The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door (11 page)

CHAPTER

20

Chapter Two: Strategizing It!

Congratulations! You gave a voice to your Dream. Now that you have LOUDLY proclaimed what it is you want to manifest, it’s time to start prepping yourself for the moment your Dream comes true. Remember, luck favors the prepared.

Make a list of things you can start working on today that will ready you for the arrival of you greatest hopes. For example, if your Dream is to travel the world, apply for a passport. If your Dream is to have a million dollars, open a second bank account. Make a strategic list and start checking things off.

Drake handed me
Dream It! Do It!
at lunch so I could start reading chapter two.
It was another hot day in September.
Thanks to global warming, eating lunch outside is possible more and more days of the year in Pennsylvania. Maybe if we keep indiscriminately burning fossil fuels, we can have pool parties during Christmas break.

“I already started,” said Drake. “Sorry to get ahead of you.” He took a piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.

Drake’s Strategy for Getting Japhy

1. Get in shape. (Skate more, play basketball.)

2. New clothes. Haircut?

3. Read books on coming out, prepare for “the talk.”

4. Ask Mom and Dad to invite his family over for dinner next weekend.

I had to be careful about how I responded. I couldn’t look like a Dream Basher again. “You’re going to talk to him next weekend?”

“He won’t answer my calls, but if my parents invite his family over, Japhy’s parents will make him come. I’m not ready to see him this weekend. I need another week. But if I can just get in the same room with him, he won’t be able to ignore me.” Drake stood up. “You work on your list while I get in on this game.”

While he was standing there putting his strategy back in his pocket, I wrote across the top of a notebook page, large enough for him to see:

Celia’s Strategy for Becoming a Poet

Drake walked lazily out onto the court, hiding his enthusiasm from the other players. Something changes in boys between sixth and ninth grade. I know all about puberty and what physically
changes
, but their personalities change, too. In high school you can almost smell the testosterone eating away at their brains. One of the best places to observe this hormonal phenomenon is during the lunchtime basketball game. Only ten boys get to play in each pickup game, so there’s lots of jockeying for position. First, two guys step forward to be team captains, juniors or seniors on the varsity squad, leaders no one would challenge. Then they each choose four guys for their team.

A JV player told Drake that Coach Scott wants them to play at lunch for extra practice, so those guys always try to get picked. Joey Gaskill is there every day, stalking about the court with a wallet chain hanging from his waist. He hasn’t said anything to me since our exchange at the lockers, but he glares at me in the halls.

During the captain selection, Drake generally mills about in the back of the group or else he takes a long time getting to the court so that he arrives after captains are named. Then he acts casual and disinterested as teams are chosen, even though he is always one of the first three or four boys picked. That day, Clay Applewhite, a varsity star, picked Drake first for his team. When Clay pointed to him, Drake didn’t smile or jog over to the captain like some guys do. He just looked up like he had been disturbed from an interesting thought and then walked casually toward Clay.

I was glad Drake left me alone to give me a chance to work on my real strategy. Revenge is a delicate art, like a bank robbery. You don’t just write a demanding note and walk into a bank. You have to practice cracking safes, buy your ski mask, gas up your getaway car.

Now that I had the perfect news to humiliate Sandy, I had to figure out how to get it to the students of Hershey High. I couldn’t exactly stand on a chair in the cafeteria and yell, “Can I have your attention? Drake turned down Sandy for homecoming!” I needed it to become a headline, a viral video of gossip. That would require a great and devious plan.

Celia’s Strategy for Spreading a Rumor

1. Whisper about going to homecoming with Drake in the halls and make sure a freshman girl overhears us.

2. Tell someone and ask her not to repeat it.

3. Write it in a note and “accidentally” leave it somewhere.

4. Write it anonymously on the bathroom wall.

A commotion on the basketball court interrupted my scheming. I looked up in time to see Joey Gaskill fall onto his side like a tipped cow. Meanwhile, Drake was turning a one-eighty and dribbling down the court with no one guarding him. He glided undeterred past the players, like he was running through a park full of statues, and finished with a flawless layup. Girls sitting on the grass watching cheered for him. Drake beamed as he high-fived the other guys.

I cheered, too. After all, the more successful Drake was at Hershey High, the sweeter my revenge.

CHAPTER

21

Sandy was back in L.A. Friday morning. She and Mandy were already seated when I came in. I approached their chairs the way a panther approaches a couple of fat, slow rabbits. After all, I was just deciding when and how to pounce.

A new lightness came over me. I pulled off my hood before class started and actually took notes while Mr. Pearson was talking. I raised my hand twice during the discussion on story structure. Every time I spoke, Sandy seemed to cringe like someone was poking her with a needle. She was tapping her manicured nails on the desk, and Mr. Pearson said, “Sandy, stop that.”

As the bell rang, Mr. Pearson asked me to stay after class. “I was quite happy to see you participating today, Celia, but you still haven’t handed in your paper on ‘We Real Cool.’”

I hadn’t exactly forgotten. I just didn’t feel like doing the paper. I had already handed in the poem, and I felt like that should count.

“I’ll just take an F.” I shrugged.

“An F would put your entire grade for this class in jeopardy. Why would you fail a class over one paper?”

“I wrote the poem, but that wasn’t good enough—”

“A poem is not an essay, Celia, simple as that. I’ve been lenient because you did turn something in the first time, but this is unacceptable. I expect something on my desk on Monday.”

I shrugged again.

“I’m going to need a better answer than that,” he said.

“Okay,” I managed. I dragged my boots out of the classroom and pulled on my hood.

× × ×

At lunch, Drake chatted on about
Dream It! Do It!
“This weekend I want to go to the public library for some LGBT books,” he said quietly after making sure no one was too close to us. “I don’t want to check them out at school.”

“LGBT?” I said.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,” he said. “I already reserved them on the library website. Also, we need to start working on chapter three: ‘Seeing.’ Come over after school?”

“Can’t. Mom’s day off again,” I answered.

“Pickup time.” Drake jogged over to join the other boys on the basketball court. He seemed lighter, too, like he had grown a foot since he found his new book. When we walked home after school, we made it in record time.

× × ×

“Hi, June Bug, I’m in here!” my mom called from the kitchen as I walked into our living room. I cruised through the swinging door to find her sitting at the kitchen table nearly obscured behind a pyramid of papers. There were seven piles of letters, envelopes, file folders, and large mailers, but because the table is round, the piles were mixing together into one giant stack.

“Hey,” she said, putting a paper she was holding down on the top of the pile and picking up her coffee cup. “How was school?”

“Fine,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, just getting some finances in order,” she answered casually as if I had caught her balancing her checkbook.

I must have given her a disbelieving look.

“Well”—she twisted a finger into her curly mess of hair—“your dad was always better at organizing bills than I was.” A pen was tucked behind her ear, and she was wearing her reading glasses. She picked up a sheet of paper and put it right back down. “But that’s my challenge now. I’m just going to have to learn how to manage,” she said in a lame attempt to sound upbeat.

“Oh, Celia,” she added, leafing now through one of her barely recognizable stacks. “You don’t mind if we skip the passes to Hershey Park this year, do you?”

Hershey Park is our town’s main attraction. It has roller coasters and waterslides and mascots made to look like happy chocolate bars or friendly peanut butter cups. We’ve gotten season passes every year since I was old enough to walk, but Dad always said that it was for Mom more than me. When I was really little, she rode rides while Dad and I drank chocolate milk shakes and waited for her. She was more excited than I was when I got tall enough to ride with her. Dad would still sit and hold Mom’s purse and our jackets.

“It’s just another expense, and I figured you’re probably too old for that now, aren’t you?” my mom asked, pulling me out of my memory. She was talking to me but she was looking at the bills.

“Oh yeah,” I said, feeling Dark. “I’m too old.”

“We just need to find places to trim the fat,” she added, punching numbers into her calculator with the pen from behind her ear. “That’s kid stuff to you, right? You never liked the rides.”

“I’m going to go check my email,” I mumbled.

“Okay,” said my mom, picking up another sheet of paper. “Oh, I forgot.” She suddenly looked up, slapping one hand on her forehead. “I meant to defrost a chicken for dinner. I’ll do it right now.” She jumped up to open the freezer.

I slipped down the hall to my bedroom, starting to feel the familiar black hole opening up in my chest. When the black-hole feeling comes, all the light gets sucked out of the room and into a Dark place inside me. I wasn’t sure why the loss of the Hershey Park passes made the Dark feeling come. It’s not like I actually
believed
that my dad would come back from Atlanta, and we would all go drink milk shakes and ride rides and be a family again. But not getting the passes felt final, like we were canceling the
chance
that it
might
happen.

I closed the door behind me and opened my email, hoping for something to distract me. Since it was Friday, I had communication from my dad.

Re: Hello, Celia

From: James Door ([email protected])

Sent: Fri 9/17 9:53 AM

To: Celia ([email protected])

Hi, Turtle,

Last night I checked out bookstores in town. You’re going to love the one called Outwrite. They invite authors to speak. I can’t wait for your visit at Christmas.

Please remind your mom about the pipes in the basement that we were planning to insulate before winter.

Love,

Dad

The jury is still out on whom I blame for this
separation. On the one hand, it seems pretty clear that my mom was the one who “needed time,” or “had things to sort out,” or whatever her latest vague term for not wanting my father around sounded like. But he’s the one who took a job in another state and packed up twelve boxes of his stuff, which looks a lot more like abandoning the family than my mom not wanting more kids. Then again, Mom could have gone along and kept us together as a family, or at least let me go with my dad and therefore escape the miseries of my outcast life in this chocolate-coated town. Most days, I wasn’t sure where to direct my anger.

I replied to my dad.

Re: Hello, Celia

From: Celia ([email protected])

Sent: Fri 9/17 4:27 PM

To: James Door ([email protected])

hi, dad,

you told me you were having a trial separation. so, how’s the trial part going?

celia

I had an email from Dorathea:

Re: Friends

From: Dorathea Eberhardt ([email protected])

Sent: Fri 9/17 10:39 AM

To: Celia ([email protected])

hey, celia the dark,

it’s hard not to get dragged into the drama of your parents’ breakup, especially when you’re an only child. mine strung me along for years, breaking up and getting back together. they would always start talking about reconciliation around the holidays, and then, come new year’s, they hated each other again.

i know loads of people who are queer here at Berkeley, which is a more inclusive term than gay. the word “gay” sounds binary, like it’s an on/off switch and you are either gay or you’re not. humans are complex sexual beings and there are lots of ways our attractions and sexual identities can manifest.

what do you think about being a freshman? promise me that you won’t let high school beat the creativity out of you. the american education system is increasingly focused on improving results in biased standardized testing and not on teaching techniques that inspire creative or critical thinking. we learned about it in my social justice in the classroom course. fight standardized testing!

d

When I was eight and Dorathea was thirteen, she and my aunt and uncle came for Christmas. The previous summer she had gone to a camp focused on art as a social movement, which made a big impression on her politically. She had very recently cut her hair short and gotten into wearing men’s ties as a fashion statement. Dorathea always had natural beauty that even made poor styling decisions look edgy.

Back then, I was into Barbie dolls. I had a collection of twenty-five, along with a Barbie dream house, a Barbie van, a Barbie VW Beetle, endless containers of Barbie clothes, and a Barbie portable wardrobe. I spent a lot of time in my room playing with them. They all had personal histories and complex relationships. Often their debates involved the scarcity of Ken dolls.

So my parents gave me three new Barbies for Christmas. One was a beach girl with four choices of bathing suits and feet that could snap into flip-flops. Another wore ball gowns and went to the opera. She came with opera glasses and a mink stole. The third Barbie was a businesswoman with a desk, office chair, and practical suit. After we finished opening presents on Christmas morning, Dorathea and I went into my room to play with my new stuff.

That Christmas, she had requested that she be given only books, so her presents all fit in a stack. My new Barbies were piled on my bed. “Look carefully, Celia,” said Dorathea, pointing to the mound of corn-silk hair and plastic bodies. “Look at the way your culture enforces gender stereotypes on children.”

I looked. I just saw Barbies.

“If you were a boy, they would be giving you toy dump trucks and Hot Wheels. But you are a girl, so they assume you are into playing house and taking care of babies and dressing up.”

“But I really like playing with—” I tried to say, but Dorathea interrupted me.

“Celia, I think it is time that we made a statement,” she declared. Dorathea decided we should pack up all of my Barbies, old and new, and put them in a box in the back of my closet. (Actually, she wanted us to pack them up and give them away, but I negotiated her down to the closet.) It was a really hard thing to give up, especially because these Barbies were new, but it seemed important to Dorathea, and Dorathea was my only relative even close to me in age. She seemed so much older and wiser, I just went along.

That night at dinner, the two of us wore outfits that she considered “gender neutral,” consisting of jeans with white T-shirts. My mom made beef stew served over a bed of mashed potatoes for everyone except Dorathea. As a newly affirmed vegetarian, she was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and carrot sticks. Dorathea kept looking at me and finally nudged me under the table.

“I’ve been thinking,” I piped up. The whole family looked at me as I started into the statement we prepared in advance. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to play with Barbies anymore.” I tried to sound full of conviction.

The adults at the table exchanged uncomfortable looks. My uncle let out a deep, obvious sigh and took a large bite of mashed potatoes. My aunt watched him for a minute. Then she looked at my parents. My mom looked back at her like they were communicating telepathically.

The tension in the room was as thick as chocolate syrup. At times when you’re a kid it feels like adults are all in on a huge secret that makes them act weird about things that aren’t a big deal. I knew that I had said something important, but I didn’t know what.