Free THE BRO-MAGNET by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page B

wimp.”
    I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Someone they know just caught his fiancée in the arms of his half brother, the Greek prince, and they’re laughing at the poor guy? These women are vipers! I look at Billy, to see if he’s similarly disturbed by all this, but he mostly just still looks bummed about the stadium we grew up with as Shea now being called Citi Field.
    As Alice and Dawn return to the room, I can’t contain myself. “What is wrong with you people?”
    “What?” Alice says, like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
    “Don’t act all innocent,” I say. “I heard you.” I wave me finger back and forth between Alice and Dawn. “I heard both of you. You were laughing at your poor friend Lucky – ”
    “Our friend ?” Alice says.
    “You think they were talking about real people?” Billy says.
    “Well, I… What? You know about all this?”
    “We were talking about a TV show,” Dawn says.
    “Yeah,” Billy says, “a soap opera. It’s called General Hospital .”
    “Oh,” I say, feeling incredibly stupid. Then, to escape that feeling, I say, “Soap operas are stupid.”
    “Excuse me?” Alice has her hands on her hips now.
    “I only said – ”
    “Soap operas serve an important sociological function.”
    “I only meant – ”
    “They provide millions of people with escape from their own mundane and depressing lives.”
    “OK, but – ”
    “They cheer people up because viewers realize that however bad they’ve got it, the perfect-looking and well-dressed people on soaps always have it worse. They give viewers something to bond over with each other in an often confusing and lonely world. They provide a nondestructive form of – ”
    “Geez, Alice, all right already. You don’t need to write a thesis on it.”
    “Oh, no?” She gives the dangerous head nod here. “Well, maybe I do. You obviously think that soaps are an inferior form of entertainment, no doubt because it’s a genre primarily enjoyed by women. Men always feel the need to devalue anything women admire or enjoy. Well, tell me, how is your vaunted sports some kind of superior entertainment? You talk all the time about earned-run averages and quarterback ratings and how badly the Nets suck – who does any of that matter to?”
    I look at Billy, shrug my shoulders. “Us?”
    “Do you think,” Alice says, “a hundred years from now, anyone’s going to give a shit that Mark McGwire hit a lot of homeruns while doing steroids?”
    She’s got a point there.
    “God, you piss me off.”
    And, back to the kitchen goes Alice.
    “You should never have knocked soap operas, man.” Billy shakes his head.
    “You ever watch one of those things?” I say.
    “Sure,” Billy says. “Well, now I do. General Hospital . You should try it sometime.” He tilts his beer bottle at me, winks. “It’s a good show.”
    “No shit.”
    “And Alice is right. Lucky’s a douche.”
    * * *
    I know Billy said earlier that they didn’t invite Dawn and me on the same night to fix us up, that Alice says I’m unfixupable, but as the evening winds down I’m getting this nagging feeling. I get this idea into my head. Billy and Alice are a happily married couple, Dawn’s right here, she looks much better than she did at the wedding, particularly since she’s not half as drunk, she’s Alice’s cousin, if we start dating and wind up – who knows? – getting married, I could spend the rest of my life having evenings like this, just the four of us hanging together. Well, maybe without all the bad and awkward moments of tonight. But other than that? Yup, it could be just the four of us. Billy and Alice. Me and my wife. Men and wives. I’m thinking that, but I’m also thinking: Poor Dawn. Still alone at her age. Someone should throw her a mercy date.
    Which is why I lean over and say in a low voice so as not to be overheard by Billy and Alice, “Hey. You wanna go out sometime?”
    “You mean like on a date ?” Dawn