older brother I never had.'
'No kidding?'
Dave nodded. 'And my dad's dating a twenty-six-year-old girl. He says she can be the sister I never had. But what does it mean if I want to have sex with my new sister? And if he marries her, then I'll want to have sex with my stepmother.'
'See, that is creepy.'
'You haven't seen her.'
Ronda dropped off four Coronas and took their orders. Beef tacos, chips and queso, and more beer. All the essential food groups.
'I revised my ad,' Dave said.
'No hits?'
' Nada. So now I'm six-two, a Democrat, and a vegan.'
'You're five-nine, a Republican, and you eat meat like a freakin' T-Rex.'
Curtis: 'This girl's ad says 'absolutely no Christians or Republicans.' '
'See?' Dave said. 'Easier to find a virgin than a Republican in Austin. You tell a girl you voted for Bush, you're history.'
'But you're lying.'
'Everyone lies in those ads, Andy. It's like a resume, a way to get your foot in the door. Doesn't have to be true.'
Dave was in real estate.
Curtis said, 'This one says, 'I'm cute, smart, funny and all that other shit I tell myself as part of my daily self-affirmation routine.' '
'She's in therapy,' Dave said. 'Next.'
' 'I'm romantic and at times emotional. I get teary-eyed from sad commercials-those animal shelter commercials are soooo sad.' She has a frown-face emoticon.'
'Needy. Next.'
'This girl says the four people in history she'd invite to dinner are Jesus, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Paris Hilton.'
'Dumb and dumber. Next.'
'Okay, listen to this one. She's twenty-six, a kindergarten teacher, and lives in SoCo. She's five-five, one-ten, athletic build, drug and disease free, drama free, and maintenance free. Reads the Chronicle, shops at Whole Foods, works out at the Y, and gets her coffee at Jo's. Says her idea of a perfect date is shrimp fajitas at Guero's and Mexican Vanilla ice cream at Amy's. She drinks socially but doesn't smoke. Her favorite activity is-get this, Andy-biking the greenbelt followed by swimming at the Barton Springs Pool.'
Andy sat up. 'Wow, she's perfect.'
'Except there's one catch.'
'What's that?'
'She's seeking a 'man or woman ' for dating.'
'She's bi?'
'Apparently.'
'Now there's a girl you could take home to your mother,' Dave said. 'Or to your sister.'
'I wish I had a sister,' Curtis said.
'Maybe I can take her home to my new sister.'
Andy Prescott leaned back and turned up his beer. He was twenty-nine years old and the last girl he had taken home to meet his mother was Mary Margaret McDermott. He was on a twenty-year losing streak with women. He considered that sad record a moment, then sighed and waved his empty Corona bottle in the air until Ronda spotted him.
' Uno mas, senorita. '
He had read that beer was not only a natural anesthetic, but also an herbal remedy for depression.
THREE
At exactly seven-thirty the next morning, loud rock music woke Andy Prescott from his coma-like state of sleep with all the subtlety of a SWAT raid. He reached over and smacked the radio across the room, but it was just a symbolic gesture. He was awake. He tried to sit up, but the movement sent a sharp pain ricocheting around his skull like a pinball.
A dozen Coronas sure packed a wallop.
His head ached from the beers and his body from the fall down the ravine, and he was as stiff as a two-by- four from sleeping in one position all night. His right arm was numb. He must have slept on it-or he had suffered permanent nerve damage in the fall.
Heck of a start to a new week.
He rolled out of bed and realized he was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. There was a sizable salsa stain splashed across the front of his T-shirt; Willie looked as if he had been blasted in the face with a double-barreled shotgun. Andy tried to recall the last hours of the evening, but all his mind could retrieve was a vague image of falling over a table… and not his table.
He dropped his clothes on the floor and limped to the bathroom. The anesthetic properties of the Coronas had worn off; his left knee burned with each step. He turned on the hot water in the shower then relieved himself of the beer and brushed his teeth. He stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He looked every bit as bad as he felt.
He walked into the living room and found Max stretched out on the couch. The Keeshond bolted to the front door and barked an I need to pee! Andy opened the door and recoiled from another bright, sunny day. His front porch looked out onto the Texas School for the Deaf campus across the street, which made for a quiet neighborhood. His neighbor was walking her little white Lhasa Apso past the house; while the dogs sniffed each other's butts, Liz called over to him.
'Nice look you've got going there, Andy.'
He had forgotten he was naked.
He waved lamely to Liz and returned to the bathroom. The hot shower brought most of his brain cells back to life, but there would be no quick fix for his body. The red scratch marks across his face made him look like Geronimo with his war paint on. Nasty scabs had already begun to form on his elbows and knees. His left knee was swollen. The feeling had returned to his right arm, but he couldn't raise that arm above his shoulder. He would hurt for a week, but all in all, it wasn't that bad. If you can't take the pain, don't go extreme. Stay at home and play pretend bowling on your Wii.
His home was a one-bedroom, one-bath rent house on Newton Street just across the river from downtown in the part of Austin known as 'SoCo' because it straddled South Congress Avenue. Newton paralleled Congress two blocks west. The other houses on the street had been renovated by urban frontiersmen and women like Liz and her husband, young professionals who drove Vespas and Mini-Coopers and had braved the neighborhood back when SoCo's leading citizens were hookers and addicts.
Now SoCo was a hip and happening place to be, a highly-desired and highly-priced in-town location. The houses on either side, nothing more than cottages, were valued on the tax rolls at over $300,000, and the one a few doors down was on the market for $600,000; his place was still awaiting renovation and so was valued at only $87,500. Andy's landlord had been transferred to California six years ago by his high-tech employer; he hoped to return to Austin one day. Andy hoped he wouldn't because he was charging only $600 in monthly rent, way below market for SoCo.
Andy dug through clothes piled on furniture until he found a pair of jeans and a clean shirt with a collar. He tried to shake the wrinkles out of the shirt-he didn't own an iron-then got dressed, grabbed his electric razor, and went outside. The remains of his trail bike lay on the front porch like the aftermath of a tornado. Andy Prescott felt like a man without a reason to live: he had no mountain bike.
