Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (2 page)

3

"
Dick,
" Norrie, my best friend, burst out. "You are being such a
dick!
"

I was up in my bedroom, talking to him on my cell phone, which I had somehow thought would be a better way of breaking the news about going to the prom ... although now I realized that maybe I shouldn't have waited till the night of the prom to tell him. When I heard how angry Norrie was, I tried to think of how my father would handle this, first by acknowledging his frustrations and validating his emotions as legitimate.

"Look," I said, "I know you're upset, and rightly so."

"Upset? Upset doesn't even b-buh-begin to cover it, you d-dick! You tuh-totally dicked us over, and now you're being a cuh-complete duh-duh-dick about it!"

"Okay, but could you maybe find a different word than
dick
?"

"Oooh-kay, m-mister future attorney," Norrie was saying, his stutter getting progressively worse as he became more and more upset. As our drummer, Norrie was one of those people who didn't let himself express anger very often, and witnessing it firsthand was like watching someone go through a particularly dramatic allergic reaction. "Wh-Wh-What are you going to d-d-do about it, h-h-hit me with your
briefcase?
Slam me with a cuh-cuh-class-action s-s-suit?"

"Norrie, calm down."

"Yuh-You t-t-told me you'd t-take c-care of this," he sputtered. "You p-p-promised it wouldn't be a puh-puh-pruh-huh—"

"And it's not a problem," I said, "okay?"

"
Don't finish my sentences for me!
"

"I'm sorry."

"Duh-Does Guh-Guh-Guh ... ho..." I heard him take a breath, forcing himself to relax. "Does Gobi even w-want to go to the p-prom?"

"That's not the point," I said.

That got him started again. "Y-Y-You know what, you're totally
right,
that's
not
the p-p-point, the point is yuh-yuh-you can't ever s-s-sstand up to your
duh-dad,
not even once when it's r-really important."

"Dude," I said, "shut up."

"I d-duh-don't know wh-why you even b-buh
-bother
b-buh-because in s-six y-yuh-
years
y-you're g-guh-going to be j-juh-just
l-like—
"

"Don't say that." Something inside me went cold. "I'm never going to be like him."

"Whuh-whatever you need to t-tell yourself, man." And then, sullenly: "Y-Yuh-You didn't even m-make it to the last p-practice."

"I had to work."

"Exactly."

Enough, I decided. "What time's the sound check?"

"T-Ten o'clock."

"That's plenty of time."

"M-Muh-my ass! What are you guh-going to do, run back to the house, p-puh-push her out of the c-c-car, grab your b-bass, and drive into the city?"

"No," I said. Actually, that had been almost exactly my plan. "I'm going to bring my bass with me."

"Where, in the t-tuh-trunk of the J-Jaguar? You t-told me you were scared to even open it up because you might do something to the latch."

"For your information," I said, "it's a notoriously finicky latch. Have you read
Consumer Reports?
The maintenance on those things is a nightmare."

Norrie snorted. The storm had blown itself out by sheer force of exhaustion, and now he just sounded sad. "You really screwed us on this one, Perry."

"I told you I'd take care of it, okay?" I went over to my bedroom door and clicked it shut, lowering my voice. "Listen. Once Gobi and I get to the prom and she sees what a total error in judgment the whole thing is, there's no way she's going to want to stay. She'll be ready to leave by nine. I'll drop her off, change clothes, and be there in plenty of time. All right?"

Norrie fell absolutely quiet. He and I had been playing music together, writing songs and lyrics, for six years, under a bunch of different names—first we were Tennessee Jedi, then we were Malibu Robot, and then Sasha and Caleb joined and we became the Locker Room Bullies, the Dialups, Skinflip, Barney Rubble, and—for a few miserable weeks—Barn Swallow. I'd agreed to Inchworm because it was the least humiliating name he'd come up with yet.

"You b-better be," he said in a quiet voice. "Seriously, man. There might be
p-people
there tonight.
Industry
people."

"Please," I said.

"Don't you do that," he said. "Don't act like you don't care, Perry, because I know you better. We've b-been friends since fourth grade, man."

"I'll be there," I said, with more confidence than I felt, and clicked him off.

Downstairs, Mom and Dad and Annie were all waiting to make a big deal of my tuxedo. Dad made an even bigger deal about officially presenting me the keys to the Jag, and Mom gave me the box with the corsage that I was supposed to pin on Gobi's dress.

"OMG." Annie covered her mouth and giggled. "You look like a total geek."

"Shut up," I said, "and don't say OMG."

"The G stands for
goodness.
I'm being respectful to God."

"Stop it, Annie," Mom said. "Your brother looks very handsome."

"Mom, come on, admit it: he looks like a colossal dork."

"I remember
my
senior prom," Mom said, and then she actually
did
seem to remember her senior prom and stopped talking.

Something creaked, and I heard Gobi coming down the stairs. She stopped there on the landing and looked at me, and we all stared at her.

My mom was the first one to say anything.

"Oh, Gobi," she said. "You look ... very nice."

She was still looking at me, and I tried to think of something to say, but the floor had dropped from under my feet and all I could think was
Oh, no.
I turned and locked eyes with my mom. I guess because she'd helped me with the tuxedo, I'd just naturally assumed she would have provided some kind of guidance with Gobi's prom dress.

But it was clear that
nobody
had helped Gobi with her dress.

She wasn't so much wearing the dress as much as lost in it. It was a baggy, shapeless mountain of linen with designs stitched into the fabric, and with a long brown wool skirt, decorated with stripes and cloverleaf, that went down to her ankles so you couldn't even see her shoes. A kerchief covered her head and was knotted underneath her chin. Over her shoulder hung an enormous handmade bag that looked like it was made of some kind of animal hide, replete with pouches and straps and weird little buckles. It was so large that it could have passed for a suitcase, but I had a feeling it was supposed to be her purse.

"Is a traditional Lithuanian ceremonial costume," she said, her voice all alone in the silence. There was a thumbprint over the left lens of her glasses, right in front of her eye. "Was my mother's."

"Well, it's lovely," Mom said.

"Thank you, Mrs. Stormaire."

"Perry?" Mom held out the corsage for me, and I went over and unlatched the pin, trying to find a spot to plant it. I'd never been this close to her before, and I could smell her, the scent of unfamiliar soap and detergent in the fabric of the clothes. My hands trembled a little bit, and I stabbed myself with the pin.

"Ow!" I pulled back my hand, watched the dot of blood ooze from my fingertip. "Shit!"

"
Perry!
"

"Sorry, Mom. It's just the stupid pin—"

"Are you bleeding?" Gobi asked.

"Well, don't get any on your shirt!" Mom said.

I sucked my finger. "I'm fine, it's nothing."

"You should not be afraid of a little blood," Gobi said. "Life is full of it."

I glanced up at her, wondering if that was supposed to be a joke, but her face was unreadable as ever—even her expressions seemed to require subtitles. Annie started laughing and Mom got me a Band-Aid. Dad stood there watching me the whole time with that whole ah-the-human-comedy-ain't-it-fascinating look on his face as Gobi and I walked out to the Jaguar.

It wasn't quite twilight, but the air had already turned chilly. I went around and opened the passenger door for her, then walked back and got behind the wheel, feeling, in spite of everything, a kind of automotive stagefright. As I turned the key and felt the Jag's engine throb to life under the hood, I saw Dad standing in the doorway, one hand raised in silent salute, except then I saw it was a clenched fist and it looked more like a gesture of victory. Anger bubbled up in my stomach, and I gunned the engine a little, feeding it gas until it made me feel better, like I knew it would. Then we slipped down the driveway and into the cool promise of night.

4

It was silent as we drove to the school. I turned on the radio, couldn't find anything worth listening to, and switched it off again.

"You are embarrassed of me," Gobi said.

I looked over at her with the great sloping heap of the bag on her lap. It lay there like a big dog that had gone to sleep. "No, I'm not," I said. "Not at all."

"It is all right for you to say. I can see it in your eyes."

"That's not true."

She stared straight ahead. "Next week I will fly home."

"Right." I didn't dare ask about her experience here. "You must, uh, really be looking forward to seeing your family again."

She didn't say anything. The atmosphere dropped a degree or two, seeming to thicken invisibly around us, as if someone had run a length of garden hose through the back window and was slowly filling the Jaguar with a lethal dose of carbon monoxide. I practiced holding my breath, just in case.

"I just want to tell you," she said, "I appreciate what you are doing for me. Thank you."

"Don't worry about it." Something in me snapped, and I was talking again before I knew it. "Can I ask you something, though?"

She turned to face me, patiently.

"What made you really want to go to the prom with me? I mean ... I'm fine with it, but—"

"But clearly you are
not
fine with it, Perry."

"What?"

"You had no wish to bring me to this prom. I know this. You do not think I can see these things for myself ?"

"Well, my band is playing a show tonight in New York," I said. "It's kind of important."

"Even if they were not," Gobi said, "you would still not want to take me to the prom, yes?"

"No. I mean, yes. It's just that I was surprised. It didn't seem like anything you'd really be interested in, that's all."

She didn't reply, just kept both hands wrapped tight around the handle of her bag and looked straight ahead as we drove up into the school parking lot. Just before we got out, she turned to me again.

"You do not know me, Perry."

"No, I guess not."

"Perhaps by the end of the evening you will."

I looked at her. What was that supposed to mean? Ever since her comment about blood, I realized I'd been thinking about Sissy Spacek in
Carrie,
the high school loser in her homemade prom dress, drenched in pig blood, unleashing a firestorm of psychokinetic destruction on the high school gym. Ever since I'd seen that movie on TV when I was eight, I'd been queasy at the sight of blood, especially mine. Probably most proms didn't turn out that way, but what if this one did?

The distress must have shown on my face, because for the first time ever, Gobi actually laughed. Her eyes sparkled, a bright and glinting green behind her glasses, and for an instant the light transformed her entire face—the bland, expressionless mask slipped away to reveal an actual
girl
underneath: feminine, uninhibited, spontaneous, and alive. It occurred to me that I might have been missing something this whole time.

"You handle this car very well, Perry."

"Yeah, well, it's a pleasure to drive."

I parked and got out, walked around the car, offering my hand, and she slipped out of the leather interior. She felt lighter somehow, despite her heavy, rustling outfit, gliding almost gracefully alongside me toward the entrance. I could already hear the music inside, the murmur of people, kids I'd gone to school with for the last twelve years, dressed up and pretending to be the adults we'd all eventually turn into, whether we wanted to or not.

Maybe it'll be okay,
I thought.

I held the door for her, and we stepped inside.

5

I don't know what I'd been hoping for, but right away I knew that coming had been a big mistake.

I couldn't remember the theme of the prom but it seemed to be something along the lines of Social Darwinism Under the Stars. Lights and shimmering tinsel had transformed the gymnasium into a pulsating soup of glandular hostility. Nobody actually said anything, not at first, but I could feel dozens of eyes on Gobi as she stepped through the door, and I saw the expressions on the faces of the girls and the guys—disbelief, amusement, that vicious dinner-is-served delight—as they stared at what she was wearing. She wasn't invisible anymore. She'd stepped dead-bang into the spotlight, and she'd painted a big bull's-eye on her head. I thought about those South American cattle farmers who shoved the weakest, scrawniest cow in the river upstream, protecting the rest of the herd while schools of piranha ripped the poor sacrificial heifer to shreds. Whether or not that actually happened, I didn't know or particularly care—as a social model for high school dynamics, it was too cruelly perfect.

On stage, a band that nobody had ever heard of was in the middle of massacring a Radiohead song, but the noise still didn't seem to drown out the whispers around us.

"You want some punch?" I asked.

"Yes, please."

I made my way across the room to the tables set up on the other side. Chow was there with his girlfriend, and he gave me this incredulous look as if he'd somehow never actually expected me to go through with tonight's events. Ignoring him, I scooped up two plastic champagne flutes of punch and brought them back to Gobi, who was standing alone at the edge of the dance floor with a ten-foot radius of open space surrounding her, and handed her a glass.

"Thank you."

"Sure." I gulped my drink, found a place to put my glass, and struggled to keep my hands from running through my hair. Gobi watched the band play. It was impossible to tell what was going through her mind, but she seemed more weirdly
here,
alive and in her element, than she'd ever been while trudging the halls of Upper Thayer with her books under her arms, or sitting at our dining room table.

Finishing her punch, she turned to me and looked up.

"Would you like to dance?"

"I really don't—"

Her hand found mine, fingers slipping between mine with surprising firmness. "Dance with me, Perry."

I had no idea how it was going to go, but it wasn't awful—we got lost in a sea of shuffling couples, held stiffly on to each other, keeping six careful inches of open air between our bodies. It was just dancing, that was all. Slow circles. Zero eye contact. Gobi's blouse crinkled stiff and unyielding in my hands, like armor made of hotel curtains, and when the third song ended I glanced at my watch and saw that it was somehow past eight already.

I was about to say something when a dump-truck load of bricks smashed into my shoulder, knocking me sideways toward Gobi. She dodged out of the way, surprisingly fast, and I found myself flailing toward the floor, hearing a burst of cold laughter behind me.

"Hey, Stormaire, nice of you to bring your cleaning lady to the prom."

Turning around, I saw Dean Whittaker standing there, hands in his pockets, grinning. Lanky, curly-haired, gifted with the rubbery face of a natural clown, Whittaker wore what was no doubt a tailored Armani tuxedo, with Shep Monroe pasted to his right shoulder like some hideous life-size ventriloquist dummy. I didn't even know what they were doing in a public school. Whittaker and Monroe were as wealthy as they were psychotic, and looking at them, you got the feeling that the prom was nothing more than a sadistic giggle between big over-oxygenated whoops of special rich person air that they had flown in exclusively from Switzerland. The girls they'd brought to the prom didn't even go to Upper Thayer; they were daughters of their parents' friends, families whose money and influence flooded endlessly from some completely different sphere. They both looked almost transcendently bored.

"Back off," I said, already aware of how lame it sounded.

"Back off ?" Whittaker's grin widened, showing perfect teeth. "Why should I? Is it gonna
get ugly?
Are you going to
bring the pain?
" Hands still in his pockets, he waded a step closer. "Tell you what, douche stool, I'll do whatever you say on one condition: you let me videotape you and your date when you start going at it later tonight." His eyes flicked over to her. "I want to see you even try to find an actual girl underneath all that body hair."

"That's it," I said, and came forward, swinging at him. I hadn't been in a fight since sixth grade, and Whittaker must have seen my fist coming from a mile away, because he was already dodging and springing up at me, tagging the side of my chest with a tight, hard right that stung like a golf ball. I went over sideways, counting my ribs. Somewhere off in the distance, behind rippling acres of pain, I heard Shep Monroe yodeling out a moronic laugh.

"You're a ballsy little prick, Stormaire." Whittaker had my face squashed in his hands while spitting right into my ear. "You've got a real set of oysters on you, messing up my prom with that piece of Euro-trash."

"Don't call her—"

He shoved me backwards with a snap of the arms, pistoning me hard enough that I half expected to wake up in an ambulance. People were staring, but when I glanced around again, he and Monroe and their two vacant-looking society dates had vaporized into the background.

I caught a glimpse of Gobi looking back at me from where she'd seen the whole thing, her expression as unreadable as ever.

"Hey," I said. "You want to get out of here?"

She nodded. "You should bring the car around." Her eyes flicked off in the direction of the ladies' room. "I need to fix my makeup."

I realized she probably just wanted a chance to compose herself. Maybe she just wanted to slip away completely. After what just happened, I couldn't blame her.

Hell, maybe I'd get lucky and we could end this whole thing now.

***

She came out ten minutes later and got in the car without a word.

"Look," I said, as we drove away, "I'm sorry about that."

"You should really learn how to fight."

I turned to her. "What?"

"You telegraphed your punch. That boy got lucky. You should have broken his nose."

"I didn't realize you were such an expert on the pugilistic arts," I said. "Maybe you can give me some pointers."

Gobi shrugged. "If you like."

"I guess you heard what he said about you."

"Tch." She wrinkled her nose. "The opinion of such a
subin-laizys
means nothing to me."

"What's that mean?"

"It is what you would call..." She hesitated, trying to come up with the proper translation. "What is it that dogs do?"

"Chase cats?"

"No." She shook her head. "Lick their own balls."

"You called him a ... ball-licker?"

"What," she said, "you are scandalized?"

"No," I said, "I just didn't know you knew words like that."

"Are you joking with me? My language is rich with curses."

"Like what else?"

"Well, you could call him...
Gaidzio pautai
—that means chicken balls."

"
Chicken
balls?"

"If it were me, though," she said, "I would simply crush his windpipe so he could say no more offensive things to women."

"That's what you would do to him, huh?"

"For a start, yes."

"You're full of surprises, you know that?"

"I told you that you would know me better by the end of the night."

"I dunno," I said, "I mean, you've been here nine months. How come you never acted like this before?"

She didn't answer. After a second I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost eight thirty now. I realized that I had to take her home, but given what had happened, I didn't think I could just swing by the house and order her to get out.

"You, ah, want to go anywhere else while we're out?"

"I would like to go to the city."

"What?"

She pointed at the sign up ahead that read
NEW YORK CITY
—48
MILES
.

"You want to go to New York?"

"This is my last week in United States, Perry. You can show me around, yes?"

"We were just there last week, remember?"

"I am not talking about a Broadway show with your parents and your little sister. I am talking about Manhattan at night with you. Do you understand the difference?"

"Are you serious?"

"Do I look like I am joking?"

I felt myself starting to nod. This could actually work in my favor—if Gobi really wanted to go into the city tonight, then I'd be clear to play the gig at Monty's, and even my dad couldn't say anything about it. "Okay," I said, "I mean, if that's really you want." We were back in town now, our little village square, and I hit my turn signal and started edging toward the left lane. "But I need to go home first and switch vehicles—"

"No." She grabbed the steering wheel. "We take this car."

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"The Jaguar—it is a nice car, yes? Is fast, yes?"

"Yeah," I said, "it's fast, but—"

"So we take it."

"No."

"I thought you said it was a pleasure to drive."

"To the prom, yes. To New York City, not so much."

She clicked her tongue and stared at me. "
Sliundra.
"

"What's that mean?"

"It means ... how do you say...?" Gobi nodded at herself, down there. "Pussy?"

"
Pussy?
You're calling me a pussy?"

She nodded.

"Okay, Gobi, let me explain something to you. This is, like, an eighty-thousand-dollar car, which my father loves like a child—I'm not taking it into Manhattan, and that's final."

"You always do what your father says?"

"When it comes to the car, yeah."

She was smiling at me again, the way she had when we'd first arrived at the prom, but now more challenging, not quite playful. "I see you, the way he talks to you. He runs your life." Her voice dropped into a cruelly accurate imitation of my dad's stentorian tone. "
Perry, you need to work harder. This is not acceptable. You will never get into Columbia with grades like these. How will you succeed in life?
"

I felt my internal temperature rise past my lips, cheeks, and forehead. "That's not true."

"He tells you to do something, you do it. You spend your whole life afraid you will somehow disappoint him. And that is no way to live."

"Look," I said, "I'm sorry, but you don't know me that well. I mean, maybe you've lived in our house for a while, but you don't know anything about how it really is with us."

"Prove it."

"What?"

"You heard me. What are you being so afraid of ?"

"That's not the point. I'm not doing this. Understand?"

She sighed. "Your father said that you could drive the car, yes?"

"Yes, but—"

"He did not say
where
you could drive it."

I glanced down at the keychain dangling from the ignition and thought about my father handing it to me at his office, one more chain that he held one end of while offering me the other. I put my foot down on the accelerator. The throb of the V-12 engine rippled through me in one solid wave.

"Just for a quick trip."

Gobi nodded as if she'd expected nothing less. She reached into her enormous bulky handbag and pulled out a BlackBerry. Had I ever seen her use one before? Her fingers swept quickly over the keys, tapping something in and holding it up so I could see.

"I want to go here."

I looked. "What, the 40/40 Club? Are you serious?"

"You are familiar with it?"

"Well, yeah, it's Jay-Z's club, but—"

"Good," she said, and took the BlackBerry back, tucking it away. "Then get us there."

"Why there?"

She shrugged. "I read about it in a magazine. I want to go there."

"I doubt they'll let us in."

"Why are you always so seeing the dark side of things?"

"That's kind of how I am when it comes to stuff that's totally impossible," I said. "Other than that, I'm a regular Mr. Sunshine."

She laughed.

"What?"

"You are funny."

"I'm glad you think so. This might be as interesting as the night gets."

"I doubt that very much," she said.

I downshifted and focused on my driving. It felt good to be bad; I was starting to get used to the idea. "So, 40/40," I said. "You just read about it in some magazine and decided that's where you wanted to go?"

No answer from Gobi. I glanced back at her. Her head was resting against the window, tilted so that I couldn't see her face.

"Gobi?"

Still no reply. I reached for her shoulder and squeezed slightly, then harder. She made a groaning croak in the back of her throat, adjusted her shoulders, then sat up and blinked at me with a disoriented expression, realization seeping into her eyes.

"Oh," she said.

"You all right?"

She nodded.

"You had a seizure?"

No answer.

"Listen ... maybe we should just go home."

"No." A single, brittle syllable. "It has already passed."

"Are you sure? Sometimes when you have those..."

"I am
fine,
Perry." She nodded out the windshield. "You just drive the car."