by Steve Bloom
Then, abruptly, our soundtrack for the night slows to a crawl and reaches way, way back, to a bygone day when people knew their places. A remix of vintage Sinatra at his most yearning and romantic. But with a bangin’ backbeat. Seizing the opportunity to rub close, couples intertwine in response. I focus on Tommy, who envelops Shelby into his strong arms and gracefully twirls and dips her to the lilting melody. It pains me to admit it but, asswipe that he is, the dude’s not bad on his toes. Years of lessons will do that. But I don’t care about him, just Shelby. The only thing hotter than a total babe is a total babe shaking it. And Shelby sure knows how. I flinch and duck like a punch-drunk boxer at every swish of her skimpy skirt. I’m telling you, I’m ready to bust.
Plus, I could swear she’s smiling at me the whole time. But it can’t be me. We haven’t even met. I look around. There’s no one behind or on either side of me. It has to be me. I gawk idiotically back. For a fleeting, heart-stopping instant, we lock eyes and, at least on my end, sparks are flying. Then, wouldn’t you know it, Celia Lieberman reappears, tugging on my sleeve.
“I want to go home,” she says.
Go? We can’t go. I know that Celia Lieberman’s not having a good time, but she seems like the type who never has a good time anywhere. There’s no way I’m going now, not when I’ve just been definitely smiled at and possibly flirted with by a divine being mega–zip codes out of my league. Fuck no. I’m staying put. So, to humor Celia Lieberman, I resort to truly drastic measures.
“I don’t suppose you want to dance?” I ask. “I’m actually not half bad.”
“I want to go,” she repeats doggedly.
The song speeds up and so do the dancers. Taking Celia Lieberman’s hand, I steer her into the churning thick of it. “C’mon, don’t be such a wuss!” I shout above what is becoming an eardrum-popping roar. I box step us within gaping distance of Shelby.
“LEMME GO!” screams Celia Lieberman.
But on the dance floor, as in outer space, no one can hear you. Not taking any chances, I unfurl Celia Lieberman in a double cross-body lead, which I follow up with a nifty reverse turn.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she shouts.
Thankfully the thunderous electronic music drowns her out. And with all the colored laser beams and lights erupting, it’s hard to see. Suddenly, Tommy swoops past in tight lockstep with Shelby. Grinning, the show-off unleashes a double inside-out move, yo-yoing Shelby in circles. Like I said, he’s not bad. All right, he’s good, damn good. But I’m better.
“C’mon Celia, show us what you and your new boyfriend can do!” Tommy gloats.
Bristling at the challenge, I whip Celia Lieberman in complex patterns, back and forth, in and out, fucking sideways. I’ve got her spinning like a top.
“HELPPPPPPP!” yelps Celia Lieberman.
Not to be undone, Tommy lifts Shelby. She spreads her sinuous wings like a swan as he whirls her above his head in a gracefully executed maneuver I’ve never seen, let alone attempted before. The guy’s been watching way too much Dancing with the Stars. But my back’s up.
“NOOOOOOOOoooooo!!!” Celia Lieberman’s face contorts in horror, knowing what’s next.
Too late. Competitive juices flowing, I hoist Celia Lieberman over my head like a Russian weight lifter and rotate too. She’s no feather, lemme tell you, and sure as hell no swan. I’m sweating and gasping as around and around we go. Centrifugal force kicks in. Everything gets blurry. I mean, I’m doing the steering and I’m getting dizzy. I can’t imagine how it’s going up there.
Finally, my strength gives out. I release Celia Lieberman back to somewhat solid ground, where she doesn’t stick her landing but wobbles wildly, veering off-balance smack into Tommy.
“Hey, watch it, bitch!” blurts Mr. Charm-School Graduate, letting go of Shelby.
Celia Lieberman stumbles toward him. Her cheeks are bulging way out. Her eyes cross behind her glasses. Her hands clutch her stomach. I can trace the path of the coming eruption from there to her throat. So can Tommy.
“Oh fuck,” he croaks.
I won’t dwell on the gory details. The trajectory, duration, and velocity of the Day-Glo-orange spume. All are extreme. The chunks, globs, and rivulets that drench and dribble down all over Tommy. There are many. The shock and humiliation that ensue. Tremendous. Yes, my friends, these are the moments we live for.
---
I knew Celia Lieberman had been drinking, but not how much she’d been drinking. I unclasp her purse and take out the water bottle. It’s three-quarters empty. I gag at the sight of the little that’s left. Carrot juice and vodka. Either in large quantities is toxic. Together in large quantities, they are lethal. Especially when the person who consumed said copious amounts is being tossed like a salad around the dance floor. To some degree—okay, to a large degree—I share the blame. Trying to make amends, I tap softly on the door to the girls’ room again. I’ve been waiting outside it going on a good ten minutes now.
“Celia, you okay?”
From inside, I am greeted by retching and heaving sounds that have me seriously considering dialing 911 and calling for an ambulance. I snap to as a flock of babes approaches for a touch-up and a tinkle. I feel it my chivalric duty to save Celia Lieberman from further scandal and them from a sight and olfactory experience they will never be able to forget.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I was you,” I say. Catching a whiff and my drift, they collectively turn high-heel and clomp away. I steel my senses for what I’m about to do. For I can no longer obey Celia Lieberman’s repeated wishes for me to fuck off; I have go in there and rescue Celia Lieberman from herself. For what remains of her social reputation and my future financial one. Then, just as I’m about to embark into the unknown, a sultry voice stops me.
“Distant cousins, right?”
I know who it is before I turn. And it is. And up close, even more mesmerizing. Toking on a joint, Shelby appraises me openly, seriously.
“Cousins?” I repeat, at a loss at her impossible perfection.
“That’s how you and Celia Lieberman are related.”
She offers me the blunt. I take what I hope is a suave drag. My heart’s pounding, my nether regions pumping. She has that effect on me. But I play it cool.
“We’re not related,” I report.
“Friend of the family then?” she asks, her emerald eyes tantalizingly near to mine.
“Nope. Sorry.”
I want to reach out and touch her to make sure she’s real and not some hallucination I’m having from bad breadsticks. Everything about her is top of the line. Her slender figure, the sleek, elegant cut of the designer dress that fits impeccably, the way she’s not overdone like the others because magnificence like hers needs no enhancement. That would be plenty, but there’s more. Her sophistication, her forthright manner. This is a girl who’s done things and been places I can’t even imagine. This is the complete package.
“So what gives?” she asks.
“Gives?” I extend the jay back to her.
“What’s somebody like you doing with somebody like Celia Lieberman at Winter Formal?”
She stares into my soul, searching for the answer. I meet her gaze, too entranced to feel the guilt I should.
“If you must know, I happen to be with Celia Lieberman at Winter Formal because I like Celia Lieberman,” I lie through my smiling teeth.
“You like Celia Lieberman?”
“I find Celia Lieberman delightful.”
Then, exhibiting her usual impeccable timing, Celia Lieberman lets out a hair-raising volley of gut-wrenching dry heaving and wet spewing like you’ve never heard. I’ve always been squeamish, so I want to sit down. Shelby, however, doesn’t bat a professionally teased eyelash.
“That’s what I told the others,” she says. “Celia’s a major brainiac. I said you had depth. I said you recognized her hidden qualities.”
Hidden to me, that’s for certain. But I shrug modestly, which I hope only increases my mystery t
o her.
“Somehow I think there’s more to you than meets the eye,” she says.
“You have no idea,” I can honestly state.
She holds out a polished hand, introducing herself.
“Shelby Pace.”
“Brooks Rattigan.”
Our fingers spark from static electricity as we touch to shake hands. We both laugh, startled. It must be fate. Then Tommy, having shed his puke-soaked shirt and jacket, storms bare-chested out of the men’s room. He’s got the abs, pecs, glutes, and guns of a male stripper. Normally this would set off the red alerts for me to back off, but I’m too far gone.
“C’mon baby,” he snarls. “Let’s blow this shithole.”
He reaches for her, but she springs back.
“Get away, Tommy! You stink!”
Then, cool as can be, she smiles back to me.
“Brooks, I’m having an after-party. Why don’t you and Celia come?”
“Shelby, have you lost it?” Tommy yammers, wiping his chiseled torso with soggy paper towels. “I don’t want that freak coming within fifty feet of me.”
“Thanks, but I really don’t think Celia’s up to it,” I say, reluctantly stating the obvious.
“You heard him!” Tommy agrees. “Let’s book!”
“Look, you can’t take Celia home like that,” Shelby says to me, ignoring Bluto. “She can sleep it off at my place.”
It’s the excuse I’ve been praying for. I mean, I have to park Celia Lieberman somewhere. I can’t take her home in this severely altered state, for her sake as well as mine. Going to the after-party is providing a service to the client. Celia Lieberman can sleep it off, thereby avoiding certain parental meltdown, harsh punishment, not to mention me having to explain things. It’s the best possible rationalization.
“In that case, we’d love to.”
“Awesome. You can follow us.”
---
Tommy impatiently beeps the horn to his stepdad’s Rolls. That’s right, as in Rolls-Royce. I’ve never seen one in person before.
“Move it, douche bag!” He’s referring to me. The Rolls is at the head of a caravan of ultra-luxury motor vehicles, all with their lights shining, idling, snaking across the parking lot. Shelby, checking her lip gloss in the mirror, is unamused.
“Oh, Tommy, grow up.”
She leans out her window, smiling.
“Take your time, Brooks!”
Gasping, I dump Celia Lieberman in a limp heap in the front seat of the Prius. I’m winded and aching. She’s snoring, totally checked out, and it’s been a brutal haul to the car all the way from the ladies’ room, which is actually more like a lounge with a leather couch and real cotton towels. I’ve been trashed in my time, but I’ve never before been as trashed or seen anyone as trashed as Celia Lieberman is. She’s one for the books.
“I’m the loser?” I say to myself. “Ha!”
As I buckle her in, she burps right in my face. Lovely.
---
Shelby’s spread is way out in the country. You know, down wooded lanes, past bucolic meadows and brooks, over hills and dales, whatever dales are. And when I say spread, I mean spread. There are barns and stables, like for horses and shit, multiple tennis courts, and what’s that? A fucking helipad! Bringing up the rear of the procession, my eyes widen when I get my initial gander of what appears at the end of the long, winding road that is the driveway. The thing’s gigantic, with wings and too many rooms to count. This is no mere mansion but a manor, a veritable estate with the sprawling grounds to match. Despite its excessive size and utter lack of social responsibility, it’s remarkably unostentatious, tasteful, and old-school, like a plantation back in the glory days when slavery was out in the open. Whatever. This is the real thing. The fabled bastion of WASP privilege, which supposedly no longer exists but is actually going gangbusters. I’ve made it to the Promised Land.
And it’s all Shelby’s. The girl who has everything has even more. I know material things shouldn’t matter, especially for those of us who don’t have material things. So sue me if there’s nothing more to me if you scratch the surface and I’m superficial, but material things do matter, and they make Shelby’s already sky-high desirability quotient rocket off the charts. She can’t be possible, but she is.
Ravenous teenagers stampede past Shelby’s mom and dad to a fancy catered banquet, complete with serving stations and waiters in black ties offering trays of delicacies. Both parents look young for their age, fit and with it, in T-shirts and jeans. Dad’s square jaw handsome, Mom’s way smokin’, the definition of a MILF. Shelby’s furious to see them.
“Mummy, Daddy, upstairs right now!” she commands.
“But honey,” demurs Daddy, no doubt some huge hedge-fund titan who’s ripped off the common rabble for billions. “We want to meet your friends . . .”
The adult Paces do a double take when they get a load of me staggering in with Celia Lieberman slung like a sack of flour over my shoulder.
“But sweetheart,” ventures Mummy, who probably runs her own fashion empire or the family philanthropic foundation or both.
“DID YOU NOT HEAR ME??!!!” Shelby thunders, going ape-shit. Man, I’d hate to get on her bad side.
Just then, Tommy stalks past on his way to shower, down to his bikini briefs, which I have to admit he can actually pull off. Mummy and Daddy look at him, at me again, aghast, then at each other, then at their daughter, who sternly points upstairs. Both pillars of high society meekly obey, ascending from view. Shelby smiles at me, switching back on to gracious hostess mode.
“C’mon, Brooks,” she directs. “You can park Celia by the pool.”
---
There are actually two pools on the premises: one outdoors, out of commission for the winter, and one in. The innie’s a sleek lap pool beneath a glass atrium, aglow in the shimmer of starlight. How can one person have so much cool stuff? The mind boggles. I deposit Celia Lieberman in a jumble on a lounge chair, position her in a comfortable pose, then subtly stretch my back, which is having a minor seizure from the sustained load.
“You have an indoor pool?” I remark like an imbecile.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Shelby crinkles her pert nose adorably. She knows she’s irresistible, which should be a turn-off, but not on her. Nothing is. I’m even more bewitched.
“Not where I’m from,” I stammer.
“Where are you from? How come I’ve never seen you around?”
She looks at me. I’m on the spot. How should I answer? Definitely some radically edited version of the truth, but how radically? Just then, Tommy spurts from the surface of the pool, flapping his arms, yelping like a walrus.
“ARFFFF! ARFFFF!” What style. What wit.
“Tommy!” Shelby frowns. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“I can’t believe you let those deadbeats in here,” Tommy says, like I’m not there and I don’t exist, which I don’t to him. He vaults from the water. Why is it that the biggest jerks are always so damn big? I’m just under six feet and tip the scales at about 170 and change, but he’s got at least four inches and twenty pounds on me. And it’s all rock-hard muscle. The guy’s totally ripped. Extra-wide shoulders, tapered torso, washboard abs. A swimmer’s body. Then it hits me.
“Water polo!” I gasp.
“Captain,” he grins.
To me, water polo’s one of those totally useless Olympic sports, like synchronized anything and curling, that have no reason for being. Those dippy caps they wear with the round padded things for the ears. What’s that about? And those G-strings they wear for uniforms? Please. It so figures. But the point is that even though I’d love to flip some shit to Tommy and even though he deserves to be flipped, considering his size, it’s not advisable.
“Tommy, you’re all wet!” squeals Shelby in displeasure. “Get away!”
She darts from his dripping embrace. He lumbers after her, a buff Frankenstein monster.
“You love it!”
---<
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Everything’s grandiose, oversized, out of proportion to what I’m used to. Each room its own museum, crammed with rare antiques. And, incredibly, none of it’s off limits. Kids are partying everywhere, in various stages of carnal embrace, drinking, toking, sniffing illegal substances. The lights are low, the music thumps.
I check out the art on the walls. Even though I know less than nothing about art, even I recognize the signature styles of the paintings. The paint-splotch dude. The fuzzy-horizontal-stripes guy. The guy who does all the little dots. I do know enough to know that each is priceless. And together worth the annual GNP of many small Third World countries. Then, hanging in a place of supreme honor over the mantelpiece, I come upon a portrait of a naked chick with tremendous knockers with her square head up her triangular ass. I peer at the name scrawled across the bottom corner. Somebody pinch me. It’s a real Picasso, sticker price in the millions, and just small enough to tuck under my arm. For a second I’m seized by an overwhelming impulse to grab it and hightail it to the tropics. But then I see visions of Interpol and Turkish prisons, and the temptation passes.
“Chicken sat-aye,” announces a voice with a reassuringly familiar broad affect. It belongs to a weary, middle-aged waitress with big hair who holds out a tray of appetizers to me. I look at her blankly.
“Chicken sat-aye in a peanut cumin sauce,” she, again, mispronounces.
“Hi, I’m from Joisey!” mimics Brent, busy pawing Cassie on a couch.
Howls of laughter. The waitress, who is just trying to do her shit job, does have the thick, classic accent. She turns away from me, muttering, “Rich assholes.”
She thinks I’m one of them. To my eternal discredit, I let her. Slipping away through the crowd, I decide to do a little research and Google the Paces on my iPhone. What pops up doesn’t surprise me. Hunter Pace does run a mega–hedge fund, sits on the board of numerous major start-ups, and has indeed ripped off the masses for billions. Gretchen Pace doesn’t oversee a fashion empire but does possess a Yale law degree, which she apparently puts to ample use as head of various task forces against multiple forms of social injustice. Nothing like crusading against oneself, I muse. By the way, there is no family philanthropic foundation.