The Pleasure of Your Company

The hug felt so good it made Isaac tingle. "Well, nice to meet you!" he chuckled. "Hey, we just decided to go out for some ice cream," he said, gesturing to himself and Alexandra, whose face panicked just a bit at this revelation. "You wanna come along?"

It did not at all occur to Isaac that his pal might not want to share his company with her own sister, but Alex felt the need to jump in here. It wasn't that she was afraid Sasha would take her friend away, or pin him under some irresistible magic spell of hers, but...

...Well, yes, actually—yes, it was. It was exactly that.

"Oh, I'm-...I'm sure Sasha's a little too occupied to join us, Isaac," she said, doing her best to maintain familial politeness. "She's-she's a busy bee. I'm, eh...I'm kinda surprised she found the time to come down here tonight, honestly."

Oh, gosh, she thought embarrassedly, mentally smacking herself in the mouth. That only sounded incredibly rude. Nice job, Alex.

Neither of them noticed. "Oh, no, I'm actually free as a bird tonight!" contradicted Sasha. "She's normally right, Isaac, I do travel and stuff a lot, but I'm actually in town from Toronto for a week, so while I'm home I'm staying with our Mom and Dad. So yeah, if you guys want me to join you, sure! I'm all yours!"

"Oh, awesome!" said Isaac.

GreeeeAAAAt, thought Alex sarcastically.

Isaac motioned them to follow him to his car. "Here, I'll drive. I have a four-door, so no one'll have to climb in and outta the back."

"Cool!" commented Sasha, scurrying alongside him.

Alexandra ran to catch up. "Oh—shotgun!" she reflexively shouted out.

Good Lord...I am a 32-year-old grown woman. Did I really just say that??

What was it about her sister's presence that always seemed to turn her into a blithering idiot?

***

September 24th, 8:24 p.m.

Fifteen to twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of the local ice cream parlor.

"So what do you gals think?" asked Isaac. "Should we get a table inside or outside?"

Well, there was a decision Alexandra thought she could handle.

"Oh, I'd be good with an inside ta—" she began to offer.

However, he had asked them both, and her response overlapped with Sasha's.

"Outside!" answered Sasha excitedly.

Alex fought off the urge to throw her a glare.

"...Or...or outside," she added, not wanting to argue. "Outside's good too."

So they took a table outdoors, on the parlor's patio under an umbrella, which Alex wasn't very crazy about at first, it being a chilly, non-humid 63° outside. Alexandra was the more coldblooded Philomene sister, Sasha the more warmblooded, so sitting outside on a cool night eating ice cream made less than all the sense in the world to her. But the more she thought about it, the more she warmed to the idea (no pun intended), as they took in the lovely view of the western sky to catch the last remnants of the wonderful sunset. And Alex nabbed the seat right beside Isaac on the bench on one side of the table. She realized too that if she sat beside him, and the ice cream and temperature outside made her too cold, she could again kindly ask him to hold her hand, or perhaps even slip his arm around her shoulders, and that thought in and of itself made her feel a good trifle warmer and cozier inside.

The waiter dropped over and asked if they were ready to order. Upon informing him they'd just be having ice cream tonight, they determined they were all set.

"Are we ready?" Isaac asked the girls.

"We're ready!" Sasha replied. She reached across the table and laid her hand over Isaac's. "Gentlemen first!"

This was an unexpected surprise to Isaac. It seemed he was being served a dose of affectionate...reverse-chivalry. He wasn't sure how exactly he was to feel about this, but his honest gut reaction was simple, logical gratitude. They were all just friends here, after all; he wasn't expected to behave in any certain manners other than to be himself, he reasoned. "Well...thank you," he smiled.

Each chose a dish of their favorite flavor ice cream—Isaac's mint chocolate chip, Alex's strawberry, Sasha's black cherry—for the waiter, and conversation resumed upon his withdrawal.

"So, Sasha, tell me about yourself," requested Isaac. "What do you do?"

"Oh! I am the hostess of an international children's TV program. It's called I Wanna Go Too. It's a family geography-slash-travel show. It teaches kids about different countries in the world, their cultures, food, language, so on," said Sasha. "Right now its main markets are in Canada, Britain, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Y'know, most places where English is a main language. So they have me flying back and forth a lot to film it. How appropriate for the show's premise, right? The directors and producers really like the novelty of having an American host the show in their countries. We don't have it in the States yet, we can't really find a network that's interested, 'cause America has so many other kids' shows and travel shows already. But we're still trying."

"Wow, that's fascinating!" said Isaac. "So you're...something of a celebrity, then."

Sasha waved it off. "Oh, in those other places, maybe. Not here. But to be honest, I like it that way. America's my home, it's where me and Alex were born and grew up: our family's here, all our friends are here. And frankly, much as I adore my show, I think being famous here might feel kinda...well, overwhelming, actually." She shrugged. "I guess I like the knowledge that I won't get mobbed walking down the street. It doesn't really happen that much overseas. You do get recognized sometimes, but people don't try to permanently invade your space or anything, thank goodness. If we did get the show in the States, I'd probably ask them to find someone else to host. Don't get me wrong; I love kids, and I love entertaining them, but, I'm not sure how well I'd do just meeting a fan off the street." She chuckled modestly.

"I really enjoy performing, but honest to goodness, I'm not good at improv at all. In fact, I'm just terrible at it," she laughed. "I totally freeze up. When I have a script and memorize it, I'm pretty great—at least that's what everyone tells me. But I'm not one of those geniuses who can just wing it and be awesome like that."

Isaac studied her expressions as she described her occupation. She was beautiful. Her eyes were bright turquoise. Her hair was immediately between henna and auburn, and the curvaceous sculpture of her face was amply pleasing. He really liked the way her eyes opened big and bright when she spoke, as if enthusiasm just came so natural to her. And the way she smiled and laughed made his heart turn to butter. Alexandra was beautiful too, with slightly paler but pure green eyes and more brownish hair—Isaac just wished he got to see her grin and giggle a bit more. He was an absolute sucker for a pretty smile.

What the sisters knew but wouldn't come right out and say was that in several ways, Alex and Sasha were polar opposites. Sometimes it was hard to believe they were actually sisters. Alexandra was rather mellow and pessimistic. It wasn't by choice, but by reality. She'd admit to being a pessimist, but would prefer to call herself a realist. She would not, however, allow anyone to refer to her as a cynic. She distinguished between the terms. A cynic, she reasoned, was someone who expected nothing but misfortune all day long. And this was not she. A pessimist, according to her standards, was one who took and appreciated good things as they came, but did not expect them. This description accurately fit her. Sasha, meanwhile, was upbeat, an eternal optimist, and with reason. Sasha was inexplicably blessed with good fortune, and had been her whole life. Sometimes Alex downright hated her guts for it. Alexandra Philomene was the queen of bad luck, Sasha Philomene was the queen of good luck. In this regard, Isaac was somewhere in the middle: not exactly a pessimist, but not a total optimist either. He just tried to take life one day at a time and do his best.

Sasha finally stopped to take a breath. "ANYway," she giggled. "Thank you for listening to my super-long explanation. I think Alex is probably sick of death of hearing it. She's only heard me talk about it five zillion times. So how 'bout you, I.M., what do you do?"

"I work at PetSmart."

"Aw, how cute!" said Sasha. "So you get to play with the doggies and kitties and fishies and everything?"

"Sometimes, yeah. Or help customers find stuff. But mostly I'm behind the checkout counter, so..."

The ice cream arrived not too long after, as their conversation drew on. Sasha honestly didn't mean to monopolize it, it was just the way it seemed to turn out. Both she and Isaac were oblivious to Alex's modicum of discomfort spending this outing with the two of them together. To them, it simply appeared her sweet tooth was nagging her even more than she had let on, the way she was shoveling ice cream into her mouth. She was glad she'd suggested this, as she'd ended up needing the comfort food.

Alexandra felt selfish not wanting her friend and her sister to get too close, as the hope was only for her own sake. Theoretically, if she was not in the picture, she could see them possibly getting together, dating, maybe even starting a relationship. And she would be happy for them, were it not for the practically ubiquitous dynamic between her and Sasha, when others were involved. Basically her entire life, whenever Alex befriended or became otherwise involved with someone, inevitably the someone in question met Sasha, and to her own eye, was then virtually whisked right out of Alex's possession, so to speak, by her sister's charms. It all began when she was almost three, and their mother and father had Sasha, and Alex was no longer the main spotlight in their life.

The Philomenes and their friends literally went ga-ga over Sasha as a newborn, spending innumerable measures of time baby-chatting her in her crib, playing with her, tickling her, playing little "got-your-nose" games with her, calling her a tiny princess, until they were obligated to shift attention elsewhere. Alexandra didn't remember receiving such approval and accolades as an infant the way her baby sister did. She really did seem to epitomize the nickname Alex secretly gave her, Little Miss Perfect.

Growing up was gradually more of the same. Once in a while, Alex would get a friend to come over her house and play, but again, with Sasha around, things seldom went as Alex planned. Even somehow as a child, Sasha was cheerful and charismatic, with what seemed to be a natural magnetism. Just like taking over conversations, she really didn't intend on stealing Alex's friends or potential lovemates away from her; it just happened. Simply an unfortunate pattern of event. By the time the sisters were old enough to start dating, Alex wasn't really interested, pretty much already aware of the outcome of the experience.

Everyone knew that Sasha would grow up and find success. Sure enough, at the age of 25 she was already acting and singing in theatrical productions in the immediate area, until a television producer discovered her, and thus a career was born. Alexandra wasn't exactly thrilled when this happened for Sasha—not that this was the sort of vocation she was seeking, but—although when Sasha packed up to bounce over Canada and across the pond to England the first time, part of Alex did take a bit of comfort in having things..."to herself" again. Deep down, she was happy for her sister's success, but she was also happy for herself.

In the past couple of years, Sasha came home to spend a few days with their parents every few months or so when she could, and spent some extra, more involved time at home in the summers before the next season of her TV show started up. The show broadcast on Saturday mornings, and Sundays through Thursdays were normally spent in read-throughs and rehearsals, before official filming took place on Friday. But this particular week, something out of the ordinary happened. Pilot season had arrived, and the networks were putting the existing shows on pause to test out new shows. As a result, the normally scheduled programming was pushed back a week. And Sasha and her fellow TV crew members found themselves on temporary vacation. With this pleasant surprise, Sasha elected to fly home for an unexpected visit with her folks and sister. Mr. and Mrs. Philomene explained to her that Alex had begun attending a social class on Wednesday nights, hence Sasha's presence, waiting for her just outside the building this evening.

"So when did you guys meet?" Sasha asked them.

"Oh, our first class, three weeks ago," Isaac told her.

"You going out together as buddies? Or...anything more than that?" was the next thing Sasha thought she would ask.

Again, Alex felt a cue sneaking up on her.

"Oh, no," said Isaac, gesturing with his spoon. "We agreed early on it's much nicer and easier than dating. So we're just friends."

Alexandra slipped her arm around Isaac's. "Really good friends, though," she amended assertively. "We've become pretty close."

Isaac shrugged. "Well...moderately close, I guess, yeah."

Alexandra was unable to help but feel just a bit territorial. She wouldn't think of Isaac as some sort of "property"—nor did she feel it necessary to do anything extreme, like mark her scent on him—but she did feel her apprehension justified, after having lost her umpteenth friend or boyfriend to Sasha. It wasn't her friends' fault, and if she were to be totally honest with herself, it wasn't really Sasha's fault either; Sasha was just being herself. She couldn't help it if people just liked her. Alex was about to accept all the blame and responsibility for the pattern herself, but she wondered at the last minute if this were a situation where anyone had to be at fault.

Isaac was oblivious this was going on. He thought everyone was just having a nice time together. Had he privilege to know what was going on in the girls' minds, the truth would've surprised him.

"Wow," commented Sasha. "You must have a really terrific girlfriend, Isaac. Not everyone would be that comfortable with their guy hanging out with another girl that much, even if he insisted they were just friends."

"Hm!" Isaac chuckled, mouth full of mint chocolate chip. "Well, I'm sure she would be, if I had one."

"Really?" asked Sasha softly, the corners of her mouth curling up. "A handsome gent like yourself?"

Alex saw a big red flag go up.

Isaac playfully tossed it off, following Sasha's earlier flirtatious example. "Oh, aren't you too kind...I don't know if I'd say 'handsome'...but you can!"

Alexandra looked with growing anxiety in her eyes from her sister to her friend. Their mutual fondness seemed to be deepening. Oh, dear, she thought. This didn't look too good for her. She looked back down to her empty bowl of ice cream. She had a sudden craving for more. She grabbed the attention of their waiter as he passed by.

"Oh, excuse me, sir?" she asked, handing him the bowl. "Could I have another of the same, please?"

"Absolutely!" said the happy member of the wait staff, anticipating a generous tip.

At this request, Sasha wouldn't dare say what she was really reflexively thinking (Seconds? Think that's a good idea, sis? Know what they say: minute on the lips, lifetime on the hips!), so she instead went with, "Oh, I know; it's so darn good, isn't it?? I can barely hold back from asking for more myself!"

If only this were the sole reason Alex wanted more.

Another bowl of ice cream later, Alexandra's tummy was bloated and happy, if showing tiny hints of queasiness. Mostly, though, she was chilly, thereby making now the time to step up her game, as it were. She gave a deliberate, but not too obvious shiver.

"Oooooh!" she intoned. "Oh, gosh, am I cold now! Isaac, um...would you please put your arm around me?" she entreated. "Y'know, just to warm me up a little?"

"Oh, of course!" he agreed. He slipped his adjacent arm around her shoulders, rubbing her outside arm vigorously up and down. It was more of a buddy-buddy gesture—not unlike a backslapping hug—rather than a romantic byplay, but felt very nice nevertheless. Alexandra looked around at the ice cream situation. Isaac's and Sasha's bowls were empty, only their spoons sitting in idle solitude in the porcelain. Her own second dish had been reduced to a pinkish-red glob accompanying her own also inactive spoon.

Her gaze returned to Isaac, whose arm remained around her, but whose eyes were mingling—almost in fact dancing—together with Sasha's. The ice cream portion of the evening was through. All hands now free, Sasha engaged in sweet coyness, propping her left elbow on the table and resting her chin in its hand, walking her fingers of the other across the surface of the wood where Isaac's unoccupied hand lay, digitally dancing over his fingers and softly tracing an aimless pattern over the skin, riding the small curves and bumps of his veins. Her face remained tilted downwards, but her eyes shyly crept back up to meet his own.

Alex's heart rate had doubled. Oh, this was bad news. While her sister's nature was sweeter than cherry pie, her flirting could be downright vicious when she got aggressive. Sasha had nary a malicious bone in her body, yet men were virtually effortlessly entranced by her. And not without good reason: she was not only a comely lass, Sasha Philomene was the truest and most devoted androphile known to man—pun intended. She cherished and treasured men so dearly, the feeling was almost too much to bear at times. Alex didn't know just how deep her love ran. And while she also honestly didn't know if Sasha was really trying to snatch away her friends and potential mates, she did know what—consciously or not—her sister was capable of.

Worse yet, she was powerless to do anything about it. If she attempted to deter or discourage them from their interaction, Sasha would plainly hide behind her predictable defense: "Honey, what's the matter? We're just being friendly!" And Isaac would likely wonder whether she wasn't happy that he was hitting it off with her sister. Oh, "hitting it off" would be one right way to put it, yes, she thought, getting ahead of herself. As far as Isaac was evidently concerned, they were and would probably always be just friends. With which Alex would have been perfectly fine, were it not for the little detail sitting across this outdoor table from them.

Finally, she did the only thing she could think to do. She placed her purse in the middle of the table, asked them to watch it for her, and excused herself to hit the ladies'.

Luckily, the restroom was tidy and dry—a relief, as she didn't think she could handle any more unpleasantries tonight—and she slipped into a stall, undressed from the waist and perched her tush on the seat. She let her head descend back to the wall behind her and laid her hand on her brow. Despite the cold treat, the air-conditioned parlor, and her coldblooded body, she was now almost sweating. She had gotten herself into a troublesome situation. If her sister's devastating magnetic pull wasn't enough, she hadn't expected Isaac's embrace around her (intended simply to warm up her body) to achieve this effect.

It was at this point she was abruptly compelled to consider whether her feelings for Isaac did in fact only run friendship-deep. His masculine arm around her shoulders, gently squeezing her own arm in his fingers, had accomplished its task, and overshot it by a yard. She did not actually need to relieve herself excrementally, but only to calm her heated breathing and accelerated heart. She ended up staying in the ladies' room for quite a little while. She sat actionless on the toilet for several straight minutes, eyes closed, mouth ajar, smoothing her fingertips over her arm, where her companion's hand had rubbed her to more than necessary warmth. But reliving the past moments was not exactly helping her to calm down. So she reminded herself of her sister's presence, intruding on this evening of theirs together. Actually, given this new realization, she had to keep herself from wondering what would have happened had Sasha not appeared in the picture.