The Insiders (13 page)

The waiter came back and poured Mickey some water.

“Could I get a Jack Daniels on the rocks?” Mickey asked the waiter.

“Are you kidding?” Ricardo Pardo asked. He was halfway through his second double Absolut Limon, one ice cube.

“Um, yes,” Mickey said. “I totally was.” He sank lower in his chair. He had to rest his cast on the table, where it lay, messy and brown, a cold reminder of why he was in trouble and how, come Monday, he was probably going to get kicked out of school for good, unless Jackson Frady decided to help him out.

“About that problem Mickey's having at school,” Mr. Frady said to Ricardo.

“Can you fix it?” Ricardo asked.

“I don't see why not,” Mr. Frady said. “After all, I'm on the board. There's just one thing.”

“What?” Ricardo asked. “About these two—they can never see each other again!”

“I agree with you on that. But I was thinking about
our garden in Amagansett. It seems so spare lately.”

Mickey shook his head. He'd seen their garden. It was the size of a couple of football fields and it was right on the water. Normal people would've called it a park next to a beach.

“You want a sculpture?” Ricardo asked. “Is that what you're asking for?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Mr. Frady said. And the two men put their heads together, and began to strike a deal. Ricardo glared at his son the whole time.

Meanwhile, the two women went back to gossiping about Arno's parents, about how they were seeing a therapist in order to put the spice back in their marriage and the therapist was making them do outrageous stuff, like get caught having sex in front of their maids down in Florida. It was disgusting!

“But maybe it could be fun,” Mrs. Frady said, and giggled. Mrs. Pardo rolled her eyes.

Of course, the therapist was Sam Grobart, David's dad. But nobody said that aloud, not in front of Mickey and Philippa, who knew it perfectly well and didn't care.

“I think I need to go to a party now,” Mickey said.

“
Tienes que esperar a tu papá
,” Lucy Pardo said.
You have to wait for your dad
. “Then you can go have your party.”

“Yes, Mama.” Mickey sighed.

“Of course,” Jackson Frady said, “after we resolve this problem at school, we need to discuss just what to do with this boy and our home. He keeps breaking in. We don't like that.”

“He breaks in?” Ricardo Pardo asked. He turned to his son. “
Mira que te va a salir caro!
”
You're going to pay for this!

“But, Papa!” Mickey argued.

“
Cálmate, loco
,” Ricardo said.
Cool it, crazy
.

“Looks like we'll be here for a while,” Jackson Frady said. He smiled and took a sip of his wine.

“We were in love,” David said. He was on his third bottle of beer. He and Arno and Jonathan were still waiting for Mickey and not telling each other the truth about anything.

“If that's true, then you'll get back together,” Arno said. He kept looking at Jonathan as if to say
help me
, but Jonathan didn't seem to want to.

“But she doesn't want to!”

“If she doesn't want to—” Jonathan cut Arno off. “This was supposed to be about Patch.” He had his arms folded. The three of them had gone down to the breakfast area in the Flood kitchen, where they were huddled around take-out Thai food—tom yum soup, spring rolls, roast pork pad Thai, and a lot of Tsingha beer. February Flood had come home with some people and taken over the parlor floor, where they were drinking flaming shots of Bacardi 151.

Arno's phone rang. He took the call, smiled, and began to whisper into it.

David's head was starting to hang down. He pulled his bowl of soup toward him and began to slurp it.

“You are the most miserable person to be miserable around,” Jonathan said. “I mean, you really wallow. At college you'll end up living in a single with no friends but the hall adviser. I'm trying to help you, but man, where's your balls?”

“I thought we were friends,” David said, and slumped lower.

“She's coming over!” Arno said.

He actually got up from the table and danced. Someone who had come down on a beer run snickered and Arno whipped around.

“Get lost, you little fucker!”

Everyone looked and the snickerer was Adam Rickenbacher.

“Leave him alone,” David said. He nodded an okay to the freshman.

“I wonder what he's doing here,” Jonathan said.

“Kelli's bringing Randall Oddy, but she's still coming.”

“We may leave before then,” Jonathan said. “We need to go look for Patch.”

“Look for him where?” Arno said. “He'll turn up. He probably got some really good ice cream and stayed in the store. He probably fell in love with an ice cream
flavor and went somewhere to live with it.”

“The Floods are coming back on Sunday. If we don't find him by tomorrow night, we should go to the police.”

“Oh yeah,” Arno said, and hoisted his beer. “That's a great idea.”

“Well—” Jonathan said.

Arno did a little shimmy. Kelli was coming! He'd already asked to visit her in St. Louis. He'd bought all of Nelly's albums and found Missouri on the map. Who cared if he kept fooling around with other girls? When he closed his eyes, he felt her makeup against his cheek, her soft body against his hard chest…. She was definitely into him. It had to be.

“Arno!”

“What?”

“Stick with us. As soon as we find Patch, you can get back to fantasizing about Kelli.”

“But we haven't even figured out who—” David stopped talking and looked up the stairs. “I need to go talk to that Rickenbacher kid. If he's being cool because he got with Amanda …” He stood up and went after him.

“The only thing that kid ever gave it to is his pillow,” Jonathan said. He stood up and looked at Arno. “Now when are you going to tell David the truth?”

“Do I have to?” Arno asked.

“Kind of. Unless you want your whole life to be a lie.”

The kitchen was pretty quiet now, except for the rumbles coming through the ceiling from upstairs. Arno thought about David. He didn't mean him any harm. He'd spilled some soup on his suit pants and he slapped at the stain. He thought about how upset he'd be at Randall Oddy if he'd made out with Kelli.

“I'll tell him later,” Arno said. “I just hope Amanda gets back together with him. I sure don't want her.”

“That's nice of you to say,” Jonathan said.

“Look, I promise I'll never touch Liza again. I mean Amanda.”

“I just want us to be friends once this is all over. That's all I care about,” Jonathan said.

“That's nice of you to say,” Arno said. And then they were both quiet as they listened to David come back downstairs.

“Was it him?” Arno asked, with a trace of hope in his voice.

“No,” David said. “That was ridiculous of me.” He got another beer.

“Then what's he doing here, anyway?” Jonathan asked. Arno watched, but for reasons he couldn't follow, David wouldn't say anything, or meet Jonathan's eyes.
Arno checked his watch. It was already past eleven. Jonathan went upstairs to see who else was around.

“I guess he's got his own girl problems,” David said. “He's not into Amanda, that's for sure.”

Then they heard the front door bang open above their heads, and there was a kind of crying out that was similar to the noise an unhappy tiger makes, and they knew Mickey had arrived.

“That dinner was hell,” Mickey said. “Philippa's dad tried to blackmail my dad out of a million dollars in art, all to get me out of trouble. They got in this huge argument about it and me and Philippa went to the bathroom together and then we were like, let's just duck out. So we're here. Where's beer?” he asked. But there was none in the fridge. He looked over at David and Arno, who were still sitting at the kitchen table. He grabbed David's beer and gulped it down.

“That's better,” Mickey said. “Philippa's upstairs with Liza and a bunch of other people. And they're even starting to get worried about Patch.” Mickey stared at David and Arno. “What's the matter with you two?” Mickey couldn't figure out the deal with David and Arno. They looked sad about girls, but Mickey knew they couldn't possibly be sad for the same kinds of reasons.

“Those girls love Patch,” David said.

“Because he's nice to them,” Arno added.

“And he's funny.”

“He doesn't try anything with them but he's really good-looking, in a dope-smoker kind of way.”

“When you two get done with your pity party, let me know,” Mickey said. “I'm going upstairs to see who wants to get wasted.”

Mickey turned around and walked out of the kitchen, leaving David and Arno alone. He thought they were the weirdest pair: the black-haired smoothie in the suit and the most sensitive basketball player in the world.

On the way upstairs, Mickey grabbed a bottle of Heineken from some kid.

“Hey!” Adam Rickenbacher said.

“You shouldn't be drinking anyway,” Mickey said.

“You're right,” Adam said. “I have better things to do.” And he scooted out of Mickey's reach and up the stairs. Mickey walked by Amanda and Philippa and Liza, who were whispering, their heads nearly touching. He tried to butt in, but Philippa pushed him away with her elbow.

“Not now,” she whispered.

Just then the door opened and Jonathan's cousin walked in with some artist Mickey vaguely recognized and some other adults who were dressed like kids. He was pretty sure they were adults, anyway.

“Hi, Mickey!” Kelli called out.

“Hey, Ooh,” Mickey said.

She came running over and gave him a kiss. She was dressed in a black miniskirt and a black T-shirt that said
I'm the Talent
.

“Arno's downstairs,” he said. “That dude's in love with you.”

“He doesn't even know what love is,” Kelli said. Mickey raised an eyebrow. She had a point. The artist put a possessive hand on Kelli, who didn't seem to notice.

“I think I know you,” Mickey said to Randall. “And I'm pretty sure my dad says your art sucks.”

“Who's your dad?” Randall looked like he was about to laugh.

Mickey looked back at Amanda and Philippa and Liza. They were really glaring. Not at him, he figured. Not at the artist guy. Kelli. They hated Kelli. That figured. She was pretty hot.

“My dad is Ricardo Pardo,” Mickey said. The guy paled. Suddenly his face was the color of his white leather jacket.

“Oh shit,” Randall said.

Mickey laughed. He didn't like arrogant young art guys any more than the next high schooler. Especially not when they were hanging out with seventeen-year-old girls from St. Louis.

“When's she leaving?” he heard Amanda whisper,
loud. She was always the loudest of her group.

“What do you care?” Kelli said, and squared off against Amanda. Then Amanda got right up in Kelli's face.

“You're screwing everything up,” Amanda said. “You're just lucky you didn't get with the guy I like.”

“Oh, come on,” Kelli said. “What could you even do to stop me?”

“Oh my God,” Amanda said, laughing. “As if I can't scheme with the best of them?” She turned back to Liza and Philippa, but they weren't behind her anymore. Mickey had finished his beer and found another one, where someone had left it on the mantelpiece. The room had slowly begun to fill with kids everyone knew but no one knew that well, and the music had switched to some haunting Belle and Sebastian.

Mickey looked around. He smelled nothing but beer, and he could feel Kelli's artist and his friends whispering about him. He played with his goggles and wondered for the second time that week where his Vespa had gone. Meanwhile, Kelli was still in front of him.

“You know what?” Mickey said. “I'm going to go get Arno. Maybe he can help straighten all this out.”

Mickey whipped around to get downstairs and find Arno, but when he looked, he saw that Arno was already headed their way.

“Kelli?” Arno called out. He had stopped a couple of steps before the landing, so he was cut off at the chest. Clearly he didn't know he looked like a midget, but he felt like one.

“Kelli?” he said again. He looked around, but the big room was dark and the music was loud. And it was Liza who came up to him. She was definitely high on the list of people he didn't want to see just then.

“Do you want to go up to the roof?” Liza asked. He wondered why she hadn't heard which name he'd called. The relevant people—Kelli, Mickey, Amanda—all went still for a moment. And then David walked up the stairs and stood there, watching.

“Liza?” Amanda asked. “Why would you ask that?”

Mickey went over to Arno and clapped him on the back. “You may be looking for Kelli, but I don't think she's looking for you.” Liza continued to stand only a few feet from Arno. Mickey went downstairs.

Kelli, meanwhile, was pretending Arno wasn't
calling her name. She stood with Randall and his two friends. She began to do a sort of shimmy dance. Arno watched her. He thought she looked graceful and smooth. Randall and his friends were clapping.

“I need to talk to you,” Arno said. He'd crept closer, and now his clothes seemed to be dripping off him, his shirt hanging down over his suit pants. Arno knew something was happening to him, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He had no idea what to call it.

“I'm busy now,” Kelli said. “Can't you see I'm dancing?” But then she turned to Arno anyway, and grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him hard on the lips. She said, “That's for taking me to Florida.” Then she went back to dancing. Jonathan came down the stairs, but he stayed back and only watched.