Break Every Rule (13 page)

“I know,” said Flan. “But it's just like it's always about
him
and
his
social life. Sometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride. Does that make sense? I just wonder if maybe I'm giving up too much.”

“Hey, Flannie, Jonathan adores you, you know that, right?” Patch said. “But it seems like he's not at the top of his game lately. Just be sure that's not why you're considering breaking up with him, okay?”

“Okay,” Flan said, “I promise.”

“There's something else on your mind, too, huh?” Patch asked, pushing the hammock so it started swinging gently.

“Um, well… it's just that Jonathan's stepbrother, Rob, keeps calling me. He says that David wants to hook up with me.”

“Rob's been calling
you?”
Patch said. “I mean… do you get the feeling David has a crush on you?”

Flan shrugged. “Not really.”

“Yeah, I don't think he does, either. At least, I don't think after what happened last winter he'd ever act on it for Jonathan's sake, even if you and J did break up. And you don't like David, do you?”

“Of
course
I don't like David.”

“See, that shit pisses me off,” Patch said with more feeling than he'd had in a while.

“Oh, calm down, Dad.” Flan always thought it was amusing when her older brother got all protective. “And I hung out with Rob and Feb while you were in Europe, so him calling isn't that out of the blue. It's more that… if things are weird with J and me, I don't want any rumors going around.”

Patch got off the couch and came the closest to pacing he'd ever been in his life. “That guy's got to be stopped,” he said. “He's pure evil.”

“Well, I think he's just, you know, European,” Flan mused. “Like, creepy, kind of.”

“Nah, it's more than that. I think he's a bad influence. I mean, look how crazy all my guys are acting! I'm just worried about them. I think Rob's made everybody worry about being cool way too much.”

Flan smiled in her secret Flan way. “But you guys have
always
been cool.”

Patch shook his head. “Maybe, but it's never been this stressful. I think Rob's riding the
New York
magazine thing for his own purposes somehow. Like him calling you about David? He's not trying to set you up. What's the point in that? I think he's fucking with Jonathan.”

Flan thought about that a moment. Then she noticed something odd. “Hey, big brother?”

“Yup?”

“Why are you reading a travel book about Afghanistan?”

“I dunno.” Patch sank back into the couch and tried to think of a way to explain his troubles. “I need something to need,” he said slowly.

“Is that like some anti-zen motto?” Flan giggled.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Flan clutched the edge of the hammock and nodded seriously.

“I've been depressed all week, ever since the night of the MoMA party. I got all these calls from that Justine person that day—”

“You mean, Justine Gray of
New York
?” Flan asked darkly.

“Yes, that one. She left me all these messages about how cool I was, and how the magazine wanted to do a profile on me, and she said that—”

“Wait, hold up, mister. You mean
New York
wanted
you
to be Hottest Private School Boy?”

“I guess, but that's not really the point.”

“I know, but that's just crazy. Especially because of all the drama….” Flan drifted off and appeared to be processing the enormity of it all. “Weird,” she said.

“I know. But the worst thing was, on the message she left she had this whole complex justification for why I was hottest whatever. She said that it was because I didn't want anything or need anything.” Patch paused as though even the memory of it caused him pain. “She called me an island.”

“Oh,” Flan said. She looked very sad. She obviously got it.

“And so I've been trying all these things, looking for something to really want and care about, and I just can't find anything that holds my attention. It's driving me crazy. I think the only thing I can really do is become a war correspondent. You know, shock myself with experience from the big, bad world.”

Flan rolled off the hammock, and came over to Patch and hugged him. “That's all pretty heavy, big bro.” She shook her head and added, “But no way am I letting you go to Afghanistan.”

“I might have to, though.”

“But there must be
something,”
she said brightly.

“I've really wracked my brain, kiddo.”

“When was the last time you were happy—like, really, really happy?”

Patch shook his head. “I can't even remember.”

Flan kissed him on the cheek. “Well, I'm going to bed. This is too much depression and gloom for me in
one night. But I'm going to think of something, don't you worry.”

When Flan was gone, Patch tried to think about what happy meant. Maybe he had never really been happy, and his whole life had been a fruitless quest for some little bit of satisfaction.

He closed his eyes and thought
happy
over and over again, and what came into his head was the morning he woke up with Greta on the
Ariadne.
She had been so alive and awesome: She told off the RA who had been hitting on Patch, and then somehow there had been roses in the bed and they had fooled around and talked for the rest of the day, and Patch had felt completely understood and relaxed and… happy.

And then she'd come back to New York with him and she'd been so entirely cool—she was just down for whatever. She was probably the only person on the planet who didn't mind walking forty blocks or so, and she thought Coney Island was as cool as he did, and she never whined about the water being dirty, or the beach being too crowded, and she actually liked fried clams, which was something he'd
never
known a girl to like.

Of course, eventually she'd had to go back to California for school, and Patch had thought at first that was probably a good thing, because he'd always thought of himself as kind of a loner. But maybe nothing had been
right since she'd left. Maybe he wasn't so much of a loner after all. Now, when he thought about it, “loner” was just another way of calling somebody an island. And calling somebody an island just wasn't nice.

Patch thought about Greta all night. By the time the sun was coming up on Perry Street, he had located his ID and called a car to take him to the airport. He'd finally thought of something that he really wanted.

David had been laying low, going to basketball practice and doing his homework. Then, Friday afternoon, when he was leaving school, he got a call from Rob saying that he should head over to the hotel bar at 66 Thompson for an after-work drink.

David wasn't sure what Rob meant by “work,” and he didn't really want to go anywhere near Rob right then. But he had been replaying the five minutes of his life that he'd spent in the glow of the Modigliani over and over, and she had become an obsession. He had even started playing tricks on himself that involved her. For instance, when he was practicing free throws, he told himself that if he made fifteen shots in a row, that meant he would run into her again that weekend. He told himself that if he finished his trig homework in less than half an hour, she was thinking about him, too. If he could get all the way from his house to school without once thinking of her, they were meant to be.

But he'd finally realized (somewhere between home
and school) that he wasn't going to get to see her again by playing stupid mind games. He was actually going to have to go out. And that was how he ended up at 66 Thompson on Friday evening, watching Rob talk into his cell phone.

They were seated in low little armchairs at a small glass table with a candle on it. The room was all warm and muted, and it had several of these small tables surrounded by low chairs. A jazz trio was softly plucking away in the corner. David guessed this was what they called a lounge.

He took a sip of Stella and looked around. There were a lot of business guys loosening their ties and European tourists talking animatedly. The Modigliani was not there.

When Rob got off the phone he made a noise like he was exhausted.

“What are we doing here?” David asked.

“Well, to people-watch the beautiful people!” Rob said, taking a gulp of his Campari and Sprite. He was wearing a black cardigan, white dress shirt, and flooding khakis. David was amazed that any guy under seventy-five would actually try to pull off a cardigan.

Rob seemed very into everything, though: He was snapping his fingers to the music. “Plus, the party on the roof here at 66 Thompson, it is one of the hottest in the
city. I want to get some, how you say… tips when it starts later on.”

“Tips?” David said.

“Yes, for the fabulouso party tomorrow night.”

“Oh.”

There was a long, awkward silence, during which David focused on his beer. Rob broke it by jumping out of his chair and yelling, “Sandra!”

He ran over to a girl who had just come through the door and was looking around awkwardly. He gave her a kiss on each cheek, and led her back over to their table.

“David, this is Sandra Anderson, Sandra, this is David,” Rob said.

David recognized Sandra from parties and around. She was a little bit moonfaced and chesty, in a pretty way, and she was wearing an outfit straight out of the J.Crew catalog. Even David could recognize that.

They talked about school and the friends they had in common and which parties they'd seen each other at lately. When the waiter came, she ordered a vodka and tonic.

Rob seemed to have forgotten all about Mimi, Lizzie, and Sadie. He had his hands all over Sandra, and he was making her blush and giggle. Then her cell rang, and she excused herself to talk to her friend. Before she left she whispered something into Rob's ear that made him smile.

David thought it was sort of cool that Rob would hang out with a girl so un-It, and he tried to think of a way to say that. But before he got a chance, Rob leaned toward him and said, conspiratorially, “You know, she has lots of friends.”

“Um, really? I guess I don't know who she hangs out with.”

“Yes, beaucoup friends.”

Rob smiled in a self-satisfied way. David didn't know if it was his clouded headspace right then, or that it was the end of a long week or what, but Rob was really starting to get on his nerves. “So what,” he said.

“You don't think I'm really interested in
Sandra,
do you?” Rob giggled as he continued. “She is super uncool and a little ugly, no? See, she has so many friends and they all come to party tomorrow night! They are all going to come and pay the door charge.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, David, this is the life of intern. You have no idea how many super uncool and a little bit ugly girls I have smooched in the last week just to get them to come to this party. But what an event it will be!”

David thought he might be sick.

He excused himself and hurried to the bathroom. Before he could get there, though, he saw Jonathan talking to the hostess. Flan was standing next to him.
David was filled with relief—Jonathan would know how to handle sick and twisted Rob. And his dad had, after all, advised him to find a way to make up. David raised his hand to wave in their direction, but when he saw the look on Jonathan's face he panicked. From the way he was grimacing, it looked like Jonathan didn't want to see David at all.

David turned and hurried in the other direction.

If I needed any more evidence that David was really and truly after my girl—and not just “insanely attracted” to her—then I got it Friday night, when he ran out of the lounge at 66 Thompson at the very sight of me and Flan together.

I shook my head, and then told the hostess, “Yeah, a place by the balcony would be best.”

Rob waved at us, and I waved back. He raised his hands as if to say, “Well isn't this a coincidence.” I nodded at him, but I was pretty sure that it was no coincidence at all. I mean, it was just a few hours earlier when he had come into my room and asked me where I was getting all dressed up to go. That's when I told him that I loved this bar, and how hot the roof party that they throw at night is, and how I was taking Flan there for a bite to eat that night.

We sat down, and Flan put her jacket over the back of her chair.

“Can you believe Rob is here?” I said. “I mean, it was practically five minutes ago that I told him this place was hot.”

“Yeah, crazy,” Flan said, examining her cuticles.

“Hold on,” I told her. I quickly called Mickey and Patch to see if they wanted to come hang out with us, but neither of them picked up. I left them messages, and told them it looked like a fun night. Then I turned all my attention to Flan.

“Thanks for coming out with me,” I said. “I know I've been really obnoxious about the whole HPSB thing, and about that party tomorrow night. The whole thing is just disgusting to me. But this is exactly what I needed: Dress up, go out, not think too much about tomorrow and what it means.”

Flan smiled enigmatically at me. “Thanks for being my boyfriend,” she said. “Let's have fun tonight, okay?”

“Don't we always have fun?” I said as the waiter approached and waited to take our order. I couldn't resist adding: “But yeah, I made some calls, and there are some parties tonight that we should make an appearance at.”

Then Flan ordered a ginger ale and a plate of French fries, and I ordered a Guinness. The waiter nodded and disappeared.

And I really thought for a moment,
This is nice. This feels human.
And when Rob came over, he still seemed friendly. I was grateful for that. I felt like maybe he was on my side.