Donna Patrick

What Celia Knows Donna Patrick

In the Spring of 1974, Celia Mahaffey has high school all figured out. A place on the Cheerleading Squad. Popular friends. A great boyfriend. She is convinced all these things will set her up for a successful future, the kind of future her mother never considered. That is, until she witnesses a blow-up between her younger sister Marie and their mother, followed by an unusual exchange between Marie and their neighbor Betsy. Celia begins to suspect Marie's increasingly bizarre behavior is somehow connected to an inappropriate relationship with Betsy, but she's unable to make any sense of it, or help her parents get a handle on it. With the tension at home rising, Celia's boyfriend pressuring her for more intimacy in this, his senior year, and then a good friend of Celia's revealing a shocking secret, Celia is trying hard to hold it all together. High school was supposed to be the best time of her life, but as a junior with another year to go, she is beginning to understand that when school ends she'll be saying goodbye to many of the people she loves as they all go off to college. It sucks to be the person left behind. What she doesn't know is that before the school year ends, she'll be losing her sister Marie, any semblance of a normal family, her relationships with the people she once called friends, and even her boyfriend John. Everything around her begins to spin out of her control. She wonders if life will ever be normal again...it's enough to make any teenager go off the deep end, and Celia is no exception.