Pass It On (20 page)

“Um.” Mickey frowned. No one had said. And everybody knew that.

The boys packed their stuff and got out of the house after Patch left a handwritten note for the staff, saying that they were going. Because it was Sunday, they weren't around. And the house was in pretty bad shape.

“At least we didn't burn anything down,” Jonathan said as they pulled out of the driveway, with Patch driving. They all looked back at the house. Once when they were eleven, they built a fort in the woods and Mickey pretended to be an American Indian. He lit the fort on fire and the fire department had to be called to put out the trees. After that, Mickey was banned from the Floods' estate for six months, and his dad had to give the Floods a piece of sculpture. It still stood in the backyard and was now worth three quarters of a million dollars. The sculpture was supposed to have been an
abstraction, but everyone could see that it kind of looked like an Indian setting a white man's ass on fire.

Patch took the wheel and drove fast down the path of rolling hills that led them out of the Flood estate and out to the highway. In the backseat, David and Arno seemed to be asleep. Jonathan sat squished between them, on the hump. Jonathan leaned forward so his head was between Mickey's and Patch's.

“You know, you're kind of the most capable of any of us even though you're sort of the biggest blow-off,” Jonathan said, to Patch.

“Shhh,” Mickey said. “Don't hurt his feelings while he driving.”

They shot down the Merritt in silence for a while, with Mickey mostly brooding in the front passenger seat. Patch drove faster and faster, a toothpick dangling from his mouth. He was in oversized corduroys and a black flannel shirt. His dirty blond hair was standing up and he had several days worth of stubble on his cheeks. Mickey shook his head. He pretended he didn't care about such things, but Patch sure was a hell of a lot better looking than any of the rest of them, except maybe Arno.

“Wait!” Mickey yelled. “This is Thanksgiving week! This is a short week! Oh man!”

“What's the difference?” Arno asked, with both eyes
closed. “You only go to school when you want to anyway.”

“Still—this is a party week, and that's fun.”

“Last week was a party week,” Arno said.

“Yeah… but we all know what this Wednesday is,” Patch said. Everyone stopped and looked at him. Even David, who had seemed pretty asleep, opened one eye.

“When did you start knowing stuff about days in the future?” Arno said. “And when'd you get your driver's license anyway?”

There was quiet for a moment. This was true. Mickey eyed Patch.

“Yeah, Patch, who are you really?” Mickey asked.

But Patch ignored them all. He said, “Wednesday is Ginger Shulman's annual pre-Thanksgiving bash.”

“Where's she having it this year?” Arno asked. “Your house, again?”

“No, hers.” Patch expertly swung in and out of the fast lane, passing absolutely everyone.

Then it was quiet for a while. Mickey was sure they were all chewing on the idea of the new Patch who was driving them all home. And in the back of his mind, Mickey waited for the question he knew was coming.

“Hey, Mickey?” Jonathan asked.

“Sure,” Mickey nodded. “You've already stayed at everybody else's house, now you should stay at mine.”

“Thanks for not making me ask.”

“We're
all best friends
.” Mickey smiled. “You need to chill the fuck out.”

But even as Mickey spoke, Jonathan looked away. And they both knew the truth, that Jonathan kind of
had
asked. And Mickey had the weird, uncertain feeling that Jonathan had been avoiding his house because he knew things that Mickey didn't.

The sky grew dark as they coasted into the city, and everyone seemed to sleep except Patch, who hummed along with the
Flower Power Hour
on WFMU.

They arrived at Fifth Avenue and, since everybody else lived west of there, Jonathan clambered out first.

“I'll see you at your house later,” Jonathan said to Mickey.

“Cool. It's Sunday, right? There'll probably be some huge-ass dinner party. We can drink wine and pass out in front of the TV during prime time football.”

Everybody waved to Jonathan as the yellow Mercedes roared off down Eleventh Street.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. They were gone. I stood there on a corner I'd known for my entire life and leaned against the limestone of my building, which had been there since 1895. I knew I was totally afraid of them and that I really needed to either throw myself at their mercy, or lose them entirely and start fresh. And if I did that, if I lost my friends, who would I be? I had no idea. Patch had saved me from having to choose who was coming on this trip with me, but I knew that problem obviously wasn't half as important as I'd been thinking it was.

And that's when I saw the black English cab the Halstead Real Estate company uses to ferry buyers around. It pulled up in front of my apartment building, and another couple of young, rich-looking people came out of my front door, with one of those real estate ladies who wear way too much gold. They were talking in low
voices and then they got into the car. I shook my head. I definitely, definitely couldn't handle both at the same time—losing my friends
and
moving to Brooklyn. It would just be too much. I had to tell them the truth. But how? Part of me wished David would just gossip it to them, since he knew. But he was too good of a friend to do that, which was something.

Before I went upstairs to see what new damage Billy the painter had done to my house, and whether it had been sold over the weekend, I called Ruth.

“Mmm.” Her voice. It was smoky and very warm. “I was taking a nap.”

“I can hear that. I missed you.”

“You were away all weekend?”

“Yeah. I was with my guys, but right now I just want to hang out with you.”

“Why didn't you call me from wherever you were?”

“Well, I felt too … too
guy-like
with all my friends. I wanted to wait.”

“Huh. I guess that's good.” I could hear her rustle in her bed, and it was so the place I'd have rather been than on the windy corner of Eleventh and Fifth with a bright street lamp shining down
on me and my Ghurka weekender bag at my feet.

“You know how the thing happens where after you meet someone you start hearing about them all the time, like the person you're thinking about keeps coming up in conversation with the most random people?”

“Yeah.” I braced myself.

“Everyone's talking about you and your guys. It's like the moment I leave the house or get on the phone I hear somebody mention you or one of the others of you, which only makes me think of you.”

“The others of me?”

“I mean—the rest of you, the other four.”

“But we're all different.”

“Right. I talked to your friend Liza. It's barely Thanksgiving and you guys have already had a really wild year. I'm sort of a quiet person, Jonathan, I'm not sure I can handle how notorious you guys are.”

“Look, forget everything you've heard. When can I see you?”

“I—not till Wednesday, at Ginger Shulman's party.”

“Not till then?”

“Yeah, I've got a bioethics exam on Tuesday
and then my school has a homecoming luncheon on Wednesday. I'm sorry. Maybe we can meet up before the party starts.”

“Let's do that. How was Harvard?” I asked.

“Harvard? Oh yeah. It was good. I'm into Harvard.”

“You mean like you like it?”

“No, I'm going there.”

“But you're only a junior.”

“I know but the president told me it was no problem. We ended up having some sherry together in his office. He told me that so long as he was president, there was a place for me there. The administration is letting the kids have their own porn magazine this year—Harvard is definitely getting to be a really cool place.” She yawned. “Mmm. Let's talk later. I miss you.”

And then she got off the phone.

“When will it be over?” Richard wailed, in the elevator.

“I don't know.” I knew I sounded all grave and like I was talking about so many more things than just the painting of my apartment, which I definitely was.

“I'm sorry. It's not sold yet, is it?”

“I don't know about that,” Richard snuffled. “But when your mother gets home, boy, the whole building wants to have a word with her.”

“Great.”

Richard opened the elevator door on my floor. The smell of paint was overwhelming and Richard covered his mouth. Through his gnarled fingers, he said, “That jackass in there, not only is he painting, he's running a one-man whorehouse!”

And before I could respond, Richard slammed the elevator door closed and left me there. The apartment door was open, and I slipped inside. Billy was playing Neptunes remixes, very loudly. I pulled up my shirt to cover my nose and mouth. All the windows were open and it was cold in there.

“Hello!”

Billy wandered in from the kitchen. He was wearing no shirt and the pants from my blue Paul Smith suit, which my mom had bought me just two months earlier for early college interviews. The suit had cost her two thousand dollars. Of course the pants were smeared with purple and white paint.

“Hey, I loved those pants.” I sighed. “Have you
heard from my mom?”

“Yeah. She checked in yesterday. How are you, dude?”

“You've ruined all my clothes.”

“Well they're just clothes, right?”

I didn't speak. I would've sat down, except there was nowhere to sit. Everything was covered in canvas tarps, and there was wet paint on all the tarps. I looked up. We were standing in the hallway and he'd painted a sort of spindly design all up and down the ceiling, with crazy arrows pointing to different rooms. What appeared to be lyrics from ancient Jimi Hendrix songs were written in bright green script.

“Billy,” I said. “I'm in trouble. Not as much trouble as you're going to be in when my mom finds out what you've done to our house, but trouble.”

“Tell me about it.”

He had this weirdly open smile. I could see why my mom trusted him. I wondered if she might even decide to like his awful paint job.

“My friends want to know exactly what the hell is going on with me.”

“Yeah, so tell them.”

But then I remembered something, and
glanced around.

“Is my friend Mickey's mom here?”

“Lucy? No,” Billy said, and smiled.

“Are you having an affair with her?”

Billy laughed. “Let's deal with your problems first, before we get into mine.”

“Do you know what my father did?”

“No, but I do know that if there is a secret, you need to be able to tell your friends, otherwise they're not your friends.”

“Yeah. Are you sleeping with all their moms, though?”

“What do you think of the ceiling?” Billy asked.

“I can't talk to my friends about all this. Not yet, not till my mom gets back anyway, and I find out if we're going to have to move to Brooklyn and never show my face anywhere cool again.”

“Any of them know?”

“Well, David pretty much knows. Patch probably doesn't care, Arno's too self-involved to figure it out, and Mickey, well, I think Mickey half-knows. And he's going to go nuts soon, for sure. He's been way too sane lately. Plus, there's whatever you're up to with his mom.”

“If you know your guys that well, I'm sure
you'll be able to work it out.”

“What about the other thing?”

“His mom? Sounds like you've got bigger stuff to worry about.”

“Hmm,” I scratched my chin and watched him. Billy was whistling. Then, as if on some weird cue, the music switched to “Let It Be.”

“Where did you come from, really?” I asked.

“Everybody asks me that.” Billy climbed up a ladder and began to write the words to “Let It Be” on the ceiling in a pattern that seemed to lead into the hall closet. I wondered if this was some weird message: Let the mess in the hall closet be?

“If you do see Lucy Pardo, tell her I miss her,” he said.

“Dude, no way.”

And I wandered off to my room to try to save at least the jacket that went with those Paul Smith pants, since that suit did fit me really, really well.

“I'm only going to be here three nights and they built me a bed?” Jonathan asked. They were in Mickey's room in the Pardos' massive house on West Street.

Suspended from the ceiling by lengths of inch-thick chain was a small bed that swayed gently in the breeze from Mickey's oversized window. The bed was above their heads, and Mickey began to crank a little motor. After a moment, it began to descend slowly, and unevenly.

“Looks like something from the Spanish Inquisition,” Jonathan said.

“My dad designed it just for you.”

“I'm only going to be here till Wednesday night. This is like, so unnecessary.”

The bed was now only a few feet from the floor. They watched it as if it were going to jump. Mickey toyed with the iPod in his pocket and adjusted the music. He was currently into a set of RZA bootlegs from 1999.

“Try it.”

“I'm afraid.” Jonathan reached forward and tugged on the leather blanket, then pulled back as if it were going to bite him. Then he slowly got onto the bed, and sat in the middle of it. He smiled at Mickey.

“This is pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “Let me on there.” So Mickey started to get on, and immediately the chains rattled and the bed upended itself, and both boys landed on the floor in a heap.