I knew my sister Ginny wasn't doing too well in the wake of her divorce. I'd decided though that the best policy was to keep myself not only out of the mess, but as far away from it as possible. So I didn't even know the current circumstances when I got a complaining call from the folks. Apparently, while waiting for the house to be sold, Ginny had forced her way back into her old room at the homestead. She'd been there for weeks, a weepy black cloud. From what I was told, she hardly bothered going into her dinky little job anymore. Not that it much mattered. With the pittance it paid, she'd never be able to manage the deposit on her own place.

Actually it was mom who made the call, of course. "You've got to come over here and do something with her." Good old mom! I could almost hear the rippling of the newspaper and the grumbling of my dad behind it, "I thought you told me that come eighteen they'd all be out of here, and they wouldn't come back to bother us again except maybe holidays." Good old dad!

Well, the easiest course of action was to just agree, pack an overnight bag and drive across town and prove to them that there wasn't anything I could do either. I did make sure to pack my big heavy foot, just in case I needed to put it down. Knowing my folks as well as I did, I didn't doubt they might try to transplant Ginny to the sofabed in my livingroom.

We got through dinner without exchanging any significant words, which was a blessing in my mind. The food was bland but not nearly as awful as I remembered. I thought maybe I should slip a couple dollars on the table in addition to washing the dishes. Wouldn't want mom to start bitching about her free-loading son who only came over to make her suffer in the kitchen and eat her out of house and home. Wouldn't matter to mention that she'd fairly demanded I accept the invitation. Good old mom!

I made the cleaning up take forever. I even took out the garbage. There was enough light left I mowed the lawn. Then I came in and took a shower. I suppose they could bark about the expense of the hot water, but otherwise I'd come prepared with my own soaps and linen. I scoured the bathroom when I was done. That left about an hour of quiet t.v. time in the livingroom. Midway through, Ginny got up and went to her room to sleep or weep or read or play with herself. And then, as though they were both controlled by the same remote, mom and dad stood up in unison, singing a chorus of goodnights.

I asked mom if I would need to put sheets on my old bed, and she just stopped with an immensely puzzled look. "But that's my sewing room now."

"Well sure, but there's a daybed in there still."

"But, but, but..."

"But what?! Like you'll need it to collapse on after a frantic bit of midnight stitching? Oh never mind. The couch is fine. I have a sleeping bag in my car, and yes it is freshly laundered."

Good old mom!

I was just too grateful that the night was ending without my having to do something. I figured I'd wait to be standing up from the breakfast table and on my way out. I'd pass Ginny a quick comment to shape-up and ship-out. Give her a sideways buck-up brotherly half hug.

The night was an hour or two--or likely three--too early for me to fall asleep. The t.v. was already on and I was already on the sofa. I guess I had my sad date for the evening. I clicked around and found a movie I'd heard about and never seen and never quite admitted to wanting to rent. The promise was an untaxing premise and enough moments of porn, just soft enough not to get killed by the rating. You don't get to see her pussy, but better is watching her unpeel her ass. Her character, I'd always heard, took her panties off in a restaurant to prove some sort of point. The movie was just setting aside all the establishing shots, the breathy pauses to make the plot plausible, when Ginny pushed back into the room. With gestures alone I got her to swing the door flat, the better to keep the t.v. noise from reaching mom and dad.

Ginny not only swung the door back, she made sure it latched, and then I thought I caught her turning the little knob of the lock. It was just as well. The folks would have thrown a fit if they'd seen her prancing around in the sleepwear she had on. I'm mean, I'm all for dressing sexy when there's a point. But I've never understood this impulse some women don't outgrow from their nights of pubescent slumber parties of donning the skimpiest pair of panties they own and then covering up with a cutesy t-shirt that won't stay below their hips unless they hold it there. It's like being a kid and going to visit your mean old maiden aunt. She'll have candy setting out on a sidetable in a clear glass dish, but there's no point in drooling because you know she won't give you even a taste. I wanted to say, "Hey Ginny, I'm your brother, not your girlfriend's brother, so go put some clothes on." Instead I snapped, "Hey Ginny, I wanted to watch t.v., not you." She'd been talking even if I hadn't been listening. So it was a fairly embarrassing moment when she suddenly went quiet and stepped out of the way, turning to take a look at what was on. At that very instant, the camera cut to a bedroom scene in mid-progress. Some very nice flashes of flesh. The livingroom was silent but for the false gutturals of scripted passion.

"Gee," she turned back to me with eyes all a-rolling. "Sorry to have broken your concentration," Ginny grinned.

I just laughed. It was good to get a glimpse of the Ginny I remembered. She plopped down beside me on the sofa, groaning, "God, I've seen this. It's such a trashy movie, but the sexy parts are pretty, um... "

"They'll singe your eyelashes if you stare too hard?"

"Hot, that's right," she giggled, "very hot."

Unfortunately she started back in with moaning about her life. I really didn't want to listen to it, and did a fairly good job of it at first. But after awhile it was a fly in my ear. There was some weird mixture of a lament about the man's high tastes and business acumen that just made me bark back, "Yea, what? The guy owns a burger franchise and dumped you for some teenage Fry Queen in a dumpy brown polyester uniform." I didn't want to hear anymore.

Ginny tried to defend him, saying something about how generous a man Darren was. I couldn't stop my mouth.

"Oh yeah, right. You think I don't remember the time he took us all out for dinner? His treat, he boasted, at the best place in town! He tools us around town forever, and then we wind up at his own fucking drive-thru!! I'll never forget that magnanimous gesturing he did at the menu board as he admonished us that price was no object."

"And you," Ginny sputtered, "ordered 2000 fish filet sandwiches. 'Boy, you must really like fish.'"

"'No, I hate fish. I just want to do my bit to kill them all off as soon as possible.'"

"And then you asked if you could have a side of blown speaker with that."

"Oh yes indeed, I was surely visited that evening by the inspiration of insanity."

I noticed that with each new bit of my babble, her expression underwent a subtle change. The extended effect was making her soft about the eyes. It was very flattering. My former brother-in-law was a certified fool.

"Well," she sighed, "I guess I just wasn't young and pretty enough for Darren."

"Yea, Ginny, you just don't have that lovely fryer inspired acne that all men find so extremely attractive."

"But... I understand that she's... much more developed than I am."

"Oh please, come on Ginny. In the upstairs department you are just right. I mean, if you want to start feasting on fast food for every meal, than you too could get that hips-inflated-with-grease look."

"It sounds like you've seen her."

"Listen," I admitted, "I've been a visitor to the love nest a few times. At first it was to appear impartial, though anymore I've begun to question whether appearing polite is indeed a virtue. I always thought Darren was a decent enough sort. Hell, you married him. And generally your taste is pretty good. But I walked away from that first gathering thinking instead that he'd just been masquerading as, well, not a full- fledged winner but definitely a notch or two above total loser. I mean, I accept an invitation for dinner and cocktails. And it's Oh go in the kitchen and grab what you want. 'You know us. We live in the land of plenitude. Just sort of graze at will.' I was terribly afraid of chips & dips. Which just proves how stupid I am. Set atop the electric warming tray--a nice touch I grant you--are two tall white paper bags emblazoned with the logo. As if the heat could penetrate the bulk. Pulled by a motor not my own, I glide across the kitchen like I'm on the Staten Island Ferry approaching the twin towers of the World Trade Center. One bag is soaked through with little squares of grease that do look just like rows of tiny windows. That'll be the fries I guessed correctly. Some of the burgers in the other bag actually had wax paper wrappings, which--as you well know-- is economically not a good sign. One might think there were no dinner options. But me, already I'm thinking... I'm thinking I hate this crap! Well, I'm hungry and apparently facing my dinner. So I'm considering. Obviously the stuff is overcalculations of the lunch rush. But the sheer volume suggests he's been collecting the feast for days. My reckoning is that the possibly warm food at the bottom of the bags will likely be the oldest. My suspicions are that Darren never bothered with refrigeration. I plucked a fry from the top of the lot. It was long and brown and drying in from the corners. I held it between my fingers. It was a worm half-gone and plucked from the sidewalk in the bright hot sun after a brief rain, then immediately pickled in grease. And... and... and oh my god. I ate it! My appetite was cured real quick. I turned back to the livingroom for cocktails. There I was invited to help myself at the bar. That translated into the coffee table, upon which sat a half drained half- gallon of Scotch and an ostensibly clean cartoon jelly jar. I know nothing about that liquor. I hate it. I drank some once out of desperation. Make that twice now. In all my life I've met just two people who admitted to liking the stuff. And the brands they drank definitely didn't come in huge handled bottles you recycle with your milk jugs. Darren explained how he'd read somewhere that the old cartoon jelly glasses from our childhoods were worth a nice enough bit of coin these days. So he'd gone over to his mom's and ransacked her cabinets. He'd found around thirty of them--several complete sets and a rarity or two among the collection--and the collective value was enough I forget, but enough to make you sit up in your seat and go, 'Oh yea?' After telling me all this, Darren found himself with a long buildup ending with his former fry girl piping in, 'And we're using the last three that haven't gotten broken. What a special occasion!' I thought he was going to hit her, but then he relaxed and burst into a sheen. Darren turned to face me directly, declaring--and I quote-- 'Yea, Sheryl sure is stupid as shit. But ain't she got great hooters?!' Hooters? I thought. No way! But then I was stopped by the one woman in all the world who would react to such a compliment by arching her back with a wide smile and pulling up her shirt. And there they stood in all their alleged glory. Hooters they were."

"She didn't have a bra on?" Ginny nearly wailed.

"No. And in engineering terms, she didn't need the support."

"She has huge boobs that don't sag?" Ginny's voice quivered.

"They've only been around a few years to suffer from the gravity on this planet. Give 'em time. She'll be able to do tricks with them. Flip them over her shoulder like a tie. Bonk herself in the head with them. I mean, even in this, their first full bloom, they were not attractive. I mean, if it's a matter of having big smarts or big tits, what's the best choice? I mean normally I'd say you're double up on her. She's got huge ugly hooters and a vacancy sign between her ears. Whereas you seem to have pretty breasts but I'm not so sure about the rest. With all this lamenting you've been doing I'd have to say you've joined her in the Dumb Club."

"Really? You think I have pretty breasts?" she asked wide-eyed.

"Well, I mean, I haven't seen you without a shirt on since before you had breasts, but with a shirt on, my guess is that yea, you seem to have very nice breasts. Like I said, just right."

I hadn't meant anything like that at all. I was advised in advance by the way she shyly lowered her gaze but without ever breaking actual eye contact. When Ginny gently bit her lower lip, I wasn't at all surprised by the way she dropped her hands in her lap in hesitation, then from there lifted the hem of her t-shirt up, peeling toward the ceiling, revealing first her panties, then the soft curve of her tummy on up to her lower ribs, then over the full glory of her breasts.