The Insiders (14 page)

“I'll bring you anywhere you want to go,” Arno said to Kelli.

“Yeah?” Randall said. He inserted himself between Arno and Kelli. “What's your point?”

“Because I love you!” Arno yelled as he pushed Randall out of the way. He couldn't help it. Randall sort of staggered, but Arno didn't see him. He'd finally figured out what to call what he was feeling.

“Come on,” Kelli said. She had white eyeliner around her eyes and her lipstick seemed to do a neon flicker in the light from the Floods' chandelier.

“No, I really do.”

Jonathan and David stood with Liza and Amanda. They watched Kelli and Arno in silence.

“If you love me,” Kelli said loudly, “then why did you fool around with Amanda half an hour after you met me?”

David, who'd been in the middle of a sip of beer, sagged suddenly. Out of the corner of his eyes, Arno saw.

“David, I'm sorry,” Arno said. But David only turned and went up the stairs.

“I'm going up to the roof,” Liza announced, to nobody in particular. Arno saw her look back a couple of times, but he couldn't meet her eyes. So Liza strode up the staircase.

“Are you all right?” Jonathan asked Liza. He sort of half-grabbed her leg as she passed.

“Get off,” she said, and kicked at him.

“Huh?” Jonathan asked.

“Dude, you need to chill,” Kelli said to Arno. “You're losing friends by the second.”

Arno shook his head. He felt so confused.

“Yeah. Let it go,” Randall said.

But it was too late. Arno had dropped down on both knees and his eyes were closed. He raised his hands up and clasped them together.

“Love me,” he said. “I'll do anything.”

“Oh, man,” Kelli said. “Like I don't have a boyfriend back home who's quarterback of our football team and could kick all your asses!” And she laughed. “Jonathan, didn't you tell your friends that? I mean, I'd have thought you would've.”

“Say what?” Jonathan asked. Arno opened his eyes and glanced up at the staircase, where Jonathan had taken a seat after Liza kicked at him.

“That doesn't matter,” Arno said. “Nothing could compete with what I feel for you.”

“But Arno,” Kelli said. “I don't want to be tied down. I just got here. I'm just getting started.”

I got down to where Arno was and I tried to pull him up, before he could think too clearly about what Kelli had said, but he struggled away from me. It was both extremely weird and no surprise at all that Arno had met his match in Kelli, but this was obviously the wrong time to comment on it.

“Kelli, you never told me about any boyfriend at home,” I said. And as soon as the words came out of my mouth I knew they had about as much value as Arno's humiliating love plea.

“I don't care about your boyfriend,” Arno said. “Stay here and let's live together.”

“Where?” I asked. “In your room at your parents' house? Are you insane? Come with me.”

And then I literally dragged Arno out to the front stoop. When I looked back, I could see Kelli looking at me, and she gave me a big wink. I just
shook my head.
Thanks for letting me come out with you
, she'd said. I remembered how simple that had sounded, cut with a hint of country. And now, among other things, she'd destroyed my friend.

Arno let out a moan.

“It'll be okay,” I said.

Out on the stoop the night was surprisingly warm. I looked back behind me and realized that the party was growing. We hadn't even begun to look for Patch.

Arno plopped down on the steps and put his head in his hands. “Dude, what am I going to do?”

I kind of patted him on the shoulder, which felt ridiculous. Some girls walked up the steps and stared at him like,
that's Arno
? They shook their heads in amazement and went inside.

“She's wrong for you,” I said.

“I love her.”

I took a deep breath. “Arno,” I said, “Kelli's a user. She could never love you. Look what she just did to you in there.”

I figured the truth would make him sit bolt upright or something. But his head stayed down around his knees.

“I don't care,” he said. “Nobody ever made me
feel like that before.”

“Can you be more specific?” I asked, and then when he looked up, I wished I hadn't. I remembered back in fifth grade, when he'd figured out that if he let them, most girls would make out with him, even girls like Molly, who supposedly liked other boys, like David.

“Most times girls come up and they smile and they say whatever junk they like to say and I pretend to listen and then we fool around. I don't even have to be coherent.”

“But Kelli wasn't like that.”

“Right.”

“She played you is why.”

“No—dude, it was more than that.”

“Then why did she just humiliate you and now she's downstairs with some hot-shit artist and you're out on the stoop crying on my shoulder?”

“There's something else,” Arno said.

“About Amanda? She's pissed is what I figure. She thought she was blowing off David for you and you were going to step up and go out with her in a real way. As soon as I'm done with you I've got to go find David.”

“No,” Arno said. “This other thing is as bad or worse.”

I stepped back then, and wrapped my hands around the iron railing. I'd flashed on a vision of Arno with Flan. No, I didn't even need to take it there—them together in a room talking, that was enough. Flan would complain to him about my unwillingness to be with her and Arno would fix that as he slipped her tank top off her shoulders.

“What could be worse?” I asked. There were icicles between my toes. Icicles or razors.

“I fooled around with Liza.”

“Really,” I said. And I knew there was more wonder in my voice than anger. Liza was my friend. And probably she was in pain, which explained that whole other aspect of what had just happened.

“You're in trouble,” I said.

“I know,” Arno said. “I'm starting to wonder if David was right. If Patch were around, none of this would have happened. Anyway, I don't understand who I am now that I'm in love. What can I do to make things better?”

I didn't tell him that was ridiculous. The music had gone up inside the house. I knew that we had to get out of there and find Patch before someone else decided to be in love with Kelli.

“I'll figure something out,” I said.

After David had heard what Kelli said to Arno, he'd wandered upstairs and eventually found himself sitting on an old leather couch in the Floods' library on the third floor in the back, where the walls were covered with Frederick Flood's collection of nineteenth-century nude photographs. The room brought back good memories for David, because the five friends used to sneak in there when they were in middle school, and they'd spend hours viewing the collection.

Now David sat quietly and took it all in again. Since he'd last been in the room, Mr. Flood had collected a whole bunch of old globes that lit up from the inside, and there were tons of art books stacked on low tables. David had his hood over his head. He should have known it was Arno all along. He'd just been unwilling to admit it. He hadn't even gotten to the part about figuring out who convinced whom to fool around with whom. Then the door clicked open. David looked up. Kelli stood there.

“You know what you remind me of?” Kelli asked as she closed the door behind her.

“No, what?” He figured she'd probably say Kenny, from
South Park
. Everyone else did. And he didn't think she knew about the Most Sensitive Guy in the World thing.

“Just a really good guy. Like a Harrison Ford's costar type. Like Josh Hartnett, with the square jaw.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Your only problem is your ex-girlfriend Amanda is a total bitch.”

“She is not,” David said, but his heart wasn't in it. He knew she kind of was. She'd fooled around with one of his best friends. But he loved her anyway. He understood that love could be that way—he hadn't been brought up by a pair of therapists for nothing.

“And she's not my girlfriend. I broke up with her after she cheated on me.” But when he said it, he realized there was a part missing, and it rang hollow. “Arno. She cheated on me with Arno.”

“I'm sorry it came out the way it did,” Kelli said. “You can talk to me about how you feel if you want to.”

So David told her the story, about how he'd fallen in love with Amanda and how they'd had such an amazing time together, and yet at the same time how she always felt kind of out of his reach. And by the end of it, Kelli
had her feet up in David's lap and they were both drinking from the same extra large mug of rum and Coke that Kelli had brought upstairs with her.

“You know what,” Kelli said. “You really are a sensitive guy. Maybe not in the whole world, but you know, you're sensitive.”

“Stop,” David said.

“You don't even want to beat up Arno?”

“Sure I do.”

Kelli just shook her head. It looked as if she were thinking. Then she stood up and went to the door.

“Don't,” David said.

“Don't what?”

“Don't leave.”

She smiled. She turned off the overhead lights, and turned up the lights in the globes.

“It feels like we're floating in the middle of the Milky Way,” David whispered.

She came back to the couch and sat down.

“I've so totally wanted to hook up in New York,” Kelli said.

“You haven't?”

“Nope,” she said. “Not once.”

And she was really close to David. He could smell her warm skin and he was reminded of that first night when he met her, how he just had this kind of
instamatic crush on her. Not like with Amanda, where she had to keep saying no till she'd gone away for the summer and then she came back and sort of begrudgingly fell in love. This was different, he thought. And he was kissing her.

“Not with anybody?” he asked.

“Nobody,” she said, and sort of laughed. “I was never going to go anywhere with Randall Oddy. He's so weird, and so much older.”

She got up again, and this time she put a chair against the door.

“Wow,” David said. “Some people could say I'm doing this just to get back at Amanda and Arno.”

“Shut up,” Kelli said. They'd fallen onto the rug, which was thick and purple. The globes glowed above them.

“Take off your sweatshirt,” Kelli said. “I think that thing's been holding you back. I don't think you should wear it anymore.”

“I will if you take off your shirt,” David said.

“I already did. Can't you see?”

“Oh,” David said. “Oh yeah.”

I went down to the kitchen to find David and Mickey. A bunch of February Flood's friends were eating at the table. They'd thrown away our leftovers and were having their own feast of food that had been ordered in from Odeon—roast chicken and fish and plastic dishes of spinach and carrots. February had taken over one side of the table. She was wearing a spiked dog collar and picking her teeth with a bone from what looked like the remains of a trout.

“Sit down, Jonathan,” she said.

“Why?”

“Do it.” And her friends suddenly got up, chicken legs and tuna steaks in hand, and drifted away. So I sat down across from February, and started eating some of someone's sweet potato fries.

“What's up with you and Flan?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because when she called just now she said she wasn't coming home if you were here.”

“Where is she?”

“She didn't say.”

“But I didn't do anything,” I said, as if that were true or relevant.

“And I'd thought you went out with Liza, but when I came downstairs, Liza was looking all upset, and she says it's because she got with that moron Arno, which I don't really think she would've done if she were with you. So from that I figured out that you lied to my little sister.”

“Um,” I said.

“You certainly hang out with her a lot,” February said.

“But she's in eighth grade. We're like—buddies.”

“Buddies? Because she's in eighth grade? What are you talking about? When I was in eighth grade I was sleeping with the drummer from the Strokes.”

“That's you, February,” I said. “Flan is different.”

“That's what I'm worried about.”

Then we just stared at each other. February took a sip of Jack Daniels from the bottle. I suspected this would be the last coherent conversation she had tonight.

“Anyway, it's no big deal, I heard some other
guy is after her,” February said.

“Other guy?” I asked.

“Like that's an alien concept? You and your bunch of idiots aren't the only ones in this town who know how to get girls.”

By then a few people had drifted into the kitchen, including Mickey, who seemed sort of unfocused. But he was smiling. Philippa was with him. They were such a good couple—they were always happy when they were together.

“Hey, February,” Mickey said. She handed the Jack Daniels to Mickey. He took a long hit.

“Listen,” February said to me. “Here's an idea. I'll put in a good word for you with my little sister if you get the hell out of here and go find Patch. How's that sound?”

“Why do I need help with Flan?” I asked.

“Oh, believe me,” February said. “You need help.”

“Let's go get Arno and David,” Mickey said.

We went up the stairs to the main room. They were blasting the new Nas up there, and February's friends were slam dancing.