I give a firm nod, then have another sip of my coffee. “It’s just frustrating because she could be doing so much more with her life. She’s bright. Really bright.”
“Not to mention good-looking.”
“That too,” I agree before I can stop myself.
“I knew you liked her,” Alec says with a satisfied smile.
“I could never be with someone like her,” I say, bouncing my right leg so quickly my whole body starts vibrating. “I’d sooner date Dev.”
“He’s married, so …”
“Ha-ha,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “She’s not what’s got me all agitated. I’m pissed I have to do these stupid morning show segments. I didn’t spend twenty-one years of my life in school just to be a performing monkey for a bunch of stay-at-home moms and retirees. I graduated at the top of my class at MIT, for God’s sake. The very top!” I hold my hand up as though measuring height. “If I’d known this was what the team leader job was all about, I wouldn’t have accepted it. It’s bad enough that Serafina is wasting her brain, but now mine is being dragged into this idiocy.”
“Must be awful,” Alec says, pulling off another piece of his muffin.
“It is.” It’s nice to know someone understands.
“Spending time with a beautiful woman … all those ladies online calling you the Astro-hotty … What a nightmare,” he adds, tossing the piece in his mouth.
“No one likes a smart-ass, Alec,” I tell him.
“Suck it up, Princess. Your life’s not that bad.” He swallows before adding, “You know who else graduated at the top of his class at MIT? Me. And I did it three years before you. And I’ve been on this team for four years longer than you, but I still lost the team leader position to you which totally blows because if I were you, I’d be making the most of my fifteen minutes.”
Guilt gives me a good whack on the back of my head. I shouldn’t be complaining to Alec about this. “Sorry.”
“What are you going to do?” he says with a shrug.
Scratching the back of my neck, I ask, “What would you do with your fifteen minutes if you were me?”
“Get women,” he says, with an expression that says I should have graduated at the bottom of the class at flower arranging school for not realizing this on my own.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? If Einstein could be a ladies’ man, surely you can. This might be your only chance to be a bonafide player. I think you should go for it. I for one just signed up to help your co-host test her new dating app.”
“Oh, my God. You’ve either completely lost your mind or you’re joking,” I say, in utter disbelief that one of the smartest people I know is going to try dating according to his star sign.
“Every nerd that ever got shoved into a locker dreams of being the object of adoration, pal. You may not think you need this now, but you should relish the attention if for no other reason than to seek retribution for your younger self. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Now you’re quoting Pierre Choderlos de Laclos to me?”
“Remember how you once told me about that girl who turned down your offer to take her to senior prom?”
I nod my head in shame. I shared that story one night while he and I were tossing back a few. We were bemoaning the fact that nerds never seemed to get the girl in high school.
“Get up there and show her what she missed out on,” Alec tells me.
He’s got a point. I’d love for every person who hurt me when I was a kid to know that I’m not that guy anymore. I just don’t want to have to go on national television to prove it.
Thirteen
Serafina
“He’s such a turd!” I yell at my brother Zay. “I have never had another person talk down to me the way he does.”
“You did make him wear those ridiculous pants on national television.”
“Whose side are you on?” My decibel level keeps creeping higher.
“Look at me, Ser. I’m your four-foot, eleven-inch, fully-grown older brother. Sue me for being empathetic to other people’s humiliation.”
I decided to stop by Zay’s apartment today for some sibling commiseration. “You have a pituitary gland issue. That’s so much bigger than being embarrassed about wearing some tight pants on TV.”
I plop down on the couch next to him while he says, “I’m sensitive to cruel nicknames, and the whole country is calling that guy Dr. Banana Pants. I assure you, the man did not spend all that time at university to have his hard-earned title reduced to a joke.”
“Point taken,” I say, somewhat annoyed that my brother isn’t immediately taking my side. “But he’s the one who put them on and joined in the fashion show. He should have said something so that the whole fiasco never happened.”
“What happened to the real male model you hired? Did he ever turn up?” my brother asks.
“Yeah, he did. They put him in Ben’s dressing room but didn’t find out he wasn’t the astrophysicist from NASA until it was time to send him out. At that point Ben was already on set, strutting his stuff.”
“Well, it looks like it’s all turned out for the best if Wake Up America! wants you guys on every week. The question is, how are the two of you going to keep from tearing each other’s heads off?”
That is the question, especially if we can’t even have a civil meal together when there are no cameras around. Pulling the afghan off the back of Zay’s couch and wrapping it around my legs, I tell him, “I’m going to be lovely and delightful and stay on point. Ben can sink himself with his rude behavior for all I care.”
“I’m willing to bet the man isn’t half as bad as you portray him to be.” My brother, the traitor!
“And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“Look, Ser, you’re a flirt by nature. You flirt with men, women, dogs, pigeons in the park …” The nasty look I send his way has him hurrying to add, “It’s not a bad thing. In fact, according to you, it’s a Libra thing. I’m just saying that whenever someone doesn’t respond to your innate charm, or doesn’t like you, you get really mad.”
Ignoring a truth about myself I’d rather not address, I demand, “Who doesn’t like me?”
My brother rubs his eyes before staring at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know, there was that girl Tiffany Taylor from high school, and then there was that guy Stanford Wellington in college …”
He pauses for dramatic effect.
“Big whoop. Two idiots from my past didn’t like me,” I try to act like I’m not bothered by it, but I totally still am.
“You agonized about them both for years,” he reminds me. “In fact, I bet you’ve started up again after meeting Ben Williams.”
As if. The truth is, I’ve been so busy being mad at Ben that I haven’t even thought of the miscreants from my formative years — but I will now. Thanks so much, Zay. “You act like I’m some kind of egomaniac or something.” I can’t help my pouting tone.