The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Today on Hooksexup's TV blog: Don't make Charlie Sheen angry, Candy Man. You wouldn't like Charlie Sheen when he's angry.
When we got to the school, the Commodores' "Brick House" was booming out of the cafetorium doors. Officially ready to party the night away (thanks to one-and-a-half cans of Stroh's beer she drank in the car), Cathy grabbed my hand and pulled me out on to the dance floor. She immediately started dancing wildly, jumping and gyrating as if she were a featured dancer on American Bandstand
"Hey Cathy, what's goin' on?" yelled one of her friends. The girl, who was wearing a form-fitting Danskin leotard dress as if she were a cast member of A Chorus Line, made a face at Cathy whose meaning I could only decipher as "Who's the dork you're with?" Cathy made a big smiley face back at the girl that seemed to convey both "Shut up," and "I know, can you believe it?" The two girls laughed to each other across the dance floor, then Cathy turned back to me and gave me what I think was supposed to be a sexy look. I forced a smile back at her, and Cathy began dancing even more wildly, whipping her head from side to side. I became hypnotized by the fact that her rock-hard, flying-saucer-shaped hairdo was completely immune to the centrifugal force her actions were exerting upon it.
As the song started to wind down, I noticed that Cathy's dancing seemed to lose its initial intensity. She was still gyrating in a sort of belly-dancer-meets-drunk-guy-at-the-accounting-department-Christmas-party way, but her face showed she was becoming preoccupied. By the time the song faded, she threw me a look and said, "I'll be right back." And with this, she walked very quickly out of the cafetorium.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing on the side of the dance floor with my friend Tom, whose date was off talking with some of her friends.
"Where's Cathy?" he asked.
"I don't know. I think she went to the bathroom or something."
"I wonder if she's talking to Dan," said Tom. "I haven't seen him in a while."
I hadn't even considered this possibility and quickly grew concerned. But my concern immediately turned in to a hope that she was talking to her ex-boyfriend. I concocted a plan in which I would walk outside and discover Cathy and Dan making out and then play the sad, jilted cuckold as I walked home through the rain in my dress clothes while sad music played on the soundtrack. Looking forward to my new role as the Misunderstood Romantic, I headed out of the cafetorium to find Cathy. However, as I entered the trophy-case-lined front lobby of our school, her friend Sandy ran up to me.
"Paul, Cathy's in the bathroom, and she's really sick. "She's throwing up and everything."
"What?" I asked, my mind reeling with horrific images of Cathy on her hands and knees, in her dress, heaving into a school toilet.
"Does she have the flu?"
"No, it's because of the beer. I think it made her sick," Sandy said, looking upset.
I immediately lost sympathy for Cathy and my feelings of ambivalence about our date now turned to indignation. This is what she gets for downing a beer two minutes into our date, I thought to myself. If the idea of spending an evening with a nice guy like me was so hard to face that she had to turn to booze for moral support, then she can just heave all night for all I care. But I forced a concerned look onto my face and said, "Oh, man, I hope she's okay."
"She's really upset," Sandy said. "She's crying and everything. She said she didn't want to ruin your evening."
Too late, I thought. "Oh, she shouldn't worry about that," I said. "I just hope she's okay."
"She's fine. We got her cleaned up after she stopped barfing about five minutes ago. I'll see if she's ready to come out." And with this, Sandy disappeared into the bathroom. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The idea that Cathy had been vomiting put the final nail in the coffin of my make-out fantasies. The mere mention that she had to be "cleaned up" made me wish she would simply stay in the bathroom all night, since the thought of seeing Cathy with puke stains on her already less-than-enticing dress was making my stomach sore. Before I could formulate any sort of a plan, the bathroom door opened and a contrite-looking Cathy emerged. There were no stains on her dress, but her makeup had taken a hit. The blush on her cheeks had been wiped clean and reapplied with even less competence than her mother had demonstrated. Her eyeshadow had been repaired by simply doubling its already heavy dosage. But it was her mascara that had borne the brunt of her emotional and gastrointestinal outburst. The black from her eyelashes had run and commingled with her liner, giving her eyes a Norma Desmond-meets-Alice Cooper effect. She walked over to me, her eyes cast down at the floor.
booming out of the cafetorium doors. Officially ready to party the night away (thanks to one-and-a-half cans of Stroh's beer she drank in the car), Cathy grabbed my hand and pulled me out on to the dance floor. She immediately started dancing wildly, jumping and gyrating as if she were a featured dancer on American Bandstand
looking upset.
