I Like to Meddle

On Monday morning my brother showed up unannounced at the house. He's been doing that a lot lately, which doesn't make me all that happy because there have been several times where he's almost caught me pantsless, shirtless, or any sort of half-naked. I can't even imagine what my brother would do if he ever saw me half-naked. Probably some variety of what I'd do if I ever saw him half-naked, and that would involve a blunt object and spooning my eyes out with it.

But on Monday my brother had made the trip out here for two very specific reasons. One involved an old van one of his friend's aunt's had used in her carpet-installation business, a van that she'd given to Adam's friend, a van that Adam and his friends were determined to dismantle and turn into a field car that would be able to transport them and large amounts of their friends back to the cabin.

The other reason involved him coming into the diner to eat so he could check out the waitress I am determined to set him up with.

I'd given her notice, and she came to work with her hair impeccably straight-ironed. She had on good jewelry. She was jittery and excited. She stood in the back and wiggled up and down with anticipation.

When my brother breezed into the diner with his friends in tow, the waitress turned and high-tailed it behind the two-way mirror so she could watch Adam and his friends seat themselves in the very last booth along the wall.

"Oh my God oh my God oh my God," she said. She was whipped into hysterics. "He is so hot, so hot, so hot!"

I made a face and went out with a stack of menus for my brother and his boys. My brother had chosen to sit on the side of the back booth that faced the wall. His entire view during dinner would be of the turquoise and hot pink wall that is decked out with pictures from the '50s.

"Hi boys," I said. I doled out the menus and then hit my brother on his fuzzy head. "Are you a moron?" I asked. "Don't you think you should be on the other side of the table, so she can see you and you can see her? Don't you want to get a look at her?"

His only look at her had occurred a few days earlier, when I'd sent a picture to his cell phone.

"Oh," my brother said, "yeah. I guess. Okay. Switch with me, Tim."

Tim switched. I took drink orders. I went back to the kitchen, where the waitress was leaning against the steel counter and looking like she'd gone into heat.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Fine," she said, fanning herself.

I told her I had a plan, and it was brilliant. I'd take the drinks to the boys, get their order, hang it, and then she could help me bring it out. That's when we'd do the official introduction. I'd make her take his food--a beef on weck, just like I'd predicted--and then they could lock eyes and touch fingers and feel the sizzle of something good starting.

She said okay, okay, that was good, that was great, that was wonderful. She said she was really nervous, though. She didn't know if she could do it.

I told her she could, that she was a pro, that it was going to be fine.

Then I went back and told my brother the plan. "I'm making her bring your food out," I said. "Okay? So she's going to hand you yours, and then I'm going to do the introduction. How do you feel about that?"

My brother told me that was good, that was great, that was wonderful. He said he was pretty nervous, though. He thought he might act like an ass.

I told him that it was entirely possible that he might, but he should try to keep it under control.

"Don't tell her I'm nervous, okay?" he asked.

"No, I totally won't," I said. Then I went back into the kitchen and told her he was really nervous.

"That's so cute," she said. "You didn't tell him I was nervous, did you?"

"No way," I said, and it went on like that for another half an hour. I ran small messages between them, and then, finally, the food came up.

"I don't think I can do this!" the waitress said as she balanced Adam's beef on weck in her palm.

"You can," I said. "You can."

And she did. She followed me out, placed his beef in front of him without incident, and then stood there as I introduced her and they said hey, hi, how are you.

After she disappeared to tend to her own tables, I turned back to my brother and raised my eyebrows. "Huh? Huh?" I asked. "She's cute, right?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "She's really cute," he said. "I like her hair. It's amazing. And her smile is possibly the best smile I've ever seen. But don't tell her that."

And that was one thing I didn't immediately go back and tell her--mainly because I figured that's something he can hang onto, something he can use to impress her later on down the line.

So, I think it went well. More than well. Later that night, we all somehow ended up standing in my driveway and letting Adam swing open the doors to the ex-carpet-hauling van that was now outfitted with several folding chairs ("Eventually," my brother said, "we want to have a couch in here."). The cute waitress looked wary, but she climbed up and into the van, she let my brother drive us over the bumpy path that leads to the cabin. She let him show her the warm beer, the outhouse, the inside of the cabin. I was the one who pointed out the cabin's finer points: the stacks of porn (which have doubled since I was last there), the rustic antler decorations, the moldy bearskin rug.

Much later, after we'd been sitting around the fire for a good long time, my cell phone blinked. I had a text message. I opened it and found a message from the waitress, who was sitting two chairs down from me.

The message said, I want to bone your brother.

And when I looked up from my phone and at the waitress, she was staring intently into the fire's flames, trying not to laugh. And I had to get up and pour myself another peach vodka-ginger ale to keep myself from throwing up right then and there.