Pass It On (16 page)

“Fine. Is everyone meeting us here?” Mickey asked.

“I doubt it. I hardly know anyone here.”

“Huh?” Mickey stared at Philippa, and was suddenly utterly confused. “If you don't know anyone, then what are we doing here? I thought we were supposed to be done with parties anyway.”

“I just chose it because it's neutral territory. I can't be alone with you. We broke up.” Philippa smiled a heartbreakingly soft and broken smile at Mickey. He was now in a black T-shirt that said DEMOCRACY SUX on the front, and a pair of red canvas shorts, and black motorcycle boots. It was forty degrees out. Philippa rubbed her thick scarf over his arms and smiled at him.

“You could also say—” Mickey searched for words. “That this is our last chance.”

“No. Everyone tells me I'm not crazy enough for you. I have to admit that they're right. I can't take how wild you are. Not anymore.”

“I didn't cheat on you with that waitress.”

“That's not the point. I wanted to be able to call and tuck you in. But you were nowhere near home. Mickey, that made me cry.”

They were quiet for a moment. Even though they didn't know anyone at the party, the people hanging around seemed to know who they were. In the other room, the kids were all chasing a half a dozen piñatas
that were meant for a kid's birthday party. A bunch of guys had hockey sticks and baseball bats. They'd put on some old Metallica CD and were starting to chant. Normally, Mickey would have been right in there with them, but instead he kept staring at Philippa. Because he had no memory at all of the night he'd disappointed her, he felt even worse that it was coming between them.

“I guess when you're really in love, you have to break up a few times before it takes,” Mickey said.

Mickey looked down at Philippa. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She said, “You're crazy, you know that. But sometimes even when it sounds like you're just talking shit, what you say is really true.”

“It only sounds that way when I'm with you…” He trailed off.

“Let's stay broken up though, okay? Please?”

“But why?”

“It's like, I love you, but I don't always want to feel disappointed by you. I can't take that anymore. Like, right now, I know you want to blow apart those piñatas with those guys—I don't want to keep you from that.”

“Really? I didn't even notice them. Look, what if I promised not to do any more wild stuff?”

“I think we already tried that. And besides, this'll be good. It's almost winter break and then I'll be in Nice
with my family and you'll be on that giant boat with Jonathan and we'll both have some distractions.”

Mickey snorted, but Philippa didn't need to hear him say again that Jonathan might not take him. Then they didn't speak. And Mickey began to understand that it was really and truly and finally over. Not that it contradicted the fact that they were totally in love. He brought his foot up and kicked a tiny bronze sculpture of a naked boy off the glass coffee table in front of them. Charlotte Brackett immediately skipped over to them.

“Can't you see that I specifically put all the fun and destruction in the other room?” she asked. “Now if you can't play nicely with the other boys, you'd better leave.” Mickey thought it was kind of too bad she was yelling at them since she seemed pretty and had a nice tilted nose.

“Me, too?” Philippa asked.

“Of course not. But this violent asshole has to go.”

Mickey sighed. He'd been sober and serious for far too long. He kind of thought that he wanted to leave anyway. And he was pretty sure he'd said the one smart thing he wanted to say, though he couldn't exactly remember what it was now.

They walked out through a corridor that was a dozen feet wide and lit by a flashing neon painting that
flickered between the words Fate and Jiminy Cricket, which Mickey dimly recalled his father making fun of at a dinner party when he was eight. Charlotte Bracket ran after them.

“I'm sorry I'm so sensitive,” she said. “Usually I'm really kind, but it's hard with all this expensive art around.”

“That girl's awfully talkative,” Philippa said.

Mickey tried to touch Philippa's hand, but she pushed him away.

“I wonder how David is doing,” Mickey said.

“Why?”

Mickey tried a smile. He knew that he never said things like that, so he was sure it would get her attention.

“Well, when I left him he was going over to Amanda's house to do basically what I just tried to do with you.”

“Oh?” Philippa's eyes widened. She reached forward and grabbed a few white M&Ms from a bowl by the front door. “Are you sure?”

“It couldn't go any worse for him than this has for me.”

“No,” Philippa said. “It actually could.”

“Really, David,” Amanda said. “You might have called first. I'm studying.”

She had her little fist cocked on her little waist as she stood in the doorway of her parents' massive Tribeca loft, which looked like a house in the English countryside.

“But isn't this more important? I'm ready to do what you asked me to do, I think.”

“Well… come in for ten minutes and we can discuss it. Just because you got fifteen-forty the first time doesn't mean you should feel free to diss the rest of us who don't have your brainy genes.”

“I'm not. I offered to help.”

“You get so impatient. It's impossible to study with you.”

David was quiet. It was true. Amanda was really, frustratingly awful at math. They went into her living room, which was filled with overstuffed couches and paintings of someone else's ancestors. What little light
there was came from tiny lamps set on end tables.

Amanda sat down on the couch across from David and straightened her white sweatpants and her pressed Oxford shirt.

“You took so long to think about it,” she said. “I guess I figured…I thought you didn't want to ask me. But I still want you to. Then we'll be able to really trust each other.”

David let his head fall to the side for a moment. She'd spoken awfully loud. He looked to his right, but the apartment was set up so that you couldn't see any one room from any other. Jonathan had visited once and said the place had really bad feng shui.

“Okay, are you ready for me to ask? Because the thing is, if Jonathan decides to bring me on this trip to the Caribbean—which I'm pretty sure he will—then, well, we can make this really official.” He was shaking.

“Yes, I'm ready to get engaged.” Amanda practically yelled. “And then neither of us will cheat anymore.”

“Okay, but remember, you cheated on me first, with my best friend.”

“
I would not call Arno your best friend
.” For some reason, Amanda had come over and sat on the couch, and she was whispering. David twitched his nose. What the hell? She was yelling before.

David yelled, “Whether or not he's my best friend,
you fooled around with him!”

“
Shhh!
”

David stood suddenly. “Maybe this whole idea of getting secretly engaged is insane.”

“Could you shut up?” Amanda was standing too. “If you can't understand that I need us to do that, you can't understand anything at all. It's simple, we'll get engaged and then I'll stop—”

“Stop what? Cheating? You still are, aren't you?”

David could feel the tears well up.

“I just want my Yale sweatshirt back, then I'll go.”

He walked quickly to the closet in the hall and yanked it open. Amanda was right behind him.

“I want you to go!”

“My sweatshirt!” He ran down the corridor toward her room.

“No!”

He pushed the door and it gave too quickly, as if someone had been leaning against it and had suddenly jumped back. The door swung open, and there, sitting in a chair, was Alan Ebershoff.

“Froggy?” David asked. He was so shocked that he sat down with a thud on Amanda's bed, where the covers were still warm and mussed from whatever they'd been doing just a few moments before.

“Don't call me that,” Alan croaked. He wore khakis
and one of those multicolored striped shirts that can only be bought at Brooks Brothers. David couldn't believe it. The kid brushed back his hair. He was kind of fat and his breath was labored.

“I didn't even know you two knew each other.” David held out his hands, palms open, to Amanda. She stood in the doorway, twitching her nose.

“Everybody knows each other. You think the uptown kids live in a different country? In a cab at night it's like twenty minutes to uptown.”

“The subway is faster,” David muttered.

“If you could've just done what I asked …” Amanda trailed off, and looked up at David.

“I shouldn't have to ask you to marry me just to keep you from fooling around with other guys.” David stood slowly. “I was going to buy you a ring and everything in one of those island towns, though, you know. Just to make you happy.” He could see the sleeve of his sweatshirt peeking out from under Amanda's desk. He got down on his knees and retrieved it. The silence in the room was cut only by the radiator, which squeaked and swooned as if it were absorbing the pain of all three of them.

“Hey, you want a bong hit before you go?” Alan asked.

“No. Take an extra toke for me. I know my way
out,” David said. “And do me a favor and don't marry her, okay? She asked me first.”

He heard Amanda's muffled voice behind him as he moved swiftly down the corridor. Around him, the recessed lighting glowed softly. David shook his head. He did kind of love Amanda. He only wished she was a little more confident. And he frowned at himself, since he knew he was way too young to understand that about her.

“Suck it!” Liesel screamed. She hammered on the table with both hands.

Arno stared at her. Weren't they not getting along? Hadn't they broken up?

She shoved the lemon farther into his mouth. He focused on the bottle of Stoli between them and wished that Liesel was into something mellower, like pot or Vicodin, or Ecstasy. But nothing doing. She liked hard alcohol, very cold, and in large quantities.

They were in a back room at the Daze Inn, a new club on West Street. The Daze Inn catered to entertainment types in from L.A. who were into making sure absolutely everything they did was very expensive and illegal. Liesel had an uncle who owned a piece of Interscope records, and he'd given her his private pass.

“Ready for more?”

“I guess.” Arno didn't really feel like drinking, but it was nearly midnight, and he didn't have to be anywhere but back at Patch's house, and that wasn't really till
tomorrow morning. He sighed. They had a semi-private room, which meant they were cordoned off from the crowd, but people could see them do shots, which were definitely going to turn into body-shots if things kept going.

Liesel threw back her gigantic mass of blond hair. She groped for the bottle, poured herself a shot in a painted gold glass. She threw it back and nearly flipped out of her chair.

“Now make me suck it!”

So Arno grabbed up a lemon and shoved it at Liesel's face. She sucked. After a few seconds she spat the sucked lemon onto the floor and it bounced out onto the dance floor, where some guy picked it up.

“God my parents hate it so much when I say suck. It's so good to say it a lot. I fucking love you, Arno Wildenburger, you know that?”

“But we can't stand each other. We can't even agree on what color white roses are.”

“Or a jet-black BMW X5. I know.” Suddenly Liesel nodded very seriously. “It's true. We don't get along.”

“Maybe we should really call this thing over, you know? Especially after the fight we had about my friend Mickey.”

“There's just one thing.”

“What?”

Liesel picked up the bottle of vodka and sipped from it, like they were exercising and she was sipping water.

“Okay, I'll tell you. You ready?”

“Yeah.” Arno sat back and crossed his legs. He really missed hanging out with his friends. He was looking forward to a splash fight in the Floods' indoor pool. Or a roman candle massacre in the English garden. He'd have to remember to get the gardener to give them some fireworks when they got there.

“Are you listening?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He looked at her. She was smiling, like she'd thought of something really brilliant to say.

“Okay, you ready?”

“Yes, Liesel, come on, what is it?”

“We look really cool together! Isn't that enough?”

Liesel stood up. She yanked off her tiny black top and threw it at Arno. She was wearing a white silk bra studded with what looked like rubies.

She threw herself across the table, into his arms.

“Don't think about it,” Liesel said. “Just, um—well… okay, think about it for a sec.”

Arno tried to smile. If he just kind of clouded his brain a lot, he could see how they were perfect for each other, even though they couldn't agree on who the vice president of the United States was, or where Canada is.

“Maybe you're right.” Arno knew his voice was
weak. He wondered where the hell Jonathan was, because he needed someone to talk some sense into him like only Jonathan could.

“Eew!”

“What?” Arno asked.

“Look at that really hairy guy! He looks like Bigfoot!”

“Where?”

Arno looked around. Liesel was pointing at a busboy. But he wasn't Bigfoot. He just had a beard.

“Hair like that freaks me out! I feel like he's going to crawl all over my body and do disgusting things!”

“Let's get you out of here.”

“Okay, you want to go back to my house? My parents are in Bermuda with Governor Bloomberg for the weekend.”