Break Every Rule (6 page)

“
You've reached the Frady residence. Please leave your information after the beep, and we will return your call as promptly as possible.” BEEP.

“Philippa, please please call me back? It's Mickey, obviously. Do you despise me? What is
up
?”

“
Hi, this is Jonathan. Don't forget to leave your number if I don't have it
.”

“Jonathan, it's David and it's, like, noon on Saturday. I am at basketball practice and I feel like I'm going to barf. Could you please remind me not to stay out till four when I have practice the next day? Thanks. Oh, and I'm feeling a little vulnerable right now, and maybe that's what's doing the talking, but it's weird that we haven't been hanging lately. Um, bye.”

“
Hi! It's Flan. I miss you already, so leave me a message.”
BEEP
.

“Flan, it's Jonathan. Sorry, I know I'm supposed to pick you up after riding class, but I'm running a little late because I was picking up stuff for Monday night. Wait for me, okay?”

Guitar solo in the background. Girl's voice says: “This is Mickey's phone. Go ahead and leave him a message, but don't be surprised if he doesn't call you back.” BEEP
.

“Hey, Mickey, it's Jonathan. It's Saturday, man. What's going on tonight? I'm trying to see if I can get something going. Let me know what you've got. Oh, and remind everyone about Monday, okay? Bye.”

“
Hi, this is Patch's new phone. You know the drill.” BEEP
.

“Patch, it's Jonathan, it's, like, eight-thirty on Saturday night. I'm at your house, but you're not here. Are you around? Maybe we could get a beer. Later.”

“
You've reached the Frady residence. Please leave your information after the beep, and we will return your call as promptly as possible.” BEEP
.

“Phiiiiiillllllllllllliiiiiiiipppppppppppaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!”

“
Wildenburger. Talk to me.” BEEP
.

“Arno, it's David. Sunday night and I just left Don Hill's. Sorry I didn't say bye, but I couldn't find you and I've got school tomorrow. But call me then, okay? Oh, and did Jonathan invite you to some party tomorrow night?”

I'm assuming you all know what Monday morning feels like, so I won't bore you with the bummer details. But I was feeling strangely good when I woke up on this particular Monday. I don't know if it was the residual glow of the MoMA party (which, the more I thought about it, had been a really classy kind of night), or maybe it was the mellow weekend that Flan and I had shared, with lots of movie watching and walks in the village and window shopping, rather than my usual excess of drinking and lack of sleep. Although, I have to admit, the anticipation of the new issue of
New York
was probably key to my unusually sunny mood.

I put on a pair of gray Calvin Klein slacks and a yellow Kenneth Cole polo shirt, grabbed my school stuff, and headed out. My mom has been doing private Bikram yoga sessions from eight-thirty to ten, five days a week, so I never really see
her in the mornings anymore. She swears it's improving her mood, though.

I waved to the doorman and the guy selling fruit on the corner, and Mrs. Bancroft, who was coming in from walking her Pekingese. We've had the apartment for a long, long time.

When I got to the Universal News stand on 14th street near Fifth, I was trying to be very casual. I mean, that's the way a Hottest Private School Boy
should
be—not too easily ruffled, you know what I mean? I looked at newspaper headlines and flipped absently through a few more news-oriented magazines. Then I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but what caught my attention wasn't even the fact that it was
New York
magazine, it was who was on the cover. I knew that face.

And it wasn't mine.

I moved, as calmly as possible, to the stack of
New Yorks,
and picked one up. The clerk was discussing some sort of political event with one of his customers, and so I slunk into the corner and braced myself for a real look. I looked that cover photo right in the eye.

My friend Arno Wildenburger was staring back at me, positioned jauntily in front of a dark kind of club scene. His brow was arched, the way it always
is when he wants to convey that he gets a lot of girls, or that he knows more about vintage tennis shoes than you do, or something else like that. Lest the significance be lost on me (which was not really even a possibility at this point), the headline
Arno Wildenburger: The Hottest Private School Boy Manhattan Has Ever Seen?
was scrawled across his midsection.

I must have been staring at it kind of gape-mouthed for longer than I thought—to me, it felt like time was standing still—because the clerk started yelling at me.

“Hey, are you going to buy that or what?” he was saying when I finally looked up.

I didn't handle this gracefully, I'll admit. I put down the
New York,
and ran out of the Universal without saying anything.

When I got back onto the street (where it was a totally unfairly beautiful day) the whole Arno-as-HPSB thing seemed like a bad dream. It was totally possible—it was entirely possible—that this was a printing error. I mean, it was a weekly, and their star reporter was out getting tanked with teenagers the night before she had to file her story. There were bound to be mix-ups, right?

I headed across Union Square toward the big
Hay & Royals there. You had to figure that, in all their corporate four-story glory, not a single printing error could make it in there. But by the time I charged through their doors, and stepped onto the escalator, I was feeling distinctly less optimistic.

The magazine aisle was full of kids ditching class and aspiring writers reading the table of contents of various obscure literary journals. I grabbed ten copies of
New York
and went to sit in the coffee area. I ordered a venti Americano, black, and found a relatively private table near the window. That way, if things got really shitty, I could always throw myself out of it.

Every single issue of
New York
had the same cover, the same table of contents, and worse yet, the same cover story complete with photographs of Arno, Rob, and David partying. One particularly unjust caption read, “Wildenburger and his friends get down at Lotus, where they are always on the list.” What was this,
Star?
It was like pure fiction.

I
got them on that list.

I mean, we're talking about Arno Wildenburger here. I've known the guy since I was, what, eight? He's good-looking, and girls trample all over each other to get a little attention from him, and the guy
can dress. (I should know.) But the guy isn't a taste maker, and he's not the brightest bulb. (I should know that, too.)

I sipped my coffee and wished I could go back half an hour, to the person I was before I learned of this huge cosmic mistake. I decided there was no way I could handle school today, at least not until after noon. Then I called Patch. I guess I wanted sympathy, but when I heard his voice on the line I realized that he was not the person to understand about Hottest Private School Boy.

“What's up, J?” he said. He sounded a little down, too.

“I just wanted to see if you were cool,” I said. “I mean, good. You went MIA this weekend, and that hasn't happened in a long time.”

Patch didn't say anything for a minute, and then he thanked someone who wasn't me. “What? Jonathan? I'm fine. I'm just on the way to school, can I call you later?”

“Sure,” I said. “We should hang out,” I added, before clicking off.

I sat in the H&R coffee shop all morning, reading every word of that Justine Gray person's crappy article, and grew more and more jealous of Arno, with all his connections and the life that he was
now assured. The life that, when I woke up this morning, I was sure was mine.

When there were no more words to read, I looked at the pictures. There was Arno in a club, and Arno in his parents' living room with the huge Rothko in the background. Arno on the corner hailing a cab and looking very brooding, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth (and the dude doesn't even smoke). Then there were Rob and David, partying with him in various clubs and some kids' houses that I recognized. They looked like three of a kind, and for a minute I was almost more sad at the way our crew was drifting than the fact that Arno had been named Hottest Private School Boy instead of me.

Then I started looking at the pictures of David, and he wasn't the David that I knew. At least, there was something different about him. He didn't look like the slightly awkward, super tall basketball player I'd always known. He looked almost
cool.

Was I jealous of David? That was weird. And weirder still: Was David cooler than me now? And then I remembered that he was the only one of my guys I hadn't invited to the party tonight. Instead of wondering what was up with that—and it
was
pretty weird that I would exclude David in any way—I started remembering something else:

I was having a party that night, in honor of being named the Hottest Private School Boy, which of course hadn't happened. I was going to have to get busy, and fast, if I was going to cover up the fact that I'd thought it was going to be me, and not one of my best friends, being celebrated.

The phone was ringing.

Arno sat up, and after a moment realized that he was himself, in his own bed, and that the weekend was definitely over. The phone was still ringing, too.

“Talk to me,” he said, jerking the phone off its charger and sinking back into his pillows.

“Arno? Arno
Wildenburger
?”

“Ye-es?” Arno was not in the mood for guessing games. The voice on the other line giggled rapturously, and then Arno knew who it was. “Mimi? I didn't know you got up this early.”

“Only on special occasions. But today
is
kind of a special occasion.”

“Oh yeah?” Arno had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed to bode well for him.

“Uh-huh. I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you. And tell you that you look incredibly hot on the
Hottest Private School Boy
cover.”

“Whoa, is that out already?”

“Yes, it is, hot stuff.”

Why do some girls think it's cool to be all sugary like that?
This was a thought that Arno had, and then forgot very quickly. “Thanks for telling me. What have you got going on this week?”

“Oh, the usual. I think Eugenie Danner is having a party tonight, and there's some other parties tomorrow. Oh, and I guess everyone has started going to Wednesdays at Marquee these days. Why, do you want to hook up?”

“Yeah,” Arno said. He was examining his shoulder definition in the mirror now and hadn't really been listening. “Will you call me?”

“Sure thing.”

“And Mimi?” he said, remembering how she looked in that befuddlingly low-cut dress, “You looked amazing the other night.”

Arno hung up and dialed Rob.

“Santana,” he said when the ringing stopped and a groggy voice began making nonsensical noises at the other end of the line.

“Ees eet juh, Vildenbuhgah?” Rob said, and burst out laughing. Arno wasn't sure if it was his new status as HPSB or what, but his patience level was definitely low.

“Cut that dumb-ass shit,” Arno said, “and meet me at the Grey Dog Coffee Shop in forty-five, okay?”

He hung up, showered, dressed, and called David to tell him there would be no school today. David protested initially, but there was no saying no to Arno this morning. He was on a roll.

In the foyer, he found a small collection of things for him: a note from his father, on his ecru personal stationery note cards, congratulating Arno and asking if he would like to have a family dinner at Pastis that night; a hand-delivered stack of issues of
New York,
each with his face on the cover, and a note from Justine Gray that read: “Thanks for the wild night Thursday, and all your hot hot help. Best wishes, J.G.”; and a huge bouquet of white chrysanthemums.

Arno flipped through the pages of one of the issues. He thought that the cover photo made him look good, but some of the ones inside made him and his guys look stupid, kind of like the Backstreet Boys or something. Arno told himself,
Whatever, get over it,
and then he wondered who in the world would have sent him flowers.

He picked the note off the bouquet and read it:

“Congratulations on making the cover. Can't wait to see you. Xo Xo Lizzie.”

Arno smiled to himself.
Yup,
he thought,
getting chicks just got that much easier.
He still had a grin on his face when the doorbell rang, and he wasn't able to
wipe the damn thing off by the time he got to the door and opened it.

There was Mimi's friend Sadie, all wrapped up in a sable coat that the weather definitely didn't call for. Arno was confused for a minute: It had been Mimi he'd been flirting with all Thursday night, right? Mimi Rathbone, in the absurdly low-cut dress? Of course, he'd confused these things before.

“Hi, Arno,” Sadie said, letting her coat fall open enough to indicate that she wasn't wearing a whole lot underneath. That cleared Arno's head right up. Luckily, he was still holding his cell phone. He called Rob and told him he was going to be a tiny bit late, and he told him to call David and give him the message, too.

Mickey spent all of Monday at school, just to see what that would be like.

It was sort of a letdown.

When the final bell rang, he ran to his locker to deposit the cumbersome books he had accumulated throughout the day, but when he got there he realized that he didn't know his combination. He was pretty sure he had used it once, back in September, or maybe in October, to store a skateboard or something, and he wondered if it was still in there and how he would ever get it out.