Lisa is staring at my brother from across the table again. I kick her calf from under the table. She lets out a small yelp and gives me a dirty look. I send her a text.
Me: Bitch, can you be more obvious?
She discreetly gives me the finger when José peers down to his phone to look at something. I roll my eyes at her. I only need her to bang José in front of me right now for her to completely traumatize me.
A text pings into my phone.
Lisa: Can you ask your brother to notice me for once? Tell him it's hard trying to catch his attention.
I let out a bark of laughter and then chug my drink quickly. But José doesn't even notice. He's too busy with something on his phone as usual.
As I raise my fork to try another attempt at eating what I ordered tonight, José's phone rings with insistence. I can feel the aggressive vibration from the table since his hand is on it. So is mine. He gets up abruptly and I turn to him.
He slips his phone inside his pocket and downs his glass of Pinot Noir. He gives me a hasty peck on the cheek.
"Are you leaving?" My gaze is on him.
"Something just came up at the office," he says, picking up his keys and slipping them inside his pocket as he pushes his chair back.
I check the time on my phone. "José, it's very late."
He shrugs. "Yeah, tough bosses. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't stay up."
He's gone in a second.
My gaze turns to Lisa. She has a sympathetic look on her face. She knows how close I am with my brother and she knows that it kills me that we can't spend enough time together because he's usually so busy working.
Only she would understand because that part of my history is not something that many people know. Our parents died in a fire that engulfed our house and we pretty much moved into the foster system soon after that. When we got old enough and got out, José took upon himself the responsibility of fending for both of us. He was older and he got out faster than I did. He had already started to work before I got out.
When I was out, he took me in. He had an apartment at the time. He was doing pretty well by then. Throughout college, I didn't know how much he worked. I didn't get to see it because I was at school. But now that I'm working too, and we live in the same apartment, I can see how much he doesn't get to rest or get holidays. How he single-handedly supported our family as soon as he was out of foster care.
"Why does he work so much?"
"For you," Lisa responds. "He really cares so much for you. You can see why I'm in a swoon."
I shake my head. "Lisa, not now." But I smile and she laughs.
A few seconds pass as I silently give up on finishing the meal I ordered. Why didn't I just go with my usual? Carlo's Pot has always been mine and my brother's favorite spot since we came to this city. They have the best burgers I have ever eaten. But with other things, as though the cooks are pretty much high as they cook, it's usually a fifty-fifty chance of a mishap happening: too much seasoning… the meal could be too spicy… there's an ingredient in the meal that shouldn't be there but someone thought it was a genius idea to include it… The list is endless. And I know that because I've always toed the line of experimenting with whatever new concoction Carlo's Pot is presenting as the special every single time that I come here.
I look up. My gaze catches Lisa's. "Are you ready to go? Can you drop me off?"
***
Minutes later, I'm on the front steps of mine and José's house, waving Lisa goodbye. She honks as she drives off.
"See you tomorrow, bitch." She blows me a kiss and I shake my head as I produce the front door key and open it.
I walk into the living room and flip the lights on and bolt the door. My faux leopard print handbag goes on the couch. So do my suit jacket and black pumps.
The living room is quite airy. It has quite a lot of space for just two people. José bought it off the hands of a couple who were going into retirement at an elderly's home. Their kids had moved out long ago.
There's a dramatic-looking fireplace in the center of the main wall and an actual mantle piece. I imagine that the kids who used to live here hung socks there for Santa to drift by and dump their presents inside. Preferably through the chimney except I've always thought that most chimneys would not fit a grown adult me so why would they fit a guy who has been represented by pop-culture and movies to be well up to three hundred pounds? As a kid, I've always had an overactive imagination.
José had had the place renovated a month after we moved in. There had been several missing floorboards and old wallpapers that were scraped off to make room for the current white and black coloured one. We had flowers planted in the perimeter hedges around the front of the house. We'd changed the locks on all the doors and windows as several of them were broken. We'd brought in a few more couches into the living room even though we didn't have a lot of people over, since heck, we had so much space than we could use.
Now, my gaze catches on the mantelpiece and the single thing that is on it. There is no chinaware there or decorative socks. A single framed photo of my family sits there. We're at the beach together and while José is already a little boy, I'm in my mother's arms, a toddler. We all look excited for the picture including me who didn't even know what was going on.