Growing up, my feelings about Cousin Herman were mixed. Sometimes he was okay, but fairly often was a real pain in the ass. We were related, so our families got together pretty often. The tag Germ stuck with him, but now was more often wielded behind his back. He used his size to intimidate guys he didn’t like, sometimes even his friends if he was in a pissy mood. I finally decided my feelings weren’t mixed: I just didn’t much like him.
More than once he hinted that I’d better not cross him if I knew what was good for me. After one too many such threats, I was pretty sure that Cousin Herman wasn’t good for me but I should have known.
This was always a sore point with us. She didn’t share my disdain for Germ and was good friends with Zoë. “Oh come on, what should I tell them? That you’re sulking because Marky and Jase love his pool and we don’t have one?” The boys, her favorite ace of trumps.
“And you shouldn’t call him Germ. It’s childish, and he doesn’t like it.” I knew he didn’t like it, that’s why I did it. Which is a bit childish, I suppose, but aren’t we supposed to nurture our inner child?
“I call him Germ because every time he leers at you I get this urge to wipe you down with Lysol. What a helluva waste of Valentine’s Day.” That won me a dirty look and a guarantee that everyone of us was going, which I’d known all along. On the trip over, the excited chatter of our boys anxious to hit the pool covered up how quiet it was up front.
Germ met us at the door in his bathing suit. “Hey, guys! Just in time! The pool’s warm, the beer’s cold, and the company’s hot!” He ogled Kim the way he always did. I wished she’d shut him down the way I always did. She just giggled the way she always did. Sometimes my cousin really pissed me off. Once in a while my wife did, too.
We went out to the pool, had a few beers, then took our shirts off and jumped in. The afternoon was hot, the water felt good, and the beers mellowed my mood. We splashed around for almost an hour, then got out to lie on towels and dry off in the sun. As usual, Germ paid way too much attention to Kim in her bikini. She seemed—or pretended—to be oblivious. The water drops on my back lasted longer than my mellow mood.
Germ decided we needed another round of beers. He got up, but before going inside ducked in the pool house and came out buttoning up a wrinkled aloha shirt. I’d had enough of him for one afternoon, so I stood up and said we had to get going. Kim started to object that we hadn’t had the barbecue yet, but I just reached down and grabbed her hand. She could tell I was going to yank her up, so she shut up and stood under her own power.
I started leading us toward the gate to the driveway, but Germ cut me off. I faked a smile and reached out to shake his hand, but he brushed my hand aside. “Fuck that, Cuz, you’re family! Hate to see you go!” He gave me a bro hug then—of course—turned to Kim and wrapped her up in a prolonged full-body bear hug.
The bro hug lasted long enough for me to smell his aloha shirt, a pungent combination of sweat, stale cigar smoke, and a familiar perfume: L’Air du Temps, the only scent Kim ever wears. More to the point, Kim’s the only woman we know who wears it. She can’t get it locally, she has to buy it online. Her friends tease her that it’s too old-fashioned for her, like the Old Spice their grandfathers used. Their gibes merely stiffened her resolve: L’Air du Temps was her exclusive signature.
Except now Germ was wearing it. I didn’t have to connect the dots, the picture drew itself. I peeled her out of Germ’s so-called hug and damn near dragged her all the way to the car.
“We need to talk, Phil. After we shower and change clothes, meet me the kitchen. You can use the guest bath.” I had no desire to shower with her—something we did fairly regularly—but didn’t like being told what to do. Tough shit, apparently. Sounded like I wasn’t the only one loaded for bear.
Showered and dressed, we sat at the kitchen table, her with a cup of tea and me with a beer. The boys, as usual, were in the family room slaying vast hordes of God knows what. “Okay Kim, you said we needed to talk, so talk. It’s your show.”
I didn’t sound friendly, and with good reason. I was pretty sure I knew what was coming, and I figured our world was about to change forever. She could tell I wasn’t happy, but had no idea that I’d tumbled to what she was doing. She thought she was on safe ground, that I was Mr. Clueless and she was still in charge. Apparently she’d rehearsed the talk, it sounded like she was reciting a script.
“People change over the years, Phil. Some get heavier or start losing their hair, some lose weight and spend a lot of time at the gym, some take up a new hobby or go back to school, some change jobs or move to a new place—”
“And some break—” I hadn’t meant to show my hand so soon, but she was so focused on her script she didn’t even notice.
“Let me finish, please, Phil. Then you’ll have your turn.” I shrugged, a non-verbal “whatever,” but for damn sure I wasn’t going to sit there holding my tongue—or my dick—while she tried to justify fucking my asshole cousin.
“When we met in college, I could tell right away you were a nice guy and majorly romantic.” Majorly? A grown woman—with an English degree no less—who says majorly? “You treated me with respect and affection instead of trying to get in my pants. That put you way ahead of almost every other guy I’d dated. Nice guys in this world are far too rare. It didn’t hurt that you were also good-looking, a great dancer, and funny. Before long I was falling in love with you.”
The condescending nicey-nicey stuff was making my hair hurt. It was getting tougher to keep quiet. Waiting for the “but”, I moved from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3. “But everyone, even nice guys, need to change as time passes. It’s called growing up.” I majorly had to dig my fingernails in my palm at that one. Growing up, my ass, it’s called changing, and sometimes not for the better. “More accurately, it’s called evolution. Darwin said it first, evolve or die—” I couldn’t hold back, but at least I managed not to shout ‘I call bullshit!’
“Darwin said no such thing, Kim. He described how natural selection guided the evolution of species.”
Machts nicht to her. “Whatever. You’re still that same nice guy, Phil, but I’ve changed, evolved. Nice doesn’t have the same appeal as it did when our love was new—”