The waitress comes back with our bill, double-quick service. She steps right on top of me, kicking my chair out her way as if there’s no-one sitting on it, so that she can stand closer to my brother.

She puts the bill down on his place mat. At the top she’s done an ugly little heart with flowers around it. Her name and number are written inside.

Nine guys out of ten would have taken the number and helped themselves to the freebie that went with it. Not my brother though. He’s not a player. Funny thing is, he doesn’t even have a girlfriend. Too busy being big brother to me, and breadwinner, and life support to Ma.

Prince takes out some notes from his wallet and hands them to her.

“Keep the change, Busi,” he says, reading her name off the till-slip.

“Thank you so much,” she gushes at him, like he’s just handed her a thousand rand for nothing.

She stands there, waiting hopefully for something. I knew it wasn’t a bigger tip.

Someone calls her from one of the other tables and she finally leaves us.

“How do you do it?” I say to my brother, who’s busy chomping his way through his no-meat roll, like it’s food from heaven.

“Do what?”

“That.” I stab the till slip with my fork. “Get girls to hand you their phone number without even asking. What’s your trick?”

He stares at me with the eyes that should have been mine.

“No trick, Gcina,” he says. “All I do is like girls the way I like everyone, and they like me back.”

He makes it sound so simple. For him it is simple.

That’s the other problem with my brother Prince, yabona. He’s not just supa good-looking, he’s also supa nice. The genuine kind of nice, not just put on for show. Niceness beams out of him like the sun. Everyone wants to be warmed by it.

“If you want to attract girls, you need to stop thinking of them as some unattainable prize and start seeing them as people, same as you,” he tells me.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Why is it easy for me?”

I shrug. “It helps when you look like Prince Charming. Instead of a loser like me.”

“Don’t talk rubbish, wena. You’re not a loser. There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. All you need is confidence. And a good exercise plan. And better hair maybe. There’s lots about you that girls can like. You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re … you’re …”

“Boring,” I say.

He gets that impatient look on his face.

“Then do something about it, Gcina. Stop being boring. Come to the gym with me like I’m always telling you. Meet some new people. Get a life. Nothing will change if you don’t change it.”

He frowns at his watch and gets up.

“Gotta go. My shift starts in ten minutes. I finish at 11.00 tonight, so I’ll be home late.”

Prince is a trainer at the local Gym Machine. Jobs fall into his lap like everything else.

“Hang in there, little bro. Love will happen when it’s ready. You’ll see.”

He arm-locks my head in his muscles, slaps down a brown elephant for my taxi money, then lopes off with his soccer-star legs.

At the door a large woman is trying to come in, carrying enough plastic to kill the Indian Ocean. She can’t fit through the door unless she drops the parcels, but the handles are all tangled up with her fingers.

“Let me help you,” my brother says, taking her burdens from her and carrying them over to a table.

See what I mean? Nice nice.

The woman smiles up at him like she’s in love.

“Siyabonga, mntwana wasezulwini (Thank you, child of heaven),” she says. “Your mother must be proud.”

After my brother leaves I stay sitting at the table, trying to catch the waitress’s eye so I can get that chips and Coke I asked for. The no-meat roll had left me feeling emptier than before I ate it. But I’m still Invisible Man.

A loud crowd of babes in rolled-up school skirts come strolling in, laughing like they’ll never stop. I try a smile on one of them. Her eyes just pass right over me. The guy at the next table calls out something to her.

“Heyi ntombiyihle (Pretty girl). Come over here and show me what you’ve got …”

I wait for her to slap him, but she just giggles. Stops to lean her elbows on his table, her face just centimetres from his. Her friends drag her off, all of them in hysterics.

I stand up and take my invisible self out into the sunshine. Laughter follows me like mockery. I’m so sick of it. Sick of being me, Magcina, the one that everyone ignores. I don’t want to be the loser brother of the charming Prince. I want to be the Prince, the one that girls give their numbers to. The babe magnet, just for a change. My brother was right; it’s time I got a life.

***

Tell us: What can Magcina do to turn his life around? Should he even try to be like Prince?