Break Every Rule (11 page)

“They don't take reservations here,” I said, after about half an hour of being jostled in the entryway of Freeman's. “Otherwise, we wouldn't have to wait like this.”

Flan shrugged to let me know she didn't mind all that much. Freeman's is this quasi-secret restaurant at the end of an alley off the Bowery. Like all quasi-secret venues, it got hot immediately, and now it is overrun by celebrities and party kids and plenty of grown-ups trying to reclaim their youth. It's decorated in a sort of neo-hunting lodge style, with taxidermied animal heads and things like that on the walls. I'm basically against this kind of ostentatious cruelty to animals, but then I do own many, many pairs of leather shoes, so who am I to talk? As usual, the restaurant was full of people getting happy and loud and confessing all the horror stories of their busy days.

“Jonathan for two?!” the visibly stressed-out
hostess called, and when I nodded she waved me over to a table in the corner. It was dimly lit over there, in a kind of romantic, hidden way, and I couldn't help but say, as we took our seats, “See, even if we have to wait, they still always save me the best table.”

Flan nodded and looked around, almost like she'd never seen so many people in one place before. Which of course she had. In New York even someone kind of innocent-seeming like Flan grows up quick.

I leaned back, thinking maybe things were finally looking up, when I realized they definitely were not.

The table across from us was filled with a particularly raucous party. It was Arno Wildenburger's crew. Arno himself was nowhere to be seen, but there were Rob and David, and Mimi Rathbone and her girlfriends, and some other people I didn't recognize, but who looked very, very hot. David was wearing the saffron Perry Ellis blazer I had contemplated buying that afternoon, and a faded black T-shirt that gave it a very downtown feel. That outfit was cooler than anything I'd ever seen him wear. He had his arm draped around that Sadie girl, and he looked hip and confident. He looked… Arno-ish.

“David looks a little out of his element, doesn't he?” I said dryly.

“He looks like he's having fun,” Flan replied.

I decided I better go to the men's room and make sure I looked sufficiently cool. I kissed Flan on the cheek and told her I'd be right back. Then I stood waiting in front of the men's room, which was locked. After about five minutes, I pounded on the door and called out, “You want me to call an ambulance?”

The door cracked, and I saw Mimi Rathbone's friend Lizzie looking angry and a little flushed. “What the hell do you want?” she said.

Then Arno peaked his head over her. In spite of the fact that I'd just interrupted him and a girl, he seemed happy to see me. “Hey, J!” he said, pushing past Lizzie and doing the guy handclasp thing with me. “You hold that thought, gorgeous,” he said over his shoulder. Then he closed the door behind him and stepped into the small waiting area. “What's up, man?”

I couldn't help but say, “Weren't you going out with that chick Mimi before?”

“Uh, kind of. This Hottest Private School Boy thing is crazy, man; it's like they can't get enough of me. It's all I can do to spread myself around.”

“You mean you've been hooking up with Mimi
and
Lizzie all this time?”

“And Sadie. Although, now that you mention it, we haven't hooked up since yesterday afternoon sometime.” He looked genuinely concerned. “I wonder if she feels left out….”

I rolled my eyes at that.

“I'm planning a way to make it up to them all, though.” Arno had apparently not noticed my disgust.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Arno said, lowering his voice. “Sometime early next week, when the issue is off the stands and everything has cooled down somewhat. My energy is just too in demand right now. But I think Monday night I'm going to invite all three of the girls to some hotel room. Those girls love each other. They love me. I'll definitely make it up to them.”

“Make it up to them?” I said, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, you know, give 'em something to write about in their diaries.”

“Oh,” I said. Arno winked at me. There was a banging from the other side of the bathroom door, and then Arno saluted me and slipped back inside the bathroom to fool around with Lizzie.

I was so stunned by the level of ego craziness that he had achieved, that I forgot my original mission and stumbled back toward our table. When I saw that Flan was gone, I got that sick feeling all over again.

After all, if Arno was commanding that kind of action, David could certainly… well, I didn't even want to
think
about that. And there indeed was Flan, standing near Arno & Co.'s table, whispering something into David's ear.

I'd been pushed around enough that night. I marched over, and put my arm around Flan's waist.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I think this is my date. And David? You should really work on getting your own look. Everyone knows you're just banking on Arno's reflected glory, so the least you could do is have a little self-respect and not dress like him.”

Then I wheeled Flan around and hurried her back to our table.

David stumbled into the kitchen of the West Village apartment he shared with his parents, hoping to find a snack. They had spent many hours at Lit, so it had been a while since he'd had that wild boar entrée at Freeman's. There had also been a lot of dancing since then. He was starving.

He flipped on the light in the kitchen, and dove into the refrigerator. He came back out with a container of deli macaroni and cheese and some salami slices.

That's when he saw his dad.

“Howdy,” Sam Grobart said. He was sitting at the kitchen table in his bathrobe, reading
Psychoanalyst Weekly,
which was weird, because until David had come in the lights had been off.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Where you been, son?”

“Um, Arno's house,” David said, lying instinctively even though he knew his dad wouldn't care that he'd been out. To his dad, it was all just “experience.”

“So… how's everything going?”

David sat down at the table with a sigh, and chewed thoughtfully on some salami. He knew better than to put off the emotional weather report. “Okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?” Sam Grobart asked, putting down the paper.

“Things are weird with my friends, I guess. Or, with Jonathan, really. Ever since that party at the MoMA, he's been totally strange to me.”

“How, exactly?”

“He's mean.”

“Mmm, perhaps he's jealous.”

“But of what? That whole Flan thing blew over ages ago,” David said dramatically.

“You know, David, this is probably difficult for you to believe, but sometimes men can be more jealous over each other than over the women in their life. After all, you have all been friends for years. The girls just come and go. Try and think about what's making him act this way….”

“Maybe he's jealous that I'm hanging out with Arno so much?”

“Perhaps.”

“But that's not even that perfect. I mean, at first it was fun to be sort of celebrity-like, you know?” David slumped down in his seat a little. “And to feel cool for once. But then… this strange thing happened.”

“What kind of strange thing?”

“Well, I don't know, Arno's a force of nature right now, I guess. And I worry that I'm, you know, just following him around.”

“Mmmmm…”

“And the girls we've been hanging out with…”

“Yes, Mimi Rathbone and her friends. I was just talking to Mrs. Rathbone about this during our morning session. She is very relieved that the girls are in the tabloids for going out with boys their own age for once.”

“Yeah, well, it's not all that wholesome. I mean, Arno's basically hooking up with all three of the girls all the time.”

“Ah, so you're angry that he poached your mate?”

“Huh?” This was why David hated talking to his dad when he was quasi-drunk. It could get confusing and bizarre. Plus, his dad always made everything sound so animal kingdom-y. “Um, not really. I actually didn't care so much. But it's kind of nasty. And Fl—someone told me this secret tonight. Those girls were just having this competition to see who could hook up with Arno the most while his face was still on newsstands all around town.”

“That
is
untoward.”

David shrugged. “I'm just glad I found out. Now I
know not to hook up with Sadie. She wasn't really my type, anyway.”

“Perhaps there's someone else?”

David took a few spoonfuls of the mac and cheese. “Well, I did meet this girl last Thursday…”

“Mmm-hmmm…”

“She's just different. Like, she looks like she walked out of a painting. She's just nothing like the girls we've been hanging out with. But I haven't seen her since then, and I guess I sort of gave up on ever seeing her again.”

“This sounds like a very admirable goal, young man. Something different, something off the beaten path. Love transforms the soul, you know.”

That was a bit much for David. “Uh, I think I just have to go to bed…,” he said.

He tossed the remainders of his snack into the trash can, turned off the light, and hurried to his bedroom, leaving his dad to read
Psychoanalyst Weekly
in the dark.

“
Hi, um, this is David. Leave a message, and I'll get you back. Um, how do you? Mmph…” BEEP
.

“Allo, Assistant
Daveed.
It is Intern Rob. Thursday morning, oh-nine-hundred hours. I have put on flyers at Gissing, Potterton, and Barton Day. Ooo, by le way do you have ten thousand dollars on you? I found the venue, a loft on Chelsea, and gigantic it is! But I need to pay deposit today, and it is ten thousand dollars. Call me, okay?”

“
Hi, um, this is David. Leave a message, and I'll get you back. Um, how do you? Mmph…” BEEP
.

“Allo, c'est moi. Oh-nine-hundred-thirty hours. Please to disregard last message.”

To distract myself from the possibility that I was being cheated on (denial is always the best course, right?), I went to school again for all of Thursday. Well, almost all of it. See, by that afternoon there was a buzz. It wasn't exactly about me, but it wasn't exactly good for me, either.

I hadn't seen Arno all week, even though we both go to Gissing. I had been asked several times where he was, mostly by blushing girls who then asked if I could give him their numbers. I'd been brushing them off, all irritated-like—and that only seemed to make them want Arno more. But it really
was
starting to make me sick. And what was he going to do with those numbers, anyway? He certainly had his hands full with Mimi, Lizzie and Sadie.

And then, right before sixth period English lit, when I went to get my copy of
Othello
out of my locker, I got the news flash. There was Sandra
Anderson, standing next to me, looking very eager. Sandra goes to Barton Day, the girls' school next door, and she's really nice, if you know what I mean. She's plain and she has this plain group of friends who are all very nice, but you just know they sit around at home on weekends and bemoan the lack of boys in their lives and eat cake frosting.

Did that sound mean? Well, sorry. I was feeling pretty freaking mean.

Anyway, there I was, just trying to get to class and not think too much about anything, and suddenly there's Sandra, in my school, with this big, everything's-guh-reat smile on her face.

“Jonathan,” she said, sort of swaying to the right like she had to pee, “you
must
tell me everything about the HPSB party. I
have
to get in. Can you get me in?”

“Um… what HPSB party?” I said very, very slowly.

“Oh, Jonathan, I know that you have to, like, limit access to your friend now because of all the demand for him these days, but you don't understand. Me and my friends are
such
Arno fans. Will you please, pretty please get me on the list?”

I must have gone a little pale or something, because Sandra's smile went away right then.

“I'll see what I can do…,” I said as steadily as I could manage, and then I said something about being late for class. “You should get back to Barton, too. If they catch you here, you'll be in trouble.” Then I tried very hard to get down the hall without tripping or otherwise humiliating myself.

I clutched my
Othello
like a security blanket.

I meant to go to class, I really did. But once I'd turned the corner, I saw that the entire second floor west side hall was covered in flyers that said
ARNO
! and featured a picture of him shirtless. I was filled with the kind of manic desperation that demands you abandon all routine activity and do something, anything. I looked left, I looked right, and I ripped one of those freakish flyers down.

Underneath the (tacky) picture of Arno, it said
COME CELEBRATE THE HOTTEST PRIVATE SCHOOL BOY OF 2005
,
AT THE HOTTEST PARTY OF 2005
. The party was that Saturday at some loft in Chelsea. Apparently, the dress code was to be strictly enforced, and there was going to be a twenty-dollar door charge. And then underneath all that it said:
AN EVENT PRODUCED BY ROB SANTANA, INTERN
.

Now what did that mean? Did he have an internship I didn't know about? This was all just too
weird. Weirder still, this seemed to be a major party. That I wasn't invited to.

There was no way in hell I was going to class now.

I ripped down a few more of the flyers, just to get out some of my anger at the whole insane world, and I blew right out of Gissing.