I barely get a chance to look at the menu before the server is back. Marcus and Aaron already know what they want, and Monica giggles and says she’ll have chicken and waffles with a side of bacon, corn bread, and mac ’n’ cheese. This is one of the things I love about Monica. Girl can eat. I say I’ll have the same and Aaron pats me on the back and whistles.
“Big M, I think our ladies have gone and out-ordered us.”
The “our” floats out of his lips like a cloud. I can see the shape of it in the air, the softness of it, and I inhale, not wanting to let it slip away or evaporate; I want to keep it inside of me for ever. I’m smiling so big that I feel my eyes crinkling at the corners.
“What’s so funny, Wing-a-ring-ling?” Aaron punches me gently on the arm, kid-sister-like, and I wish he’d put his arm around me the way Marcus has his arm around Monica and that we were out on a proper double date. Not just the little sister tagging along with her big brother, his girlfriend, and his best friend.
I’m saved from having to answer by Marcus starting to sing the song he used to chase me round and round the house with. “Wing, Wing can do anything! Wing, Wing, make the bell ring, ring.”
Aaron laughs, a low sound that rumbles up from his chest. If the “our” was a cloud, his laugh is lots of bumblebees, coming up out of his mouth one after the other. “I forgot about that damn bell,” he says.
I laugh too, and it sounds like feathers floating in the air. I picture one landing on Aaron’s shoulders, on his chest, and wonder if he can feel my feather giggles.
“What bell?” says Monica, sweeping her hair over her shoulder.
Aaron lifts his hand to his chest and I think maybe he does feel one of my feather laughs. He leans forward, the movement pushing him closer to me, and puts his elbows on the table.
“They used to have this bell, like the kind at the front desk of a hotel or something, I don’t know where the hell they found it, and that bell was the end goal of everything. Instead of hide-and-seek, we’d hide the bell. Race in the yard? Have to hit the bell or else you didn’t really win. Win at a board game? Not until you hit the stupid bell.” He shakes his head. “Marcus was always making Wing or me compete with him at something.”
“You used to always win the races,” I say, remembering Aaron as a little kid galloping across our backyard, his legs too long for his body. He’s grown into them now.
“Of course he did,” says Marcus. “You gotta be fast to be a good wide receiver.” Aaron is the guy who runs and catches the ball when the quarterback throws it. My brother is the quarterback. They’ve been throwing balls and racing around for as long as I can remember.
“You gotta be fast to get a track scholarship,” says Aaron.
“Come on, man. You’ve got football scouts looking at you.”
Aaron shakes his head. “Nah, Marcus. You’ve got football scouts looking at you. Sure, they see me out on the field, ’cause I’m with you. But I’ve got a hell of a better chance getting a track scholarship than I do as a wide receiver.” It’s true. Aaron’s fast, real fast. Last year he broke the school record for the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes.
Marcus looks like he wants to argue the point, and I can tell that this is a conversation they’ve had before, but Monica grabs his hand and squeezes. “Marcus,” she says, “you’ll be able to throw a football even if Aaron isn’t there to catch it.”
“Nope,” says Marcus, “it’s gotta be Aaron.” But he’s smiling as the waitress arrives and puts down plate after plate of steaming food until I’m surprised the table doesn’t buckle.
It is a feast. My first bite of waffle is perfect, buttery and warm, and I wonder if the food really tastes as good as it does, or if we’re all so happy that our joy is sprinkling onto our plates like some sort of exotic spice, making everything that much tastier.
Aaron nudges me with his elbow. “Wing, can I get a bite of your mac ’n’ cheese?”
I nod and push the small bowl toward him. He digs his fork in and I get a little tingle thinking about the two of us sharing the same bowl.
It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. It isn’t like we are sharing the same fork or anything, and it isn’t even like I’m going to be taking a bite of something he’s taken a bite of, like a cookie, he’s just taking some macaroni and cheese out of my bowl, and it really isn’t any different from when he’s at my house and we’re all eating family style, we always eat family style in my house, and we’re getting food from the same bowl, but this feels a little different, a little more intimate. Maybe it is my imagination. My stupid, hopeful, overactive imagination. Pretending that sharing a bowl of macaroni and cheese is the same thing as sharing a milkshake with two straws.
I would love to do that. Maybe down at the Varsity. We’d get peanut-butter-banana-chocolate for sure. My favorite.
While I’ve been daydreaming, or whatever it is you call daydreaming when you do it at night but you aren’t actually sleeping, my waffles have gone soggy under the chicken and syrup. Aaron points this out.