Take It Off (9 page)

Closer to the docks, there was a sort of festival atmosphere: What looked like Christmas lights were strung from all the trees and lampposts, and people walked lazily along the sidewalks. There was music from street musicians, and various performers, just like the ones in front of the Met on Fifth Avenue, were standing around in their weird poses. There was a man painted gold and holding perfectly still. I rushed by him. Then I saw a man dressed as a savage. He was wearing twigs around his head and a loincloth, and his whole body was painted with elaborate designs, like he had a full body tribal tattoo. A crowd was gathered around him, and he looked, well, savage. I pushed through the crowd, since there was no getting around it, and when I reached the center of it, you'll never guess who I saw.

Suki. And not only was she yelling, she was wearing a ridiculous floppy hat that made her look like a middle-aged gardener.

“This is just the sort of representation that keeps civilization in the dark ages!” she was
shouting and pointing at the loincloth dude. Then she began making bunny quotes with her fingers: “This is how ‘white people' picture the ‘third world,' as full of ‘savages,' who are ‘the other'! Well, I am not going to stand for this.” She turned to the crowd and began pumping her fists in the air.
“No le page! No le page el Conquistador!”

I stepped up to her and took her by the arm.

“Jonathan, thank God you're here! This man isn't even Spanish, he's an
American
, and he's exploiting these people's stereotypes for profit! I mean,
no wonder
the rest of the world
hates
us. Can you blame them?”

I smiled apologetically at the bemused crowd, and whispered, “Do you know what time it is?”

“I don't
own
a watch.”

I lifted my wrist so she could check out mine.

“Holy shit.”

“Let's get out of here.”

Suki grabbed me by the hand and we pushed through the crowd and went running through the streets. We darted through mobs of people, sidewalk cafés, and traffic, across the big thoroughfare and back into the little stone streets near the water. It was very quiet there, and our heavy breaths and the smacking noises our shoes made
filled the alleyways. The streets sloped downward, and we built momentum as we hurtled toward the docks. All of a sudden we came out of the old town and onto the Maritimo. We were standing in exactly the place we had parted that morning. I got a heavy dose of that sick, sinking feeling when I saw the
Ariadne
, lit up and glowing like it was the warmest place on earth, gliding across the water and out of the bay. I turned to Suki, and we looked at each other with faces of horror and despair.

Weirdly, we were still holding hands.

The mood in Barker's study that evening was festive, although for the last half hour or so Patch had been finding it increasingly difficult to appear attentive. The minister of tourism had agreed to accompany them to Barcelona, so that he could witness and help judge the survival test, and he had been enjoying himself as much as possible. He brought his deputy along, too. With the minister on board, Barker had insisted that Stephanie have dinner in his study, and she had begged Patch to come along. They had worked their way through five courses and were now facing down a tremendous cheese plate and full tumblers of Armagnac. It was all sitting a little heavy with Patch.

“
Salud
, my darlings,” Barker said, in what may have been the tenth toast of the evening.

“Salud.”

“To this heroic day.”

“To our hero.”

“Uh … thanks.”

“To the Spanish people.”

“Quite.”

They all drank.

“Well, my boy, you must tell us about your plans,” the minister said to Patch.

“Um, plans?”

“Yes,
por supuesto
. Plans. Plans for the glorious life ahead of you!”

“Oh.” Patch brushed away his overgrown hair behind his ears. “Yeah, I guess I don't really do things that way, you know? Like, I take things as they come, sort of.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then a smile broke across Barker's face. “Bravo! Spoken like a true sailor,” he said.

Everyone murmured happily. Then there was a timid knock at the door.

“See who it is,” Barker told Stephanie.

Stephanie went to the door and began speaking quietly to someone. Patch turned hopefully to the door and saw Greta, with her mass of red hair and her redder, sunburned cheeks, staring shyly into the study. She waved.

“Um, sorry to interrupt, sir,” she began, “but we're having a study group for the survival test tomorrow? And it's really not much of a group if we don't have
Patch to lead us.”

There was silence, and for a moment Patch feared that Greta would shrink away and leave him here to be force-fed rich food and stiff booze till dawn. But she took a deep breath and stepped a little farther into the study.

“Could I, um, borrow him? Please, sir … Pretty please?”

The minister's deputy yawned, and the minister himself followed suit.

“It
is
getting late,” Barker admitted. “Yes, of course. If my boy is willing. But I must advise you, dear, the best preparation is a good sleep, so don't cram for
too
long. And, Patch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You'll need your rest to judge the contest tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Doc. Nice to, um, meet you guys. Night. Night, Steph.”

“Good night.”

“Nighty-night.”

“Bye.”

“It was a pleasure.”

“Buenas noches.”

“Sweet dreams …,” Stephanie called, a little too feelingly, down the hall.

When they rounded a corner, Greta looked at Patch. Her face was all buttoned up with holding smiles in.

“Thanks, man. I was dying in there.”

“Hey, no problem They looked like real bores. Fancy, though, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. If you're into that.”

Greta was blushing through her sunburn. “I didn't mean I was—”

“How'd you get so burned?” Patch interrupted softly.

“Oh, I just … I was at the beach, and we had a couple drinks and I wasn't paying attention and my skin's so fair, you know?”

Patch nodded thoughtfully. “Ouch. I have some aloe in my room. Do you want to come over and get some? Your skin looks like it could use it.”

“Oh, yeah, I would love to, I mean if it's okay and everything I would really, really …”

“Cool.”

Greta stopped walking and put her hands over her face. “Oh, wait, shit, no we can't.” She took a deep breath. “Something really bad happened. That's why I came for you.”

“What?”

“Well … have you seen your friend Jonathan since we got back from Mallorca?”

“Um, no. But I've been with Barker the whole time, so …”

“Yeah, nobody else has seen him, either. When we were at the beach we lost track of time, and then Suki went off to find Arno by herself. That's when we went to find Jonathan, but then we found you instead and that whole thing happened. When we got back to the boat, and Mickey and I were crossing our names off the attendance sheet, we noticed that Jonathan and Suki had both forgotten to cross theirs off. So we did it for them, thinking they were probably just flustered. But after a couple hours, I hadn't heard from Suki, so I went to talk to Arno and see if maybe she was with him. But he said she never found him, and that he'd come back to the ship without Jonathan. Mickey hasn't seen either of them, either.”

Patch took this in.

“So … I'm really worried that maybe they lost track of time and aren't on the boat.”

“That's so not a thing that J would do.”

“Yeah, Suki neither. But Jonathan
was
really weird this morning. And when Suki left the beach it was already really late, and she was looking for Arno in a big city. And she doesn't wear a watch.”

“You've looked everywhere?”

“Uh-huh.”

Patch brooded for a moment, which was not an activity he had a lot of experience with. “Listen, just don't tell Barker.”

“I'm not sure …”

“Trust me. Right now I've got to go to my cabin. I think I was supposed to meet my guys there, and this is going to be sort of a crisis because Jonathan's usually the one who … It's just going to be weird.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“Sure.”

Patch started off toward his cabin, but then he thought of something and turned back to Greta.

“Hey, you all right?”

Greta nodded, although she didn't look so sure of it.

“I'm sorry. Your friend's lost, too. Why don't you come with me? First, we're going to make extra-sure they're not on this boat. Then we'll get you some aloe. And then we'll figure out what to do. You in?”

He put a comforting arm around her, and she put her face into his shoulder. And that was how they began the search for their lost friends.

“She said that?” Arno smiled to himself. Mickey had just told him about his conversation with Suki on the beach. It was gratifying that she had chosen him, although it sort of made the whole prospect a little less interesting.

“Yeah, big shocker,” Mickey said. He swigged from his beer.

They'd come to Patch's cabin separately, and it was already filled with people. They'd hung in opposite corners of the room for a while, but pretty soon they were both irritated that all these kids were just hanging out and partying in their friend's room when he wasn't even there.

They'd begun by circling each other warily, and spoke in terse, sarcastic sentences. Then Mickey bitterly related the story of the beach. Arno, feeling remorseful, had stolen them beers from some kids who were already too drunk to notice.

“Hey, man, I'm sorry about the Philippa slip,” Arno offered.

Mickey narrowed his eyes at him and took a swig from the beer. “Yeah, that was low. But I guess I didn't like Suki all that much, 'cuz right now, I don't be giving a shit.” He cocked his chin toward Patch's wide, soft-looking bed, where a group of girls were sitting and looking out the porthole. There was a great deal of oohing and ahhing, since none of the other cabins had portholes. Then two of the girls started making out.

“Where the fuck is Patch? This is so typical,” Arno said without taking his eyes off the girls. They watched for a long moment. But then one of the girls got up and started looking through CDs, and the other fixed her bra and went off the bathroom as though nothing had happened.

“Dude, this room is so much better than mine.”

“Word. I mean, is that redwood?”

“I think the paneling in mine is plastic.”

“Totally,” Arno said, feeling weirdly optimistic about everything all of a sudden. He took out his pack of cloves, thought about smoking one, and then tossed the box over his shoulder. “So you think Jonathan's really lost?”

“Nah. He's probably in the computer lab.”

They both laughed and swigged their beers.

The Faint was blasting from Patch's stereo, and the dancing was getting a little bit out of control. Someone
started to slam around in the center of the room, and the crowd expanded outward as a few people lost their balance. A big reddish guy fell into Mickey and Arno. Arno thought he might have recognized him from the cafeteria the other night—the red guy had been sitting next to a girl who kind of looked like Patch's little sister, Flan. He had to be at least 240, and curly red hair peeped from under his backward baseball cap. His face was ruddy, too.

“Yo,” he said, righting himself and looking pissed off. His eyelids were low, and his mouth sort of snarled up. It was almost like they could see the beer fizzing in his brain.

Mickey and Arno stared at him impassively. His grimace faded into a slightly jolly smile.

“Hmmm … do I, um, know you guys?”

Arno arched one of his perfect black eyebrows. It was his signature look—equal parts crazy, reserved, and disgusted—and he turned it on full-wattage now.

“Yeah, yeah, I
know
I know you guys.”

Mickey looked at Arno. He nodded ever so slightly.

“Del Berend, from Wichita, Kansas. You guys ever been there?”

They shook their heads.

“I know I know you guys.” He furrowed his brow. “Maybe our dads know each other? My dad's a big-shot
real estate developer: Sammy Berend? Berend Estates? Maybe you've seen the ads on TV?”

“We're from New York, so …”

“New York, huh …?”

Mickey and Arno waited until the light started to come on, and then Mickey suggested innocently: “Maybe he saw the magazine story …?”

Del nodded slowly.

“Vanity Fair?”
Arno suggested

“There was a small story in the
Times
,” Mickey reminded him.

“
Us Weekly
, of course. That's where most of the pictures were,” Arno said, like
Duh.

Del was nodding more vigorously now. He slapped his forehead. “Of course …”

“Yes.”

“You guys are … You guys are …”

Arno sighed deeply and hung his head. “Bill Clinton's fraternal twin love children with an Argentine heiress.”

“Ignacio—” Mickey said.

“And Luis Ribera y Clinton,” Arno finished.

Del looked like he was about to burst. Again, he slapped his forehead. “Incredible! So what was it like being hid away all this time? Do you guys have Secret Service detail? Are they
on board
?” he asked, whispering
the last two words.

A couple other kids were listening in now.