“Ow. Quit it”
-Bart Simpson
Brooke Dotry, tired from an
afternoon spent downtown collecting signatures for Green Peace, entered the
living room of the Wrigleyville apartment she shared with her sister Celia.
Celia was sitting on the floor painting her toenails, while their neighbor, Gio,
lounged behind her on the couch. They were watching cartoons and
laughing. Something called The
Animaniacs. Brooke rolled her eyes.
Waited.
She rolled her eyes again,
this time accompanying it with a loud sigh.
“Brooke,” said Celia. “Why
don’t you just watch it with us instead of being such an asshole about
it. It’s funny. God.”
“I might be an asshole,” said
Brooke. “But at least I’m a grown-up asshole.”
Celia flipped her the bird
with the hand she held the polish wand in.
Gio, in the meantime, had
leapt guiltily off the couch and now stood awkwardly, wishing he’d just sat up
straighter. He ran his hands through his hair and grinned at Brooke,
which irritated her. It bugged her that Celia’s little meathead boyfriend
was always hanging around. And it bugged her that Celia kept insisting
that Gio had his meathead crush on Brooke. As though Brooke would ever be
interested in a meathead like Gio.
Poor Gio didn’t deserve this
malignant opinion. Sure, he was good looking in a perpetually tan,
slicked-back hair, leaning towards beefy way that is the common cultural
representation of the American meathead. He also had a very unfortunate
predilection for Zubazz pants. But he was a bright guy and a nice
guy. He worked hard for not much money at a local tavern while pursuing
an MBA at DePaul. And he was one smitten kitten when it came to Brooke.
Gio had crushed on Brooke
ever since the day the sisters had moved in across the hall. He’d helped
them with their boxes, instantly enamored by the pretty girl with her message
tees and extravagant long, dark hair. Later, they shared a pizza while
Brooke held forth about saving the whales and the evil that Bush (the first
one) was doing in Central America. She was smart and passionate… and,
God, that hair! He’d been picturing it splayed carelessly post-coital
across his chest since the day he met her.
Celia found the whole thing
both be- and a-musing.
She slapped him on the leg
and said, “Gio, tell Brooke what you told me.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Gio.
“My boss is desperate for waitresses. I told him about you and he said to
come on in. I bet he’ll hire you on the spot. You can wait tables a
few days a week to make some money and spend the rest of your time on your
environment stuff.”
“Fantastic,” said Brooke
dryly. “I can wipe spills up off the table with my college diploma.
Dad will be so proud.”
“I doubt will Dad will
notice,” said Celia. “And I doubt even more that he’ll mind when you don’t ask
him for rent money.”
“Jesus,” said Brooke.
“There’s a huge hole in the ozone layer and you’re worried about rent.
Who’s paying rent for the planet, Celia? Huh?”
Brooke’s commitment to the
environment was noble and all-consuming. It was also, to be fair, pretty
new. Through her first three and a half years at Loyola. Brooke had
devoted herself whole-heartedly to a series of causes: anti-Apartheid, PETA,
ACT UP. She’d written letters to Lech Walesa and Gloria Steinem.
She’d bounced from worthy cause to worthier cause with boundless energy and
single-minded determination. But nothing stuck until the second semester
of her senior year when she’d taken a class on environmental ethics for
elective credit. Fifteen minutes into the first lecture of the first
class, she found her world both endangered and rocked.
Thus was the great passion of
her life (so far) born.
She worked tirelessly at all
the action items suggested by the professor, putting so much effort into Chicago’s big 20th anniversary Earth Day Event that she barely
passed her other classes. But she pulled it off in the end and graduated
on time ready to take our poor poisoned planet by storm. Brooke was
convinced that all the environmental movement lacked was talent, doggedness and
an extreme level of commitment.
She and her extreme level of
commitment had been active her first post-university summer, waving placards at
sparsely populated rallies, petitioning for Greenpeace, writing passionate
letters to the editor. By August, Brooke had grown used to feeling like a
Cassandra and secretly (not so secretly) enjoyed being so much more prescient
and virtuous than her fellow man.
Of course, all the prescience
and virtue in the world won’t pay the rent. And lately things had gotten
a little tight.
Back in May, at her
graduation dinner, her father had given her a check for $1,000 and some jewelry
that belonged to her late mother. He then, as was his wont, left quickly, eager
to return to his new life, his new wife, his new children. Brooke didn’t
mind. She was used to it. And the $1,000 would certainly be
adequate to finance her until something better came along.
But nothing better had come
along.
