The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper Page A

Always the bridesmaid and so forth.
    â€œIt's cool,” Jared says, and I realize that he's talking to the girl behind the couch. “It's not my dad.” A minute later he joins me in the hall, pulling up his jeans as he walks. “Hey, Uncle Joe,” he says. “How are you doing?” Now horny, naked teenagers are calling me uncle.
    â€œNot as good as you, I guess,” I say. He snorts and casually buttons his fly one-handed, then stands up straight and looks at me. He's grown significantly since I last saw him and is now over six feet tall, lean and broad like his father. He tucks his long dark hair behind his ears, the lobes of which are marred with a wide assortment of gold and silver hoops and studs. Seeing the earrings, and the small patch of hair just beneath his lower lip, I instantly understand the quiet frustration Brad expressed earlier.
    â€œI'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't think anyone would be here.”
    Jared runs his fingers through his hair and shrugs. “We were just . . .”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI thought you were my dad,” he says. “I would have been totally fucked, man.”
    â€œFrom where I was standing, you looked about five minutes away from that anyway,” I say.
    He smiles at me. There's an easygoing manner about him, a relaxed cool. He speaks in short, soft bursts and exudes a charismatic intelligence. There are no outward signs of anger in him, like you see in so many teenagers with a laundry list of things to prove to the world, but only a slightly sullen impatience typical of his age, evidenced in the way his eyes distractedly wander around me without ever coming to rest. “I hope you're not pissed,” he says.
    â€œWhat red-blooded American teenager can resist an empty house?” I say. “It's practically your patriotic duty to be in here with a girl.” I hook the strap of my duffel bag over the head of the banister as I did a million times before, a lifetime ago. The act, completely instinctive, sends a flutter through my stomach, and for the briefest instant I can smell my childhood again.
    â€œWhat happened to your shirt?” Jared says.
    â€œA woman poured her drink on me.”
    My nephew grins. “Chicks.”
    â€œThis chick was upwards of sixty years old.”
    â€œWhy did she do it?”
    â€œShe had her reasons.”
    â€œHey,” he says, absently rubbing his impressive abs. “I really liked your book.”
    I raise my eyebrows. “Well, that would put you in the minority in this town.”
    â€œLiteracy in general puts you in the minority in this town,” he says. It is, I think, an unexpected comment, coming from someone who moments earlier was dry humping the girl who is still hiding, naked and trembling, behind the couch in the living room. There is more to Jared than meets the eye. As if on cue, the girl now emerges, cute and colorful as a Gap ad in her green and blue striped crew neck and jeans, with negligible hips and those perfect high school breasts, not large but commanding attention by their sheer exuberance, like a pair of frisky puppies.
    â€œThis is Sheri,” Jared says, pulling on the shirt she hands him. “My uncle Joe.”
    â€œNice to meet you,” I say.
    â€œHi,” she says, staring at the floor. She won't be recovering from my untimely intrusion anytime soon.
    â€œSo, just by way of summary,” Jared says. “You won't be mentioning this little incident to my dad.”
    â€œYour secret's safe with me.” I think Jared might appreciate the irony if I were to tell him about how I discovered Brad and Cindy in the garage way back when, but most well-adjusted boys don't want to hear anything that even remotely connects their mother to oral sex, so I keep my mouth shut. “Besides,” I say, “I think he's got more important things on his mind right about now.”
    â€œI guess so,” Jared said. “If