The Book of Joe

careless nudity has engendered in me. Am I being seduced? Is this her way of getting back at Brad, by having a go at his brother in their basement? I am ashamed at the momentary flash of excitement I feel beneath my horror at this possibility. She turns away from the machine to face me. “It’s true,” she says softly.
    Confronted with my sister-in-law’s head-on nakedness, I quickly avert my eyes to the postered walls, still seeing her breasts in the double spheres of Mickey Mouse’s ears. “It’s okay,” she says, smiling dryly at my discomfort. “I work like hell on this body; someone ought to see it.”
    So it’s not about seduction but simply exhibitionism. I am relieved and ever so slightly deflated by this realization. “That may be,” I say, turning back to meet her glance. “But I’m quite certain that someone isn’t me.”
    Cindy considers me for a moment and then shrugs, grabbing a lavender towel from the shelf behind her. “Suit yourself,” she says, wrapping herself in the towel. “I’m going upstairs to shower.”
    J. Lo has been replaced by Britney when I come back upstairs to the family room. It’s apparently the midriff hour on MTV. Jared is seated on the floor, his legs spread out in front of him, fiddling with an MP3 player while studying Britney’s navel. The twins are still perched on the back of the sectional, playing with their bird. “Hey, Jared,” I say, sitting down on the armrest of the La-Z-Boy.
    “Did she show you her tits?” my nephew wants to know.
    “What?”
    “It’s okay,” he says. “She does it to everyone. Even me.”
    “Really?”
    Jared nods, his expression inscrutable. “My friends love to come over.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    Suddenly, the bird flaps its wings violently between the twins, and I instinctively jerk backward a little. “Can she fly?”
    I ask nervously.
    “Of course she can,” says the twin holding the bird. “She’s a bird, remember?” To illustrate her point, she flings the bird up into the air, and with a squawk and a fierce flap of her wings, Shnookums takes flight in the general direction of my face. My hands fly up instinctively as I fall back off the armrest and into the seat of the chair. The bird spins away from me and settles on top of the television. The twins are laughing so hard they’re in danger of falling off the couch, which at that moment I wouldn’t mind at all. Cindy appears at the entrance to the room while I’m still sprawled across the La-Z-Boy in my defensive position, arms over my head, legs straight up in the air. She flashes me a tired, cynical look, as if I’m always doing this sort of thing, and then addresses the girls. “You two better get that bird back in its cage pronto,” she says. “If it gets into my living room again, it’s history.”
    Brad comes home, and he and Cindy retreat upstairs for a few minutes to scream and curse at each other while Jared and the girls watch television, their unblinking eyes glazed over in a practiced oblivion that’s heartbreaking to witness.
    After a few minutes Brad comes down to say hello, and I accompany him into the kitchen, where he pulls a bottle of wine out of the Sub-Zero and starts rummaging through a drawer in search of a corkscrew. “Sorry I’m late,” he says.
    “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Listen, Brad, maybe this was a bad idea. I can always come another time.”
    “It’s fine.”
    “I don’t know. Cindy seems to be upset.”
    “That’s par for the course,” Brad says, his expression grim.
    Cindy serves up a dinner of overcooked chicken in marinara sauce that disintegrates wherever the tines of my fork pierce it, mashed potatoes, and a tossed salad that was dressed too long ago and is now soggy and fermenting. “Everything is delicious,” I say. Jared, who has finally joined us only after being summoned repeatedly, raises his eyebrows incredulously at me. The conversation, or what passes for it, is stilted and awkward, and while I’m sure my presence is not without its own stultifying effects, I sense that dinner here is never a barrel of laughs. Brad eats resolutely and with great concentration, Jared with affected detachment, and Jenny and Emily giggle and whisper to each other in a secret twin language.
    “Oobo yoobo?” “Boobo wabo.” “Yeah?” “Yeah.” Cindy nibbles on some soggy lettuce and absently scolds the girls every few minutes for some minor transgression or another while I carve “save me”