Ablutions commence extra early Friday afternoon. I shower for like forever, shampoo, cream rinse, scrub in places I rarely if ever scrub. Shave twice so the cheeks and chin are baby soft. Towel and talc. Slap on the expensive cologne, topside and bottom. Sucking in my gut, I flex the abs and pecs and stare at my fogged-up image in the mirror. I’m looking and smelling mighty damn fine. With so much at stake, I have to be at my absolute best tonight.
I review the many eminent New Jerseyites I plan to run past Shelby when I make the Big Confession. The Boss. Sinatra. Bon Jovi. Jon Stewart. Whitney Houston. I mean, when it comes to celebrities, New Jersey takes a backseat to no state, except maybe New York, California, Texas, and possibly Tennessee. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, second man to walk on the moon, born and bred right here in Glen Ridge. Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb in Menlo Park and it doesn’t get any more historical than that. Sherwood Schwartz, creative genius behind Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch? Proud native of Passaic. Not good enough for you? Try Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia—actually, strike him. Okay, General Norman Schwarzkopf then, whoever the hell he is.
“Yeah, I’m from New Jersey,” I defiantly declare at myself. “What’s it to ya?”
Pumped, I swing open the bathroom door only to come face to face with stark, semi-naked reality. Like the Reaper himself, Charlie, woollier, groggier, and more stoned than ever, slouches in wait for me to emerge. I’ve barely seen the asshole since the blow-up. Just the unavoidable, fleeting glimpse here and there that comes with co-existing in such close quarters even as we endeavor to completely avoid the other. The sudden awful sight of him thoroughly demoralizes me.
“Least I was here,” he slurs. “Least I put a roof over your head and food on your fucking table.”
Apparently in his book doing the absolute minimum makes him some kind of hero, at least compared to the specter that is Mom. But not in mine.
“Don’t worry,” I say, brushing past him. “You won’t have to much longer.”
“Brooks, we need to talk,” he says, now all serious-like.
“You and me got nothing to talk about,” I snarl. Talk to him? I can’t stand even looking at him. Well, I’m not going to let him and his shit rub off on me. Asswipe’s not going to ruin my chances. Not anymore. Not this time.
“Mind explaining the almost ten grand you have saved up?” he says, lurching behind.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“If you’re dealing pot, Brooks, I swear I’ll . . .”
The irony of this halts me dead in my tracks. I turn to him.
“What? You’ll buy some? Sorry, Charlie, I don’t give family discounts.”
Then I slam my door on him.
Fifteen minutes later when I come out of my room, dressed and groomed for battle, Charlie’s still rooted where I left him. He looks away, ashamed as I step around him.
“Don’t wait up,” I state flatly. “I’ll be out late.”
---
Shelby and the Truth await, both equally terrifying. Traffic’s as crappy as my mood, so it takes almost two hours to reach Blue Meadow and another twenty minutes to find the train station. It’s just after six thirty. Fortunately, not leaving anything to chance, I’ve allotted myself plenty of time. I park the Beast. I’ve thought it all out. Blue Meadow’s just two stops from Green Meadow, but I still can’t chance anyone I know spotting me there in a late-model American-made clunker, especially one with Jersey plates, so I park at the far end of the lot. Unlike in Pritchard, the Blue Meadow terminal’s tidy and upscale, with a cheery medieval theme. Alone on the platform, I feel like a spy going undercover deep into enemy territory. When the northbound five thirty-seven groans up, I hurry on.
The doors slide shut conclusively behind me. The train lurches forward. The car’s deserted. An old guy knitting a dog sweater. A tired mom with one comatose kid and one hyper one. And, in the back, piled high on a seat, a small mountain of cute little shopping bags with handles, and sitting cross-legged beside them is none other than Celia Lieberman, intently reading a book cradled in her lap. She looks different. It’s the glasses. She’s got on the studious yet slightly retro frames we picked together. Okay, I picked. But I stand by my choice. And I note with equal approval the short pleated skirt I foisted on her, which she swore she’d never ever wear. I find myself smiling. I am glad to see her. I am actually glad to see Celia Lieberman. Then, to my great dismay, I relive the drink tossed and front door slammed in my face. Our last parting wasn’t exactly on the friendliest of terms.
Before I can decide on an appropriate course of action, I recognize the faded blue paperback that she’s so absorbed in. Sensing she’s being observed, Celia Lieberman looks up from Skies of Stone and sees me. Taken off guard, she quickly slams shut Charlie’s opus and, for good measure, sits on it. I pretend not to notice. Composing herself, she returns her frosty attention to me.
“Brooks.”
Exploiting the fact that she’s too flustered to remember to be pissed at me, I trundle down the aisle. “Pardon, Madame,” I bow debonairly, “but is this seat taken?”
If I was truly forgiven, she’d remove her packages so I could sit beside her. She doesn’t. But she doesn’t tell me to eat shit and die either, which I take as promising. I plant myself onto the bench right behind her. Now that the ice has been accidentally broken, she can’t exactly act like I’m not there.
“Brooks,” she repeats frostily, keeping her back to me. “What are you doing here?”
“Meeting Shelby,” I answer.
“You didn’t drive?” she inquires, her back like a wall.
“I live in the City, remember? People from the City take trains.”
I don’t need to see Celia Lieberman’s expression to know that she remembers all too well my web of deceit and furthermore doesn’t much approve of it. She pointedly changes the subject.
“So did you hear from Columbia?”
“I got in.”
She immediately whirls around to me, smiling widely, genuinely excited by my momentous news. Could it be that Celia Lieberman alone recognizes what I’ve accomplished, how much it means to me?
“That’s so great, Brooks!”
“Yeah, yay me,” I smile wanly.
“It’s not so great?” she asks, registering the deliberate tepidness of my response.
“Can’t go. Don’t have the dough, baby,” I say, doing a lame Bogart. I shrug like it’s no biggie, but she knows better.
“But you have to go!” she protests, suitably outraged on my behalf. “Isn’t there something you can do? What about all the money you made?”
“I’m not even in the ballpark,” I laugh harshly. “Hell, I’m not even in the neighborhood.”
“What about your father?”
I feel myself go cold, so cold it scares me.
I look away from her. She nods, not pushing it.
“Hey, hating your parents. That’s my line,” she observes.
“Yeah, well, guess you’re rubbing off on me,” I say gruffly. “What about you? Everything good with Franklin?”
“Couldn’t be better,” she says, motioning at her array of acquisitions. “Just returning from the City where you can see I picked up a few essential items for Prom.”
“Franklin asked you to Prom?” I ask, astounded.
“He read me a sonnet he wrote, then gave me a long-stemmed rose and everything,” she beams. “It was dippy, but quite sweet.”
I’m speechless, totally floored. Franklin putting on the moves? Has the universe shifted that much? It can’t be.
“We’re meeting up tonight to go to a zombie movie,” she giggles girlishly, disturbingly pleased. “What is it with guys and zombie movies?”
“The same thing with girls and vampire ones.” My eyes narrow suspiciously as I reappraise her pile of cute little bags. Now that the picture’s clearer, I can just imagine what’s wrapped inside some of them.
The train grinds to a halt. The doors open and close. We vibrate forward again. Next stop, Green Meadow. Celia rises and collects all her stuff.
“Brooks, something will work out with Columbia,” she says. “It has to.”
“Thanks,” I say, meaning it, but I know something won’t. “Don’t forget your book.”
She blushes, turns around, scoops it up, and tucks it into one of her bags. I shuffle after her to the doors. We stand together, waiting. Then she looks up at me.
“Brooks, there’s nothing wrong with being from Pritchard.”
“You’ve never been there,” I say stonily. And she never will. Places like Pritchard don’t exist to people from places like Green Meadow.
“Can’t be any worse than this barracuda tank,” she says softly.
Through the windows, the impeccable hamlet of Green Meadow appears, laden with shops and wares way beyond the grubby grasp of the mere likes of me. A filtered world, populated exclusively by the well put-together and the well preserved. It’s like no human frailty’s allowed within town limits. I get that old familiar knot again in the pit of my stomach. She has a point.
“If Shelby really cared about you, it wouldn’t matter if you were from Kathmandu,” Celia Lieberman continues. “Not that I have anything against Kathmandu. I mean, from what I’ve read, Nepal’s a very cool place. Extremely scenic. The entire Himalayas in fact, although you have to watch out about drinking the water . . .”
She trails off, awkwardly. Up close, I can see that she’s wearing makeup. Not much, just a little bit to accent the amber highlights in her eyes. And is that a touch of gloss making her lips glisten so appetizingly?
“So you think I should tell her?” I murmur.
“You should,” she says, staring back at me. “That is, if you really, truly care about her.”
The train shudders to a stop. Green Meadow. The doors whoosh open for us to disembark onto the platform. I hold up a warning hand, caution coming before gallantry.
“I’d better go first,” I explain apologetically. “Shelby has this thing about you and me.”
“I know,” Celia Lieberman says, mystified. “I just don’t get it.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I say, but I actually kind of do.
---
Shelby honks for me as I emerge into view. Illegally parked at the curb, behind the wheel of daddy’s cream-colored Bentley convertible with the top down. I don’t know which excites me more, her or the car—that’s how hot she’s looking. No joke. But somehow I manage to keep it together enough to saunter over to her without tripping or drooling all over myself.
“Hey, you made it.” Shelby smiles dazzling white straight teeth, shaking her long silky tresses, which caress smooth tanned shoulders. She’s molded into a short, thin one-piece halter number, which would be oh-so-easy to untie and remove. I’m utterly captivated.
“You had doubts?” I say.
She leans over the passenger door, lifts two gold-bangled wrists, and pulls me down to her. She kisses me open-mouthed, with intensity and every indication of much more to follow, before breaking off, leaving me weak-kneed and breathless.
“It’s a new sensation,” she admits. “I’m not sure I like it.”
---
Shelby never asks me about Columbia. I guess she just assumes I’m going, that I had someone arrange it for me like she always has someone arrange it for her. Either that or she just doesn’t care. I prefer to believe the former.
“The carpaccio and then the lobster ravioli,” she decrees, handing back her menu. “Thanks, Alfredo.”
She’s insisted we go to Le Petit something, her favorite restaurant in Green Meadow, and the prices are heart-palpitating. Did she really have to order lobster? It doesn’t even have a number listed beside it, just the initials “MP” as in market price as in I don’t even want to think about it. We haven’t established who’s paying, but I’ve got a pretty strong hunch it’s me. And why not? She thinks I’m just like her, loaded. In her galaxy, everybody is. Needless to say, I order the chicken.
Got to tell her. Got to tell the Truth. Got to.
But how to do it? And when? Just the right opportunity never seems to arrive as Shelby chatters about her summer plans over most of dinner and all of dessert.
“. . . Venice, Mykonos, a quick pit stop back in Paris again,” she says, barely touching her twenty-two-dollar tiramisu.
Italy, the Greek Isles, France. Pictures in books to me, but not to her. I mean, I’ll be lucky if I make it to Atlantic City for a weekend. Now there’s a segue.
“Then two weeks in Barcelona. I think that’s my favorite city on the entire continent. Then back to reality . . .”
Reality, that’s a laugh. She’s living a fantasy. Mine. Got to tell her. Got to. Got to.
“What about you?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I can’t. Shelby misinterprets my silence.
“Am I boring you?”
“Not at all,” I protest, although she actually is a little. I mean, do I really have to hear an hour-long recitation of all the amazing places I’ve never been and most likely will never go? But that’s not her fault. Among the smart set, summers abroad are a post-graduation rite of passage, don’t you know.
“Guess my level of conversation can’t match a mental giant’s like Celia Lieberman.”
“Would you cut it out with Celia Lieberman?” I say, irked to be thrown off my mental stride. Why does she always have to keep bringing Celia Lieberman into everything?
In a huff, Shelby gets up to go the ladies’ room, giving Alfredo his cue to discretely present me with the check. My eyes almost pop out of my skull at the final tally. I knew it was going to be bad. But $171! For that? A spoonful of pasta and a tiny piece of chicken, scrumptious though it was. We didn’t even have wine! Alfredo hovers. I furiously peel off twenties from my college bankroll.
“I expect change,” I seethe.
The valet fee’s fifteen bucks. I could have parked on the street for free, but that would be too déclassé. Fifteen bucks right out the window. Fifteen bucks is two hours mopping floors and cleaning toilets at The Gun. Fifteen bucks is a quarter tank of gas. Nevertheless, I fork it over. What the hell, just more ill-gotten gains I won’t be spending to go to Columbia.
As we cool our designer heels for our uber-luxury mode of transport, the sales tax of which is more than most people’s mortgage, Shelby touches up her lips. As if those lips need enhancement. I can tell she’s ticked off at me for not fawning over her. A breeze blows her hair and sheer little dress, outlining the incredible curves of her figure. She looks like a supermodel on a runway. What am I doing with her? I am in so over my head in so many ways. Got to tell her. Got to. Got to. Now or never, boy . . .
“Shelby,” I say. “I’m sorry if I’ve been so out of it. It’s just that there’s something important I need to tell you . . .”
Before I can utter a single incriminating word, two large veiny hands clutch me from behind by the throat and lift me bodily until I’m squirming half a foot off the ground.
“Nobody dumps Tommy Fallick!”
I twist around. Tommy’s eyes are wild and bloodshot and he reeks of booze and cigarettes. Never good signs.
“Tommy Fallick’s always the dumper, Tommy Fallick’s never the dumpee!”
Even though he has me by at least four inches and can probably out–bench-press me by several hundred pounds, I’m pretty sure I can take him. I mean, I’ve been in a few scrapes in my time. Okay, two, and one was in kindergarten. Okay, I give me even odds.
Barely.
“Oh, Tommy, stop being so Jersey!” says Shelby.
“I am not being Jersey!” bellows Tommy, applying tremendous pressure on my windpipe with his oversized thumbs, cutting off all oxygen intake.
“You are too!” Shelby shouts, walloping him with her nine-hundred-dollar Versace purse. “You are being so Jersey!”
Yes, folks, that is what they say. I only wish I was making it up.
Twisting hard, I slip from Fallick’s soggy grip. And then I get up right into his face, ready to rumble. I’m seeing red. Stupid, rich, undeserving, lucky Fallick’s the living embodiment of everything that’s messed up in my world. His very name’s a personal affront to me. So what if he can pulverize me? Just one good punch, that’s all I’m asking.
“And quit following us!” Shelby says, shoving him away. “I’m gonna call the cops. I mean it!”
Tommy’s dull eyes glaze in self-pity. He steps back, goes slack, then meekly stumbles back to whatever rock he crawled out from under. Shelby coolly turns to me.
“You were saying?”
Jersey. So Jersey. The ultimate put-down. To say the wind has been knocked out of my sails would be a vast understatement since there wasn’t much wind to begin with. I will not be speaking the Truth anytime soon.
“Barcelona’s mine too,” I say, meaning my favorite city on the continent.
I’m bestowed with that radiant smile again, restored to good graces. The night’s young and so are we.
---
Ragtop down, constellations shimmering above, overlooking a vast empty beach on the Long Island Sound. Untouched, undeveloped private beach, I might add, passed along for generations. The-Dream thumps softly on satellite radio from a state-of-the-art sound system. The weed’s kicked in—hers, heavy duty, better than I’m used to. I’m so buzzed. And the cognac, pungent and piercing, is not helping the old impulse control.
Which I am in dire need of because, my friends, I’m dry humping the most beautiful girl in the world in the backseat of her father’s Bentley. Her flesh pressed against mine, supple, yielding. Our limbs interlocked, mine wandering, hers playing zone defense. Our lips and tongues partake in a torturously slow, multicourse feast of delicious sensation, parceled out by a master temptress. She knows how. And how. For a flicker of an instant, I actually sympathize with Fallick. To receive such divine gifts and then to be deprived of them forever. No wonder the dude’s falling apart at the seams. My loftiest expectations are exceeded, my wettest dreams surpassed, which, considering how warped I am, is pretty astounding. I can’t believe it’s really happening, that at last she—this—is all mine.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper in awe.
“Everyone says that,” Shelby responds, suddenly pushing free. “It’s super annoying.”
Apparently I’ve struck a nerve without intending to. She sits up, hair disheveled, dress mussed, unaligned, an even bigger turn-on.
“And it’s not true,” she says. Then she smiles coyly. “I have a mole.”
A little bird tells me this is going to be good. So, despite my raging hormones and throbbing hard-on, I play along.
“Do you?” I inquire innocently. “Do you really?”
“Wanna see it?”
“Oh, could I?” I say, pressing my palms fervently in prayer.
Shoving me back on the plush leather seat, she straddles my hips. Her hands reach for the string bow behind her neck, the main target in my sights for the past half hour. She tugs one end, the bow unravels, and praise be, the pearly gates are swinging open. The thin straps so tenuously holding up what little there is of her halter dress slide down. She turns, giving me the full effect.
“See?
I not only see, I gawk, I gander. But mostly, I lo and behold. Decorum forbids me to tell of the twin glories that rise before me. Let’s just say remarkably firm, gravity defying, the size and shape of small cantaloupes. As for the mole. Well, for a mole, it’s perfect. It’s a perfect mole.
She’s a drug and every ounce of my being craves a fix of her. I pounce. We lock mouths again. She clamps around me. Her exquisite naked mounds are pressed hard against my shirted chest. We roll off the seat to the thickly carpeted floor.
“No, Brooks, not here,” she gasps. “Not like this.”
“What’s wrong with this? This is good. This is excellent!”
She’s topless in the back of a freakin’ Bentley on a friggin’ private beach. I ask you, am I missing something?
“Prom night,” she whispers between steamy kisses. “We can get a room at the Ritz. Do it in style. Bubble bath. Champagne. Scented candles. An actual king-sized bed. Like the semi-adults we’re supposedly about to be.”
Prom. The be-all and end-all. Deep in the swamp that’s my addled brain, I know I shouldn’t. To ask her is to ask for trouble.
Then she reaches down. I whimper, putty in her slow, steady grip.
“How about the Comfort Inn?”
“Sorry, but you’ll have to do better than that,” she grins, thinking I’m joking. I’m not. She increases the tempo.
“The Marriott?” I squeak, eyes lolling.
“That is, if you’re not busy that night. You still haven’t asked me.” Her hand halts, leaving me hanging. She looks at me, all business.
The Ritz. The Taj Mahal. At this pivotal juncture, I’d agree to anything.
“Will you go to Prom with me?” I rasp, insane for relief.
“I’ll think about it.”
But then she sinks between my knees. Words fail me.