Mom likes to quote that. It means we should stay away from bad people and keep the good ones close to us. Mom is not a Michael Corleone "hold your friends close and enemies closer" lady. In this I am like Mom. I am like her in other kinkier ways too.
School has just ended on Jamie's birthday. Mine was a few days ago, as of today we are both eighteen, legal adults in the eyes of the State of Texas. Although we both have a bit more than a semester of high school in front of us. George, my big brother, is wearing his finery. Polished boots ironed blue jeans, an ironed Western shirt, silver bolo, and his best suede jacket. Jamie and I are changing into our best dresses.
When we emerge from my, our, room. George complements both of us on our dresses and our appearance. George combines Dad's understated politeness with Mom's no-nonsense honesty. He has just this sweet way of communicating to Jamie and me how much prettier we are when we wear nice dresses and just a tiny smidge of makeup to accent our natural beauty, rather than more. Most of all he let us know how he thought that we were special, and that if other people could not see that and could not appreciate us for us, who we were, well, then we just did not need them.
George bought the dress that Jamie was wearing. He took good care of us, me and my two little brothers. Two years ago, he figured that Jamie was going to stay at our house. So, he spent HIS money to buy her a mattress. Employee discount at the farm supply store that he worked at, instead of going off to study at A and M, or the U of T, or even Tech, all of which had just recently accepted him. Then he took some pine boards and built a bed for her in my room. So, at sixteen I finally had a sister.
George was constantly buying things for us, spending his money, not just Mom and Dad's. Money that he should have been saving for his escape. He had asked me what I wanted for my birthday about a month or so back. I had asked him if we could wait for Jamie's birthday. Because what I really wanted to do was go the Roadhouse for a first legal beer. The three of us together. George said sure, we could wait. But that Jamie and I should plan on dressing nice, because he planned on taking us to the best restaurant in town, to buy us our first drinks, and a nice birthday dinner. That is George, too good for this place.
He needs to get out of here and go to the U. He has a future. The selfish little girls around here can see that. They circle him like sharks smelling blood. Jamie has the same problem, the groping, ham handed little boys here want her because her drunken, disinterested family is loaded. In both definitions of the word. George saw right through the she-sharks. Jamie was burned by smooth talking parasites. Me, your storyteller Lisa, I am the third lonely musketeer. A nerdy little bookworm. Velma, not Daphne, which just goes to show you what a bunch of fucking retards I go to school with.
A few years ago, George sat me down and in his kind way told me that he knew that the girls who pretended to like him did so because he was reasonably attractive, that is a gross understatement, that they saw that he was going to go to the U, and then places. That he knew I was going to be successful too. That I was smart, and beautiful. That I got good grades, that I too was going to go to the U, and then write my own ticket.
That conversation and the frustration that I felt dating little boys who just wanted blow jobs or hand jobs led to the decision I made tonight listening to my big brother. Reveling in his kind, sincere honesty and brotherly love for me. And Jamie too. (And yes, I know it should be "love for Jamie and me". And that I should not start sentences with "And".)
