The Stand-In Read online

  Bopping, exhaling a ginormous cloud, The Murf cranks up the Stones—we are classicists—and offers the aromatic blunt to me.

  I’m sorely tempted. My gut’s churning, and a quick toke would certainly take the edge off. But with my impending interview with Edith Strack, I have to be on my toes and keep my wits about me. So instead I sternly say: “You better lay off that shit or you’ll end up like my old man.”

  “Oh, c’mon, we’re seniors,” The Murf responds. “It’s our sacred duty to get wasted.”

  He takes another giant hit. I hurriedly roll down my window, brushing out the potent fumes. Can’t chance Strack smelling anything on me.

  “Hey, that a new shirt?” The Murf inquires.

  It is a new shirt and I am pleased that The Murf—that anybody, in fact—notices. This morning I’m impeccably groomed. Hair neatly parted and combed, wearing shoes that shine. I’m looking sharp.

  “Old Navy?” He tilts his seat way back.

  “Only the best. The Gap,” I say. “First impressions are essential.”

  The Gap. Fancy-schmancy. The Murf, attired in a tie-dyed Brian Jonestown Massacre T-shirt and torn sweatpants that hang loosely on his gangly frame, is suitably impressed. He reaches to experience the upscale fabric. I shoot up a warning hand.

  “No touching the material.”

  The Murf leans back and closes his eyes to enjoy the buzz. “You’re in an outstanding mood this morning,” he observes, sarcastically.

  It’s true. I am a jerk this morning. Since senior year started, I’m a jerk too many mornings. I feel bad. It’s not The Murf’s fault that I’m totally losing it.

  “Sorry, just bracing myself for The Cold Dose of Reality.”

  “The what?”

  “The Cold Dose of Reality,” I explain, grateful for any chance to expostulate—verb, to discuss, to examine at length. “When Strack tells you where you’re going, and more importantly, where you’re not going, to college.”

  The Murf’s untroubled countenance clouds over, and he looks at me like he’s about to have a small seizure. Between you and me, lately I’ve begun to notice that whenever I bring up my admission process with him, he gets that way. Even so, I plunge on.

  “Every aspect of your application’s assigned a numerical value. Strack adds them up and then breaks down your list of colleges into three categories. At the top there’s your Reaches, which in turn are divided into three subcategories: Far Reaches, Near Reaches, and your basic Hail Mary. Getting into any of them is the equivalent of winning the lotto.”

  “That’s the great thing about CC, man,” The Murf says contentedly. “It’s open admissions. Long as I’m eighteen and breathing, they gotta take me!”

  CC. As in community college. I give him a pitying look. The Murf’s complete lack of ambition’s a running, sore topic between us. Despite my unrelenting advice, The Murf refuses to take all guidance.

  “Which leaves your Fifty-Fifties,” I continue. “Odds are you should get into at least one or two of these suckers. You’d think that’d provide a scintilla—noun, iota, trace amount—of security but it doesn’t. Why not, you wonder?”

  Actually I know The Murf doesn’t wonder, not remotely. But I can’t stop the self-punishment.

  “Because there’s no guarantee you’re getting into a single one of them either,” I wail. “What if nothing pans out? Suddenly, you’re in free fall, being sucked down a black hole into nameless oblivion. You frantically latch on to a nondescript safety school and pretend to grin and bear it, but it’s slit-your-wrists time.”

  Settling for a safety school. The dreaded worst-case scenario. I’m beside myself. In dire need of solace.

  But The Murf’s staring out his window at the football field, where the Poms are rehearsing for tomorrow’s big game, as we turn into the parking lot. A super-endowed one leads the others in cheers, shaking and thrusting in a tight sweat suit.

  “DO IT AGAIN!! HARDER! HARDER!!” she exhorts.

  The Murf’s glazed eyes are black dots, transfixed.

  “I’ll do it again, baby,” he murmurs. “Just give me a chance.”

  I coast into a space and cut the engine, regarding him in exasperated disapproval.

  “Murf, our entire futures are at stake. How can you think about sex with Julie Hickey at a time like this?”

  “Are you kidding?” he answers. “It’s all I think about.”

  See what I mean? The dude’s hopeless.

  We cross the vast lot, joining the exodus of kids heading to serve out their time at Pritchard High. I trudge like a Sherpa, hauling about fifty pounds of textbooks in my pack. The Murf flits about, free as a bird, carrying nothing.

  “Whoa, check it out!” he says.

  The red Beamer shines like a beacon in a sea of used economy cars and beat-up clunkers. I approach it reverently.

  “Wonder whose it is?” asks The Murf.

  “Burdette’s,” I answer. “His old man ordered the new Mercedes CLA250. Guess it finally arrived.”

  Burdette’s old man is a professional, an orthodontist, and a bit of car nut. When he moves up a notch in automotive class, so does Burdette. I tell ya, there’s no justice in the world.

  “You mean this belongs to that dick?”

  “This, as you so indelicately refer to it, is a BMW 335i,” I say disdainfully. “Twin 3.0 turbos, four-wheel ventilated disc brakes, and a nine-speaker sound system. A new peak of precision German engineering. Do you have any inkling what these suckers start out at?”

  The Murf shakes his head. It’s beyond his grasp, almost beyond mine too.

  “Try fifty large. And that’s starting, without all the essential extras.” I caress the hood like a lover, caught up in the perfection that only major money can buy. The Ultimate Driving Machine. Someday, I vow. But who I am fooling? Right now I’d do backflips and bark like a seal for a car that starts reliably and has a working CD player.

  “Hey, Brooks,” says a girl’s voice, penetrating my fine automotive reverie.

  It’s Gina Agostini. She smiles shyly my way, every voluptuous inch of her, more enticing than ever.

  “Hey, Gina.”

  Gina and me, we’ve been circling each other since late middle school, when our respective hormones kicked in. And recently, the circles have been getting tighter and tighter, if you catch my drift. Another few close encounters of the kind we’ve been having and we could become an unofficial official couple, a condition that doesn’t displease me in the slightest.

  “It was fun the other night,” she smiles again—meaningfully.

  I quiver, reliving the sublime sensations. I’m not one to talk out of school, but it was at that.

  “Fun?” I stupidly grin back at her. “Try life-altering.”

  She laughs. And bats liquid-brown eyes, which I’m adrift in. “You going to Fluke’s kickback Saturday?”

  “Yeah, I hear his granny bit it so his ’rents are out of town,” The Murf chimes.

  “Maybe I’ll see you there,” Gina says invitingly.

  I soak in every voluptuous inch of her. But then I spot Burdette’s new hand-me-down Beamer, and it evokes an even more pressing mission. Somehow I summon inner strength.

  “Sounds amazing, Gina, but unfortunately I already have other plans.”

  “Too bad. Should get pretty sick.”

  She slowly sashays away to rejoin her girlfriends at the edge of the lot. I admire the softly swaying, hip-hugging view. So does The Murf. I shake my head. Man, that was close. The Murf turns to me, incredulous.

  “Have you lost it?” he demands. “What other plans?”

  “I’m hooking up with a hot SAT practice book.”

  “Gina Agostino! Oh, c’mon, Rattigan! You can’t let that get away!”

  He makes a valid point, which doesn’t help my resolve.

  “Nope, from now on, I’m in training. Until 11:31 on October 13, yours truly is going monk-mode. No diversions, no temptations, no getting sidetracked. Which means no kickba
cks, no parties, no social gatherings of any persuasion. This body’s a temple. Which means no alcohol, no illegal substances, and absolutely positively no babes. Until 11:31 on October 13, we’re talking concentrated concentration. Total focus.”

  The Murf rolls his eyes. He knows me too well.

  “You’ll never make it.”

  High Noon

  We’re packed tight, lambs to the slaughter. No, that’s too good for us, we’re even lower on the devolutionary scale. We are paramecia, we are pond scum. For there’s nothing more pathetic than a first-semester senior, except for a first-semester senior with his or her parents about to have their collective illusions shattered. And there are at least twenty of the aforementioned sweating it out in one cramped institutional space. You can cut the desperation with an X-Acto knife.

  The door to Strack’s office gapes open. Tricia Prindle staggers out, sobbing. Tears flowing, snot running—I mean, just wailing. We hastily clear a path to avoid her bad karma.

  Ten minutes with Strack has rendered Tricia Prindle into quivering cafeteria Jell-O. Tricia Prindle. The name may not register with you, but boy, it sure does with me. Tricia Prindle’s Little Miss Perfect, first-class brownnose, all-around suck-up. You know, straight-A student, signs up for every activity there is to pad the resume. Of course, she’s not taking any AP or honors courses, nothing too challenging that might actually threaten the precious GPA. But still, all things considered, I must concede, an extremely solid candidate for higher learning.

  Tricia’s parents straggle after her, trying to keep it together. Mom’s all limp and needs to be physically supported, Dad’s biting on his hand so hard he’s drawing blood. I gulp. This does not bode well.

  “Next!” snarls Regina Severance, Strack’s evil secretary. Severance could be Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS’s twin, that is, if you add forty pounds and thirty years to the mix. “Have your questionnaire ready, and your answers had better be legible!”

  I happen to know my head’s next on the chopping block, but I look around along with the others, playing innocent, stalling for time.

  You see, it’s ten after twelve and Asshole’s not here.

  Severance squints through her scary-thick bifocals at my name pulsating on her computer screen.

  “RATTIGAN!”

  Miserably I grip my many painfully completed sheets, documenting in mind-numbing detail seventeen years of modest achievement. Although I try to be invisible, I’m like a flashing neon sign in the shape of an arrow pointing down at me, the only kid without a parent. Plus, I’m squirming. Severance, sensing weakness, zooms right in.

  “Well?” she glowers. “Where is your parent? Why are you parentless?”

  “Have a heart,” I plead. “He’ll be here. Just give me another minute . . .”

  “Going once!” she crows.

  There are over six hundred kids in my class and only two guidance counselors, and the other one’s been on maternity leave for like five years. I have to see Strack. I have to make an Indelible Impression on her. I must get her to give me a Glowing Recommendation. It’s Now or Never.

  “Another minute, please. I have to get my Glowing Recommendation!”

  “Going twice!”

  I sink to my knees, groveling. “For the love of all that is good and holy, I beseech you! Beseech, verb, to beg, to demean oneself completely!”

  “Going, going . . . ,” she says, eyes gleaming, index finger poised above the chopping block.

  “No, don’t delete me from the System!” I yelp, “I’ll never get back in!”

  And then, just as I’m about to become history, Asshole strolls in, mellow as can be. He notes the heavy silence, the somber kids, the angst-ridden parents.

  “Jesus, who died? This place is like a funeral parlor.”

  Leaping to my feet, I grab Charlie by the collar and drag him bodily back to Severance’s desk.

  “One bona fide parent!” I proclaim in quivering triumph. I’m heaving, sweating, soaking through my new button-down Gap shirt, an utter embarrassment to myself. But I do have the small consolation of ruining Severance’s day. Her bloodlust has gone unsated, her kill denied. Scowling, she allows us passage. But I know and she knows this will not be forgotten. From now on, I am on Severance’s permanent shit list. Thanks, Charlie.

  He smiles at me, most likely already baked. “Guess I just made it, huh?”

  I want to strangle him, but gathering what’s left of my dignity, I merely propel him through the inner door to Stack’s lair. Suddenly we are plunged into darkness. My flesh goes clammy in the rank, stagnant air. It’s like entering a crypt.

  “Sorry, Brooks, traffic sucked,” Charlie whispers.

  “This is Jersey. Traffic always sucks!” I hiss back at him. “The one time I ask you to do something for me.”

  In the gloom, yellowed files are piled high on the floors, on shelves, everywhere. Each folder a hopeful future, with big plans and unrealistic aspirations. The numbers are staggering. If the waiting room wasn’t traumatic enough, I am now crushed under the true immensity of my insignificance.

  “Mrs. Strack?” I venture.

  Dwarfed by rusty, overstuffed file cabinets, a small figure hunches behind a large drab government-issue desk, stacked high with more folders. She slowly looks up from a bulky computer that should have been junked decades ago. Her eyes are sunken, her skin waxen and pale. We’re talking Crypt Keeper. Again, not a promising sign. I tremulously deposit my file on her desk. Up close, she looks way too shrink-wrapped for someone I happen to know is in her mid-thirties.

  “It’s Ms. Strack, not Missus. Ms. Strack.” The pencil she’s gripping snaps in half in her hand. “I’ve never been married. I have no personal life.”

  She giggles. Not knowing what else to do, I chortle along with her. Charlie, giving me the wary eye, chuckles nervously.

  “It’s all such crap!” she laughs uproariously. “Jimmy’s potential is unlimited, Janie’s surface is barely scratched, Bobby would be a tremendous asset to any institution. I know it’s crap, and the colleges know it’s crap. Nobody reads what I write, but I have to write it anyway. Do you have any comprehension what it’s like to crank out six hundred student recommendations by myself on antiquated equipment for peanuts, year after year after year?”

  “Crap?” Charlie ventures.

  “Such crap!” Strack howls, obviously not a well woman. “Sit!” she grunts, pointing.

  There’s a small clear space between teetering stacks of files on the couch. Charlie and I wedge ourselves into it. I give him the once-over for the first time. He’s marginally presentable, clean-shaven for once, hair tied back in a ponytail, and in a relatively clean uniform. And not uniform in the metaphorical sense. An actual bona fide blue postal one. Yes, I’m the son of a mailman.

  Strack gravely peruses my vitals with a jaundiced eye as she unscrews a gigantic thermos of what has to be, by the way her hands are vibrating, her tenth cup of coffee.

  “There’s no Mrs. Rattigan?”

  “My mom’s kind of out of the picture.”

  Strack’s expression actually flickers with interest, appraising Charlie. Then he speaks.

  “He means my old lady split on us nine years ago. Not a word since. Not even a stinkin’ Christmas card . . .”

  Way to pour on the charm, Asshole. Charlie’s suitability as a mate is instantly rejected and dismissed, as well it should be. Pouring into a truck-sized mug, Strack spills coffee all over my pristine, hand-printed questionnaire. She blots it dry with some other student files.

  “Only two schools?” she notes, as I knew she would. Two schools, while not unheard of, is a little off the beaten path.

  It’s either Columbia Early Decision or Rutgers. My choices couldn’t be more stark or extreme—am I to be one of the rarefied few or one of the common rabble? Those, I’ve decided, are my only two real options. So I’m going for it. Columbia Early Decision means I can hear in December and have to commit to go if I’m accepted, which statisti
cally is supposed to improve the odds a few decimals. But Columbia Early Decision’s a dangerous roll of dice, because Columbia can also turn you down flat, which means then I’m out of the derby for good. There’s no Late March, when in the Greater Applicant Pool I might possibly shine. I’m done, over. The strategy’s Do or Die.

  “The Ivy League,” Strack continues. “Aiming rather high, don’t you think, Brad?”

  “Brooks,” I correct meekly.

  Aiming high? I’m shooting for the stratosphere. Last year, Columbia received 33,531 applications and accepted 2,311. That’s a 6.89 percent acceptance rate. Seven out of a hundred. That’s way, way up there, just after Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Daunting as they are, the numbers only tell a small part of the story. Because these aren’t 33,531 anybodies applying, these are 33,531 super-high achievers. The valedictorians, class presidents, all-everythings; the offspring of zillionaires, of celebrities; the legacies, the kids who invented some huge new app in their bedrooms. But, like I said, at least if I go down in flames, I’ll go in style.

  “Columbia,” Strack sighs.

  Yes, Columbia. Because it’s close by, in the City that I love. But mostly because, unlike the Big Four, Columbia might actually, possibly, really be doable for me.

  “There are many other excellent institutions besides those in the Ivy League,” Strack says, which is what I expect her to say.

  “That’s what I keep telling him,” Charlie interjects. “Who needs a degree from some fancy bullshit school? You can get a great education anywhere.”

  I glare. Charlie shifts sheepishly. “Besides, I don’t have the bread.”

  “Columbia is very expensive, Brad,” Strack says, as if I need her or anyone else to remind me. Tuition runs almost forty-seven grand. That’s one year, not four, without room and board.