“Right!” I had never watched a football game in my life, nor did I intend to. I knew approximately four football-related words. Defense, tackle, touchdown, and . . . ummm . . . ball. So we just rotated through those, Courtney shouting from atop my shoulders: “Get the ball! Yay, a touchdown! Tackle that bastard!” I was going to make sure Courtney became a cheerleader if I had to become a hunchback in the process—because cheerleaders, I was certain at the time, didn’t have a worry in the world.
Occasionally Terri would open the back door to check on us, the corded kitchen phone wedged against her ear. She was going through a phase in which she had to spend every waking moment talking to her friend—and our former housemate—Lynn. Though Terri and Lynn had each remarried, they seemed to be having a difficult time living five miles apart. No subject, however mundane or highly personal, was off-limits between those two, which was most likely the reason my sister Jodi barely left her room between the ages of twelve and sixteen. They were obsessed with their daughters’ pubescent developments. On any given day in our kitchen you might hear one side of the conversation that went something like this: “I’m making chicken cutlets for dinner. What are you making? . . . Pork is nice, as long as you don’t overcook it. . . . Bra shopping? How did that go? . . . Oh, Candice is a C? Jodi’s still a B-cup, but I’m sure she’ll be a full C by the time she finishes high school. That’s what I was. You know, any bigger and a different kind of man is interested . . .”
And on it went, all day. The backyard was my and Courtney’s only escape from talk of suburban homemaking and fourteen-year-old-girl parts.
“Could you please not kill your sister,” Terri would call out to me.
“I’ll try, Mom,” I’d yell back.
“I don’t know what he’s doing. He’s got her hair in pigtails and he’s throwing her around the yard.” She shut the door.
By the time I left for college, I felt pretty sure I had aimed Courtney directly toward my—I mean, her—target: unparalleled popularity! How could she not hit the mark? She exuded all the qualities I never possessed in high school: Self-confidence! Joie de vivre! Willpower! A steely poker face when confronted with disappointed authority figures! (If my parents told me they were “disappointed” in me, I would immediately burst into grotesque sobs. But not Courtney. She would look you straight in the eyes like, You think I give a crap about your opinion of me?) Granted, she was only six, but the kid had star quality.
I don’t know too much about Courtney’s high school years because I was in my late twenties by that time, and wholly obsessed with my own love life, career, body, social life, and future. Jodi had moved to Japan after college, and I was living in New York City, so Courtney was basically raised by my parents as an only child. She and I would talk on a regular basis, however, so I knew she was a captain of the cheerleading squad and quite popular. And while she could be sweet and silly around me, I could recognize in her when she spoke about the social dynamics of high school a certain ruthlessness, and a weariness, as if staying on top of the pile was taking its toll. I was so proud of her and yet I felt profoundly sorry for her. I guess I had forgotten to mention, after moving out and moving past, that I was just kidding. Those games we had played, they were just games.
Life went on, as it tends to, if you’re lucky. Courtney married her high school boyfriend after she graduated from college. Today they have two beautiful sons, the older one named Clinton. I got a little choked up when they announced that decision. We talk all the time about things like our marriages and her kids and our parents and our mutual love of wallpaper. And once in a while she asks her big brother for a favor.
*
“I don’t know, Courtney. High school was different for me,” I said. “You don’t understand.”
She was quiet on the other end of the line, then said, “You’re right. I probably don’t completely understand, but I think it would be a nice thing for you to do. There are probably a bunch of kids in this class who hate high school as much as you did. Do it for them. Besides, you’re rich and famous. Who the hell cares what a few brats think of you?”
I accepted the invitation and regretted it immediately. So, I stopped thinking about it until the morning of the graduation ceremony, when I couldn’t ignore it any longer. What did I want to say? What did these kids want to hear? What were they capable of hearing? Would anyone heckle me? Could I cancel? Would they understand just how chic a mustard-brown cap-toe oxford is, especially when paired with a light-gray checked suit?
“Thank you so much for inviting me here today,” I began. “It really is an honor and a pleasure to speak to the Comsewogue Class of 2014 as you embark upon the next phase of your journey into adulthood. I graduated from this very school in 1987. Every guy had a mullet. Every girl had a perm. And the school looked exactly as it does today, like a Lithuanian prison.
“Because I graduated twenty-seven years ago, I’m roughly the same age as your parents, which quite frankly is very . . . how do I say this . . . depressing. Like really, really depressing. Have you seen those people? They are so old. But I won’t be too rough on them because I suppose they’re good people. I don’t know that for sure, but you’re here and not in jail so they can’t be all that bad.
“As I was thinking about what to say to you today, I realized that when I was your age, I never would have taken the advice of some dude who was forty-five. Gross. But I would have listened to that old guy if he told me how to become rich and famous. So, Comsewogue Class of 2014, today I am going to share with you the secrets of becoming rich and famous!
“Secret Number One: Dump the Fucking Assholes.
“Dump ’em! There are people in your life who make you feel great about yourself. Keep them around. For as long as possible. Then there are people who will drain your life force, drop by drop, because making you feel empty makes them feel full. Life is a little screwed up like that. But you have a choice today, and every day until your last day on earth, when you find yourself in the company of someone who makes you feel fat or stupid or ugly or worthless or untalented to say, perhaps not even aloud, ‘You’re a real fucking asshole, and I want absolutely nothing to do with you. Have a nice life, because I’m outta here, douchebag.’
“And if you happen to be dating an asshole, dump him or dump her tonight. And whatever you do, don’t make babies with an asshole. You will be stuck with the asshole for eighteen years, at least.
“Secret Number Two of Becoming Rich and Famous: Don’t Be a Fucking Asshole.
“Everybody here today—every student, parent, teacher, grandparent, television host—is guilty of being an asshole at one point or another. We all say insensitive things every once in a while. We all commit little acts that hurt each other from time to time. But your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to be an asshole as rarely as possible.