the zoo through the park.  Miles and I talked about my career, my stats and my injury. 

“Will you be able to start next season?” Miles asked. 

“That’s a question you’ll have to ask your sister.  She can’t give me a straight answer.”

Etta shot me a dirty look.  I handed Miles money and told him to go pay for our entrance into the zoo. 

“What was that look for?” I whispered.

“Well, if you can’t start the season, he’ll blame me.  And I have told you that you are coming along right on schedule.”  She smacked her forehead.  “Shit, I didn’t think about this.  You’ll be walking a lot today.”  She put her hand on my forearm.  Still fire.  “Have you been having any soreness or pain?  If so, you don’t have to come in there with us.  I’ll understand if you want to go home.  It’s probably pushing it for you to be here.”

I put my hands in my pockets.  “Do you want me to go home, Etta?”

“Eddie,” Miles interrupted.  “The guy at the ticket counter said the monkeys’ exhibit is closed.  And most of the other animals are not active.”

She turned to him.  “Do you still want to go in?”

“I didn’t want to come here in the first place.  You did.”

I stifled a laugh, remembering that yesterday, she said Miles wanted to come.

“So what do you want to do now, Miles,” Etta asked him, trying to hide how irritated she was at him. 

“I know this place not too far from here,” I suggested.  “They serve the best ice cream and milkshakes in Houston.  I took your sister there a few times.  In fact, you came with us once.”  I looked at Etta.  “Remember where it is?”

“Yeah,” she answered, and she had a funny look, wistful maybe?  “I remember.”

“I guess that’s cool,” Miles said.  “Eddie says you have a cool car.  Can I ride with you?”

I looked at Etta for approval.  She nodded her head. 

We went our separate ways, Miles with me and Etta by herself.  Miles and I walked a few steps before it began, the most awkward conversation of my life. 

“So, are you and my sister doing it?”

“What?”  I couldn’t believe my ears.

“Are you and my sister doing it?” He enunciated every word, as if I was stupid or deaf.  “You know, friends with benefits, mattress taggers, fu…”

“Miles!”  I stopped him, certain he was about to say fuck buddies.  “Don’t talk about your sister that way.  It’s disrespectful.”

We walked in silence until we got close to the car. 

“You know,” Miles began.  “I remember a little about you.  From before.”

“Oh yeah?” I glanced at him, using the remote to unlock the doors.  “You were so little, I didn’t think you remembered anything.”

“I remember you telling me you were going to marry my sister.”  He opened the car door and sat down. 

I stood outside my door, stunned.  I never remember telling him that.  I thought hard, finally remembering the conversation. 

I opened the door and sat.  He had pulled out his phone and began playing a game.  “That’s not what I told you, Miles.  You said when you grew up, you were going to marry Etta, and I told you that you couldn’t because she was your sister.”

He never looked up from his phone.  “And you told me that you were going to marry her.”

“No, I said she has to marry someone outside her family who loves her.”

“Yeah.  And that meant you.” 

I tried to remember that conversation one more time.  Although it was fuzzy, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t tell a four year old my feelings.  “I never told you that I loved your sister.”

He rolled his eyes.  “Nate.  I was four, not stupid.  I could tell you loved her.”

Shit.  Obvious to a four year old, but not to his much older sister. 

Speaking of sisters… “Miles, how is Emily?  Etta won’t talk about her.”

“Yeah,” he looked out the window.  “Something happened between them a long time ago.  They haven’t spoken much since.  Emily lives in Los Angeles now and is about to get married.  She comes home at holidays.  They act all normal around Mom, but it’s still weird.  I have no clue why.  Neither one of them will tell me.  I’ve overheard some things, and I get the feeling Emily doesn’t even know why Etta won’t talk to her.”

“Huh, they seemed fine last time I saw them together.”

After a few moments of silence, he put his phone down and turned to me.  “You know I was mad at you.  For leaving and not saying goodbye.”  I started to apologize, but he stopped me.  “Etta wouldn’t let me be mad at you.  She said sometimes, people have to follow their dreams, and the people who get left behind have to support their decisions.”  He smiled.  “I knew she was mad at you, too, but she wouldn’t let me get away with being pissed.” 

I tried to think of something to say, but I couldn’t. 

He picked his phone back up.  “So, I want to know what you want from my sister now.” 

I looked over in his direction, still speechless.  I couldn’t even form a sentence.  This was so strange, being interrogated by a thirteen year old about my non-existent love life with his sister.  The conversation would have been strange with anyone, but with her baby brother, it was beyond strange, borderline crazy. 

And it just kept going.  “Look Nate, she was sad for a long time after you left.  It took her a while to date anyone.  She has mentioned the occasional guy, but I never met any of them.”  He smiled and put his phone down again.  “Now you’re back, and here we are.”  He waved his hand back and forth between us.  “I can’t help but wonder why.”  His face changed to a death glare.  “I don’t want her hurt again.”

Who was this kid?

I pulled into the parking lot of the diner and jumped out of the car.  Etta was already there. 

“How was riding in Nate’s car?” she asked Miles. 

I was nervous about his answer, not sure if he’d tell her about our conversation. 

“It was pretty cool.” 

That was all he said.  Whew.

“Sometime soon, I’ll teach you how to drive it,” I told him.  He deserved a reward for not saying a word.

“That would be awesome!” 

“You do know he’s only thirteen, Nate,” Etta whispered. 

“What?  I learned at thirteen,” I explained. 

“But you will be leaving again soon.”  She narrowed her stormy eyes at me.  “Don’t get his hopes up.”

“C’mon,” Miles yelled as he held the door open to the diner.  “I’m hungry.”

She held my gaze for a second or two more.  “You’re always hungry,” she said over her shoulder. 

We were seated in a booth, Miles and Etta on one side, me on the other.  When Miles pulled out his phone, Etta grabbed it.  He groaned.

“No,” she told him, “you are not going to spend the entire time playing that stupid game.  It’s rude.”  She handed it back to him.  “Put it away.  There’s nothing I hate more than looking around and seeing people paying attention to their phones instead of each other.”

“Is that why you ban cell phones in your clinic?” I asked, smiling.

“Partly.  I want people to pay attention to what they are doing.”  She smiled and looked down.  “But yeah, I do hate them.”

We talked, mostly about baseball and football.  I know it sounds like guy stuff, but Etta contributed to most of the conversation.  It’s one of the things I loved most about her.  She could hang with the boys without compromising any of her femininity.  It was very sexy.

About an hour later, Etta excused herself to the restroom.  Miles and I were left alone for the first time since the car ride.  He asked for my number and stored it in his phone.  Something he said in the car, besides the whole I-love-his-sister thing, was eating at me, and I decided to pump the kid, stealthily of course, for information.

“So, has your sister mentioned any guys lately?”  So I failed stealth.

He laughed.  “You are still hung up on my sister.  I knew it.”

“Look,” I leaned over the table.  “Is there anyone now or not?”

“There was this guy for a while, Robert or Rupert or something, but that was like a year ago.  But I heard her talking on the phone about a month ago to some dude named Jake.”  Fuck.  Did she have something with my brother?  Certainly not.  “She told me about you directly, but that’s because she knew I was such a fan.”  He leaned forward and lowered his voice.  “But I’ll tell you a secret.  I followed your career in front of her to keep you on her mind.”  He leaned back and put his hands behind his head.  “You can thank me for that later.”

“Thank him for what?” Etta asked, sliding in next to Miles. 

“Getting me out of all that walking today,” I lied.  “He just admitted he bowed out of going to the zoo for me.”  I shot him a guy’s-code look, and he nodded.  “And I appreciate it.”

It was when I rode home that I remembered that the little shit never gave me back the money I gave him for the zoo. 

Friggin genius.