I Love You, Beth Cooper (5 page)

Mrs. C fixed her husband with a look that said,
You've just killed our son and set him on fire.

“What?” Mr. C responded. “Bad advice?”

“I'll be in the car.”

She kissed Denis on the cheek.

“Have fun. But not too much fun.”

“Not much danger of that, Mrs. C,” Rich said.

“Watch it,” Mrs. C said with a smile, though what she meant was,
Soon my son will be on to better things and you will be gone
.

DENIS'S FATHER DROPPED
the joshing shtick the moment his wife was out of earshot. He only did it to annoy her, and to seem cooler than she was. For some reason this was important to him, even if the only witness was his son's loser friend.

He sat down next to Denis, suddenly extremely earnest.

“Son,” he said, “this is your last summer before college. That accelerated program isn't going to leave much time for toga parties…or whatever. So I want you to enjoy this summer—”

“I know, Dad.”

“As a reward for all your hard work.”

“I'll do my best.”

Denis was a great kid. Perfect, according to the Educational Testing Service. His father couldn't help feeling this was his fault.

“You know,” he said, slipping a paternal arm around Denis. “It's okay to just have fun sometimes. Sometimes, you just have to say,
What the F.
”

“Curtis Armstrong in
Risky Business
,” Rich cut in. “1983, Paul Brickman. Except he didn't say ‘F.'”

“Fuck,”
amended Mr. C, under cross-generational peer pressure.

“Yay!” Rich mini-cheered.

Mr. C squeezed his son's upper arm and rose. He stood there, allowing his message to sink in. Then he said:

“There's condoms in my bedside table.”

“Do you know exactly how many there are?” Rich asked.

Denis's father alarmed himself by responding in a completely uncool and absolutely fatherly fashion.

“They're not toys,” he said.

IT WAS HALF PAST NINE.
Little had changed. Denis was currently standing, scratching something on his pants. Rich fingered Denis's new iPod.

“Hey, so: I'm not gay, dude.”

The iCube began playing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Rich danced to it momentarily. Realizing this did not support his argument, he turned it off.

“It's okay if you are,” Denis said, trying to determine whether the crusty crud he was scraping had come from inside or outside his pants. “Really.”

“Well, really, I'm not,” Rich insisted.
“No soy homo.”

“Okay.”

“What makes you think I'm gay?”

“Everybody thinks you're gay.”

“They don't know me. You know me. What makes
you
think I'm gay?”

Denis gave it some thought.

“Everything,” he concluded.

He elaborated: “I mean, you just, I don't know, you seem gay to me.”

“Is it because of drama club? Because you know, a lot of actors aren't gay. More than half!”

This was a difficult subject. They had never seriously discussed Rich's sexuality before, even when they were eleven, after Rich had the idea to reenact the climactic light-saber battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader using their boners. Especially after that. But Denis felt he owed Rich a fuller explanation, having outed him and all.

“Rich, all during high school, and before, you've never once had a girlfriend.”

“Neither did
you
.”

It was going to get ugly.

“I
tried
, at least,” Denis argued. “And I did…” His voice trailed off. “…have one.”

“Patty Keck!” Rich yelled. “Your secret shame!”

Rich had agreed to never mention Patty Keck, Denis's secret shame.

“Yeah, well,” Denis grumbled. “My point is. I had one.”

“Making out with a girl like that—” Rich shook his head with deep sadness. “I'm not sure that's not gay.”

This brought about a lull in the conversation. Rich plucked a pretzel from the bucket. Denis did not stop him.

“You know she's not going to come.”

“I can construct at least six scenarios where she comes.”

“Stop constructing scenarios, dude. School's
out
.”

“1),” Denis enumerated, “her ‘other thing' gets cancelled; 2), it's too crowded and loud…”

“She'd hate that.”

“You don't know her.”

“Yeah, I don't have six years' experience smelling her hair.”

It was ugly.

THEY TOOK TURNS
glaring at different parts of the room, anywhere but directly at each other.

Rich's glare roved to the festively wrapped bottle that was still sitting on the table where Denis's father had put it down.

“Or maybe she'll hear we have a whole bottle of champagne.”

“You mock,” Denis said, “but you know nothing of chaos theory.” Denis wasn't sure how chaos theory applied here, exactly, but he knew that Rich did know nothing of chaos theory, or much else, unless it was in a movie. Denis often used his superior intellect to score points on Rich, but like here, they were hollow victories.

“
Nobody's
coming,” Rich said. “They're all going to
Valli Woolly's. Maybe we could go there. Oh, no, wait—you called her a stuck-up bitch in front of the whole school.”

“
You
wrote that.”

“I didn't say it in front of the whole school.”

“That was
your
idea!”

“It wasn't my idea to gay me!”

Denis was unrepentant. “It was in keeping with the theme.”

“Theme.”
Rich snorted. “Even when you're breaking the rules, it's through assmosis.”

Another lull.

“You know,” Rich said eventually. “Gay guys don't say, ‘dude.'”

“Lame gay guys do,” said Denis, still mad about the Patty Keck breach.

“So what's that say about you?” Rich asked sarcastically. “Your only friend is a lame gay guy.”

Lull.

“Which I'm not.”

WITHOUT APOLOGIZING
or even acknowledging they had fought, forty-five minutes later Denis and Rich were friends again. They sat at the table, glumly crunching the fancy crappy snacks.

“You know,” Rich was saying, “when we go to college we won't have to be this way.”

“What way?”

With thumb and forefinger, Rich branded an
L
on his forehead.

“We're not—” Denis started to protest.

He conceded the point.

Rich was working himself into one of his production numbers.

“Nobody else from B-G is going to Northwestern, and U of I is a huge school. We can reinvent ourselves!”

He sang:

Denis did not recognize:

“Leslie Ann Warren in
Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella,
1965, Charles S. Dubin, director.”

That's not gay,
Denis thought, but did not say.

“First,” Rich said, balancing a pretzel on his lip like a smoking French guy, “we gotta change your name. Denis is…unfortunate.”

“Not as unfortunate as
Dick Munsch.
”

“D-E-N-I-S? You're a vertical stroke from penis, dude.”

Rich drew a
D
in the air and appended the stroke.

“I'm well aware of that,” Denis said.

“And my name is not Dick. It's not gonna be Rich either. I'm gonna go by Munsch. Or maybe ‘The Munsch.' Now,
you
: Denny, El Denno, Deño, Den-Den…What's your middle name? James, right? DJ.
Eh.
Cooverman…
Coove
!”

Denis grimaced. “Sounds…vagina-ish.”

Rich waggled his eyebrows and opened his arms to welcome:

“The Coove…
master!”

Denis looked at his watch. “What time do parties start?”

“Now. Let's open the champagne.”

“We can't open it until she gets here.”

Rich grabbed the champagne bag. Denis grabbed back, directly above Rich's hand. Rich wedged his left hand above Denis's right. Denis clawed the top of the bag. Rich released the bottle, conceding defeat.

Rich moved on: “So your parents use
condoms
.” He took three seconds to say the last word.

“Not a topic for discussion.”

“That means they still—”

“Stop talking if you wish to live.”

“Do you think they're lubed or—”

Denis bounced a Ruffles off his friend's face. Rich picked up the chip and ate it. Chewing thoughtfully, he asked, “You ever jerk off with a condom on?”

“No,”
Denis replied.

“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.”

 

“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 clearly 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,

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 occa
sions. 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.

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—