by Larry Doyle
“Just asking.”
Rich popped a couple of M&Ms.
“Probably not that great,” he speculated.
And then the doorbell rang.
DENIS HOPPED UP SO FAST he banged his knees on the table. He hobbled excitedly to the front door.
“I told you.”
Rich loped behind him. “It’s probably just the police telling us to keep it down in here.”
Denis pressed himself against the door, peeking out through the sidelight. The waterglass produced an ethereal image, luminous, gossamer, a dream. On Denis Cooverman’s porch floated the celestial figures of Beth Cooper, Cammy Alcott and Treece Kilmer.
Denis could not talk, leaving it to Rich to speak for them both.
“Dude. It’s the Trinity.”
6.
A YOUNG MAN’S PRAYER
SHE’S GOING TO SHOW HER BOOBS! THANK YOU JESUS!
ROLAND FAYE
I believe in the Trinity (One in Three, Three in One) Beth the first, Cammy the Second and Treece the Third.
I believe that Beth Cooper is an Angel and that She was made human by the power of God. God chose Mary, the wife of Randy, to be the mother of his most Awesome Creation.
I believe that Beth Cooper is the one True Angel, and that Cammy Alcott and Treece Kilmer are merely Sidekicks, who through their chosenness by Beth have attained social oneness with Her.
I believe that Beth Cooper is a gift of God that proves that He loves us without condition.
I believe that Beth Cooper is the One and Only Savior of my Wretched Adolescence and it is through Her that I may achieve Salvation.
7.
LIVE NEW GIRLS
MAYBE IT WAS A DREAM, YOU KNOW, A VERY WEIRD, BIZARRE, VIVID, EROTIC, WET, DETAILED DREAM. MAYBE WE HAVE MALARIA.
GARRY WALLACE
“HOLY CRAP!”
Denis couldn’t believe he just said “Holy crap.” Or that he was twittering his hands and pivoting indiscriminately as he yammered.
“Holy mother of crap!”
For all his posturing about plausible scenarios, Denis hadn’t truly expected Beth Cooper to show up at his house, and had no real plan beyond continuing to hope that Beth would show up at his house. Now that she had, he had nothing. And the prospect that she might enter his home, and see how he lived and what kind of person he was, scared the holy crap out of him.
“What are we going to do?”
Rich leaned in close to Denis’s face.
“RUN AWAY!!!!” he whisper-screamed.
Denis staggered, startled, but also thinking good plan, and was already dithering about which way to run when Rich started laughing.
The doorbell rang again.
Denis looked through the sidelight. Luminous Beth checked her watch, while ethereal Cammy made exasperated gestures and watery Treece fidgeted.
“They’re discussing leaving!” Denis said, as if watching a horrific car accident and being powerless to stop it.
Rich flung open the door.
“Ladies!” he proclaimed.
THIS WAS THE DIFFERENCE between Denis and Rich.
To outsiders, meaning everybody else, they seemed very much the same, and were often mistaken for one another even though they shared about as much DNA as either one shared with a chimpanzee. One was short and slim and the other was tall and skinny, one was topped with a thick pelage of dark curls and the other with fine reddish tufts that looked temporary, one had had braces and the other should have had braces but his father wanted to give it a few more years to see if it would work itself out. Yet the main and signature difference between the two was not physical but metaphysical; they lived in alternate realities.
Denis lived on Planet Fear and Rich resided in Hollywoodland.
Denis was afraid of many things. A very long list of them could be found in a manila folder in the office of Dr. Maple, the phobophilic lady psychiatrist Denis had seen from the age of five until twelve as a result of his parents having too much disposable income (Denis’s therapy was completed successfully at age thirteen, a typical outcome for Dr. Maple, who suffered from ephebiphobia, a fear of teenagers). But of the myriad things Denis feared—which included, briefly, a fear of misusing the word myriad—the thing he feared most often and most enthusiastically was the future.
Based on a close reading of current events and a misapplication of the third law of thermodynamics, Denis believed that the universe tended toward tragedy. Since his own life had been free of anything genuinely tragic, Denis figured he was due. He feared that if he did anything that was “adventurous” or “unscheduled” or “fun,” it would end tragically. Statistically, it almost had to.
Rich had had a much less tragedy-free life. We needn’t go into the details, since it’s a long, sad and ultimately unoriginal story, but as a result Rich had developed a coping mechanism by which all of the terrible things that happened to him were merely wacky complications that would, before the movie of his life was over, be resolved in an audience-pleasing happy ending. He occasionally worried his life might be an independent film, or worse, a Swedish flick, but he chose to behave as if the movie he lived was a raucous teen comedy and he was somebody like Ferris Bueller or Otter from Animal House, or, worst-case scenario, that guy who fucked a pie.
And so Rich threw open the door and proclaimed “Ladies!” knowing that no matter what happened next, or after that, or subsequently, eventually he would be loved and vindicated and everybody would be dancing to a classic song from the seventies.
Denis, meanwhile, thought he had finally met his doom.
BETH COOPER SAUNTERED through the door, swinging the tartan pleats of her Luella Bartley strapless plaid dress, $39.99 at Targét. She wore her party face, not unlike her real face, but with the hue and contrast dialed up. Her hair, too, was subtly tarted, with spontaneous ringlets happening strategically around her head. She still smelled like Beth Cooper, only more so.
“Hey,” she tossed off, entering Denis’s house with such cool authority he wondered if he was the one who lived there. So this was Afterschool Beth. Denis couldn’t tell how much he liked this version. At least a lot, he decided.
Cammy catwalked in behind Beth, working a white vintage-wash Abercrombie skirt and black Fitch Premium beaded racerback top, $119 retail, bought on super sale for $71. Nearly six feet and bone blond, she had the gait and mien of a fashion model, to go with the legs and teeth, yet there was something in her slate green eyes, something disturbingly out of place: thought.
“Nice place,” Cammy said, her flat contralto displaying no affect while projecting disdain.
Last and slightly least, Treece bounced over the threshold in a red leather bustier that displayed top, side and bottom cleavage and a black nano mini that might have been a rubber band. The semi-ensemble, with the Choo boots, easily cost more than $1,000, though she clearly neither knew that nor cared. She was wide in ways boys and men don’t seem to mind, with overdone hair that encircled her face like a toilet seat, and plump brown eyes and pillowy lips that brought to mind a cute cartoon cow. Very cute, but cartoon, and cow.
“I’ve never been in this house before,” Treece chirped with a baby lisp she was unlikely to outgrow.
DENIS WAS PARALYZED. Adrenaline, epinephrine, seratonin, corticosterone, testosterone and several more exotic hormones squirted from various glands or were being synthesized like crazy throughout his body, in far beyond prescription strengths, and so all nonessential functions such as thinking had been shut down.
Rich stepped into the hosting breach.
“So,” he inquired cordially, “where’s our boy in uniform?”
Denis’s testes began climbing their vas deferens again, until Beth uttered those three beautiful words:
“We’re hating him right now.”
(Denis could count; he just stopped listening after the first three.)
Beth explained, “One of his army buds was getting all date-rapey with Treece.”
Treece was clearl
y annoyed by this. “It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to get a blow job at the end,” she said, making a duh face. “I mean, if he was nice.”
Cammy rolled her eyes without moving them at all. “And so thanks to Miss Manners here, Graduation Night’s crapped.”
Treece’s mouth popped open. “You’re blaming the victim!”
“Guys”—Beth stepped in—“it’ll be okay. They’ll go looking for us at Valli Woolly’s, and when they don’t find us they’ll go to that strip club they tried to drag us to, and then we’ll go to Valli Woolly’s, just later.”
Rich whispered to Denis out of the side of his mouth. “Which scenario was that?”
“Variation on Four,” Denis side-whispered back.
Cammy took in her surroundings, looking for a reason to go on living. “So? Until just later?” she asked. “We sit around sucking each other’s Suzy Qs?”
If Denis’s eyes could have fallen out, they would have. They would have bounced around crazily on the floor, made yipe yipe yipe sounds, skedaddled up the stairs and hid under Denis’s pillow.
“Thank you, Cammy,” Beth said. “Like I’m going to get that image out of my head.”
(Like anyone was. Denis’s brain had fast-tracked that image into permanent storage, accidentally overwriting some early flying-car sketches.)
Beth made a sudden movement in Denis’s direction; he flinched.
“So?” She had a bright and shining smile. “Where’s the party?”
Denis almost said What party? Even that would have been preferable to what he did, which was blink several times.
“Here,” he eventually said, in the dazed, detached manner of a crime victim. “This is”—he gestured to his general vicinity—“it.”
“You’re a little early,” Rich transitioned smoothly. “We weren’t expecting anyone until…eleven. Right, Coove?”
“Oh, right,” Denis blinked. “That’s when my paren—”
“La fiesta es this way, chicas…”
Rich pinched Denis’s upper arm and led him toward the kitchen, whisper-singing,
Dreams really do come true,
and whisper-citing: “Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, 1939, Victor Fleming, director, additional scenes by King Vidor.
“You’re not in Kansas anymore, dude.” Rich placed his hands on Denis’s cheeks, signaling he was about to say something of profound importance.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road,” he said, adding slowly, emphatically, deep meaningfully, “Follow. The. Yellow Brick Road.”
Denis was dumbfounded. “Is that like…treasure trail?”
“What? No, God, no,” Rich revulsed, “It’s a metaphor for life, not Dorothy’s…yick!”
BACK WHERE WE LEFT THEM, Cammy was glaring at Beth. The glare said, Why are we in this strange-smelling house alone with Your Itty-Bitty Stalker and his Gay-And-Not-Even-Fun-Gay Friend, no doubt about to be drugged and undressed and violated in uninteresting ways when we could be getting drugged and undressed and truly violated by members of the United States military? That’s a rough translation.
“Be nice,” Beth admonished the glare. “He’s the valvictorian.”
“And he loooovs you,” Cammy added in a geek voice that sounded nothing like Denis but sufficed.
“From behind!” Treece blurted, then began whinnying, because anal sex was hilarious, in the abstract.
Beth Cooper was a benevolent cliquetator. She allowed her subjects free rein and even the illusion of equality. Occasionally, though, she needed to reassert her absolute authority, and this was one of those occasions. She did so in the traditional teen-girl manner, through superior attitude and psychological terror.
“It’s nice to be loved,” Beth said. “You two should try it sometime.”
Beth walked away. Cammy achieved a smirk, but her heartless wasn’t in it. Treece pouted.
“I try it all the time,” she said.
IN THE KITCHEN, Denis stood at attention, like a waiter in an unfun restaurant, as the girls entered. Rich was acting like a waiter, too, but from a José O’Foodle’s, the unbearably fun restaurant he had been fired from for exactly this behavior.
“Hi, I’m Rich,” he said with high theatrical cheer, “I’ll be your cohost this evening. On the central table you will find assorted snackables, sweet ’n’ salty comidas for your comesting…”
The girls considered the crap on the table.
“The pretzels are fat-free,” Denis suggested. “A healthful alternative.”
Beth scowled. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Oh,” Denis said. Goddammit, he thought.
Denis had not yet learned to preload appropriate responses to fat-related queries (i.e. unequivocal denials) so they could be automatically delivered without hesitation. Instead, he appeared to be processing the question, which can be fatal.
“You, fat?” Rich intervened. “Why would he say that? Come on. He’s not retarded.”
Beth frowned more definitively. “My brother is retarded.”
Rich froze. There was no appropriate response when somebody played the retard card. Now both he and Denis stood at attention, condemned dorks, without blindfolds.
Cammy snickered, causing Treece to unleash a single whinny and Beth to finally release her smile.
Denis exhaled; he would not, after all, have to move to Europe. Rich let out the laugh he had been choking on.
“That’s cold,” Rich said. “Damn cold. You probably don’t even have a brother.”
“No,” Beth said. “He died.”
Rich guffawed.
Beth did not.
“I’m so sorry,” Denis said.
This was a nervy move on Denis’s part. If Beth didn’t have a dead brother, he would be a double dork. Fortunately for him, she did.
“It was a long time ago.” Beth looked directly at Denis. “But thank you.”
The raw emotion of the moment unnerved Rich, sending him into a fit of impression. He stretched his face lengthwise and fluttered his fingers over his chest.
Well, shut my mouth,
he enunciated in a British-ish accent. “Stan Laurel in Way Out West, 1937, directed by James W. Horne.”
“What was that?” Cammy asked.
“It’s something he does,” said Denis, as if it were an unalterable fact of life, like the wind or tragedy.
“I’m fat.” Treece joined the conversation from earlier. She threw a potato chip in her mouth. “But it’s all good fat.” She did a quick shimmy, and her good fat shook like bowls full of jelly.
THE FIRST THREE BARS of “Here She Comes” by Very Sad Boy played in a tinny synthesis. Beth pulled a cell phone from her purse. She was displeased by the caller ID, but answered anyway. “What do you want, Kevin?”
She walked out of the room. She didn’t seem very happy to talk to him, Denis thought. Maybe she’ll just tell him to go blank himself, she’s having such a wonderful time over at Denis Cooverman’s house, 706 Hackberry Dr—
Denis got that old testicular feeling again.
“I NEED BEER,” Treece announced.
“Yes, you do,” Rich agreed. “¿Dónde está la beer, Coovemaster?”
“Um,” answered Denis, distracted. “My dad doesn’t drink beer.”
“How is that possible?” Treece asked.
Rich remembered:
“We have champagne!”
He whisked the gift bag off the table, where it had been sitting unrefrigerated for the past ninety minutes, and pressed it into Denis’s chest.
“¡Tienes le champag-nah!”
“Could you please mangle one language at a time?” Cammy requested.
Treece wrinkled her nose. “Champagne.” She uncurled the word as if it were French for excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces.
“Same alcohol as beer,” pitched Rich, selling hard.
“More,” Denis said. “Two-point…” He quickly calculated:
“…two times as much alcohol, on average.”
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br /> Rich could only shake his head in admiration at his friend’s determination to be true to himself, no matter what the cost. Rich himself was willing to be anybody anyone wanted and would keep trying on personalities until one of them became popular. For some reason, his most recent persona spoke a lot of half-assed Spanish.
“Let’s pop this pupito, rápido!” habla Rich with insouciance, belied a bit by the way he was clawing at the gift bag Denis was clutching.
Denis removed the bottle from its bag.
It was Freixenet, one of the finer sparkling wines in the under-$10 category.
“Cristal,” Rich said. “Black Label.”
“Cristal seems to have changed its logo,” Cammy said. “And spelling.”
Treece bit her pinkie. “Champagne,” she said, “makes me do…things.”
Denis would never hear the word things the same way again.
Cammy snorted. “Water makes you do things.”
“Not regular water.”
If Rich were a paper-and-ink cartoon rather than a flesh-and-blood one, a lightbulb would have appeared above his head.
“Uno momento.” He raced out of the room and romped up the stairs.
“Un momento,” Cammy said.
THE SPECIFIC MECHANICS of the champagne bottle were alien to Denis. “Seems self-explanatory,” he mumbled as he propped the bottle on his thigh and began peeling the foil back slowly, sweat speckling his forehead, as if dismantling a party bomb.
Beth reappeared in the kitchen, pissed.
“Yeah, well, Kevin, maybe, Kevin, maybe I have better things to do!”
She looked up and pointed at Denis’s lap.
“I want some of that.”
She meant the champagne, but neither Denis nor his lap immediately figured that out.
Beth started out of the room, her voice rising.
“I’m not going to tell you where I am! Or who I’m with! But I will tell you this, Kevin: I’m having champagne!”
She wants champagne. Denis flailed away the foil and furiously twisted the wire, ten or fifteen times, stopped, then started to untwist it.