Pass It On (23 page)

“Well what the hell? Let's go find him,” Mickey said. But nobody moved.

“Did I tell you guys that my dad flew to London today to see Jonathan's dad?” Arno asked. Nobody said anything.

“You know why, right?” David asked.

“Something about money?” Arno said. He shook his head. Beyond that, he didn't have a clue. His dad and what he did was a mystery to him. Arno kind of knew he was gay, but he'd known that for so long that it was no longer a big deal to him.

“Well, I guess I have to say it: His dad stole money from all our parents. It was years ago, but I guess he wanted to come clean about it before marrying PISS,” David said. “It's been freaking Jonathan out.”

“I thought it was just that his Dad was getting remarried,” Mickey said, “and that he had to pick one of us to go on the honeymoon.”

“Wow,” Arno said as he suddenly realized why his
parents had been acting like assholes that night and how awful Jonathan's time at his house must have been.

“I think he thinks we'd all hate him if we knew,” David said, this time looking around at all of them.

“Because his dad's a dick?” Patch asked. He scratched his head. “My dad's a dick, and you guys don't hate me.”

“It's different—your dad never stole anything. Where the hell do you think Jonathan is now?” Mickey asked.

“Hiding somewhere,” David said. “Hopefully he didn't hop out a window—especially if Ruth broke up with him. I think I heard she did that.”

“Well, Jonathan can get pretty dramatic,” Arno said. “And if he lost a really cool girl and he thinks we all hate him…”

Then the four of them were tearing through the hallways of the gigantic Shulman apartment, looking for him. They passed little Flan Flood, who had her coat on and looked like she was leaving but who said she'd only seen Jonathan for a second. Patch paused for a second to ask if she was really supposed to be there, but then he stopped when he remembered what all of them had been doing in eighth grade and realized Flan was way more mature than most of the upperclassman there anyway. They pulled open the door to Ginger's
bedroom and looked in, and it turned out she'd been in there for the entire party with the freshman from Yale who David had stuffed in the student/alumni game. After they said hello to her, they went through all the public rooms and checked all the bathrooms. No Jonathan.

Then everyone followed Arno down to the master bedroom. The door was locked. So they dragged Ginger Shulman out of bed and she yelled through the door. A girl nobody recognized opened it. She was in there with Adam Rickenbacher, who turned pale when he saw them all. But still no Jonathan.

“There's no key to the bathroom,” Ginger said. “Try popping the lock with a credit card. Clean up whatever you find.” And Ginger went back to her Yalie.

“Give him a minute to come out. He must've heard us,” David said.

The four of them stood and looked at the blank door.

“Shhhh,” Arno put his head to the wood. Silence and the sound of gushing water.

“Don't say it,” David said.

“If he—”

“Pop the lock!” Patch yelled.

Then Mickey, who was good at that sort of thing, got down on his knees with an American Express
Platinum card. He popped the lock, but the door still didn't open.

“That's it!” Mickey screamed. “Launch me.”

So Arno got on one side of Mickey and David got on the other. They threw Mickey at the door like a human battering ram. The door flew open and Mickey sailed through.

“OH NO!” Mickey yelled.

“He's dead!” Mickey screamed. He knocked the bronze pissing-boy out of the way and knelt in front of Jonathan.

“With his pants down,” David noted.

The four of them stood around Jonathan. Mickey knelt and touched his neck. He was still warm. A thin stream of water shot from the toilet and sprinkled Jonathan's backside. The water had pooled around him, but it was by no means a flood.

“What the hell is that?” David stared at the water shooting from the toilet. Mickey slammed down the lid. “It's one of those brand-new toilets with the ass-cleaner in it. It works like a car wash. Everybody's getting them.”

“Weird.” David opened the lid, but the toilet had stopped spraying.

“I don't think he's dead.” Patch felt Jonathan's pulse. “Nope. He just knocked himself out.”

Mickey yanked up Jonathan's pants. Patch wet a
hand towel in the sink and put it over the ugly red bump on Jonathan's forehead. They got him to his feet.

“Ow,” Jonathan said.

“See? Alive.” Patch looked at the toilet, and then the pissing boy. “I get it.”

“What?” Mickey asked.

“That warm jet of water on his ass. He must've felt it and shot forward, and then he knocked himself out on the pissing boy's penis.”

“It's like a nightmare come to life,” David said, stroking his chin. “Wait'll I tell my parents.”

“No,” Jonathan shook his head. He was leaning against the sink.

“Oh. Right, I won't.”

Jonathan said, “I thought you guys—when I wasn't conscious, I was in this dream state and you guys hated me.”

The four of them were quiet. Ten seconds passed.

“Well, we were saving your life while you were thinking that,” Mickey said.

“I'd hope my best friends would do that for me. Even if they did probably figure out by now that my father is a thief who robbed all their parents blind.” Jonathan's voice was thin.

Everyone stared at the spot on the floor where Jonathan had spent the last half hour. It looked hard
and wet and cold.

“There's got to be an empty room around here somewhere,” Arno said. “Let's go find it and talk.”

“In here,” Arno said. He stopped in what appeared to be a screening room, since it was just a bunch of unbelievably comfortable-looking brown velvet armchairs loosely set up in front of a plasma screen television that was hung on a wall above a fireplace.

There were five really good chairs. The walls were lined with Randall Oddy paintings from his pornographic period, but the lights were low, so only Arno noticed because he still had a soft spot for Kelli and sometimes wrote her e-mails that he never told anyone about. Mickey arranged the chairs in a circle. Suddenly there was a croaking, frog-like sound.

“Froggy?” Mickey asked. “Go pass out somewhere else, we need the room.”

So Alan Ebershoff got up from where he'd been curled behind a chair and wandered out, and Arno had to face the wall for a second, since he'd pretty much destroyed Froggy's parents' bedroom the week before. And David faced the wall, too, since the last time he'd
seen Froggy, he was in Amanda's bedroom. The group sat down.

“Shall we break the ice with some quarters?” Mickey asked. He got out a couple of cans of Tecate from the back pockets of his jeans. There was a round glass table in the middle of the room that was perfect for quarters, assuming you weren't too concerned about the glass getting nicked.

“I think we need to deal with what's been happening with Jonathan, about what he said in the bathroom, about his dad.” Arno sat back and crossed his legs. Somehow, he always looked way older than the rest of them.

“So that's what it was all about?” Patch asked. “I'm pretty sure I've heard my dad joke on and off about the money that was stolen for at least the last few years.”

“You knew?” Jonathan asked. Everyone looked at him. Jonathan's eyes were the color of eggnog.

“Well, now that I think about it, I did. But before this, I hadn't really been thinking about it.”

“Wait, were any of you thinking about it?” Jonathan asked.

“Mostly you were,” David said. “I knew, and I guess Patch did, and Mickey half-knew. But Arno didn't—not till today.”

“I can't believe it,” Jonathan said. “I thought if you guys knew, you'd like, excommunicate me.”

“We might, but not because of that,” Arno looked around at the group, and nodded at Jonathan's pointy boots. Mickey immediately reached forward and yanked them off. Jonathan had Comme des Garcons socks on underneath, in a horribly complex pattern of blue and green swirls.

“These shoes and socks have got to stop,” Arno said.

Everyone seemed to agree on this, and that strengthened Arno's position. So Jonathan did nothing as Mickey tossed the shoes and socks into the hall, where Liza Komansky's friend Jane scooped them up and took them to a bedroom to try them on.

“There's more, though,” David said.

“Yeah?” Everyone stared at Jonathan's feet. They were incredibly pale.

“Well, correct me if I'm wrong, guys,” he said. “But I think the thing that really tweaked at us was that it seemed like you were holding back from us, but we're like … like a team, you know?”

“Dude.” Arno threw a pillow at David. “You're so gay.”

Jonathan looked down uncomfortably when Arno said that, because, of course, he knew full well that Arno's dad really was gay.

“No, that's right, what David said.” Mickey nodded.

“You want me to share everything?” Jonathan asked.

“Yeah. We share everything. You should too,” said Mickey.

“Okay. Ruth just broke up with me and I think it's partly because her parents are international lawyers and they heard about what an asshole my father is. She didn't exactly say that, but I'm pretty sure that was part of it.”

“Ow,” Mickey said.

“But there's more,” Jonathan said. “I don't want to have secrets from you guys. Mickey, I think you've got to talk to your parents about what's going on with their marriage—I don't know if your mom is having an affair, but she might be. And your Dad, well, you need to talk to him about whether he's having an affair, too. And David, your dad is crazy and must be stopped. And Arno, you need to talk to your dad about who he really is, and check in with your mom, too, about the affair thing.”

Everyone was quiet then. Jonathan frowned. Then he said, “There's stuff I saw and heard when I was in your houses. I've got to tell you about it, what I just said is only the beginning. I don't want to keep this all inside anymore.”

While all this was going on, Patch had gotten hold
of a universal remote. He'd turned on the television and begun to watch
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
. In the midst of the shocked silence, Patch belly-laughed, loudly, while Paul Newman and Robert Redford bicycled happily around in nature. Everyone watched quietly, listening not to the movie but to the new silence between them, knowing that if they wanted to, they could learn all sorts of stuff they might have long preferred not to know.

“Maybe you don't need to hear all of it,” Jonathan said.

“Maybe not,” Patch said, turning off the TV.

“Well, okay. Thanks for getting me out of that bathroom, and for hopefully not telling anybody about it.” Jonathan rubbed his head. “I hope this bump goes away before my mom gets home.”

“Oh wow,” Arno said. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.”

Jonathan stood up and looked out the window. He said, “My mom promised she'd be home to cook a turkey. And she'd better be. This being on my own is obviously more than I can handle.”

“Well no matter what, you can come over to my house if she's late or something,” Arno said.

“Thanks,” Jonathan said, and Arno stared at him, because Jonathan didn't sound sarcastic at all. He sounded like he really meant it. “And guys?”

“Yeah?”

“I'll figure out this Caribbean thing. I'm not sure I can handle it without you all, anyway.”

David wasn't that bombed, but he was having trouble getting his key to fit in his front door. It seemed too big, and then too small.

Then the door opened and his father stood staring at him, in his pajamas, and he was both too big and too small, too. David wondered if he might be Alice and if this was the looking glass. But when he looked down, he wasn't wearing white shoes and a blue dress with a big white bow around the middle. He was grateful for that, at least.

“Come and sit with me in the living room.” His father turned and padded down the quiet corridor and David followed. The house was terribly quiet and smelled of roast chicken, as usual.

“Everything work out okay with Jonathan? I ask because I've got a session with his mom tomorrow, right before we stuff the turkey, and I need all the help I can get.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

David shifted and pulled a thick copy of the American Psychoanalytic Institute's monthly newsletter out from under his butt.

“Are you sure that telling so many secrets is such a good idea? 'Cause I'm kind of thinking it causes a lot of trouble when you do that.”

“Oh no, I'm absolutely sure it's the right thing. I've been in this game a long time and the thing I know is that when a marriage is breaking up or a man is cheating on a woman, everyone ought to know all about all the details, so they can set to work hashing it out.”

“I don't know,” David said. “I'm thinking those situations are delicate, you know?”

Then of course Sam Grobart launched into a long, complex set of reasons that clarified why David was wrong, but David tuned him out. He glanced around the book-strewn room and wondered why his dad was always wandering around in the middle of the night when his mom was asleep. Then his phone rang once, and stopped. David glanced at the screen. Amanda.

Meanwhile, his dad continued to ramble on about secrets and how people should give them up faster than a dollar to a beggar on the subway. And David thought, I definitely need to call Amanda. Right now.