by Paloma Meir
But we were kids and he went well beyond the call of duty for a boyfriend, friend or even a parent.
It wasn’t easy for him to let down his guard, discuss his complicated family. I was always aware of that and even in my most destructive moments I never betrayed that trust or used his words against him to hurt him. A small miracle.
His family had the appearance of wealth. His home from the outside, though a little run down, was not an eyesore by any means. His parents lived on the dividends of a small family trust.
It was one of the smaller homes on a street with sprawling mansion built in the 1920s, traditional Spanish architecture. Mine was at the end of the canyon and had been erected by an architect in the 1950s as a cul-de-sac of case-study style homes.
The whole canyon was one architectural masterpiece after another. A beautiful place to grow-up.
That’s not so important, other than Serge always feeling behind his friends. The money never flowed to him as it did to them, those whose parents would pass out hundred dollar bills if their kids were going to a movie.
Make no mistake his family was not destitute, there were never worries about the basics like food. But it was a middle class income in a sea of the very wealthiest .1%.
He logically knew this and understood but he was a boy with a competitive nature, not wishing for anybody to pity him. And even I could see that his closest friends, Danny and Brendan were always offering to cover things for him as if it were just easier if they paid.
He appreciated their tact and care but still refused any offers. The whole thing was a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
So the job tutoring Anthony was a big deal to him and Zelda’s family loved Serge. I mean, really, who wouldn’t? They paid him top dollar. If I remember correctly, by this point he was paid 90.00 a session twice weekly.
He was able to keep up with friends and all the things they did. I never thought it was worth it. He never had any free time, always pushing himself, top tier in everything he endeavored.
So hearing mention of his tutoring job in the text left me in a puddle of tears. I knew I needed to get away from him for his sake.
So I did what any fifteen-year old girl would do, contacted a sociopath who was in her early thirties on-line.
selenaslinks: Why do I keep torturing him?
q: You like the excitement.
selenaslinks: Do I?
Sociopathy seemed preferable to mental illness but it never rang completely true to me.
q: It would appear that way
selenaslinks: Leave me alone.
q: I never initiate these conversations
She was right about that.
selenaslinks: Well I won’t bother you anymore then.
q: Okay talk to you later then
She could be so frustrating. I was no mystery to her.
selenaslinks: Yes.
I could feel the prickles in my head of my mood changing, my irrational anger rising. I picked up my phone to call Serge before it unleashed itself.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he answered his phone, “I need a few days…another break.”
“This is our third one in two months, Celena…forget I said that…” He sighed into the phone.
“Then why don’t we just end it for good?” I screeched into the phone.
“Take your break, but if you would just talk to me…”
“Goodbye.” I hung-up before I could yell at him again. I thought at the time this was progress. Wrong.
I stayed in bed all day, skipped school for the following two and wandered aimlessly around the Grove being as rude to strangers as humanly possible until I felt better.
It worked. I apologetically slunk up to him at school, promising to be better, talk to him, not be so paranoid. He nodded his head but I sensed he didn’t trust my words anymore.
Other than a few high-maintenance moments, as Brendan jokingly referred to them once while we were out being social teens, it was a peaceful period.
It’s a shame the winter break was so long. The long lazy days blurring in to each other. I always functioned best with structure.
Chapter Six
We hadn’t gone out much after the dog incident, which I felt bad about because Serge liked groups and being with his friends. The majority of his life was schoolwork and online classes. He couldn’t fit two languages into his schedule so he studied French online.
There was no reason for him to take French. He liked the language because Zelda spoke it.
You would think that his devotion to her would have caused one of my jealous fits but I instinctively knew not to cross that line. She was firmly in his family circle and to disparage her would have been the end of us.
I was crazy not stupid.
Still his borderline obsession with her, which he always framed around his sister, was annoying. I hadn’t met his sister, his parents, or Zelda. He kept his life very compartmentalized but even with that I knew he was embarrassed by his parents. I let it go.
I would see his sister around school, sometimes I would follow her but not too often. She looked nothing like Serge. She had frizzy dark hair and was so tiny but self-possessed. She was one of the drama kids, very bossy, always had a clipboard in her hands.
I liked her and I told Serge that, but he wanted to keep us separate. He didn’t want his parents to find out he had a girlfriend and insist he bring her home to meet them.
It was Winter Break and half the school was Jewish, so there were Chanukah parties almost every night and tree trimming parties for the others and birthdays. It seemed like half the school had been born in the latter half of December.
Other than his online class at MIT he wanted to prepare for, which was ridiculous in how advanced it was and his tutoring of Anthony, which he upped to three times a week for the break for extra holiday cash, he was free and wanted to have fun.
I knew I could get out of most of the plans he had made but not all. I picked carefully, choosing the occasions that would be the smallest or family oriented. I could generally keep myself together if adults were around.
A thought ran through my mind while running through all the events, just how tiring it was to plan everything around my moods, how much easier it would be to just take the pills so many doctors over the years had suggested.
No, I thought. I could find a path through the disorder. So many little things helped: the diet, the guitar. I was sure somewhere in all of it I would find balance.
My mother believed it too. She was very scared of me taking the pills, too many side effects for a growing girl she would say. My father disagreed with her on this but not rigidly. We overpowered him.
So wrong.
I made it through the first week of the three-week long break without going out with him once at night to the parties. I considered that a success. My mind, which was separate from me as far as I was concerned, did not.
I imagined him losing interest in me, being with all the other girls. I did manage to keep my thoughts to myself beyond a few little stabs that he chose to ignore. Me questioning his loyalty was not worth his time.
That’s how we ended up at Danny’s house. He lived about halfway down the hill in one of the largest houses I had ever seen and the only one in the whole canyon that wasn’t a designated landmark.
His family had knocked down the original Spanish home and rebuilt a palace with very high ceilings. The whole thing was a lot to take in. The party was packed with people but mostly friends of Danny’s parents.
“Hey Serge...Celena,” He greeted us as we came through the front door, “Happy Chanukah,” He kissed me on the cheek, definitely because he was well mannered not because he was happy to see me.
I was very distracted by seeing him dressed in formal pants and a white button down shirt. I had never seen him in anything other than his Nike gear.
He was a very handsome boy and I’m sure a handsome man now. He had the dark tousled hair their group favored, a very angular face but it
was his bright blue eyes that really took you in. There was something very Adonis about him, very broad shoulders.
“Family night dude,” He said to Serge. “You should have brought your sister and her friends if…” I laughed causing Serge to look sharply at me. Something he never did.
I laughed because Serge had told me that Danny had a lifelong obsession with Zelda but kept it to himself, pretending he didn’t know who she was.
I hadn’t really believed it, thinking that Serge’s minor obsession with her was clouding his perceptions. But there it was, Serge had been right.
The most confident boy, Danny, even he had a weakness. And that was exactly how I perceived the poor boys crush, as a weakness to be filed away for future use.
“Carolina’s away in Park City with her “friend”, not coming back until tomorrow.” Serge replied and then did something he had never done before: left me at the front door and walked into the party with Danny, disappearing into the crowd of people.
I panicked not knowing what to do, not knowing what I had done wrong. Had my laugh really put him off that much? No, that didn’t make any sense. I knew it was the culmination of all my behaviors. He was tired of it and who could blame him. His time was precious to him and I was wasting it with my difficulties.
Tempted as I was to turn around and go home, I knew that would confirm all of his burgeoning thoughts about me. I would stay I decided. I didn’t suffer from social anxiety, I just didn’t like people much.
I could be charming, most sociopaths were, not that I was 100% sure I was one them. I would stay at the party, chat with people. I would show him how easy-going I could be and then everything would be okay again.
“Hi Cara,” I bounded across the room all smiles and confidence and squeezed in next to her on the long leather sofa, “I love your hair…” She had let it dry naturally, long ringlet curls. I preferred it straightened but that didn’t matter for party talk.
“Celena, I’m so happy you’re here and thank you.” She hugged me. She was like that, affectionate like a puppy, “Where have you been? I was worried you were sick.”
Her asking me if I was sick roused my paranoia. Was she commenting on my mental health? But no, my mind righted itself. Cara was genuinely kind and always made excuses when my mean words about others would slip out of my mouth.
And nobody other than Serge knew I had real problems. The others just thought I was high-strung or as Serge once said, “fierce.”
“Busy helping my Mom with research, she makes documentaries…” I realized I had run out of conversation.
“Oh wow, I didn’t know that! What’s she working on now?”
I wanted to kiss her for giving me a subject I could prattle on about. Back and forth the conversation moved, the subject of prisons reform was interesting to me and Cara was a rapturous audience, with a lot of wows. She really used that word a lot.
I saw Serge out of the corner of my eye a few times but didn’t look his way. I wanted him to think I was engrossed in a normal conversation, friendly, charming.
He didn’t check on me but I didn’t let it bother me.
“BABY,” Brendan landed at Cara’s feet and screamed and followed up by loudly kissing her knees, “Let’s go, beach babe, midnight swim.”
“It’s too cold,” She pulled him up off of his knees laughing and sat him down to the other side of her on the sofa.
“We’ll just run in and out,” He pulled her head down on his shoulder, and looked over at me, “Hey CELENA”. Brendan was prone to yelling out.
“Only if Celena can come with us,” She took my hand and held it tightly. “Come on, Celena, it’ll be fun,” She looked around the room, “Where’s Serge? He should come too.”
“I don’t know,” I didn’t join her in surveying the room, “Okay, let’s go.” I stood up, all smiles.
Brendan raised his eyebrow at me but then followed suit by jumping up and clapping his hands, “Up babe.”
She jumped up laughing. The three of us glided across room, through the front door and out to the car.
I felt a little nervous leaving without saying good-bye to Serge but my sense of adventure had a stronger pull than my desire to talk to him and figure out what I had done to bother him so much.
Maybe he was wrong, maybe trying to talk all the time was too much, maybe action was what was needed.
I didn’t ponder it as we roared down Sunset Blvd out to Malibu. Brendan had turned the music up loud and the two of them were rapping and really doing a bad job of it. I joined in. I was even worse but it didn’t matter because we laughing, in the moment, just having fun.
We fell out of the car still laughing, into the icy cold night air. “Ummm, how do we do this? It’s freezing.” I shivered and Cara and Brendan rubbed their hands on my back.
“We do it fast: strip off, jump in, swim out and run back the car. Put the heat on MAXIMUM.”
He was so goofy. I could barely stand from laughing.
“Babe, grab the towels.” Cara dutifully went to the trunk and pulled out a stack of four.
“You guys do this all the time?”
“No, just sometimes,” Cara looked to Brendan with a secret look I could not read. A look of love that only meant something to them, “but Brendan surfs a lot.”
“NOW” He took off running down the short beach, Cara following quickly behind. The two of them tore off their clothes. A little hard for Cara with the towels in her hands but she managed.
I shrugged to myself and followed wondering exactly how unclothed the three of us would be. By the time I reached the shore with my sheer black chiffon dress off but slip remaining, they were both in their underwear. Nude would have been better I thought to myself and giggled.
“Off with the slip,” Cara dropped the towels onto the sand and pulled it up from the bottom while Brendan jumped up and down at the shoreline, his pearl white body glowing in the dark.
“I’m freezing,” I yelled as she lifted it over my head and then hugged me, awkward in only our underwear.
“Cara, Celena NOW,” He ran out into the low surf.
We jumped in behind him and I was sure my body was going into shock, and I would die from hypothermia. Cara laughed like a crazy person, while I screamed like myself. But in my defense it was a happy scream.
She dived under a wave and popped up, “I did it, I did it!” Her teeth chattered, “Towel, towel, towel.’ She ran back to shore.
“CARA,” Brendan screamed out from about ten feet farther than I was in. “Okay you, Celena, let’s swim out to buoy.”
“Okay,” I dived under a wave and swam out to him. Together we swam out another thirty feet, slapped the buoy with our hands and turned around to swim back.
“Wait, Celena,” He called out to me but it was too late. A giant wave crashed onto my head, pushing me under the water. My feet hit the bottom, so I knew it wasn’t too deep but I couldn’t get my footing with the water swirling around me.
A flash of a moment before I could panic I felt an arm around my waist, pulling me upward. My feet hit the bottom but I was a bit waterlogged. I stood flat, the sea level at my chin.
“You all right? Sorry about that. It’s so dark out, I didn’t see it until it was on top of you.”
I tried replying that I was fine but kept coughing. The water had irritated my throat.
He pulled me closer to him, his skin warm against mine in the cold water. I put my arms around him as he rubbed my back. I guess trying to get the water out of me. I didn’t ask.
The scent of the saltwater and the warmth of him lulled me as the gentle waves traveled over us. I think it relaxed him too. He stopped patting my back and we stood close together. It was nice.
“Celena,” He jerked his hips away from mine, “I’m sorry… It’s the water.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about for a moment and when I figured it out I forced myself not to laugh.
“Oh I thought water did the opposite…shrinkage.”
>
“You’ve never been a sixteen year old boy, have you? Anything will do it.” He let go of me but stood looking at me and then…I don’t know…impulsively kissed my forehead, dived under the water and was back on the beach before I had any idea of what had happened.
They stood at the shore and wrapped two towels around my shoulders. Cara put her arm around me and ran me to the car while Brendan picked up our clothes and shoes that lay strewn across the beach.