“You may not like
The things we do
Only idiots
Ignore the truth”
A trio of women sat on the back porch, laughing and drinking beer. “Oh, God this takes me back,” Celestia said, listening to the music. “Haven’t heard Adam & the Ants in years.”
“We’re old, ladies,” Luna sighed.
“Oh, please,” Velvet mock grunted, swigging her beer. “Tia, you look like you’re in your mid-thirties and your fiancé is in his mid-thirties! Hell, Lu looks younger than that and landed a younger guy, too! Meanwhile, I’m old and gray and frumpy and shit.”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “Here we go again: Vel goes off on another ‘I’m getting old’ tirades—”
“—while looking far hotter than anyone her age,” Luna agreed. “You’ve met our friend Abby, right?”
“Yes, I’m familiar with Abacus Cinch,” Velvet replied.
“She’s two years younger than you, Vel,” Celestia commented. “Abby’s a great friend, but she looks like she’s in her fifties. You don’t.”
“Not making me feel any better, Tia,” Velvet responded.
At this point, Twilight and Sonata came out of the house, carrying some of the telescope gear. “Oh, hi!” Twilight said to them. “We were just going to go up to the top of the hill and watch the stars and some fireflies.”
“You didn’t go to the fair?” Velvet asked her daughter and niece.
Twilight shook her head. “No. Sunny and the others went there, but Soni and I really didn’t feel like it.”
“Besides, there’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, which is supposed to be super cool!” Sonata added.
“Skipping a chance to get boys’ attention and just focusing on other things.” Luna gave a smirk. “I remember being that young and innocent, once.”
“When were you young and innocent, Lu?” Velvet teased.
“More innocent than Tia was.”
“Don’t get started, ladies – I really don’t think we should bring that up right now.”
“Uh, bring what up?” Sonata asked, her natural curiosity and military training combining into a laser-like focus on Celestia’s words.
“Oh, we were just talking about when we were just a little older than you were, Sonata,” Celestia said, running a finger against the edge of her depleted beer bottle. “In fact, like normal, I suspect the conversation was probably going to veer towards the day when Night and Velvet first dated.”
Velvet narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare get started on that, Tia.”
“Is something wrong, Aunt Vel?” Sonata asked.
“Yeah, I don’t recall this story either,” Twilight admitted. “I know you met Dad in college, but—”
Twilight’s statement was interrupted by Luna’s sudden laughter. “You never told them this?”
Velvet was silent for a second. “I have my children to consider,” she said primly. “As a child psychologist, I am not allowed to scar them for life.”
Hearing her mother’s comments, Twilight asked with reluctance, “Do we want to hear this?”
Sonata, however, grabbed one of the empty chairs and sat down. “Sure, we have a few minutes to kill, Twily. Besides, we’re growing up! It’s not like it’s anything scandalous. And given what I do, it’s not like it’s anything out of the normal, right?”
“Oh, you sweet summer children,” Celestia said softly, looking at Velvet’s death glare before beginning her tale.
Canterlot, California
1982
“It’s easy to lay down and hide –
Where’s the warrior without his pride?
You may not like the things we say –
What’s the difference, anyway?
“We’re gonna move real good
(Yeah, right)
We’re gonna dress so fine
(O-kay!)
It’s dog eat dog eat dog eat dog eat dog eat dog eat dog eat dog
Leapfrog the dog
And brush me, Daddy-O!”
“IS SOMEONE GOING TO GET THAT, FOR FUCK’S SAKE?!”
The knocking grew louder, so much so that Celestia didn’t know if that was the door, or the hangover beating against her head. One thing was for sure, though: she felt like shit. Getting off the couch, she managed to stand up and take a step before she slipped on a beer bottle and went flying. She went spinning backwards, fortunately crashing right back onto the couch. “Fuuuuuuuck,” she groaned.
She raised a hand in the air, staring at it. “That was my skull,” she decided. “I’m soooooo wasted.”
The knocking began again, and she shouted, “HOLD YOUR GODDAMN HORSES!” She forced herself back to her feet, then stumbled over to the stereo, an expensive German rack that she’d blown a small fortune on. Slapping a familiar set of buttons, the station changed over from the New Wave station to the AOR one, and the sounds of Cheap Trick started to blare through the apartment, which she immediately started to try singing to:
“The dream police, they live inside of my head
The dream police, they…fuck, I don’t remember the rest of the words….”
Well, fuckit – she was awake, the knocking was probably – maybe – coming from the door, and neither of the two other bitches in the apartment were bothering to answer it, so that left it up to her. Dodging the various spent bottles of alcohol on the already-seriously-in-need-of-cleaning carpet, she walked over to the door and opened it, the light blinding her as she did.
Night Light stood at the door, and as he saw who had opened it, he remembered a conversation that he’d had with his older brother, Nocturne Breeze. Nocturne had attended the US Naval Academy and was now a Navy pilot, despite a more restrained collegiate career than Night had the past four years, the younger sibling had never forgotten the words that had been drilled into him by his brother.
“Night, you’re going to go to college. College means girls. Drunk and stupid girls doing drunk and stupid things. Don’t take advantage of them or else you’re going to seriously fuck up your life. Otherwise, have fun!”
Those words came to mind right now as the girl who asked – well, all but demanded – that they go out on a date today opened the door. Celestia. He’d talked to her a couple of times before, and she did intrigue him. She was an Italian-born girl who had moved here to Canterlot from San Diego, where her family had immigrated to when she was eight. She had fair skin, hair the color of the morning dawn, and luscious lilac eyes. Moreover, she was standing at the door right now, topless and nearly nude…though that “nearly” part was qualified by the fact that she wore white panties so sheer that it was clear that the carpet matched the drapes.
Also, she stank like a brewery.
“Oh…hiiiii,” she slurred.
“Um…did I come too early?” Night asked. It was noon, and while he’d slept in this morning, he figured she’d be up by now.
“Uh, no…I think,” she said. She seemed to wobble standing up.
“I think we should probably go inside,” he suggested gently. While there was no one around, it didn’t look good to have her standing at the door like this.
“I’m drunk, I think,” she told him. “Also, like my tits?”
He chose not to answer that.
A second later, he heard an angry growl from behind Celestia. “Tia, you fucking cunt!” The vulnerable beauty was pulled away from the door, and someone far soberer poked her head out. “Oh, Night! Uh…fancy meeting you here?”
“Hi, Velvet.” Where Celestia was a drop-dead sexpot, her best friend and roommate Twilight Velvet was a study in contrasts, falling squarely into the “perky cute as hell” department. Night had taken a few classes with her in the past year and they’d struck up a friendship. Twilight was a San Diego native, the daughter of a descendant of one of the original pilgrims on her father’s side and Spanish settlers in California on her mother’s side. Celestia and Velvet were lifelong friends, the kind that was just one step shy of sisterhood; and Night felt a slight jealousy in that. He had few friends growing up due to his introverted nature, and the only real constant was his younger brother, Evening, who was two years younger than him.
“Hi, Vel,” Tia slurred. “Night’s here to take me to bed and fuck me silly.”
“I am?” he asked, eyebrow raised in confusion.
“No, he’s not,” Velvet said, giving Night an apologetic glance. “He’s going to help me carry you to bed, then he’s going to go have lunch with me so that I don’t end up murdering you.”
“That’s nice,” Celestia slurred. “Can he squeeze my tits?” She then attempted to grope herself as if in demonstration, and the sight of a girl so hungover that she couldn’t find her own breasts was a sight Night was not going to forget anytime soon, for all the wrong reasons.
“No, but if you don’t shut up, I’m going to see if I can cut off what little oxygen gets to your brain, understood?” Looking at Night, she said, “Grab her legs and help me carry her. Also, if you really are interested in her, you’re probably going to get a full view of her body in a second.” Night flinched at that; while he did find Celestia attractive, clearly this was not one of her better days.
“Don’t worry, I think we’ve passed that point already,” he deadpanned.
Grabbing her legs and Velvet her torso, they carried the drunken pastel-haired woman into her bedroom, ignoring the “Whee! I’m flying to the castle!” comments Celestia was murmuring. As expected, Celestia’s room was an absolute mess, with posters on the wall, clothing everywhere, and atop her dresser, a tank that appeared to have a furry pet living in it. Unceremoniously dumping her on the bed – a waterbed, no less – Night averted his eyes while Velvet slipped a t-shirt and sleeping shorts on her friend, then throwing her comforter over her.
As both left Celestia’s bedroom, Velvet said to Night, “Let me go get my purse and then we can go grab lunch at Penguin’s. It’s my treat.”
“Really, you don’t have to, Velvet.”
“No, I do. For one, Night, you were a gentleman there. You could’ve easily taken advantage of Tia, but you didn’t. Secondly, I know she demanded you take her on a date, and she fucked that up. As it is, I’m going to have to yell at her already for the shit we’re going to have to deal with Luna.”
“Luna?”
“Tia’s kid sister. She just started Canterlot State last semester, and she’s only eighteen. She was the dark-haired one that wanted to go skinnydipping in the pool last night. She’s sleeping it off in the bathtub – didn’t want to risk taking her back to her dorm room.” Velvet quickly popped into her room, and Night got a view of that; unlike Celestia’s, Velvet’s was the very picture of a neat and clean, well-organized person. “Okay, ready to go.”
“You sure they’re going to be okay while we’re gone?”
“Probably not, but right now I’m so livid with both of them that frankly they deserve their hangovers.”
Velvet took a bite of her omelet. She and Night were currently at The Purple Penguin, a diner just off Avenida de la Merced in downtown Canterlot. At the moment, the two were talking about their respective pasts.
“So, yeah, family moves into the house across the street from ours, and one of them’s the same age as me. And wow, they had just moved from Italy, so yeah, I wanted to get to know her. And that’s how Tia and I became so close. It helps that my older brother, Everblue Sky, dated Tia and Luna’s older sister, Armonia, for a little while. And given that my own sister was a prissy little shit – still is, honestly – Luna never tried to make friends with her and instead just hung around with me and Tia as much as she could. Trust me, that’s been good and bad.”
“How so?” Night asked between sips of coffee.
“Tia and I have always been as thick as thieves, but Luna always thought we were ignoring her. Not the case, but with a four-year age difference, you can see how someone would think that. Anyway, Tia and I were the popular girls at our high school and when Luna finally showed up, she decided that she wanted that popularity, too. It was around the time that she was going through puberty and going from a fairly chubby kid to a real looker. Anyway, she hung out with the punks, metalheads and proto-Goths, started wearing black and calling herself ‘Nightmare Moon’. Long story short, Lu publicly embarrassed her sister and she and Tia got into a fight. Tia broke Lu’s arm, and Luna was so terrified that she spent a week at our place. Tia was grounded for a month, and it took a long time for those two to make amends.” She shook her head and chuckled. “I swear, trying to get those two to make up? Felt like a thousand years had passed before they even started talking to each other.” She then gestured for him to talk.
“Well, as for me, not much to talk about, really. Dad’s an astronomer for the Large Telescope Array on Mt. Lassen, and Mom’s a musician. Me and my brothers were all born here in Canterlot, but we mostly grew up in Ponyville, which is a small farming community about a hundred miles east of here. Easier to get to Dad’s job that way. Didn’t know too many boys growing up in Ponyville, but got a few dates in here and there – strangely, the population there is skewed towards majority teenage girls, even now.
“My brother Nocturne went to the Naval Academy and became a Navy fighter pilot; he’s currently stationed with a fighter squadron down in Alameda. My younger brother, Evening is taking music classes over at UC Horseshoe Bay, though he commutes to and from an apartment with me. Most of the time, though, he spends a lot of time with his girlfriend, who attends Canterlot State like we do.”
“I’m not hearing much about you in all of that,” Velvet said sadly.
“Not much to tell about me,” he admitted. “I’m the quiet, solitary sort. To be honest, the only reason I talked to you is because you’re so…well, perky.”
She giggled. “That’s funny, usually people want to talk to me just so they can get Tia’s info. She’s got a lot of...well, I guess you could say ‘admirers’; once they get to know her they find out she’s not exactly girlfriend material. Still, she’s like a sister to me, so….” Velvet shrugged.
“I see,” he said. “That’s a shame; she seems like a nice person.”
“She is, believe me, but she’s the kind of girl that’s going to take a decade or so to settle down. Maybe when she’s thirty she’ll get married, but when they say ‘sow your wild oats’, Tia decided she’d go carve up a farm’s worth.”
Despite his sorrow, Night chuckled. “Well, thanks for taking me out to lunch.”
“Hey, that’s not a problem. Sorry to break your heart on that, but hey, you needed to know the truth. Just hated that you had to see her like that.” She signaled for the check.
“Yeah,” he said glumly. Then he thought about it a second. “Hey, what’re you doing for the day?”
“I don’t have anything really planned aside from letting Tia and Lu dry out, why?”
“Well, I already bought the tickets to go see the movie, and it’d be a shame to let them go to waste.”
“Night Light, are you asking me out?” Velvet asked with an amused grin. “What would Tia think?” He blanched and she grinned. “I’m just kidding, of course. What movie is it?”
“One-Trick Pony; it’s playing at the Palladium. I hear Rhymin’ Simon is supposed to be great in it.”
“I’ve been wanting to see that for some time now,” Velvet admitted. She thought for a second. “Okay, sure, I’m in. What time’s it at?”
“In about an hour.”
“Good – let me find a payphone and check out how the Sleeping Stupid Brigade is doing.”
Celestia finally woke up to the smell of bacon cooking. She got out of bed, feeling as though she wanted to throw up. The bed turned into a blossom of fabric as she leapt out of it, making her way towards the sanctuary of the porcelain goddess. A second later, the sounds of a massive amount of retching could be heard coming from the bathroom.
There was a knock at the door. “Sis, you okay?”
“No, I’m fucked up, stupid,” came the response. “Why the fuck do you think I feel like?”
Luna sighed. “Look, I made break…well, lunch.”
The brief sounds of a faucet being turned on and some motion, followed by the shutting off of the same faucet and the door opening. “We actually have something to eat here?”
“Yes, there was some bread in the pantry and some bacon and cheese, plus a few condiments, so I made grilled cheese with bacon sandwiches.” Luna looked at her older sister. While Celestia was still in her sleeping attire, Luna wore a San Diego Chargers jersey and cut-off shorts. “Let’s not fight, okay? We’ve done enough of that over the years.”
“Fine, fine.” She went to the refrigerator and opened it. “Wow, we really do have to do some grocery shopping.” She smiled and said, “Hey, at least we have a six-pack of Shasta left. Want one?”
“Sure,” Luna said as she plopped a sandwich in front of Celestia and in front of her. As the younger girl sat down, they both briefly said grace before eating.
“This is good,” Celestia said between bites. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, well, consider it my way of saying sorry.” Celestia looked at her oddly and Luna said, “I pressured you and Vel to take me to that party. I know I’m not legal age, but I did it anyway, and I got drunk an—”
Her tone immediately set Celestia’s protective instincts into gear. “What happened, Lu?”
“I…nothing. Just, look, I really don’t want to talk about it and I’m probably never going to see him again, okay?”
“Luna….”
“Look, we didn’t do anything, okay? I think he knew that I was drunk and not as old as I said I was, and….” She sighed. “I just feel really embarrassed about it. Also, I’m missing my underwear, which is just as embarrassing.” Celestia scowled at her sister, but Luna didn’t back down. “Look, I didn’t say anything to you when you were practically forcing your boobs into what’s his name’s face!”
“You mean Night, right?” she murmured. Her eyes then lit up in absolute fear. “Oh, fucking God….”
“What now?”
“I think…well, I hope things work out for the best, because if Moni ever hears about this, she’s going to kill me, then you, and maybe Vel for letting us get away with it.”
Luna blanched; their older sister was a handful and a half. “Well, lucky for us she’s got that internship at the Smithsonian, right? She lives on the other side of the country.”
“When has that ever stopped her?” Celestia replied.
Luna paused, then took a bite of her sandwich and gulped. “You might be right about that,” she admitted shakily.
The phone rang right at that moment. “Looks like Ma Bell wants your attention,” Luna commented.
Celestia grunted, took a swig of her soda and walked over to the phone. “Hello?”
“Well, about time you fucking woke up, moron!”
“Good morning—”
“Afternoon.”
“Whatever. So, what are you doing?”
“Well, I’m on your date. By the way, Night is an absolute gentleman. He helped me carry your drunk, naked ass back to your bedroom. Just be glad you weren’t trying to date Hotshot. You’d probably wake up next to him, with his dick in your—”
“Don’t remind me. Look, tell him I’m sorry and I’ll make it up to him.”
“No, you can tell him yourself…after our date. Taa!” Unceremoniously, Velvet hung the phone up on her. Celestia stared blindly at the phone for a second, then hung it up.
“Well, there goes my day.” Sighing, Celestia went back to the table to finish her food. “Maybe there’s something good on television or something. You going to be okay staying the weekend over here instead of at your dorm?”
“As far as I know,” Luna told her. “I don’t think we have a dorm mother or anything of the sort. Besides, it’s not a lie if I tell them that I’m staying with my sister, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She got back up from the chair. “Be right back; going to go get the TV Guide and see if anything’s good on.” Because this is definitely going to be my day, she said to herself. Growing old and alone with nobody to keep me warm.
A couple of hours later, Night and Velvet stepped out of the theatre, smiles on their faces. “That was an awesome film!” Velvet chirped. “I especially loved the part at the end, when Soft Parachutes said he refused to muddy his integrity and it meant that if he never had another hit again, he was going to stick to his guns!”
“Yeah, but he kinda lost his career at that point,” Night said, scratching the back of his head.
“And if he’d followed the advice that Big Music gave him? Yeah, sure, he would’ve had that hit, but he would have been performing in a genre he didn’t like and would’ve lost the respect of his estranged wife and kids. Sure, the movie kinda ends on an ambiguous note, but I’d like to think from the way that Dusty Rose looked longingly at the phone after they ended their call, that they’d get back together in the end.”
“A sucker for good endings, huh?” Night asked, and when Velvet nodded, he grinned. “Same here. I remember seeing Farewell to the Land two weeks ago when it came out – went with my brother and his girlfriend – and oh, you want to talk about a bleak film?”
“I know,” Velvet replied as they made their way towards Night’s car. “Especially the scene when Mountainside looked at Landscape and told him that even though she loved him, she refused to marry him because of her parents. That she was willing to give up her own happiness and her future for her selfish parents – it made my blood boil.”
“Yeah, I have to admit, I don’t get that either,” he replied as they arrived that the car. Ever the gentleman, he unlocked and opened the door for her before heading over to his side. “I mean, if I had kids, I would want the absolute best for them. I wouldn’t want to relive my life vicariously through theirs.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Velvet replied. “There was a girl who was a friend of mine and Tia’s – Lilac Lotus – whose parents tried to control her life. Probably succeeded too, sadly. But I know when I get around to having kids, I would never want that for them.”
Night nodded in agreement as he started the car. “That sounds fair enough. And speaking of which…anything else you want to do next? Or did you want to check in on Celestia and her sister?”
Velvet rolled her eyes and blew some strands of hair off of her face. “Nope – fuck ‘em. I said we were going on a date and I meant that. So, since we have some daylight left, you up to some minigolf? There’s Puttin’ Place over in Bella Vista; it’s pretty cool. Plus, they also have an arcade – and I’m probably the best Pac-Man player you’ll ever see.”
“I’m a Space Invaders guy myself.” He thought about it for a second. “Sure, I’m game – but on one condition: if I get to pay for dinner, okay?”
She gave him a perky smile. “Sure! And then dancing over at WaveLink’s? It’s the best nightclub in town.”
He paused. “I, uh, haven’t been to one before.”
She laughed. “No better time to start, especially if you’re going to date Tia!”
Luna, ever the sci-fi nut, watched the episode of Star Trek with deep interest. “Hey, sis, you ever think we’ll have things like communicators?”
Celestia, on the other hand, was barely paying attention. “Like what? Sorry, I don’t speak nerd.”
“Pocket-sized phone thingies?”
Sprawled out on the couch, a beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, Celestia scoffed. “Yeah, right – have you seen those ‘mobile’ phones that are in cars? Those things are like bricks! I guarantee no one’s ever going to have anything like Star Trek – that’s just sci-fi shit.”
“No, I bet in a dozen years they probably will, and you’ll probably be addicted to it, like you were all the time on the phone back home,” Luna teased. “If they had one where you didn’t have Mama tell you to get off the phone? You’d probably have your face plastered to it or something.” In response, Celestia merely set her beer down on the coffee table and casually flipped her younger sister off.
A thought came to the older sister. “You got any money?”
“Yeah, some of the allowance our parents send me, why?”
Celestia looked at the clock on the wall. “We’re probably going to have to order dinner or some shit, since I suspect Vel’s not going to be home in time.” The young woman grimaced. “She’s out right now probably fucking Night’s brains out or something.”
Luna grinned and grabbed her own beer; even though she wasn’t of age, it wasn’t like Celestia cared. “Well, one, are you saying I have to pay for the pizza?”
“Yes, because I’m letting you stay over for the weekend and I’m not bitching about you drinking my beer, right?”
“Why can’t you pay? You’re the older one.”
Celestia sighed. “Because I was stupid and gave Cottonmouth my last $50 so he could buy weed.” She grunted. “I thought I was going to get laid. Instead, I found out that no matter how big the guy’s dick is, if they’re high as fuck, they’re not doing shit. That’s what I get for trying to date a stoner.”
Luna sat up. “Wait – I thought you were dating Night?”
“No, I only agreed last night because….” She blushed and didn’t say anything.
“Did you say something?”
Celestia sat up and scowled. «Vai a cagare!» she snarled.
“Hey, no need for that!” Luna shot back. “I’m being serious, sis!”
Celestia was silent for what seemed like the longest time. “Do you remember that fight we had in high school?”
“My arm still twinges where you broke it,” Luna replied, absently rubbing her arm.
“Yeah. Well, do you remember why I broke your arm?”
“Well, yeah, because I was going to—”
“Well, you were – I presume – only going to pretend to. I actually did.”
Luna’s jaw dropped. “You what?”
“Yeah.” Celestia curled up into a ball on the couch. “His name was Bookwise, and he was an associate professor here. And I…well, I was just a girl, college freshman, coming off being the queen bee of my high school. I was eighteen, hot and, like the song goes, I was going to be ‘somebody’s baby tonight’. He was in his mid-twenties, charming, worldly.” A nostalgic look came over her face. “I was smitten, and I knew I had his attention. I kinda kept that attention up after the semester was over and I moved on to another class.”
“I think I know where this is going.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you do. Anyway, I stayed late one day because I wanted to talk to him and I had some genuine questions that I needed some help with in one of my other classes. I, uh, didn’t get that help. What I did get was waking up the next morning in his bed. And I spent the weekend.”
“So you slept with one of your professors.”
“Former professors – I wasn’t in his class anymore, and if you want to be technical, he wasn’t really even a professor, just a student teacher. Anyway, after I got back to our dorm room, I told Velvet about it. Needless to say…she wasn’t happy. Said she’d heard about Bookwise and how he looked at a lot of girls. I told her she was crazy and that I knew it wasn’t true. Plus, I was my own woman, and it wasn’t any of her business – it’s not like we’re family or anything, so why did she give a fuck?”
Luna took another swig of her beer. “That’s not the smartest thing to say to Vel, sis.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. We fought for about a week, and then afterwards she got that part-time job that let her move out of the dorm. She suggested we move in together, but I was stupid. I didn’t have to pay for an apartment since I was living in the dorms and given how few people were living in the dorms at the time, I figured I’d end up with my room all to myself, so I said no. She said she was worried about me and I told her she was being stupid about shit.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, Vel got her apartment—” Celestia gestured to the place around her, “—and I stayed in the dorms for my first year. Except I really didn’t stay there. I kinda moved in with Bookwise and, well…it was a very physical relationship. Very physical. I was blind, okay? I was ‘a woman’, quotation marks and all, I’d bagged me a nice guy and I was going places! And all it cost me was my friendship with my best friend; my own dignity, though I didn’t know it at the time; and ultimately, my own self-respect.”
“I take it you didn’t tell our parents about this.”
“Would you, if you were in my shoes? Mama would have freaked out because I was sleeping with Bookwise before marriage. Papa would have gotten on mine and his case because ‘his precious little girl’ was being ‘soiled’ by some guy who didn’t have a lick of Italian blood in him or some shit. And at that point, my friendship with Vel had seriously broken down to the point that we weren’t even speaking to each other, other than the occasional hi in the classes we shared.”
Luna listened, somewhat surprised. Her picture-perfect sister was starting to sound very much like Luna herself did back when she’d stupidly nicknamed herself “Nightmare Moon” and hung out with the wrong crowd. She could easily see Celestia doing something similar, calling herself “Daybreaker” or something equally inane and doing all the wrong things. Only the difference was, in high school, Luna could afford to fuck up her life because there was still time to fix things. Out here in the real world of college, such a mistake was likely going to ruin you for the rest of your days. And now she was saying that she’d danced with the metaphorical devil in the pale moonlight.
This was definitely not the prissy sister she knew.
Undeterred, Celestia continued. “At the end of the school year, Bookwise told me that he had some big news for me. And like the stupid bimbo that I was, I thought it meant he was going to pop the question. And he did…but not to me. You see, he was already engaged to some girl who was attending Harvard on the other side of the country and he was going to move to be with her. I pretty much threw a fit and demanded that he leave her for me, but you know what he said to me? He looked at me and said, ‘Tia, you’re nothing but a dalliance. A fun fuck. Sure you’re intelligent – but you’re not smart. Guys like me don’t fall in love with little girls like you.’ And then he left me at the restaurant with the bill.” She laughed bitterly. “At La Fantaisie, no less.”
“That’s that really expensive restaurant out in San Palomino, right?”
“Yup. The place where a side salad costs as much as my car. Pretty much wiped out my savings having to pay for it. And worse, because I came with Bookwise, I didn’t have a way to even get back to my dorm. So I did the only thing I could: I called Vel. Thank God she was home and was in the white pages.”
“I called, heartbroken, and told her everything. She dropped everything to come get me, bring me back to her place and we made up. She forgave me for all the stupid things I said and all the stupid things I did. For not believing her. For being rude to her and all that. And then the week after, I moved out of the dorm and moved in here, and then I got that part time job at the County Library.”
“And Bookwise?”
“He left my stuff in a paper bag on the front door of his place. Vel went to pick it up and he told her he never wanted to see me again. She apparently got pissed at him for that and she said she slapped him as hard as she could for what he did to me. And that,” she said, looking at the empty beer bottle in her hand, “was that. So if you want to know why I was so hard on you for last night’s shit…it was because I didn’t want you to end up like me.”
“Like you?”
“My last three boyfriends after Bookwise,” she said, counting them off her fingers. “Macadamia Nut, who I think needed a mother more than a girlfriend; Short Fuse, who had a major temper on him and probably would have tried to get physical with me in the wrong way if it wasn’t for the fact that I started to get into SCA to blow off my frustrations; and, well, Cottonmouth. Cotton was the one who got me into SCA, but I don’t think he’s going to go many places in life, especially when he owes his girlfriend – or at this point I should probably say ex-girlfriend now – $50.”
“Then why Night? I remember him from last night and…he’s a nerd. Definitely not your type, sis.”
“And maybe that’s why. Because it’s something that I know I want: stability. A guy who will see me for me. A guy who will look and see Celestia, a sweet Italian-American girl with a nice personality and brains rather than Tia and ‘my she’s got awesome tits and oh boy can she fuck all night!’”
She curled into a ball on the couch again. “And I probably just fucked things up with him big time. After all, he’s now out on my date with my best friend and the worst part? I can’t blame either of them. Because I’m the fuckup here. I’ll probably always be the fuckup.”
Luna didn’t know what to say, so instead she added, “Hey, nothing against Vel – I love her like a sister – but if he’s not thinking about you right now, clearly he’s not boyfriend material.”
“Or maybe just not my boyfriend material,” was Celestia’s morose reply.