St. Mary asked, “So are you dating anyone new, I mean, besides your brother?”
A nice reminder that I hang out with my brother more than anyone. I laughed and looked sideways at Amazing Gee who smiled benignly and wiped his face full of fries and snot on the sleeve of my sweater.
“No. I just don’t feel like dating. Too much going on.”
We chatted about work and writing and life. It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten to hang with them and a lunch break run to a nearby Burgerville to meet up was just what I needed. Amazing Gee is so freaking adorable, curly haired and totally wired from soda and school.
He still calls me Baafeena. I told him that 10 years from now I’m going to embarrass him in front of his girlfriend about how he pronounces my name. He just grinned and put another fry in his mouth. Halfway through lunch I mentioned that I needed to get back to work and he said, “Baafeena has to go to work?”
“Yeah, little man. I gotta go back to work.”
He withdrew and became sullen and quite for about ten minutes while I talked with St. Mary, then halfway through chatting about upcoming gigs he burst into nursery songs at the top of his lungs and all was well again.
That is, until I drove out of the parking lot and felt a heavy sadness. I’ve missed them a lot, and he’s growing up so fast. Ten years from now, when I’m teasing him in front of his girlfriend I’ll think it was just yesterday that we were having lunch together and he was wiping snot on my sleeve.
