Break Every Rule (15 page)

I wondered, not for the first time, how Rob had pulled this off.

We walked closer, and the girls stood at what seemed to be the end of the line.

I try never to wait on lines, so I told the girls to sit tight, and that I would see what I could do. All the soaked kids with their dangerously jutting umbrellas shot me foul looks as I pushed my way up to the door. When I got there I saw that the line went all the way up the stairs to the second story.

“Hey, man,” said a guy who I'm pretty sure wasn't in high school anymore. He was wearing a dirty jean jacket over dirty jeans, and he had longish stringy hair. I think he might have been one of the Backseat Rockstars, like the bassist maybe. He blocked my way and said, “There's no way you're cutting into this line.”

This pissed me off, but what was I going to do, fight with a Backseat Rockstar? I went back to
where Flan and her friends were, shivering under umbrellas, and told them that the place was at capacity and—for legal reasons that had nothing to do with our relative hotness—they were letting people in slowly.

Forty-five minutes later, when we got to the top of those stairs, we were all a little bit cranky and a little bit soaked. There was a big guy taking money at the door, and maybe I let a little too much of my crankiness show.

“Hi,” I said curtly. “Jonathan M. plus two, Flan F. plus two.”

“Both plus two, huh? Everyone thinks they're on the list tonight,” the door guy said, chuckling to himself. He took a long time looking up and down his clipboard. “Yeah,” he said, “I'm really not seeing your names here.”

“Well, look again,” I said. Then I added, idiotically, “I'm Rob Santana's brother.”

“Now there's one thing I hate, and it's a liar,” the door guy said.

“
Excuse me
?” I said, “What's your name again?”

“It's Chino,” he said. “And that's the truth. Wanna know something else? You sure
ain't
Rob Santana's brother.”

I could hear Gemma behind me, giggling. “Jonathan, just pay him, okay?”

“That's going to be twenty dollars for you and all your little friends,” Chino said.

“That's outrageous!” I said.

“Jonathan, can we just go in?” Flan said.

Daria stepped up to Chino and opened her wallet. She pulled out seven twenties and handed them over. “Don't ever call my girls ‘little friends' again, got that?” she said, pointing a French-manicured fingernail at Chino. “Oh, and one of those is for you, tough guy.”

Then somehow we got ushered into this big room that was full of noise and music and people who weren't wearing a whole lot of clothing. It was happening in there, but pretty much all I could think about was how embarrassing getting into the party was.

“What was up that guy's ass?” I said loudly enough that Flan's crew of girlfriends heard me above the blaring music. “Can you believe we weren't on the list? I mean, who wants to go to this lame party, anyway?”

They all stopped and stared at me, and then turned to Flan with faces full of… pity, I think it was.

“I mean, don't they know who I am?” I added, pathetically.

“Hey, Jonathan,” Kendall said. “Maybe you should relax and try to have a little fun, okay?”

When Arno had woken up at around one on Saturday, he had more messages than he really thought he could listen to, and Mimi had already left. His room still smelled like her, though—she was working on developing her own fragrance, tentatively called Mi, and so she had been trying out a different sample every day. This one smelled kind of like jasmine and sex.

He stood in front of the mirror, twisting his retro Confederate cap to just the right angle, and then he heard a car honking downstairs. It was probably time to head over to West 20th Street and see what Rob had come up with. He leaned out the window and saw that Mimi was waiting for him in her parents' town car. He walked out of the house without grabbing anything. What did he need? He was Arno fucking Wildenburger.

“Hey, Mims,” he said when he got to the car.

“It's Lizzie,” said Lizzie. She was wearing perhaps the coyest smile that Arno had ever seen, and a black suede skirt that was even shorter than Mimi's black suede skirt.
Her hair was pulled back tight into a high
I Dream of Jeannie
-style ponytail. “Get in,” Lizzie said.

Arno got in. Lizzie poured them each a rocks glass of Alize. “Here's to your party,” she said. Arno hadn't realized until right then that Lizzie had the same soft, fuzzy voice that Mimi had. He raised his glass, and they made a little clinking noise.

“Did you get the invitation?” Arno said.

“Uh-huh. You're pretty hot, Arno Wildenburger. We're considering it. But in the meantime, I was hoping you'd take me to your party tonight,” Lizzie said.

“Good thinking,” Arno said, “Otherwise, who knows whether you would have gotten in. Wearing an outfit like that and all.”

Lizzie giggled at that and slapped Arno's thigh in mock protest. She told the driver to take the long way to West 20th Street, and then she pressed into Arno and started kissing him breathily on the mouth. He put his hand on her stomach. He'd discovered that he really liked doing this—it was taught as a drum. He could tell she was totally excited about the special night with the four of them and was just being a little coy. Clearly, he was irresistible.

Arno listened to the rain falling on the roof of the car and decided that whatever was going to happen, he deserved it.

*

They arrived late, and Arno was unsurprised to see that the place was packed. Lizzie was hanging languidly from his arm. A cheer went up through the crowd when the people caught their first glimpse of Arno, and he waved at them dutifully before he and Lizzie headed over to the V.I.P. area.

Rob had actually done a good job picking out the space. It was huge, and it had big factory-style windows looking out on West 20th street, but it kind of looked like an apartment, too—smaller rooms had been built out at the back, and there were swinging doors, through which he could see a kitchenlike space, that looked like they had been salvaged from a painter's studio. The loft was in the right neighborhood, and it looked just arty enough.

Everyone he knew, sort of knew, or had passed on the street since he'd agreed to sign on with the whole party idea had wanted to know all about it. He was satisfied to see that they had all come, and then some.

Danny Abraham was there.

The bassist from the Backseat Rockstars was there.

Literally hundreds of people he didn't know were there. There were also a lot of people who looked older, like his parents' age, but everyone seemed to be drinking and dancing and having a good time.

Billy the DJ was there, too, DJ-ing for him,
apparently for free, even though he usually charged thousands of dollars a night.

Arno sat in the banquette, basking in all the adoration in the room. Lizzie was leaning against him, her white fur jacket slipping off her shoulders, and her bra straps with them.

He felt like the king of the world.

Rob came pushing through the crowd to get to them. He had a grin on his face that was so big and permanent he looked like the Joker.

“Terrible good news,” he shouted over The Libertines, which DJ Billy was now blasting through the speakers. “We've already admitted four hundred people, and there's a line around the door!”

“That's great, man. Sweet party,” Arno said. He was trying to appear blasé, but he couldn't help but smile a little bit, too.

Rob was nodding excitedly to himself. “And the monies! I—I mean me—I mean
we
have made so much of the monies tonight.” A few bills fell out of his pockets, which he picked back up. He quickly added: “Which means we break even, of course.”

Arno and Rob nodded to each other, and looked out at the great sea of coolness before them. Lizzie burped, and asked for another glass of champagne.

Out of the corner of his eye, Arno saw Jonathan with Flan and a bunch of her friends. Even with the loudness of the music, and the density of the crowd, he could feel the bitterness of Jonathan's stare.

David had arrived at Arno's big Saturday night party way too early, and by one in the morning, when the thing had really gotten going, he was feeling pretty tired and not too into it anymore.

His big plan had been to get there, avoid Rob, find Modigliani, and take her away with him. If she had been at the MoMA party, surely she would be at this thing, too. And if he could arrange it, he was going to straighten things out with Jonathan. The first part of the plan had been easy. Rob had been running around maniacally all afternoon, barking orders at the servers he'd hired, the security, the beer delivery person, and whoever else would listen. But many hours of the party had now passed without a sighting of the girl with the deep voice and the mole on her back.

All of his friends were acting like freaks, too. Except Patch maybe, who, true to form, was nowhere to be seen.

Jonathan wasn't making the make-up part of David's
plan easy, either. He had been standing in a little huddle with Flan and her girlfriends all night, pointedly ignoring David. Eventually the girls started dancing and hanging out with other people, but it looked like poor Flan was stuck with Jonathan, either sulking against the wall or making rounds to talk to other guys from Gissing.

Arno seemed to have rotated the It Girl on his arm, once again. It looked like Lizzie was the one scoring points in their little competition tonight. David decided he should definitely avoid that whole scene.

David couldn't help but notice that Sadie, the girl that Arno had at one point pushed him to hook up with, was gone, too. Her absence hadn't really made a dent, though. It Girls with whitish blond hair and artificial tans were everywhere. They seemed to be multiplying.

And just when David thought the night couldn't get worse, he caught his first glimpse of Mickey. And Mickey was naked.

David pushed through the crowd, and said “What's up?” to Mickey.

“Hey, man!” Mickey said. At least one of his friends was glad to see him. He felt kind of weird when Mickey gave him a naked hug, but he realized that he should probably just be glad that anyone wanted to hug him at all. “What's going on?”

“Oh, you know,” David said. “Partying, I guess. But, um—you aren't wearing any clothes. You knew that, right?”

Mickey laughed like that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Actually, he looked more bleary-eyed and crazed than usual. “Anyway,” he said when he'd managed to stop laughing, “you're coming to the Fresh event, right?”

David was momentarily confused by Mickey's total nonchalance about the nudity thing, and said, “Yeah, I'll totally be there.”

“Good man. It's been too long,” Mickey said.

“Seriously,” David said, “why are you naked?”

“Listen, if I want anyone to go to the Fresh event, I'm going to have to show them that it's okay. Bodies are beautiful. We can all be comfortable in the buff. It's like an advertisement.”

“Are you okay?” David said instinctively.

“Shit, man!” Mickey was yelling now. “Never been better! Now I'm off to sell my body! I mean, my art!” Mickey headed into the crowd, calling back over his shoulder, “I'll call you with the details.”

To David's surprise, a clump of girls standing nearby began responding to Mickey's naked event idea with huge enthusiasm. They all seemed to be giving him their numbers and asking if they were definitely in. He
overheard one of them say, “Yeah, he's part of the Hottest Private School Boy's inner circle. I mean, there's no way it won't be hot. Arno's totally going to be there.”

David moved away from them and over to where Jonathan and Flan were standing. Jonathan loved parties, David told himself, so perhaps he would be in a good enough mood that he would stop acting like a freak.

But as soon as he opened his mouth to say hello, he realized this was not the case.

“David,” Jonathan said. “You really don't get it, do you? Everyone just likes you because you're friends with Arno. Nobody wants to hang out with you alone. Now would you get lost before you ruin my cred, too?”

David hung his head and turned to go. As he walked away, he thought he heard Flan say, “Why did you say that, Jonathan? It was so
mean
….”

David thought he might actually cry. He desperately needed to leave this scene. He pushed through the girls writhing on the dance floor toward the door. On the way he saw Mimi, who hadn't disappeared after all. She was hanging on that Danny Abraham guy's arm now. After tonight, David wasn't going to be disgusted by anything ever again. If he could just leave this party right now, he was going to transform himself into a very hard kind of person who never let things get to him.

The coat check girl seemed to have abandoned her post, so he went into the little room right before the stairs to see what had become of his throwback Celtics warmup.

There was no coat check girl in there either, but there were four guys in police uniforms. Rob was there, too. And so was Jonathan's mom.

David was shocked. For a moment, he was happily convinced that this was all a weird dream.

“What I don't understand, Rob,” Jonathan's mom was saying, “is how my Rolodex and ATM card ended up in the pocket of David's jacket….”

“I am not understanding, either,” Rob said. “Although it is all, how you say, coming together now. When I started arranging this party I am in a panic because the deposit on the loft is very gigantic. Then David say,
no worry Rob. I have ten thousand dollars, easy breezy,
and all of a sudden he have it….”

David couldn't believe what he was hearing. He also couldn't believe how much thicker Rob's accent had gotten. Rob continued: “In my country, you see, we are not having much money at all, and so I think maybe ten thousand dollars, that's not all of that much in Nueva York….”