by Steve Bloom
“Celia, cupcake, is that you?” trills Gayle, stopping Celia Lieberman short in the doorway, making Celia Lieberman cringe to the very marrow of her bones.
“No, it’s Beatrice, your imaginary lesbian lover,” retorts Celia Lieberman, thinking what does the woman have, sonar for hearing?
Then, wouldn’t you know, Gayle breezes in from the den, holding the latest hideous, poufy monstrosity up to her ample chest.
“Don’t you just love it?”
“What is it?” asks Celia Lieberman, although she fully knows what it is.
“Your Prom dress for tomorrow night!”
Gayle giddily whirls around. It’s like she’s the one who’s going to Prom, not Celia Lieberman, according to Celia Lieberman.
“I happened to be at the mall yesterday and I just couldn’t resist!”
“You happened to be at the mall?” Celia Lieberman replies. “You have a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Chicago. You hate the mall. And, for your information, I have my own Prom dress.”
Well, it kind of escalates from there. By the time Harvey putters up in the Prius, home after another day on the cutting edge of modern medicine, the usual insanity is echoing from the Lieberman abode, shattering the otherwise peaceful night for miles around.
“YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THIS HOUSE IN THAT RAG! I ABSOLUTELY FORBID IT!”
“I’M ALMOST EIGHTEEN! I CAN MAKE MY OWN GODDAMN DECISIONS!”
“CELIA, I DON’T CARE IF IT IS AGE APPROPRIATE, YOU CANNOT SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY! I AM STILL YOUR MOTHER!”
“THEN TRY ACTING LIKE ONE! JUST LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!”
Harvey starts to tiptoe back to make a clean, quiet, electric getaway when the front door swings open, casting an ominous shadow over him. Celia Lieberman looms, hands on her hips, meaning business.
“Not so fast, Dr. Lieberman, this concerns you too!” she commands.
Harvey meekly joins Gayle in the living room. I shudder at the vivid image of the three of them among all those deeply disturbing fertility statues. Then Celia Lieberman, again according to Celia Lieberman, addresses them both somewhat calmly.
“Mother, Daddy, I realize you’ve come perilously close to destroying my life with the best of intentions,” Celia Lieberman tells me she told them. “That you’ve pushed, prodded and meddled because you don’t want me to miss out like you did.”
And guess what? They don’t interrupt. They just listen for once.
“Well, thanks to you, I haven’t missed out,” Celia Lieberman reports. “During the last six months, I’ve been to every social event of the school year. I’ve been to restricted country clubs, overpriced and overrated restaurants, and a vast array of equally asinine after-parties. I’ve danced. I’ve gotten drunk. I’ve vomited.”
“But, honey, isn’t that what you . . . ,” cuts in Gayle.
“For pity sake, Gayle, shut up for once and let her finish!”
This is a first for Harvey. And, for that matter, Gayle too. She shuts up for once. Harvey motions to Celia Lieberman, relinquishing the floor back.
“And now that I’ve done the scene, I know it’s definitely not for me,” resumes Celia Lieberman. “Which should be cool with you because, frankly, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, you’re two of the most uncool people I’ve ever met. I mean, hello, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Gayle nods tearfully. Celia Lieberman hugs her. She hugs them both.
“Please, I beg of you,” Celia Lieberman says from the bottom of her soul. “Let me make my own mistakes.”
Celia Lieberman glows at me. I am proud. I am proud of Celia Lieberman. And vindicated. Didn’t I tell her what she had to do? Knowing Harvey and Gayle as little as I fortunately do, I know what it took for Celia Lieberman to finally stand up for herself.
“Wow,” I say sincerely.
Reaching the end of the first set, the band launches into a signature slow tune designed to leave the audience on just the right warm and fuzzy high note. I recognize it. “Love for All Time” or “Eternal Love” or some such mush; I’m not really big on Top Forty. But, like, one of their two giant hits. I mean, once upon a time it was all over the radio. Celia Lieberman and me, we just stand there awkwardly.
“Better get back to Franklin,” I finally say.
“No worries,” says Celia Lieberman, looking up at me through her new glasses. They really do complement her. “Franklin’s decided to sit the rest of the night out.”
Across the shimmering dance floor, fairy-tale couples intertwine, becoming one. The guys, tall and jaunty in black tuxes, the girls, lithe and lustrous in silky gowns. Onstage, ablaze in a pool of light above the roiling darkness, the sexy lead singer pours out how her heart’s been broken by some thoughtless, insensitive, unable-to-commit, lying scumbag. The same-old-same-old. I glance at Celia Lieberman. She sways to the song, syrupy though it is. Before I can think better of it, I bow formally before her, befitting the majesty of the occasion.
“Madame, would you do me the supreme honor?”
Yes, I’m asking Celia Lieberman to trip the light fantastic of my own free will. Yes, I want to. I can tell she’s surprised. And pleased. But shy and hesitant.
“Oh, come on,” I coax. “We’ve never actually danced. For real, I mean.”
I extend a waiting hand. She takes it. I guide us into the thick of the steamy action. I loosely encircle her. She drapes her arms tentatively over my shoulders.
The lead singer’s emoting up a tsunami, at the part where despite all the terrible shit she’s suffered she still can’t stop herself from loving the thoughtless, insensitive, unable-to-commit, lying scumbag. Women, I tell ya. But as Celia Lieberman and I press together, shifting ever so slightly back and forth, even I have to concede the cheap potency of the formulaic melody.
“It’s too late to tell Shelby,” I say out of the blue. “I’ve already blown it.”
“If she really likes you, it’s never too late,” Celia Lieberman says softly.
“You’re pretty smart, you know that?” I smile.
“That’s what they tell me,” she says, resting her head against my chest. I hold her ever nearer.
“It’s weird, but since this whole thing began, you’re the only person I can actually be myself with,” I note, almost as much to me as to her. “I mean, you’re the only person who knows how the whole Brooks Rattigan machine works, how all the moving parts actually fit together.”
“Yay me,” I hear her muffled voice say. She tightens against me. I tighten almost imperceptibly back.
“Franklin Riggs is one lucky guy,” I say, meaning it, wishing her only the best.
Onstage, the emaciated bass player sidles over to the microphone and starts singing along too. I’d forgotten all about this section. And, for a strung-out string bean, the dude can really boom. He’s sorry, he tells the sexy singer who’s letting it all hang out, quivering, beside herself at being so wronged by him. Just give me another chance, baby, scumbag begs, I’ll do better. Yeah, right. Then she, of course, forgives him and they scream into each other’s faces at the tops of their respective vocal ranges, declaring undying devotion. And I’ve got to admit, it really kind of gets to me.
Celia Lieberman and I silently shuffle, caught up in the cheesiness.
“I finished your dad’s book,” she says.
It’s the last thing I expect her to say. But you’d think I’d know by now that with Celia Lieberman you can never predict anything.
“It’s really good, Brooks. Really, really good.” She looks at me, eyes round and solemn behind her lenses. “He’s had it pretty rough. I mean, if even a fraction of it is true, it’s amazing he’s still in one piece.”
“Barely,” I say bitingly, the mention of Charlie putting a damper on what could have and should have been a beautiful moment.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on him,” Celia Lieberman has the nerve to suggest, like it’s any of her business.
“Maybe you sh
ould butt out,” I counter, but gently, not wanting to tangle with her, especially not here, not now.
Thankfully, the song tapers off into silence, putting an end to our one and only slow dance and my short but way too eventful acquaintance with Celia Lieberman. I unpeel from our now very unwelcome clinch. What was I thinking? How could I ever have let my guard down? Things can never just be with Celia Lieberman. No, you can always count on Celia Lieberman to point out something at the exact point you most don’t want it to be pointed out. It’s like she can’t stop herself. This is Celia Lieberman we’re talking about here.
“I’m just saying . . . ,” says Celia Lieberman.
“Don’t.”
“Oh, you’re the only one who gets to dispense free advice?” she presses. “That’s how it goes with you?”
Suddenly, Shelby lurches into view like the creature from the Black Lagoon, teetering and tottering precariously on her stilt-like shoes, cheeks wet with copious tears.
“I give up,” she slurs her words at me.
“She’s drunk,” Celia Lieberman observes clinically, like it takes one to know one.
“No shit, Einstein!” laughs Shelby, turning to Celia Lieberman, suddenly merry and gay. “I’m fucked up, Celia! Plastered! But it doesn’t take a brainiac to know that!”
“Shelby, stop,” says Cassie, rushing up to steady her. “You’re wrecking your makeup.”
Shifting back from comedy into tragedy, Shelby seesaws close toward me, jabbing a sharp painted nail hard in my gut. “What’s Celia Lieberman got that I haven’t got? Huh? Huh?”
“Zits,” Cassie soothes, balancing Shelby upright while dabbing her streaked but still spectacular face with crumpled wads of toilet paper. “Bad hair days.”
Onlookers quickly swarm around us. Generally, as a rule, on average there’s one huge alcohol- and/or drug-induced emotional public breakdown at every major high school social event. Well, apparently I’ve just been elected this evening’s entertainment.
“What’s wrong with me, Cassie?” Shelby blubbers. She’s a mess. It’s jarring to me, to everyone, because it’s her. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I know I should say something, but I don’t know what to say. This night, for no reason I can readily ascertain, is rapidly turning into a nightmare. Worse, I’ve got the sinking feeling that Shelby and yours truly won’t be consummating anything, great or otherwise, anytime soon.
Then Fallick and this Vicuna chick push to the front of the pack.
“Wait, I remember now!” she crows to one and all. “It just hit me when I saw the two of them dancing!”
Did I say nightmare? Try catastrophe, try cataclysm. I’m the Titanic and I’m going down with all hands on deck.
“You took Gravity Dross to the Spring Fling at my school in Westport!” this Vicuna chick proclaims, jabbing a prosecutorial finger at me.
I glance at Celia Lieberman. She’s gone white as a sheet. But other than her, no one else reacts to this Vicuna chick’s triumphant revelation. Why would they? So I was at a Prom in Westport. So what? Probably just coincidence.
“He did?” Fallick’s glazed, wasted eyes fight to focus, to think.
“Yeah, everybody was amazed Gravity Dross even had a date,” this Vicuna chick explains. “Especially a certifiable cutie like him.”
“Why’s that?” Fallick persists, curse him.
I shrivel up inside, fearing what’s coming. So does Celia Lieberman, only she’s gone rigid, reverting back to pre-me petrified state. Shelby tilts her head sideways, suddenly cogent again, her interest piqued by this new tidbit of information.
“Gravity Dross is, like, retarded,” this Vicuna chick says.
“Take that back!” I snap, too outraged to revert into customary total-denial mode. I mean, if this Vicuna chick weren’t a chick, I’d deck her.
“Okay, okay,” this Vicuna chick allows. “Mentally impaired. Whatever.”
Everyone’s looking at me. My outburst’s incriminating. But what, precisely, is my crime? Nobody knows. That is, except Celia Lieberman and me, and we both are quaking. The Moment of Reckoning is at last at hand.
“I don’t get it,” Fallick says, the cogs laboriously turning. “Why would a guy willingly take out two different losers to two different schools in two different states in the tri-state area? It just doesn’t figure.”
Celia Lieberman’s trembling. I bristle at the insult to her, although this is clearly my cue to take off for the hills.
“You’re the only loser around here, Fallick,” I say with feeble conviction. I can easily think of another.
“What’s your deal, Rattigan?” Fallick demands, crowding me, getting right in my face. “Somebody paying you off?”
Bingo!
Shelby looks at me in dawning horror. Strap in, folks, it’s going to get real ugly real soon.
“You’re the stand-in?” she asks quizzically, too shocked to be pissed—yet.
“Shelby, it’s not what you think,” I protest, though it totally is.
“I am such an idiot!” Shelby shrieks, anger at last kicking in. “I thought you had so much depth and character! But the whole time you were just being paid to be different!”
Across the vast ballroom, all activity comes to a crashing, screeching halt.
“You were hired to be Celia Lieberman’s date!” Shelby discloses to the entire planet. “You did it for the money! Why else would the two of you be together?”
All eyes fall accusingly upon me and Celia Lieberman as everyone begins to get it. And one by one, Green Meadow’s elite of the elite start to laugh uproariously.
“I knew it had to be something!” Cassie crows.
“Figures she had to pay for it!” Trent snickers. He shivers exaggeratedly, howling: “NOT ME, NOT FOR A MILLION DOLLARS!!”
The grand chamber rings with incredulity, ridicule, and scorn in a cruel crescendo.
“You’re both pathetic,” Shelby says witheringly to me and Celia Lieberman.
Then Celia Lieberman takes off like an unguided missile. Clawing through the howling mob, she flees the scene of the massacre, leaving me to my gory fate. She’s been exposed to eternal scorn, forever ruined. And it’s all my doing. Because everything was fine, only I had to push it.
“Celia!” I call out, though it serves no purpose.
Shelby quivers with self-righteousness. Her face twists into something scary and unrecognizable.
“This should be one of the best nights of my life and you’ve turned it into the worst!”
Those emerald eyes brim with hot, injured tears. There’s no defense for what I’ve done. I’ve really hurt her. Like Celia Lieberman once said, I suck.
“Shelby . . .”
“She said to leave her alone, Rattigan!” Fallick erupts, grabbing me by the shoulder, swinging me around.
“Can it, Penis—I mean, Fallick!”
Then the bastard sucker-punches me in the jaw. I mean, he really crushes me one. Instantly I’m seeing exploding stars and crazy patterns. I go smashing to the parquet where I lie there, stunned. I taste molten metal. My lower lip’s shredded. Everything’s a red curtain.
Fuzzy teenage faces sneer down at me. Cassie’s cackling. Trent’s chortling. Fallick’s cursing. Shelby’s crying. But I can’t hear what they’re saying because both ears are ringing. I stagger woozily to my feet and then plop back down on my butt. I’m pouring blood. There’s more than a good chance I need medical attention.
But no one extends me a helping hand. No one.
I’m in a daze, but not too much of a daze not to remember to be flooded with shame and humiliation. I stumble away to a rising tide of hilarity.
Through the plush, glittering lobby, past more blurry contorted faces, only the respectable, responsible grown-up variety. Even though I’m a terrible sight—bloody, swollen, wobbly-legged—no one comes to my assistance or offers the slightest aid. No captain of industry, no high society matron, no five-star-plus hotel staff.
Not a s
oul.
I rush out into the shelter and relative anonymity of night. The crisp inky air both revives and assaults me. My lip’s an open gash, my head’s a deep fog, I can’t see or think straight. All I know is I’ve got to get out of this place, this place that won’t have me, that disdains me and my kind. I take off sprinting down the center of the grand, curving driveway, which is ablaze in a constellation of artificial light. Luxury craft squawk and swerve around me.
“Brooks!” I hear. “Are you all right?”
It’s Celia Lieberman, curled up on the curb beside what must be Franklin’s dippy oblong VW Bug at the farthest reaches of the self-park lot. Prom Night and Mr. Poetry-and-Roses couldn’t spring for the valet. That Franklin’s all class. Clutching her knees, Celia Lieberman rocks back and forth, traumatized, wracked with mortification.
“Oh my God, what happened?” she gasps through her own pain at my grievous physical condition.
“Finally got what was coming to me,” I say grimly.
She sniffles, choking back fountains of tears. Was it really just moments ago that Celia Lieberman was gazing up at me, her face so soft, so lovely? Now it’s a battlefield, streaked with her first hopeful efforts at self-beautification. I did this to Celia Lieberman. Me.
“Celia, I’m so sorry,” I mumble.
“No, it’s not you,” she says in a faint, small voice. “It’s Them. They’ve always been like this to me. Since we were together in preschool.”
I can’t imagine what it must be like. To be the punch line just for existing, for just being you. Unaffluent and unconnected as I am, this is way beyond me, way beyond anything I’ve experienced in Pritchard. Or maybe I just haven’t been looking.
“They have it all,” she says, staring down. “Why do they have to be so mean?”
“You got me.” And she does. She really does. Why do the strong always have to prey upon the weak? I’ve never been able to figure it out. “Maybe just because they can.”
Then a new voice intrudes into the thoroughly depressing conversation.
“Celia, I just got your text!” says Franklin, sauntering up, chill as can be. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” says Celia Lieberman, standing. “Just everything!”