Pass It On (19 page)

“I think somebody just gave us back our moral center,” David said, and he sounded all solemn, so Mickey slapped him on the back of the neck.

“I kept telling Selina that somebody was likely to get hurt if I left you guys alone for too long,” Patch muttered. I heard him, and my eyes widened. And I could see that everyone else's did, too. It had never occurred to me that we needed Patch. We liked to look for him, sure, but needing him was something totally different. And suddenly I felt a little better, a little safer and a tiny bit more relaxed.

“It's too quiet—somebody put on some music,” Patch said. “You guys are being weird.”

Mickey scurried below to skim through Patch's dad's old Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead tapes. Next thing we knew we were listening to “Sympathy for the Devil.” And Arno stuck his tongue out at me, which I definitely considered not very mature.

Patch drove the Mercedes into the garage and everyone got out, stretched, and shivered. It was nearly dark out, and getting colder by the minute.

“I'm up for some hot chocolate,” Patch said, as he opened the door. David smiled. That was the good thing about Patch. The only thought in his head was that he'd been out on a boat and now he was cold, so hot chocolate would taste good and definitely warm him up.

The door opened as they all shuffled toward it, and Flan stood there.

“You've come back,” Flan said, and threw herself at the feet of her brother. She was in her riding outfit, as usual, and her helmet fell off and rolled into some bushes.

“Please,” Patch said, and he tried to drag her up. Flan was definitely getting into big emotional gestures like that. It was embarrassing to watch. Flan moaned,
and then kept talking, “If Mom or Dad were around, they'd be devastatingly happy to know you're alive. We could call them on their cell phones, but they've forgotten to give us the new numbers.”

“Oh well,” Patch said. “I'm sure they'll call to check in with you.”

“Not likely.” Flan laughed. She punched Jonathan in the arm and he almost fell over.

“Sorry,” Flan said. “I'm going riding. See you all later.” And she found her helmet and was gone.

David hung back while everyone raided the kitchen.

“I'm not that hungry,” Jonathan said, to no one in particular. He got out of a jar of gherkins and found a can of Sprite and began to eat at one corner of the kitchen island. He was happy that Patch was back, and something about that made him feel weirdly centered, but he also missed the short-lived fun of having his friends compete for his attention.

Mickey veered off to the stereo and put on a Ghostface CD, loud.

“Eating-music!” Mickey said, and set out to heat up some frozen churros that had been Fed Ex'd all the way from a particularly great churro stand Frederick Flood loved in downtown L.A.

Meanwhile, Patch stood in the middle of it all. He methodically made himself a hero sandwich with roast
beef, muenster cheese, assorted vegetables, coleslaw, and pieces of leftover cornish hen.

“Dude, that is so gross,” David said to Patch.

Patch looked up. “You want half?”

“Yeah.” David slid his plate over.

Meanwhile Arno and Mickey began to argue about what they should put on their churros to spice them up.

“You okay?” David asked Jonathan, who looked a little green around the gills from eating all those gherkins.

“I just want to go home, but of course that's impossible.” Jonathan rubbed his belly and took a sip of Sprite, which appeared to make him feel no better.

“I'm sorry,” David said, with his mouth full of Patch's sandwich. “I know how you feel. But we've been coming here since we were eight. It's like our second home. Isn't that enough?”

“I guess.”

Once they'd stuffed themselves, they wandered into Frederick Flood's study and watched some of his porn movies from the fifties, where all of the women were really fat and laughed a lot, and the men were short, bald, and had moustaches. Then they passed out on the leather couches and napped.

When they awoke it was around ten at night, and
everyone was in a different mood. David watched the group and the only person who still seemed the least bit hyper was Jonathan. He kept standing up and walking around the library.

“Let's go hang out in the great room,” Jonathan suggested. So everyone did, because there was no reason not to. Mickey went to get beers and change the music to Deathcan March.

They all settled in on the big couches that surrounded the main fireplace, which you could literally walk into without stooping. Patch went and got some big logs and built a roaring fire with flames that were several feet high.

“We could make s'mores,” Patch said.

“Where's the stuff?” Mickey asked.

“What stuff?”

“The chocolate and the graham crackers and all that crap.”

Patch poked at the fire. He said, “I'll tell you as soon as everyone clues me in about why Jonathan was thrashing around in the cold Sound when the rest of you were on the warm boat.”

The music stopped for a moment while the system switched CDs. The gigantic logs crackled and popped, and nobody said anything. Finally, Jonathan stood up. He said, “It's been a weird week. My dad, well—my dad
is getting remarried.”

“Right, we all know that.
That's
what all this is about?” Patch asked.

Jonathan stared back at him. “Nah, there's more.”

“Okay. So what is it?” Patch asked. “If any one of us had something bad happen, we'd be on our cellies to you in like two seconds flat. You know that.”

“This is different,” Jonathan said.

“In addition to being a total snob, Liesel wanted me to have a threesome with another guy,” Arno said suddenly. Everyone straightened up. “See?” Arno asked. “I can tell you that.”

“You broke up with her because you wouldn't do that?” Mickey asked.

“No, it was because she was arrogant, though I wouldn't've done the threesome either. Unless you were the other guy, Mickey.” Arno threw himself back among the pillows.

“I don't think Liesel liked me enough to fool around with me,” Mickey said.

“Oh, stop. What about you? Tell us a secret,” Arno said to Mickey.

“Philippa and I,” but Mickey stopped. He looked as if he were choking on something.

“What is it?” Arno asked. He tossed a bottle of Corona over to Mickey who just caught it and narrowly
missed knocking over a marble bust of Eleanor Roosevelt that stood on a pedestal next to where he was sprawled out.

“I think the truth is that we broke up because we're so in love that we can hardly look at each other. And I was always disappointing her. I'm just too wild… though I don't feel particularly wild right now.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. In the background, Mr. Flood's old
Morrison Hotel
album made the dark room even spookier.

“That's ridiculous,” David said. “Nobody ever—”

But Arno was pointing to David and sort of bouncing up and down, which was unusual for him since he usually kept his cool no matter what.

“Bullshit!” Arno said. “You and Amanda started cheating on each other for the same kind of dumb reason.”

“Kind of.” David frowned. “I only started up with Risa to get back at Amanda.”

“Dude,” Mickey said. “That's terrible.”

“And now Amanda is fooling around with—” David stopped.

“Don't say it,” Jonathan said.

“Froggy.” David moaned. “I walked in on them last night. And it's all because she wanted to get engaged so we'd stop cheating on each other, and I knew that was
a weird artificial thing and the truth is that she's too insecure for me to handle.”

“That's got to be fixable,” Jonathan said.

“Well, when you figure out how, let me know.”

“Wow.” Patch had his feet curled up under him like a little kid. He'd managed to balance his beer bottle on a pillow, but now when he spoke, the bottle flipped over and poured down the front of the couch. Jonathan caught it, but he was a little late. Patch immediately took off his shirt and wiped up the spill. “You guys are like—there's a reason I'm still best friends with you guys. You're so honest with each other. I mean it's amazing that we're capable of this kind of thing. It's really cool.”

Arno saw Jonathan looking gratefully at Patch. But he didn't get why.

“What about you and Selina Trieff?” Arno asked, quickly. He knew the attention was supposed to be on Jonathan and his problem, but all the stuff that was coming out was too interesting to be ignored. “Did you two not just spend the last three days on her sailboat?”

“Yeah. She's really fun.”

“That's it?” David stood up, walked the fifty feet to the electronics cabinet and changed the music to the new Flaming Lips CD. “We reveal all this stuff and you say that Selina Trieff is ‘fun'?”

For a moment, everyone stared at Patch. But Arno turned and looked at Jonathan, who had his eyes closed as if he were praying.

“Well I don't know how to say too much more about her than that. So you guys threw Jonathan in the sound because his dad is getting remarried? Which, hello, we already knew.”

“No. I landed in the water because my dad invited me on his honeymoon which will be on this huge sailboat in the Caribbean that my dad's new wife PISS owns and the thing is, I was only allowed to invite one of you, but I invited all of you. Except for you, Patch, and that's just because I couldn't find you,” Jonathan said. Everybody was quiet then, watching.

“Um,” Patch said. “Okay. That doesn't seem like such a big deal though, right? I mean, you'll take someone and, whatever, maybe the rest of us will meet up with you in Harbour Island anyway or something.”

David smiled and said, “That's a good idea.” Then he added, “But we didn't throw him in the sound.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “Anyway, it's not just that. There's this other thing—”

“That you won't tell us about,” Mickey said.

“If I told you guys about it,” Jonathan said. “I'd have to like, beg you all for forgiveness.”

“So? We'd give it to you,” Arno said.

“I don't think I'm ready yet,” Jonathan said. He folded his arms and looked out the window. David followed his glance. There was nothing but trees and darkness out there. David settled himself into his seat and thought about how he knew what Jonathan's father did, and Mickey half-knew, but Arno and Patch totally didn't. It was a mess.

“Didn't we just talk about our girlfriends?” Mickey asked.

“
This is bigger than that,
” Jonathan whispered. Everyone was quiet.

“Maybe we shouldn't do this right now,” Patch said. “Not if Jonathan's not ready.”

Everyone stared at him. He wanted to say that he'd never heard Patch say anything definitive before, but he knew that wouldn't be cool.

“Maybe you should all sleep on it,” Flan Flood said, from the door. And of course nobody knew how long she'd been standing there. That made everyone uncomfortable enough to head up to bed.

On Sunday, February Flood was nowhere to be found and everyone had to get back to the city. The five of them discussed this while sitting in the great room, where they'd carried their breakfasts on big white plates.

“At least we found you, Patch,” Arno said. “Mission accomplished. Your parents are going to be psyched.” He balanced his plate on one knee—they'd cooked everything they could find, so each of them had about five eggs and half a pound of bacon on their plates.

“I'm sorry I couldn't tell you guys more stuff,” Jonathan said, and to Mickey, he sounded like he meant it.

“Let's lay off him,” Mickey said. “He's our friend.”

“Still.” Arno went back to stuffing himself. “I don't even get what he's hiding. What could be so bad? Take my family for example. I bet my parents cheat on each other all the time.”

And then Mickey got up and ran over to Arno and
put him in a headlock, and what was left of Arno's food spilled onto the rug.

“It's just like when we were in fifth grade,” David said quickly.

“If it were like back then,” Mickey gasped, as he held Arno down and gently banged his head against the floorboards, “I'd be kicking
your
ass too.”

“All that pot has ruined your memory,” David said, and laughed. And Mickey had to laugh too, because he knew as well as anyone that even though David was a mope, he was physically bigger and in much better shape because of basketball, and thus could kick everyone's asses. Then and now.

A few hours later, when everyone was ready to go, they went looking for Patch. He was out in the back garden. He'd come across a dove that was cooing from the branches of an old spruce tree, and he ended up sitting at the foot of the tree and cooing up at it. Clearly the bird was psyched, because it was now on Patch's shoulder and appeared to be pecking lightly at Patch's lips. As usual, everyone stared in wonder at Patch.

“I'm sure they called,” Patch said, to no one in particular, when they found him.

“Are you talking about your parents?” Mickey asked.

“Well, yeah.”

“I talked to my parents and they said they ran into
them at the airport,” Mickey said as he clambered up into the spruce tree. “They're headed to Switzerland for the week.”

“Oh, okay,” Patch said. “Let's take Big Bird and go home.”

“What's he talking about?” Arno asked.

“The yellow car we came up in,” Mickey said. “He's going to let me drive.”

“Who said?” Patch asked.