"Destined"

I come from Hornton County- a dead little place smack dab in the creamy center of Bumdiddlefudge, Nowhere. Now, after a second honeymoon in Arkansas, city folk will tell you just how lovely and “rustic” the country is- how quiet and peaceful- like something out of a Danielle Steele paperback. They might say how great it is that everybody knows everybody else (without realizing that it’s because they’re all related). They’re even likely whine about how they wish they could raise their children in such “blissful simplicity” before going back to their mochalocachinos and The View. Maybe they’re right. Maybe the country is a beautiful place, but personally, I know I was tired of staring at hay and cow ass 24/7. Give me the New York skyline any day.


Even as a little girl I knew I was destined for bigger and better things. It was my driving force. My motivation. Do you think I gave a damn about Robert E. Lee and lowest common factors? Hell no! But I bet you I studied my little butt off- aced every test, got straight A’s- because I knew education was a one way ticket out of Dodge. Then I realized all that takes far too long and being valedictorian of a high school in the middle of nowhere that has like five-hundred students doesn’t exactly wow them at Harvard.

To make matters worse, I grew up on a ranch (so sickening, I can’t even eat the dressing now) with my grandma, who couldn’t remind me enough that some day the ranch would be all mine, cow dook and all. I was already prepared enough. Grandma was as old as the baby Jesus’ diaper, so by the time I was twelve, I pretty much had to run the place by myself. Wait, no, that’s a lie.. There was Tucker.

Tucker was our ranch hand- about ten years or so older than me, with a heart of gold, and a head like a (hollow) rock, and a body you could sharpen cutlery on. He actually did most of the work- if not all. But hey, watching him work hard like that could get pretty tiring sometimes, too, especially in the fall and winter when he had to be fully clothed. We were thick as thieves, Tucker and me. He and his dad lived a couple miles down the road from us, and he’d been working for my grandma since he was just a kid, and knew me since I was like three days old. He’s just about the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet…God love him, the dumbest, too… Now, that’s NOT a lie- or me being mean, either. Sometimes I still wonder how far away he is from being legally retarded…But like I said- he’s a true blue sweetheart. He used to play dollies with me when I was little. I hated dollies, but even as a first-grader, I understood the entertainment value in a sixteen year old boy rolling around a petal-pink Malibu Barbie Dream Convertible. You probably think I’m cruel, but I’m sure he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Ever since I could talk, I had the gift of gab. I could talk Tucker into anything (not that it’s extremely difficult). The first few years after I discovered this, I used my powers for evil, but as I matured and grew a conscience, I began to recruit him into more beneficial projects. Most, if not all of them, were centered around getting out of Hornton. Tucker actually didn’t mind Hornton too much He’s a very easy person to please. When life gives him lemons, he makes lemonade and shares it with everyone. But he aided me for the sake of aiding me.

I had the smarts and he had the appeal. The plan was always that I would be the brains BEHIND the operation. I would make Tuck a star (one way or another) and manage his career. I admit, sometimes my ideas got a little… extreme… and good old Tuck would often be the brunt of that. But it was all gravy. He never minded taking one for the team. It was usually harmless- and we when it was something that might have slightly bended the laws, we never got caught. Except for that one time a few summers ago (word of advice- don’t try to hitchhike in a bikini made of processed cheese in 95 degree weather) when he got arrested for indecent exposure, but the charges were dropped. No harm, no foul- and that video got over 230 hits on YouTube. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite spread like the “Chocolate Rain” guy, and we never got asked on The Tonight Show. Other than that, the only other close call we had was that time I got him a modeling gig over in the next town, and the guy at the agency…Well, let’s just say that the guy wasn’t entirely legit and we had to find that out the hard way, and now there are some photos of poor Tucker in a g-string floating around in cyberspace…

But that was just our luck with those kinds of things. Maybe it was because I had a tendency to jump the gun, but I didn’t feel like waiting through four long years of college (assuming I could raise the money) and endless job searches before I could get my piece of the pie. I thought maybe it was because I wanted it too much. By the time I graduated, I began to think that maybe I would have to settle for being…ordinary, but one day- one fateful day- God let down a drizzle of rain on the crusted little seed that was my hope.

It was a day in June, the night of my graduation. Grandma was making a nice little celebratory spread. Just as I’d begun to sneak a little bit of mashed potatoes off the spoon, she told me to summon Tucker for dinner, and because somebody was morally opposed to cell phones (didn’t know how to work one) I had to do so by foot. It took me a couple of minutes to find him in the stables. I could see his shoveling horse patties as I approached. I figured to avoid any unpleasant odors, I’d leave a few feet between me and the barn.

“Hey, Tuck.“

It took me a second to realize that he hadn’t heard me because he was mumbling to himself, or what I thought was mumbling until I listened a bit more intently. He was singing. I smiled a bit in amusement as he got a little louder. I recognized the song. as “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain. I thought it was kind of funny that Tucker was singing a love song, but as my inaudible snickers faded, it dawned on me that he actually sounded pretty good. Then I listened some more, and then it dawned on me that he was very good- damn good- AMAZING! Like an angel! I knew him all my life, and I never even heard him so much as hum! It never crossed my mind that he could carry a tune. For God’s sake, the man still has to recite “Over, Under, Around the Tree” to tie his shoes. Then again, you don’t really need brains to sing. One would think I’d have learned that from old Britney.

“…Tell me we belong toge-“

“Jesus, Tucker!”

“What?” he jumped, whipping around, a bit of poop flying off his shovel as he raised it out of reflex, “Oh, hey, Celia. Snuck up on me there. Almost got hit with the doo-doo shovel,” he said with his signature dopey, but adorably friendly grin.

“I didn’t know you sing! Since when do you sing?” I pressed, my eyes probably still dinner-plate-wide.

“Oh, I dunno. Since always, I guess. Makes me work faster.”

“No. No, you most definitely have not always sung. I’ve never heard you sing before!”

“Well, I don’t s’pose I like singin’ ‘front of people. I’d go all red.”

“Wait, no, you don’t understand- you’re INCREDIBLE! Sing me another verse. Go on.”

His speckled face began to redden.

“I dunno, Celia. Naw, I couldn’t.”

“Sure you can! Come on. For me? Please?”

“Uhm… All right… Uhm…”he scratched his stubble a little as he cleared his throat before beginning, “Rain falls angry on the tin roof…”

The more I listened, the more teeth I showed. He kind of swayed nervously at first but he slowly waxed comfort, and when he hit that one note- my God, the lights in the barn seemed to twinkle in his eyes and they turned the most gorgeous shade of green there is- the color of money.

When he finished his song, I clapped so hard a couple of the horses started to neigh. Maybe I had it all wrong the entire time. Maybe HE was destined for great things and I was destined to manage him.

“Tucker… How would you like to be a star?”

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“Celia, for the fourth time- no. I can’t leave your grandma here all alone. What’s she gonna do without me to run the ranch? She can’t take care of the animals- she can’t even give tours! I’m sorry. If you wanna go, then you can go, but I can’t leave her.”

“But I can’t go, Tucker, I’m not the one who can sing!” I whined, which usually would have worked, but then again, it had never taken me that long to convince Tuck of anything.

I followed after him, continuing, “Besides, you wouldn’t send me off to New York by myself anyway, would you?”

“No, I’d tell you to stay here.”

I scurried to keep up with him and his damn long legs as he stomped over toward the tractor.

“But think about if you won ‘So You Think You Can Sing?’. You’d be able to help my grandma. You could have some improvements made on this place. You could buy your dad a nice place that doesn’t roll. I bet…” I leaned in closer to him, “You might even make enough money to buy yourself a couple of chinchillas…”

He stopped dead in his tracks, making little gurgling sound before turning to me.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Can I name ‘em Chinch and Chong? And take pictures of ‘em holdin’ little toy reefers?”

“You can name them Peanut Butter and Jelly if you want. They’ll be all yours.”

He sighed blissfully, but then seemed to sober a little.

“But wait- what if I don’t win?”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll win,” I reassured him.

“How d’you know?”

Placing my hands on his arms I stepped in closer to him, look up into his face and smiling my warmest, most sincere smile.

“Thomas Tucker Jamison, Junior- have I ever steered you wrong?”

Tucker’s uncle Bo runs the town’s gas station. I convinced Tuck I could talk him into letting us borrow enough gas for the trip, but I never quite got around to asking if I could borrow it and I may or may nor have had any intention on repaying him. But hey- Cecelia Anne Pryor is no thief! Desperate times call for desperate measures.

We set up for some local boys to help Grandma with the ranch while we were gone- that’s twice the number of hands for the same wages she paid Tucker. But was the woman satisfied? Noooo, of course, she never is. The night before we left, she went on lecturing me about how I’m never satisfied and that the city is no place for me and how I’m always chasing waterfalls and blah blah blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to tell me the story (for, no lie, about the 50th time) about how her great granddaddy Lucius was a Buffalo soldier and he saved some white guy’s life and he left the ranch to him in his will or something else that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

The point was that I wanted no part of the stupid, stinky…stupid ranch and I always planned on selling it once I inherited it. She always knew that, I just suppose she hadn’t taken me seriously until then, and when it finally hit her, she was pissed off. The morning Tucker and I left she said goodbye to him with a bag of corn muffins and a kiss on the cheek.

Then she turned to me and said, cold as ice, “Don’t get pregnant,” before shuffling back into the house, slamming the door in my face.

“Yeah, don’t die,” I said, half-wishing she could hear me.

“Excited” hadn’t even begun to sum it up. There I was, an eighteen year old girl taking a road trip to New York with her best friend who could possibly end up rich. I was elated. That is, until I realized how little money we had. We were pretty much confined to the pickup, which was hot as the devil’s toenails during the day. To make matters worse, we had to pretty much ration my Grandma’s corn muffins and I had to pee on the side of the road, and somewhere between Tennessee and Kentucky some Neo-Nazis thought we were an interracial couple and chased us for about three and a half miles throwing beer bottles at us. However, I suppose once we got past the Mason-Dixon line, things weren’t so bad. I kind of liked Pennsylvania, but that’s only because that meant we were one state away from New York.

New York State wasn’t that much different that anywhere else I’d seen, but when we got to the city it was…surprisingly dirty… but “good” dirty. It was new…and yorky. My cousin Edward, who we were to stay with during the duration of the contest, lived in the Bronx. He still lives there, actually. I’d only met him a couple of times at reunions, and he added me on MySpace, and that was pretty much the extent of our relationship, but I figured he couldn’t sell me into sexual slavery with Tucker with me, right?

I knew it had been a while since we last saw each other, but when he came to his door with a full grown beard, wearing capri pants, I had to squint and turn my head to the side a little to recognize him.

“Hey, Cousin Edward,” I said, opening my arms for a hug,

“Asalamalakum, my sister,” he said before we let go.

“I thought he was your cousin,” Tucker whispered to me uneasily.

My cousin turned to him, adjusting his glasses.

“Who is this?” he asked, giving him just about the most reproachful look I’ve ever seem/

“This is my best friend, Tucker.”

“This is the brother who can sing?”

“Uhm, something like that… Is something wrong?”

“Naw, everything’s all white- right- cool. I’m straight.”

“How d’you do, sir?” Tucker smiled, extending his hand.

He took his hand, but instead of shaking it, kind of slapped it around in each cardinal direction before giving him a quick-half hug and a pat on the back.

“You can come on in. Take off your shoes first, though. Don’t want no swine dookie on the shag carpet. Can I interest ya’ll in some bean pies?”

Cousin Eddie was an all right guy, easy house rules; no pork in the house, and we had to call him Raheem Shabazz, because apparently Edward was his “slave name”. Other than that, smooth sailing. He helped us learn the subway system, which was great because Tuck’s audition was all the way in Manhattan and three days after we arrived. My cousin hadn’t even minded Tucker practicing all day, except he kept insisting he sang Trey Songz.

I was so proud of myself the morning of the audition. I got Tucker ready- styled his hair, picked out his clothes, made him a power-breakfast (sans the bacon). He was a regular stud-muffin by the time I got done with him. We got to the audition place all right, and it was PACKED it took about two hours just for him to get his number, and another three for him to get called. They didn’t let me in with him though. I knew he was good, but God, I was nervous. It was like I was waiting in the hospital for him to have my baby or something. Those three minutes were the longest of my life.

When he came out, he looked like he was so full of emotion that it all cancelled out and there was no expression his face. I figured he could either be ecstatic beyond words or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“So? Tell me! What happened? What did they say?”

“I’m… I’m a part of the cast…”

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Immediately, they moved Tucker and his castmates to a big town house somewhere in Manhattan complete with every luxury they want and a full security team, in case some rabid fans decided they wanted to steal their underwear or something. Tucker said he felt bad about leaving me, and that it wasn’t too late for him to pull out, but I wouldn’t hear it. Sure I’d be a little lonely, but it was time for me to take one for the team.

To the untrained eye, it seemed as though those folks at the network treated Tucker and the others like royalty. During the show (which I watched every week) they would show clips of them in limousines, meeting and training with famous singers, and getting makeovers (my God, they put a studded belt on the man) and things that us commoners only wish could happen to us. However, me being an insider by association, I knew that they were treated like spoiled pets, but pets all the same.

Despite the popular belief that the cast members got to party with the stars, it actually turned out they never got to leave the house except to do interviews and go do the show. The producers dictated what kind of food went into the house so they wouldn’t have any tubbies messing up their ratings. Last, but not least- the cast was allowed little or no contact with the outside world. The entire duration of the competition Tucker only spoke to me on the phone three times. Of course, he told me he was doing fine because he didn’t want me to worry, but anyone who knew could see how depressed he was on TV. His performances were still dynamite, but his heart wasn’t in it- not even when he reached the top two- not even when he won. Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and that entire week I tried to get in touch with him to congratulate him and so we could draw up our management contract. I figured that the show was over, so that meant he was a free man. I can’t say how many messages I left for him before I finally just stopped trying. I supposed he’d gotten used to not talking to me, and grew to like it.

I was met with this numbness at first, this disbelief and then finally, this pang deep inside me. Was this it? Was this how it was going to be? There I was, living in a crap-shack with a guy who made his living by selling pirated DVDs and scented oils in the subway while Tucker- who didn’t even want to be there- was doing shows in Rockefeller Center and had forgotten all about me.

I stopped watching all of his interviews. Every time he came on the TV, I’d switch the channel. Whenever his songs came on the radio, I’d turn it off. He’d even gone all Emo on me, singing about how his life was a dark abyss (which he couldn’t even spell) without some stupid girl’s kiss or something like that. I figured it was probably about one of those skanks from “Gossip Girl” or something.

I started at Cooper a year late because banking on “So You Think You Can Sing?” set me back some. I was older, wiser, and tired of fighting the inevitable fact that I was ordinary after all. I moved out of Cousin Edward Raheem Shabazz’s, but not before every article of clothing I owned smelled like Egyptian Musk and bean pie. I’d been doing pretty well, working a waitress job. My grandma passed away not too after started my sophomore year, which meant I had a plot of land and a few dozen deuce-dropping animals to my name down in Hornton to tend to, and by “tend to” I mean “sell”.

I had to take a little breaksy from school to go for her funeral and to handle some business concerning her estate, me being the sole beneficiary. At least, that’s what I thought.

When I met with the executor, after we had our introductions, he said to me, “We’ll begin shortly, Miss Platt. We’re just waiting for the other beneficiary to arrive-“

“Other beneficiary? I’m the only beneficiary, Mr. Lauer. There must be a mistake,” I corrected calmly.

“Uhm…There is another beneficiary listed here,” the executor replied

“I’m her next of kin- her only next of kin. There can’t be someone else. That’s impossible.”

“Well, there is another listed- Mr. Thomas T. Jamison. It says here you two are to split the estate fifty-fifty.”

“God damn it, Tucker…”

“Someone say my name?”

Standing in the doorway was no other than Tucker- wearing a leather jacket and Aviators.

“Hello, Celia,” he smiled softly at me before beginning to approach.

I glared at him, half-hissing, “You’ve got some goddamn nerve, Tucker Jamison, showing your face around here after you abandoned me!”

“Aban-“

“And what’s this about you being a beneficiary? Did you know about this?”

“I… I didn’t know. You thought I abandoned you? I… Wow, my head hurts.”

“That’s not all that’s gonna hurt, Tucker!”

Standing, Mr Lauer stuttered, “I, uhm… I left my car double-parked…” and then he exited.

Inching toward me, Tucker began. “Celia, believe me, I didn’t mean to abandon you. Everything happened so fast.”

“Fast enough to make you forget where you came from? That’s one hell of a whiplash, buddy.”

“My people barely let me talk to anyone-“

“Your people? Listen to yourself! I mean, how could you do this to me? This wasn’t a part of the plan! I was supposed to manage you! If it weren’t for me, you never would have left Hornton!”

“They hooked me up with one of their own managers… It was in the contract, but you know I don’t read too good, so I skimmed it. If I woulda broke the contract, I woulda got sued.”

“And you still couldn’t tell me this? Are you telling me they keep such a close watch on you that you couldn’t call me once all this time?” I shot back.

He hung his head before looking back up at me and saying, “They owned me, Celia. When I signed that contract, I sold them my soul. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Apparently, it’s damn good, Mr. GQ.”

“Even if it was, it ain’t anymore. I retired.”

“What? After a year and a half?”

“You didn’t know? Was all over the TV and the radio.”

“I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio anymore.”

“Well, then I guess you don’t know about my last album, do you?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

“It’s called ‘For Celia’,” he said with a soft smile.

I chewed on my lip a little, holding back a smile.

“Nuh uh…”

“Yuh huh. Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding his head earnestly, “ and the very first track is called ‘Love of My Life’.”

Narrowing my eyes and cocking my head to the side, I asked dimly, “Now why on Earth would you put that on a CD about me?”

And then he kissed me… and turned all red.

“My God, I can’t believe I just did that.”

“Me neither…” I trailed off before looking straight into his eyes, “Better do it again to make sure.”

At the risk of sounding corny, that was the very moment I realized that the one thing that I thought I was missing was at my side my entire life. Grandma was right. My only problem was that I was never satisfied with what I had. It’s true when they say you don’t miss what you have until it’s gone.

I don’t quite abhor the ranch anymore. Tuck and I invested in it to make it more appealing. He’s happy here, so I’m happy here, and the kids love the animals. They got that from their daddy.