Break Every Rule
Authors: J. Minter
an insiders novel
by j. minter
how annoying can one stepbrother be?
everybody wants a piece of patch
i get a whiff of that ol' fame and glory
there can be only one hottest private school boy â¦
patch overhears something he definitely shouldn't
i skip a great party for a good cause
the boys leave messages all weekend long
arno had no idea he could be any hotter than he already was
mickey goes on a treasure hunt. sort of
david was so not made for this
i get jealous about something way important
arno makes fabulousness look so easy
sometimes new york is just way too small
another long night comes to an end for david
i have never found parties this unattractive
mickey gets some advice from his friendly neighborhood bartender
patch and flan have a heart-to-heart
i try and reclaim the old days, when i was still hot
arno doesn't even know how wild his party is
i can't believe people are having fun at this thing
something's all wrong with arno's star
but i do have to expose myself sometimes. emotionally speaking
mickey has a thing or two left to learn about girls
mickey wants to see what you've got under all that hot, restrictive clothing
for
TMB
“Flan and Jonathan, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes⦔
You know the rest.
That's what my stepbrother, Rob, singsonged when he walked in on me and Flan making out in the bathroom. I didn't know that people in Spain learned the exact same songs in second grade. How educational.
Flan was sitting on the sink with her left leg draped around my waist, and I was standing in front of her with my hands at the small of her back. We'd been getting ready to go out, and we'd had a little fight, and we'd made up. We were make-up fooling around, and it was tender and hot in that particular, forgiving way.
You're probably wondering how this romantic moment got interrupted by my eurotrash stepbrother, who should have been at least an ocean away but now wouldn't leave the bathroom. To
answer that, we're going to have to back up a little bit, toâ¦
Last Winter: That's when my dad married a woman named Penelope Isquierdo Santana Suttwilley, who had a son, just my age, named Rob. We met on Dad's honeymoon, which was also when I realized that my new stepbrother was annoying and prone to fashion disasters. Then my momâacting very “I'm bigger than all of this”âsaid Rob could stay in our apartment, in my older brother Ted's room.
Ted's room and my room have an adjoining bathroom.
Then, post-Honeymoon: I went on this educational cruise through the Mediterranean with the guys I've been friends with since fifth gradeâArno, Mickey, Patch, David and me, Jonathan. (Sometimes people call us the Insiders, although none of us ever would.) And while we were getting lost and mad at each other over there, Rob was worming his way into my life back in Manhattan. See, David got kicked off the boat, and when he got shipped back home, all of us pretty much ignored him. Not on purpose, but Arno and Mickey were sparring over this girl named Suki, and then they were sparring over this girl named Greta. And
then Patch started going out with Greta, and I kind of made out with Suki. Anywayâ¦all of that is pretty much forgotten.
Except the part about David. That's when he started spending a lot of time with Rob, and the friendship stuck. I think he might have that illness where you start to love your captorsâStockholm Syndrome, or whatever that's called. Rob started going out with Patch's older sister, February, and David spent some time with Patch's little sister, Flanâmy Flanâthinking he might maybe have a crush on her. And so you can see how things have gotten a little bit complicated.
So, Back In New York: There's been some splintering of my crew. This is mostly on me. I'm usually the one who keeps us all together and hanging out, but since I started going out with Flan for real, I haven't been playing that role so well. And I feel bad about that, but what can you do? If David's still pissed about not getting enough e-mails while he was home alone, and the fact that Flan chose me, it's not my fault. He's not helping matters any by pretending he's something he's not, either.
See, David and Rob started spending a lot of time with Arno, and now they're like a mini side
clique. They're all rocking the same hair, too: a sort of mod style with their bangs in their eyes. They look like the wannabe Beatles, minus a drummer.
Which brings us to tonight: Thursday, opening night of the big Luc Vogel retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and everyone's going to be there.
I told Flan to be at my house at six-thirty, but she showed up at quarter of eight. That turned out to be perfect timing, though, because I'd just finished putting on my new Duncan Quinn suit and was checking it out in the bathroom mirror. I needed a second opinion because it was British khaki, and I wasn't sure how the color was going to go over. When she walked through the door I popped my collar and said, “Hey gorgeous. How do I look?”
She sat down on the edge of the tub and crossed her legs.
“You look good,” she said, smiling sort of faintly at me. “The Duncan Quinn really suits you.” Then she took one of the magazines out of the magazine rack, and started looking over it like she was bored.
The last couple of weeks have been like this: full of the exquisite agony of a thousand little fights and misunderstandings, the kind that get forgotten quickly with a lot of making out. It was the
beginning of spring, and all the white buds were opening on the trees. All the girls were out in their new dresses, and showing off the tans they got during winter weekend getaways to St. Bart's. After months of winter, it seemed like everything was new and warm, and everybody was in love. Or maybe that was just us. Flan and I just had our three-month anniversary.
I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. She was wearing a pink Zac Posen cocktail dressâwhich her older sister, February, got to keep after she modeled it in his spring fashion show last winterâand white Marc Jacobs cowboy boots. She smelled all roselike and clean, and her hair was perfectly brushed, almost like no two strands were overlapping, and pulled into a low ponytail.
“What's the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said, turning a page. “It just seems like sometimes you are, like, obsessed.”
I pushed the hair back from her ear, and kissed it softly. “Hey, you look beautiful. If sometimes I don't tell you that right away, it's because it's so obvious to me, and it would be, you know, redundant to say it again.”
She tossed the magazine over her head and smiled wide. “Okay, you're forgiven. Now kiss
me for real,” she said, and put her long, slender arms around my neck.
I lifted her up and put her on the sink, and we started kissing.
That brings us to Right Now: Rob just walked into the bathroom, where he stayed, clapping and whistling, for way longer than was necessary.
“Flan,” he said, “you are
del fuego
in that dress!”
“Rob, what are you doing in here?” I was irritated, and I tried to let it show.
“Can I use your Sebastian hair mold?” Rob said, brushing past us toward the mirror. I had to move fast and lift Flan out of his way. I sat down on the edge of the tub, and Flan sat on my lap. We stared at Rob in disbelief. He was looking at himself intently in the mirror, making virtually imperceptible changes to his carefully messed-up hair. Then he moved on to untucking his floral, button-down shirt ever so slightly from one side of his leather pants.
“So this night, it's going to be wild, no?” he said, still without looking at us. “I've never even been to the MAMI,” he added. Rob is part Venezuelan, part French, entirely international party boy, and not exactly the best speaker of English. Flan and I tried to stifle our laughter.
“I believe the correct pronunciation is
MoMA,”
I said.
“Whatever,” he said. “I'm audi. The Wildenburgers invited me to a cocktail party at their house before the MAMI thing. All the famous artists to be there. I'm sure Arno would have invited you, but he only was allowed two of his friends, and that was David and moi. Ciao.”
And that's when my stepbrother, thankfully, left the bathroom.
“I can't believe your sister went out with that eurotrash loser,” I said.
“Yeah, neither can she,” Flan giggled.
I was quiet for a minute, and then Flan snuggled into my neck and said, “Hey, are you okay? You didn't want to go to that party at the Wildenburgers', did you?”
“Nah,” I said. “It's going to be all boring old art collectors and smelly cheeses.”
Flan stood up and started brushing the wrinkles out of her dress. I stood up, too, and put my arms around her waist so that I could pull her close to me.
“Hey, I've got a great idea,” I said. She looked up at me with those big, wide eyes. Sometimes I forget that Flan is still only in eighth grade, but
when she looks at me like that, I remember. “Why don't we blow off the beginning of the party and go over to the Corner Bistro for burgers. It'll be like a great high cultureâlow culture contrast, and then we can show up fashionably late and everyone will wonder where we've been.”
“Okay,” Flan said, smiling indulgently at me. “That sounds like fun.”
Then we started making out, and it was another half hour before we made it down to lower Fifth Ave, where my apartment is, and hailed a cab.
It was the perfect night for a party; there had been rain earlier in the day, and everything seemed fresh and bright and springlike. It felt good to be alone with Flan before throwing myself back into the big Manhattan night with its many social obligations.
I had a feeling I might enjoy this night a little
too
much.
“Yo, Davey, get me another hit of champagne,” Arno Wildenburger yelled out, way too loud. Arno was six-one, half Brazilian and half German, and (everybody agreed) stunningly gorgeous. He was hard to miss, even when he wasn't bringing extra attention to himself.
The well-heeled art world crowd, mingling in the vast white-walled lobby of the MoMA, looked at him for a long, disapproving moment, and then the tinkling piano and light chatter resumed. Arno saw his mother whisper something into the ear of whatever socialite dowager she'd been talking up, and then whisk her to another side of the room. David Grobart took two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and moved over to where Arno was standing.
“Thanks, man,” Arno said, smiling to himself. David nodded and looked out at the crowd like it scared him.