The Insiders (12 page)

“Come on,” Philippa said. “Forget him, can't you?” She was wearing nothing except the red lingerie she'd bought at Le Petit Coquette on the way home from school. Mickey had to look away from her and close his eyes in order to form a sentence.

“Well, Patch has been missing for a while, and Jonathan needs us to help find him.”

“But what about us?” Philippa said, and laughed.

“The other thing I need to do is sneak out of here before your parents come.”

“That's true,” Philippa said. “So you think you're really kicked out of school?”

“Actually, I think my dad is supposed to talk with your dad about that,” Mickey said. He faced the wall, where there was a big painting by Randall Oddy; a beautiful green eye scrunched up and winking. Mickey stared at it. He thought it was pretty cool.

“Since my dad's on the board at Talbot.”

“Right,” Mickey said.

Philippa was supposed to go with her parents to their place in Amagansett in an hour, which was part of the deal she'd made with them after getting in trouble last weekend—that she'd spend more time with them and treat them like human beings and not ATM machines.

“Let's get you out of here,” Philippa said.

“Come over later,” Mickey said. He got up and pulled on his jumpsuit, and looked around on the floor for his boots.

“I can't. Mickey, have you completely given up on underwear? Anyway, you know I'm going away.” He turned back around, and they fell onto the bed, and began to kiss again. But Mickey's phone was ringing, and they both knew who it was.

“I've got to go.”

“Maybe I'll come back on the Jitney and find you tomorrow night. My parents will be sick of me by then.”

“Sounds good. We'll find Patch. And then you and I can hang out. And put in a good word for me with your parents, would you?”

“Maybe that's not such a hot idea,” Philippa said. Mickey nodded, because she was right.

Then he ran down the stairs as fast as he could. He had to get out of there before the Fradys came home. He was now completely forbidden to go anywhere near their daughter. He got to the front door and tried the lock, but for some reason, it didn't give. He pushed, and it seemed to pull. Then it moved on its own.
A ghost?
Mickey reared back as Jackson Frady pulled open the door.

“Ah, Mr. Pardo,” Mr. Frady said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Uh, I was just going to leave, actually.”

“No, Mr. Pardo, your plans have been changed. The six of us will dine tonight.”

“Six?”

“Our daughter, your parents, and of course my wife and I. And you. Six.”

Mickey looked around. He pointed at his chest. Me? Six? Shit.

“We'll take this opportunity to straighten a few things out once and for all.”

Before going out, Arno put on a black suit even though he normally never wore that sort of thing. He thought it would make him feel better. It was a Ralph Lauren purple label suit and he was basically stealing it from his father, who was still down in Florida. Arno was in his room, getting ready to go over to the Flood house. He played Bright Eyes and sang along. It wasn't that he liked Kelli. It was just that she kept saying no. And that was making him feel extremely weird.

“Which one of us would be the foolish one?” he sang out. “Which one of us'd be the fool? Could you please start explaining? You know I need some understanding!”

And then he threw himself on his bed, bawling, without having a clue why.

Then the phone rang. Jonathan.

“Where the hell are you, dude?”

“I'm coming. I'm just …” But he couldn't even think of the word. After he got off the phone, he just
stood there in his dad's suit and a ripped white Oxford shirt, and he wished he had someone to talk to. Finally he had the idea to call Liza Komansky. She'd always been nice to him. She would understand.

“Aren't you over at the Floods? Finding Patch?” Liza asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm on my way there. I'm on the street, but I was thinking it'd be great to see you first.”

“Well you'll probably see me later,” she said, “when the whole thing turns into a party.”

“But I need to see you now.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

“Well,” she said. “Okay.”

They made a plan to meet for a very quick burger at the Corner Bistro, where Arno never got carded.

Arno grabbed a booth in the back where you could practically set off M-80s and no one would notice. Liza came in a few minutes later. It had started to rain. Liza's black hair was dewy and wet and when she sat down, she tried to lick a drop of water off the tip of her nose and Arno reached out and flicked it out of the way. Then they looked at each other. Liza pulled back to the wall and smiled at Arno.

“Thanks for seeing me.”

“No problem,” Liza said.

They ordered burgers and some two-dollar Rheingold, which tasted like colored soda water.

“It's just—” Arno said. But then he couldn't say it. How could he? He was Arno. So he sulked, and he pouted, and he was weirdly unable to do anything but scratch his black crocodile loafer, which was nowhere near as bizarre as what Jonathan wore on his feet. Finally, Liza came over to his side of the bench.

“Do you want me to say it?” Liza asked.

Arno was literally pouting. He was thinking about Kelli, the lopsided grin, the white-blond hair and the dark eyebrows, the way she looked like she was naked and daydreaming about sex even when she was dressed and probably thinking about the next important New York person she could make like her. And now she was somewhere with Randall Oddy and who knew who else, doing some underhanded art stuff, or worse, posing for him or something.
Man
.

“Do you know that story about Courtney Love?” Arno asked. “How when she was fifteen she made a list of what she wanted to do and number three after make a hit record and be an actor in Hollywood was ‘Make friends with Michael Stipe'?”

“Yeah,” Liza said. “That kind of climbing is gross. But you're off the subject.”

“What subject?” Arno asked.

“The thing that you want me to say.”

“Oh, right,” Arno said miserably. “Say it.”

“You've always been really attracted to me and you didn't want to say anything because of Jonathan.”

“Um.”

Liza rubbed Arno's cheek with the back of her hand. She sipped her beer. Their burgers arrived and were placed on the other side of the table. And they both knew that if they didn't eat them in the next five minutes, they'd shrivel and taste like cold rocks.

“But the thing is, Arno, I'm done with Jonathan. I can't wait for him anymore, and who knows what he's up to with Patch's little sister, which is completely batty and disturbing, and anyway … I think about you, too.”

“You do?” Arno looked at his food. He knew he wouldn't get a chance to eat it. Why hadn't he just fooled around with Kelli right when he met her? Then he could forget about her now.

“Yeah,” Liza said. “A lot.”

So Arno leaned over and kissed her, before she said more embarrassing stuff. They ended up making out for ten minutes, then twenty. Liza was pretty hot in an extremely understated way and it was kind of true, he'd always thought she was supposed to be with Jonathan. But it wasn't like he wanted this. In fact, he didn't.

“I need to go,” Arno said.

“Let's not tell anybody about this.”

“That's a really good idea.”

“Not till we're ready.”

“I'm with you on that,” Arno said. “Let's keep it a secret for a long time.”

And after they'd kissed good-bye and he took off down the block, his head went back to the same place it had been since last Friday night, right after he'd stopped fooling around with Amanda and had seen Kelli. Kelli. He wished she'd leave so he could forget her. And what about David? Did David know that he had fooled around with Amanda? Would Amanda have said something? He hoped not. Arno shrugged to himself.

When it came to all this emotional stuff and not hurting people, he really didn't have a clue.

During the afternoon, I bought a new pair of shoes. I don't want to call this a Friday ritual. It's not that at all. It's just that every once in a while, and usually it's on Fridays, I head up to Madison Avenue and buy a new pair of loafers. Today it was a black leather pair with ridged rubber bottoms from Prada and they were pretty hot. They looked like little Porsche Carreras or something, so I went sockless, with some old khakis and a black hooded Penguin sweatshirt over a black polo. I blew two hours before I got myself over to the Flood house, because I had to stop at home and ditch the shoe box, since I didn't want to show up with some extra shoes and have to change—I'd never hear the end of it if I did that.

When I got up the stairs and rang the bell, I felt nervous about David and Arno seeing each other, and knowing that I hadn't handled Flan well wasn't helping either. At least she wasn't supposed to be
around. She was going to the movies and then staying at Dylan's house. And I hoped she wasn't just doing that on account of me being around.

The door opened. David stared at me.

“Everybody here?” I asked.

“Just me and Arno.”

“Oh,” I said quietly. I figured Arno hadn't told David anything, because David looked sad and normal, not angry.

We went into the living room, which one of the maids had rearranged after last weekend's blowout. It looked very clean, and Arno was sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, in one of his father's five-thousand-dollar suits, with a bottle of Grolsch sweating on his knee.

“You look sallow,” I said and sat on a chair between Arno, who hadn't gotten up, and David, who'd taken the couch across from him.

“What's that mean?”

“Pale. Limp. Colorless. Shouldn't you have gotten tan in Florida? How many days of school did you miss?”

“I went in for a while on Thursday,” Arno said. He sounded totally down and David looked unhappy, too. But I didn't think either of them knew
why
they were feeling like that. And I didn't
want to say if they didn't already know.

“I heard they're still calling you the Most Sensitive Guy in the World,” I said to David.

“Yeah. But that kid Adam Rickenbacher is trying to keep people from saying it so much. Maybe it was him that Amanda made out with and that's why he's acting so nice.”

“I doubt that,” I said, and glared at Arno, who was staring at the floor.

Then none of us said anything for a little while. But we were all, I'm sure, mostly thinking that it'd be great if Mickey would show up and fling something that belonged to the Floods against the wall, and then these two could just have it out, discover who did what to whom, and get it over with, so we could all be friends again.

My phone rang and it was Mickey.

“I'm at a dinner,” he said. “Start without me.”

“We can't start without you.”

“Can't be there till ten.”

“
Where
are you?”

“I've landed in hell,” he said, and clicked off.

Mickey, his parents, Philippa, and her parents were in La Palme D'Or, an old restaurant in a house on Charles Street. The place was made up to look like the late 1800s, so everything was lit with candles, all the surfaces were mahogany, and the wallpaper was painted with a thicket of pink flowers. A waiter in a nineteenth-century livery costume delivered their appetizers while everyone watched in silence.

“Now before we get into the trouble we're having with you at home, what about this little trouble at school?” Mr. Frady began as he dug into a steaming plate of snails.

“I'll do whatever you say to make things better, Mr. Frady,” Mickey said. He eyed Philippa, who sat next to him.

“Of course a written apology and community service would be only a beginning,” Mr. Frady said. He was a very tall man with bushy eyebrows, a lot of nose and ear hair, and his own investment banking company. He
always stared Mickey right in the eyes, and Mickey hated him for it. But Mickey knew that without Mr. Frady, he'd be kicked out of school for good. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but he didn't pick it up. He sighed.

“I agree,” he said. He felt Philippa's hand on his thigh and squeezed it. A waiter came to the table and poured wine for the parents and Philippa. He stopped at Mickey's glass, but all four parents waved the waiter away.

Mickey picked at a salad of shredded bits of duck and cabbage that he didn't recall ordering. His silver fork was heavy in his hand and he felt himself sinking into his heavily embroidered chair. A fire burned merrily in a fireplace behind him and Mickey considered chucking himself into it. That or ease a log out onto the rug, wait for it to smolder, scream
fire
, and run the hell out of the place.

Jackson Frady nodded at Mickey and began to speak to Ricardo Pardo, who was on his right. Mickey's father was pushed back so there was room for his belly to breathe, and he was stroking his beard and glaring at everyone. Mickey's mother sat next to him, looking shockingly beautiful in a black dress and plenty of gold jewelry. They were both watching Mickey. Things were bad. Mickey sighed.

“
Hijo de la chingada
,” Mickey whispered.
Son of a bitch
.

“
Haz el favor de comportarte!
” Lucy Pardo said.
Try to behave!

“
Lo siento, Mamá
,” Mickey said.
I'm sorry, Mom
.