The Stand-In Read online

  Text copyright © 2016 by Steve Bloom

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  The World Is Yours

  Words and Music by Nasir Jones and Peter O. Phillips

  Copyright © 1994 by Universal Music - Z Songs, Universal Music - Z Tunes LLC, Skematics Music, Inc. and Pete Rock Publishing

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  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

  Front cover: © Stockbyte/Getty Images. Back cover and interior: © iStockphoto.com/lacer.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 10.5/15. Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Bloom, Steven L. (Steven Lawrence), 1956– author.

  Title: The stand-in / by Steve Bloom.

  Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, [2017] | Summary: After seventeen-year-old Brooks Rattigan agrees to be a stand-in Homecoming date for a friend’s geeky but wealthy cousin, he realizes becoming a (completely platonic) rent-a-date for the socially awkward could help him earn college money.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015043912 (print) | LCCN 2016006286 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512410235 (th : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512411218 (eb pdf)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | College choice—Fiction. | Moneymaking projects—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B64 St 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.B64 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043912

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-39571-21270-4/13/2016

  9781512418903 ePub

  9781512418910 ePub

  9781512418927 mobi

  To the women in my life—

  Ruth, Jennifer, Nora, and Liza

  I know what you’re thinking.

  What the hell am I, Brooks Rattigan, doing in Hackensack?

  At the Holiday Inn on a precious Saturday night?

  Twerking the hours away with Gabby Dombrowski?

  Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Gabby Dombrowski. Just like there was nothing wrong with Burdette’s cousin or Sylvie Frohnapfel or Alana What’s-her-name or any of the rest of them. Even Celia Lieberman, when you get right down to it. Fine, upstanding members of the fairer sex. Attractive, intelligent, accomplished. Engaging conversationalists, convivial dining companions. Student government presidents, science fair winners, champion figure skaters. Each and every one a total knockout in her own special way. May the Force be with them all.

  Nice girls. Nice girls with nice homes in nice neighborhoods with nice things. Nice moms and dads, nice brothers, nice sisters. The well-meaning faces blur before me. Each so different, yet all so the same. Infected with the same raging, incurable disease. FOMO. Fear of Missing Out.

  FOMO, you might say, is the Rattigan bread and butter.

  Homecoming. Winter Formal. Spring Fling. Prom. I mean, when you think about it, which I’m sure you don’t, it’s amazing how many once-in-a-lifetime events there are during the course of a single high school year. And when you multiply that by an equal number of momentous events at every high school in the greater tri-state area, well, let’s just say, it can get a bit overwhelming. Actually, sometimes it can get to be a real drag.

  Sorry. Where were we again? Oh yeah. Gabby Dombrowski.

  No, there’s nothing wrong with Gabby Dombrowski. She speaks three languages and plays four instruments. Nothing, that is, except for the slight fact that Gabby’s also president of the Spirit Club and six one without heels, six five with them on, can kick my ass, and is about to dislocate both my arms from their sockets. For those non-Hackensackians among you, Gabby Dombrowski, in addition to all of the above, just made All-Conference as the star center of her basketball team, which went all the way to the semis, which, in north central Jersey, is really saying something.

  Around us, colored lights strobe and flash as babes, super made-up, in sexy, low-cut gowns, and slicked-back dudes in lumpy rented threads, get down to the bangin’ beats. A wide cross section of the chaos that is high school, perfectly paired off. Jock with jock. Dork with dork. Stoner with stoner. Dweeb with dweeb. You know, the cool with the cool, the uncool with the uncool. But in sets of twos. It’s surreal how it all kind of evens out.

  Only one couple’s disproportional. Me and said Dombrowski. We’re a mismatch in every way. For one thing, although I enjoy shooting a hoop or two, I basically pretty much suck at b-ball. For another, I have no spirit. But the main thing is—I don’t like Gabby Dombrowski. I mean, I like Gabby Dombrowski fine, just not in the way to be with her this way. How could I? I don’t know Gabby Dombrowksi, and for that matter, Gabby Dombrowksi doesn’t know me. Although we are together, we just met three hours ago.

  Another stab of pain shoots through my battered body as Gabby enthusiastically twirls me, which I’m supposed to do to her. Dips me, which I couldn’t do to her. Finally, mercifully, the song ends. Woozy, I smile gamely, trained professional that I am.

  “Thanks, Gabby,” I gasp. “That was, uh, invigorating.”

  My stepped-on feet ache for the band to take five. Instead, the lights dim and I get a smooth segue to a soft, romantic number. Oh God, no. “Stairway to Heaven.” An oldie but goodie. And the world’s longest slow song ever. Gabby beams down at me. I cringe inwardly. Shit. Slow songs, especially superlong ones, are the bane of the trade. And “Stairway To Heaven” is the mother of them all.

  “Gabby, what do you say we sit this one out?” I suggest, rapidly inching away.

  But Gabby’s All-Conference reflexes are way too quick for me. I am nabbed and yanked by the lapels of my just-paid-off tux jacket.

  “Careful!” I yelp. “That’s expensive material!”

  All goes dark as I am buried deep into the vast canyon between Gabby’s well-toned breasts. Lifted and clutched like a rag doll as the time-tested music weaves its spell.

  How did it happen? Where did I careen so far off the rails? All I wanted was to earn a little extra for college. To get something more out of life, better my meager circumstances while at the same time filling an urgent niche in the marketplace. Is that such a crime? I mean, getting ahead, isn’t that what we’re taught we should do? And all for naught. Because, let’s face it, I’m not going anywhere.

  Gabby’s lacquered fingers creep like attacking spiders down my butt. I slap them away.

  “Hey, watch the hands!”

  Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Brooks Rattigan, despised by Shelby Pace, not to mention by most of suburban New York and substantial portions of lower Connecticut. Shunned, cast out by respectable high school society. Scorned by The Murf, my oldest, bestest pal, a great guy who never did me or anyone else a bad turn. Repudiated by my family, what there is of it. Hey, I can’t even stand myself, but there’s not much I can do
about me at this point. So here I wallow in Hackensack. Brooks Rattigan, slimeball, scum of the universe. Brooks Rattigan, tragic figure, a man all alone in the world, doing the bump and grind with Gabby Dombrowski to warmed-over Zeppelin.

  Yes, my friends, I know what you’re thinking. How did you sink to this, Brooks Rattigan?

  Funny. I’m asking myself the very same question.

  I think way back to the beginning. Was it really just months ago? Back to those last, forever-lost days of blissful ignorance. Back before I ventured Beyond the Great Divide, out into Uncharted Waters. Back to September.

  Day One

  “HEY HO, LET’S GO! HEY HO, LET’S GO!”

  The Ramones thrash. It’s my ringtone. “Blitzkrieg Bop,” my personal mantra for senior year.

  I don’t have to crack a bleary lid at the display on my iPhone. I know what time it is, having caused my own misery by setting the alarm. It’s 5:45 in the a.m. I groan. Like any red-blooded teenager, I’m not exactly a morning person. Especially after staying up ’til one desperately trying to find meaning in The Waste Land for my already overdue AP English paper. The friggin’ thing’s written in some kind of top-secret code and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out the key. Poets. I just don’t get them. If they’ve got something all so important to say, why don’t they just come out and say it?

  But the coffee’s preset and brewing and the grains in the hourglass are dwindling. Of the many things I lack, time has become the most precious commodity of all. October 13. Lucky 13. I only get one more shot at this, and October 13’s a mere three weeks off, coming up way too quickly. So, exercising superhuman self-discipline, I grab a cup and halve a stale doughnut from the kitchen and then drag my sorry behind through the cluttered maze that is my room to my even more cluttered desk, dig out the latest, dog-eared prep book, and begin the daily regimen.

  Math review. Data analysis, probabilities, statistics. I drink them in for thirty minutes at the crack of each dawn like my orange juice. Complex equations, figures, graphs that would tax a PhD student besiege my dazed adolescent mind. But it’s cool. Math’s a relative strength, and my most current Nonverbal score inched up last time just within target range. Even so, I can’t be complacent, can’t let the ol’ guard down.

  Because there’s Verbal. It’s Verbal that haunts my long, restless nights. Reading comprehension. Error identification. Sentence completions. Vocabulary. These are the torments of my existence, the peaks I must conquer, or perish in the attempt.

  The SATs. Ten sections. Three hours and fifty minutes. A speck of time that can determine the course of an entire life. A pivot point in aspiring to upper-middle-class existence. Not too much pressure. And don’t hand me that “it doesn’t matter” shit again. Because we all know it does. I mean, ever notice that all the big experts who say it doesn’t matter where you go all have Ivy League degrees? I mean, if it doesn’t matter, why does it matter to so many people who matter? It matters. Plenty.

  And the SATs are key. The so-called Great Leveler between the haves and have-nots. Yeah, I know. Yeah, right. As if you can’t buy a good score like you can everything else. No private tutors, personal trainers, or high-priced SAT boot camps for Rattigan. I’m going to have to do it on my own. Thing is, a good score doesn’t cut it these days, and a great one barely passes muster. No, these days, you pretty much have to be perfect. And the stakes are higher than ever before. Let’s get real: the way the planet is going down the drain, there are only so many Bright Futures out there, and there are more of us competing for fewer spots than at any time in recorded history. I mean, let’s not kid ourselves, these days the Brand is everything. And there’s no Brand like a first-tier school.

  Problem is, getting into second-tier schools is like what getting into first-tier schools used to be, third tier like second. And those old dependable state universities that used to be there, waiting to save the day? Well, think again. You only go around once in the Admissions Game. Screw it up and you’re screwed for good.

  Shuddering, I decide to refortify myself before the next go-round. I pad back to the kitchen. As usual, Charlie’s dishes and crap are piled high in the sink. Even though I’m pressed for time, I scrape, rinse, and load them like I always do. I can’t help myself. I admit it, I’m anal-compulsive. But it bugs me. Big time.

  “Asshole,” I mutter.

  The next hour and fifteen minutes pass in another typical frenzy of panic. I flip pages. I fill in bubbles. I comprehend nothing. I identify squat. My completions are incomplete, my vocabulary’s for shit. I’m doomed. I have no Bright Future.

  It is 7:15. I am already exhausted, and homeroom’s in forty-five minutes.

  As usual, there’s no hot water in the shower. I drip and shiver like a stray dog. But I grit my teeth, willing myself on.

  Ameliorate. Verb. To make better, to improve.

  Example sentence: I will ameliorate my SAT scores or I will kill myself.

  ---

  Now, believe it or not, comes the really hard part of the morning.

  Charlie.

  Usually I make it a point to leave him alone when I split for school. Entire seasons go by without a word between us during daylight hours. And I’m down with it. In fact, I like it. It makes life so much easier. But today I have no choice. Today I have to do what I most loathe—verb, to detest or abhor—doing. I have to bug him.

  His room is even more of a disgusting pit since the last time I was compelled to enter. Although it’s right next to mine, I never go in. It’s not that I’m forbidden or he keeps it locked or anything weird like that. It’s just that I get really bummed out whenever I do go in.

  I switch on the lights and sweep open the curtains. Moldy socks, musty books, and mildewing takeout litter the cheap, stained carpet like carnage on a battlefield. I gingerly step through the darkness to a ratty mattress piled high with dirty underwear, old newspapers, and crinkled wrappers. I recoil. Besides demonstrating astounding sloth and a complete lack of standards and self-control, Charlie’s room is seriously unsanitary. And, with my SATs impending, I have been exercising, eating right, living clean, zealously safeguarding my health. Now all is at risk. I don’t want to complain, but the last thing I need at this critical juncture is to get really sick. I try not to breathe.

  I jab the prongs of the large serving fork I’ve brought with me into the moldering mound.

  “Okay, Charlie,” I say. “Up and at ’em.”

  Nothing. I poke again—much harder.

  Beneath the layers of debris, I discern the slightest of movements.

  “It’s seven twenty!” I bark like a drill sergeant. “You’re going to be late for work.”

  “So what?” Charlie’s voice growls. “I’m always late for work. No one gives a shit.”

  His submerged figure stirs, lifts up, then flops over like a beached whale on its other side to keep sleeping.

  I stand there, fuming but determined.

  “Not today, Charlie. Today I need you up, shaved, and semi-focused.”

  “What’s so great about today?” his muffled voice questions.

  “It’s Friday. You’re meeting Strack at noon.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Edith Strack. She’s my college advisor,” I explain patiently, but erupting internally. “This is my first and only appointment with her.”

  A shaggy head emerges. I am startled. Like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Charlie in natural light. He looks awful. Gaunt, salt-and-pepper stubble, long hair oily and stringy. I mean, the guy looks like a serial killer in a good limited series. My heart stops. My hopes, slim as they are, do a nosedive.

  Groaning, Charlie creaks a droopy lid open.

  “What’s that got to do with me again?” he says.

  “Parents have to be there. I’ve only told you about it like fifty million times.”

  Yes, boys and girls, this is what technically constitutes my father. This wreck of a human being, my sole support. Alth
ough we are flesh and blood, we couldn’t be more different. In a way, you could say Charlie’s my greatest inspiration in that I refuse to be like Charlie. He’s what I most fear becoming. But I won’t let it happen. Unlike him, I will give a shit.

  Suddenly he breaks into a coughing fit, chokes, and turns all red like he’s going to keel over, but just manages to survive by hocking up a massive loogie that, not wanting to be rude, he forces back down. Although I should be used to it, I still gag. And Charlie, he just yawns and scratches like it’s all normal, which it is for him.

  “That coffee?” he asks, sniffing.

  It is indeed. Along with the fork, I have brought a steaming mug. Charlie gropes for it like the caffeine addict he is. But I withhold his chemicals, haggling.

  “It’s really important to me, Charlie.”

  He props himself up higher and opens the other bloodshot eye. I see he’s slept in his clothes. One more item in a long list of what deeply repels me about him.

  “I suppose this means I have to take a shower,” grouses Charlie, not joking.

  I give him the coffee. He gulps it down greedily with both paws. I turn heel and then stop in the doorway.

  “Twelve sharp, Charlie. Don’t be late. I just get ten minutes.”

  Downtown Pritchard’s a ghost town. No Starbucks or Jamba Juice or Banana Republics here. Even at its heyday, Pritchard was never pretty. But once upon a time, at the dawn of another century, my not-so-great hometown had a Sears and a Penney’s and a cool art-deco movie theater. Now they’re rotting away, like ancient tombs. Then GM restructured and the plants closed and the money vanished with them and the rest of the planet moved on. And what was left behind is a hollow, empty place with nowhere to go but further down. Which is why I have to get the hell out.

  As again I weigh the sheer magnitude of my quest, The Murf happily sucks on a fatty the size of a small cigar. The Murf and me go back to preschool and have been in so many mutually compromising situations and shared humiliations that we could blackmail each other for eternity. But bottom line: The Murf’s got my back and I’ve got his. I pick up The Murf for class every morning. Anything for a pal. Besides, he’s right on the way and chips in for gas. And with the Beast—my 1990 Electra, eleven miles to the gallon; they don’t make ’em like that anymore—every little bit helps, believe you me.