“Get out,” I shout, now annoyed with their little game. It takes the twins a moment to realize that I’m serious. I stalk towards them, muttering obscenities before they scurry away, no doubt, to rat me out to mom. Sisters are so fucking annoying. Why couldn’t I have been blessed with brothers? At least I have James Frasier, who is as much family as my own flesh and blood. God, I hope he doesn’t know. As I chase the twins from my room, I see dad laughing and shaking his head from down the hall.
“I’m sorry, son,” he says. His shoulders are shaking with laughter. Dad was an only child so he doesn’t really understand my plight. I have three sisters and no brothers and my best friend is a girl. I don’t think many men could understand my plight. I’m cursed with having more knowledge about the inner workings of the female anatomy than most vagina doctors. Now if only I had half as much understanding of sex, I’d be fucking set.
“Whatever,” I gripe, walking out and slamming my door behind me. “Next time, you wanna just plaster it on the side of the station? That’d be easier, ya know.” I stomp downstairs, ignoring mom’s complaints that I’m going to leave a hole in her stairs. Maybe if I did stomp a damn hole in her stairs I could fall the fuck in and skip what is surely going to be a humiliating evening. Why I hadn’t considered the possibility that my talk with dad would be public knowledge by know, I don’t even know.
I reach the bottom of the stairs and mom hands me a ceramic dish filled with something that looks like mom’s famous stew. Charlotte is waiting by the door playing with her cellular phone. I don’t know why anyone would want a phone that goes with them everywhere. It seems annoying to me, but she’s all over it. Mom asks her to put it away and she sticks it into her pocket and takes the soda bread that mom hands her. Charlotte doesn’t talk much these days—not after she introduced me to her boyfriend, Peter, and I let the guy know what’s up. Yeah, that didn’t go well.
Mary and Maggie follow Charlotte out, asking her all about the cellular phone and how much is costs. The twins are convinced that if they just present the idea the right way that mom and dad will cave and get them their own cellular phones. I don’t know what the fuck it is about girls and talking on the phone. Colleen isn’t like that, which is one of the amazing things about her. When I first tried to ask her to prom last week, I’d done it over the phone, but five minutes into my rambling, she had outright asked me if there was a point to our conversation, because if not, Friends was on and she was missing something funny. I sighed in defeat and let her go. She was distracted and at that point it wouldn’t have done me any good to ask her because she wasn’t even listening. Plus, I’d lost my nerve.
We walk down the street to the Frasiers’, all of us carrying something. When we do dinner, we do it up big. Mom says it’s our Irish appetites. All too soon, Colleen’s mom, Louise, swings the door open and excitedly greets us. She’s more excited than usual, which tells me that she knows. Fuck my life. I follow my sisters into the house, but before I can make it past Louise, she pulls me into a tight hug. I half hug her back, careful not to drop the stew. She calls me her boy and tells me how handsome I’ve gotten since the last time she saw me. I don’t remind her that the last time she saw me was like two days ago. Yeah, there’s no doubt that she knows.
As it usually is, getting settled for dinner is an affair in itself. James bounds downstairs and wraps each of my sisters in a tight hug. The Frasiers are definitely huggers, except for Dan. Thank God. I give James the eye as he whispers something in Charlotte’s ear that makes her blush. He may be like a brother to me, but she is my sister and he’d do well to remember that. I don’t care if he’s bigger than me, and likely stronger, I’m not above taking him to task. Even if he would be an improvement over that douche Peter that she’s dating. He’s got Darla anyway, it’s a moot point.
Louise leads us into the dining room where Colleen is setting the large table. She’s wearing a deep blue fitted shirt and matching sweater atop a pair of black jeans. Her shoulder-length hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She looks really cute. I don’t care for her haircut. She said it was called “The Rachel”, which doesn’t mean shit to me except that she cut her long blonde hair that I liked so much. She grins up at all of us. Nope, she definitely doesn’t know that I’m planning on asking her to prom. If she did, she’d be looking all nervous and fidgety toward me. My pretty girl is oblivious, as usual. Good.