Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp (26 page)

“If it does, Sheeni, I’ll always remember you fondly.”

“God, Rick, you’re such a cad. Well, I better not keep you. Sonya’s probably due there any minute.”

“No, she’s scheduled third tonight. Bye-bye, Sheeni.”

“Good night, darling. Je t’aime.”

Sheeni actually said she loved me! But does it count if she thinks I don’t know a word of French?

SATURDAY, April 17 — I slept in late after another night of raucous motorcycle racing in the alley. I would have slept even later, but Sonya phoned with a timely dance update. I was to meet Fuzzy DeFalco promptly at 7:30 at the garage housing his car. She gave me the address, which I pretended to write down.

“Isn’t that where Apurva Preston lives?” I inquired.

“You should know, Rick. I hear you’re pals with her. How come the only kids you’ve met so far are good-looking girls?”

“Search me,” I replied, not pointing out that I had also made her acquaintance.

“I’d like to, Rick. See you tonight, honey. What color is my dress?”

“Uh, diesel-spill brown?”

“I hope you’re kidding, Rick. It’s lilac!”

11:15 a.m. I was polishing my cancer shoes when My Love checked in with her first cellular call of the day.

“Rick, something dreadful has happened!” she exclaimed.

My genes panicked.

“Sheeni, you didn’t lose the baby?”

“No, unfortunately. And it’s not a baby, Rick, it’s barely a fetus. I just called my offshore bank to transfer some funds for our escape. There’s a shortfall in my account of $54,000!”

“Really? Maybe it’s just an accounting error, Sheeni.”

“It’s no error. Someone altered a check. Nick’s sister is a crook! The entire Twisp family is one vast sinkhole of criminality. I can see that now.”

“But isn’t it Nick’s money they’re trying to get back?”

“Rick, why are you defending them? You know nothing about it.”

“I suppose not, Sheeni,” I sighed.

“The worst thing is I’m not in a position to complain to the authorities. But Nick will be in for a surprise if he tries to contact me.”

“You’d turn him in, Sheeni?” I asked, alarmed.

“I think I should, Rick. I think it would be best for everyone. You don’t know the guy, Rick. Nick would never let us alone if he found out we were together. I’m almost afraid that he’s spying on us now. Oops, someone’s pounding on the door. Got to go.” Click.

I can only hope it’s a temporary, pregnancy-induced hormone imbalance that is causing My Love to adopt such a censorious attitude toward her former love.

3:15 p.m. I just picked up Sonya’s corsage. Boy, for twelve bucks you’d think you’d get more than one crummy flower and some half-dead greenery. On the way into the florist shop I passed Trent exiting with a snappy orchid number. I can’t believe he’s taking his own wife to a high-school dance. Is that done? It seems like it takes all the mystery out of wondering whether you’re going to get lucky that night.

My Love just phoned from their basement. Her parents are restricting her to one shower a day lest excessive chlorine exposure harm the baby. She now sneaks down to the laundry room and switches on the dryer. I could hear it rumbling in the background as she reported breathlessly that her father suddenly has been “called away on business”—to Palm Springs.

“He just left for the airport,” Sheeni added. “He says he’s working on some big gas merger down there.”

“He’s working on a merger all right,” I replied. I told her about Mrs. K’s marital rupture and recent decamping to the desert.

“This may prove propitious,” Sheeni remarked. “It could give me some crucial leverage over him. I didn’t dare use the Mexican liaison against him because I didn’t have any proof.”

“Sheeni, I thought your father was devout and moral and born again and all that stuff.”

“He claims to be, Rick. First he was born again and now he’s entering his second childhood.”

“Sheeni, if your parents’ marriage goes on the rocks, maybe they’ll cut you some slack and we won’t have to go to France.”

“Don’t count on it, Rick. You don’t know my mother.”

“Well, I do—sort of.”

“Not really, Rick. Believe me, the woman you met in Mexico was my mother on her very best behavior.”

Now that is a truly scary thought.

7:00 p.m. I’m all dressed for the dance—the second such occasion of my high-school career. I’m still not taking the partner of my choice, but I do get to go as a guy this time. I hope the gym is well-ventilated. This clammy eelskin doesn’t seem to breathe very well. At least my cancer shoes are already comfortably broken in. Evelyn the retired sawmill hand showed me how to wear my fedora tipped rakishly to the side. He says he had one just like it in 1943. It could be the same hat for all I know. He says he likes my suit, but hopes I don’t get picketed by outraged eel lovers.

Well, I’m off to meet Fuzzy and The Date from Hell. Wish me luck, kids.

SUNDAY, April 18 — Herewith is an honest accounting of last night’s events, slightly abbreviated only to lessen the trauma:

Fuzzy DeFalco in a new black suit introduced himself to me in his late grandmother’s driveway and asked to see my driver’s license. He was somewhat short-tempered from having to ask Trent to move his “damn Acura.” I could tell my pal wasn’t happy about turning over the keys of his beloved Falcon to a complete stranger.

“Boy, you don’t look 18,” he said, handing me back my fake ID. “How long you been driving?”

“Oh, for years and years,” I lied, grinding unknown gears as I started the engine. We lurched out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street.

“Are you sure you know how to drive?” he demanded.

“Relax, guy,” I said to all parties in the car as I tried to rein in my hyperventilating lungs. I never imagined drivers could see so little at night. Why aren’t cars equipped with vast racks of powerful floodlights?

“I guess you must like Sonya, huh?” asked Fuzzy, by way of making conversation.

“Of course not. But it was girls ask boys and she nailed me. Is that a dog over there?”

“No, it’s a Volkswagen. And you just blew through a stop sign. Who told you it was girls ask boys?”

“You mean it wasn’t?”

“Nope. Looks like you got duped, Rick.”

“Damn! Well, now I don’t feel so bad about spending only $12 on her corsage.”

Fuzzy eyed my fading bouquet in its plastic wrapping. “Looks like they rooked you on that one too.”

“How much did you spend on yours?” I asked enviously.

“Ninety-five bucks, Rick,” he said, cradling the elegant ribbon-tied presentation box in his lap. “But the orchid stems are dipped in real 24-karat gold.”

Lana and my date were waiting impatiently in the living room of Sonya’s modest home, from which all parents had been banished to avoid embarrassing introductions or tedious photo-snapping. Like a modern-day Cinderella, Lana looked genuinely enchanting in strapless pink satin, now accessorized by the Tiffany of corsages. She smiled and said she liked my hat. She had highlighted her nascent cheekbones with rosy blusher, a beauty ploy Carlotta was never quite able to pull off. Less successfully made up in her customary purple tones (her eye-shadow actually glittered), Sonya appeared to have single-handedly cornered the world market in lilac chiffon. She frowned when she saw her corsage and my suit.

“Gee, you shouldn’t have. Hey, Rick, this isn’t a costume dance, you know.”

“Peasants,” I grunted to Fuzzy. “Some people wouldn’t recognize a $4,500 Armani eelskin suit if it bit them in the ass.”

“Don’t get too close, Sonya,” joked Fuzzy. “Those could be electric eels.”

My phone rang as corsage pinning was in progress. Saved by the bell, I let Sonya finish the job while I took the call.

“Where are you now, Rick?” whispered My Love.

“I’m at Sonya’s house,” I replied. “We’re about to leave.”

“How does she look?”

“Well, I can’t really talk now.”

“Why not? Are you holding her hand?”

“No.”

“Are you holding other parts of her?”

“That doesn’t happen until we get to the dance. Thank you for calling. Good night.” Click.

“Who was that, Rick?” inquired Sonya, attempting to straighten her wilting flower.

“Oh, just a friend—an elderly shut-in trying to relive her golden high-school years.”

Piling into Fuzzy’s Falcon, Sonya mashed herself right next to the driver, while Lana cuddled in the back seat with Fuzzy and produced a spliff the size of those giant novelty cigars. Fuzzy held a lighted kitchen match to its end while Lana puffed away madly. It was like trying to get a campfire started. Eventually, the aromatic log was ignited, and we passed it around. I took a drag and felt my brain engorge like an elephant’s cock. I gripped the steering wheel and concentrated my expanding mind on the view out the windshield.

“God, how fast am I going?” I cried.

“You haven’t started the engine yet, honey,” Sonya replied.

“Right, I knew that,” I said. “I was just testing you.”

Fortunately, the school was only four blocks away. Somehow we made it there in one piece. I parked the car on an unoccupied shrub; the prodigious joint made one last circuit, then Fuzzy snuffed it out while Lana dispensed breath mints. The spicy sweetness overwhelmed my hypersensitive taste buds. I gripped Sonya’s fleshy hand and loped giddily toward the gym entrance. “Dance!” my reeling mind raved, “Gotta Dance!” I felt like the klieg lights had been switched on in my soul, and I had stepped
into a lavish MGM Technicolor musical. I was a young Frank Sinatra and Sonya was a larger-than-life Debbie Reynolds—OK, much larger than life.

Inside was another tour de force of the decorative arts. Tonight’s theme was “Plenty Amid Privation.” As we throngs of expensively garbed revelers jostled our way past the dateless ticket-takers and vigilant chaperons, we left the First World and entered a lovingly re-created Third World slum. Faux cardboard shanties lined the walls of the gym, and freshmen dressed as ragpickers scavenged through heaps of faux garbage. Or perhaps it wasn’t so artificial after all; something sure smelled rank. I prayed it wasn’t me in my eelskin suit. One of the ragpickers, I noticed, was Dwayne Crampton giving a not very credible impersonation of a starving peasant. On a low platform made of rusty corrugated steel, a live but diseased-looking grunge band was thrashing out “music” at a volume that rattled the fillings in my teeth.

“God, this place is a dump,” I thought I heard Fuzzy scream.

“I want something to drink!” bellowed my date.

“Me too!” screamed Lana.

Fuzzy and I located a debris-strewn table, settled in our dates amid the trash, then made our way toward the faux tumble-down refreshment shack, scrawled over with angry “Yanqui Go Home!” graffiti. After waiting in a lengthy line, we were served four tin cans of red fruit punch ladled up from a 50-gallon drum labeled “XXX Herbicide.” Among the servers were Janice Griffloch and Barb Hoffmaster, both dressed as blue-bereted U.N. relief workers. On the return trip we pushed our way through an irksome rabble of freshmen mendicants clamoring for alms. The pushiest beggar was authentic Third-Worlder Vijay Joshi, whose sandal-clad foot I managed to trod upon forcefully. That will teach the wanna-be plebeian to wear open-toed shoes to a formal dance.

Reunited with our dates, we sipped our watery punch and attempted conversation.

“What band is it?” screamed Lana.

“It’s the Ringworms,” shouted Sonya. “God, they’re bad!”

I’m not sure, but I think that was intended as a compliment.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pants. All I could do was switch it on and let My Love experience the ear-pummeling sonic ambience. Conversation was out of the question; I switched it off when Sonya grabbed my hand and dragged me out on the dance floor. My hat I left at the table. We danced frenetically to discordant aural blasts that went on and on and on. The indefatigable Ringworms didn’t play “songs,” they generated nonstop malignant noise by the hour. Occasionally they would sing something into their microphones, altering the nature of the din but conveying nothing intelligible. Cole Porter had nothing to fear from these dudes. Nightmarish as they were, they did save me from my worst dread. The uncompromising Ringworms did not play slow songs.

I saw many familiar faces among the revelers, but no Bruno Modjaleski. Candy Pringle was there playing the field in a backless and strapless black sequined dress further enlivened by a plunging neckline. It was an all-time traffic-stopper and something that would never have gotten past the door in Miss Pomdreck’s day. The dress was a hot topic in the boys’ restroom, where the consensus was that its daringly disparate parts must have been glued to Candy’s naked body.

My phone rang while I was on a break in that room.

“Hi, Rick. What are you doing now?”

“Oh, hi, Sheeni. I’m taking a leak.”

“Is Sonya there with you?”

“No, this room provides a measure of sanctuary.”

“I’ve never spoken with a fellow at a urinal before. Are there other guys doing it too?”

“Yes, I’m surrounded by a veritable Niagara Falls.”

“Are you allowed to peek at your neighbor?”

“That’s frowned upon, Sheeni. One usually studies the wall and contemplates life. There, I’m zipping up now. How’s your evening going?”

“I’m not having nearly as much fun as you are, Rick.”

“Don’t bet on it, kid.”

“Did Sonya like your suit?”

“Oh sure,” I lied. “She can’t keep her hands off it.”

“And where are your hands, Rick?”

“Up to my elbows in lilac chiffon!”

My Love hung up. Some people can’t take a joke.

Returning to the noise pit, I danced until the sweat pouring off my head made my eelskin glisten in the throbbing light. At one point, I found myself cavorting near Trent and his lovely wife.

“Nice suit, Rick!” Apurva shouted approvingly.

“Nice dress!” I shrieked back. I liked the way curving forms were moving rhythmically under the silken fabric of her scarlet gown. I hoped little Trent Junior was enjoying the agitation. Movement on a more massive scale was taking place close by under lilac chiffon, but I did my best to avert my eyes—though many around me seemed absorbed by the awesome sight.