The Insiders (10 page)

“I want us to be the most romantic couple in the whole world,” Philippa said. “We can be like Romeo and Juliet.”

They crept upstairs to her room.

“Let's just be us,” Mickey said.

Arno paced back and forth in Miami International Airport, waiting for Kelli. He was wearing white pajama pants, a torn black T-shirt, and no shoes, which he'd argued about with airport security twice already. But he wanted to look totally cool for Kelli, because now, for reasons he didn't quite get, he was vying for her against Randall Oddy. Arno didn't particularly like a challenge, but he definitely had one.

“What's up, lover?” Kelli came up behind him and grabbed his stomach and kissed him on the cheek. He thought she smelled like fabric softener and daisies and airline daiquiris.

“Hi,” he whispered. He knew he sounded shy and wondered what was going on. Normally, if he was going to meet a girl, he liked to show up with another girl, or two other girls, so they'd be jealous of each other and subsequently make out with him quicker. But he kept forgetting about other girls when he was
thinking about Kelli.

Then he noticed that Randall Oddy was with her. Arno rubbed his eyes, but Randall didn't go away.

“Hey, kid,” Randall said. “I missed my plane so when I saw Kelli I jumped on her.”

They laughed and bumped up against each other.

“My—” But Arno managed to catch himself before he said
dad
and added
isn't going to give you another show if you try to get with my girl
.

“Your?”

“Car is downstairs,” Arno said. He'd borrowed an extremely cool 1974 white Cadillac convertible from the manager of his dad's gallery, and he had it downstairs. He could barely drive it, being from the city and all, but he'd figured on Kelli driving, which would've been really cute. But now he'd have to, as he was damned if Randall Oddy was going to sit anywhere but in the backseat.

“Your dad ready to rock tonight?” Randall asked. He threw his arm around Arno, who glared at him. Randall was wearing an Annihilate the Rich T-shirt, Prada flipflops, and paint-splattered jeans. Arno restrained a strong inclination to point at Randall, scream
terrorist
, and run away with Kelli.

Outside it was painfully bright and blistering hot. There were palm trees everywhere and the sultry
weather slowed them down as they walked to the car.

“I really like it here,” Kelli said.

“I thought you would,” Arno and Randall said at the same time.

During the drive, everybody sang along to the awful top 40 hit radio station, which played a lot of Latin stuff that Kelli knew better than both of them. She could really belt out a song. And so there she sat, cross-legged in the passenger seat, while Randall lounged in the back and Arno drove white-knuckled through the late-afternoon Miami traffic. They made a pretty cool-looking threesome, not that it meant much to Arno.

“La la la la la, O mi corazon!” Kelli sang out. A couple of guys in a red BMW drove up close and sang along with her.

Arno made eye contact with Randall in the rearview mirror. They glared at each other. Meanwhile, Kelli accepted a party invitation from the BMW guys.

They arrived at Arno's parents' house, a Spanish-style stucco four-story mansion right on Ocean Drive, parked, and walked around the house to the backyard, where there was a pool with fadeaway edges.

“I've got to get into that pool,” Kelli said. She dropped her bags and stared.

“Me, too,” Randall said.

“Guests are coming for cocktails at six,” Arno said.

“They can get in, too,” Randall said. He pulled off his T-shirt and jeans. Arno stared at him. Was he going to jump in naked? Arno puffed up his chest. He started to take off his clothes, too.

“Waitasecond, boys. I need my bikini,” Kelli said. “There's no way I'm going skinny-dipping in the daytime.”

“Aww,” Randall said. He stuck out his tongue, yanked down his boxers, and jumped in the pool. Arno and Kelli stared at him. Arno could hear his parents coming through the glass doors.

Arno said, “What a hoser.”

“Mmm,” Kelli said. Arno had the sickening feeling that Kelli liked what she was seeing.

“Come on in! The water's excellent.”

“Not till later,” Kelli said. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Wildenburger! What a wonderful house you have.”

And then, while Randall Oddy treaded water, fast, because the water was awfully clear, Arno's parents talked with Kelli. His parents seemed willing to ignore the fact that their son was in his boxers and there was a naked artist in their pool.

“Rrrr,” Arno said, and put his pants back on.

“Hey, crybaby!”

“Shut the fuck up,” David said.

The Potterton basketball team was in the middle of a freshman-varsity scrimmage. David was center, slapping down balls coming from every direction, and even dunking, desperately trying to think of nothing but basketball, and then Adam Rickenbacher, this handsome freshman Jonathan didn't like for some reason, had started cracking wise.

“Sorry, dude. I know you're sensitive,” Rickenbacher said.

“I'm going to kick your ass, Rickybashay,” David said.

But his heart wasn't in it. He went up and ripped the ball out of Adam's hands, and Adam let him, but then some other freshman whipped around his back and whispered
Waaa
. David let another kid get the ball away from him and he walked off the court, slammed against the blue padded wall of the gym, and sat down.

“David, get back in there!” yelled Vijay Singram, the coach. He was usually a pretty mellow guy, but there were some prospective parents and their kids watching, so he was trying to look fierce. That made everything worse for David—the coach yelling, and the freshman, and a bunch of prospective eighth graders who'd probably heard he was a good player all staring at him. Before he knew it, David had jammed his shirt up into his face and started to bawl like he was six and somebody had kicked him right out of the sandbox.

“Everybody keep playing,” yelled Coach Singram. He went over to David.

“Someone kill me,” David said under his breath.

“What's the matter? We need you out there.”

“Just a sec.”

“Girl problems? Is that what it is? 'Cause that's what everybody's telling me, you know?”

“Please, could you leave me alone?” David said and peeked through his hands. He could see veins bulging in Singram's neck and sweat drip down his forehead.

“Me?” Coach Singram thundered. He looked around at the half dozen parents who were still watching him. Then the game slowly came to an end, and the freshman squad and everybody on the varsity team was watching.

“Are you going to force me to make an example
out of you?”

“Force you?” David said. “What do you mean force you? I'm not
forcing
you to do anything.”

David suddenly felt too ill to speak. He stood, slowly. He sagged a little, and Adam Rickenbacher walked over and held him up by the elbow. David didn't like it, but he ended up leaning on Adam.

“Now you listen here, young man, what you do in your free time is your business, but when you bring the sad fact that your girlfriend cheated on you onto my basketball court, then it's my problem!”

“Take it easy, coach,” Adam Rickenbacher said.

“What've you got to say for yourself, David?” Singram yelled.

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Get out of here!”

“I'm already gone,” David said. He pushed Adam away and slumped off toward the showers, with nothing but the sound of laughter and bouncing balls behind him.

“My parents' house is so big,” Arno said to Kelli. “We can stay in a guest wing and they won't even know we're there.”

“That's nice,” Kelli said. “I just met the most amazing woman—she owns this nightclub in South Beach that's not even open yet. Her name is Ingrid Casares and she says I should come by there later and we can dance and she'll serve us drinks. But that's not for a few more hours. What do you want to do now?”

“Don't worry,” Arno said. “I'll think of something.”

He stood with her outside his parents' gallery on Lincoln Road. Even though the opening was officially over, there were still tons of people inside, all loving Randall Oddy's work. This had been a good thing for Arno, because Randall had been more or less dragged away from Kelli by a bunch of collectors. Meanwhile, Arno had slowly made it out of the gallery with Kelli without anyone calling after them.

“We could go back inside and look for Randall,”
Kelli said.

“Yeah, but is that the most fun thing you can think of?”

“No,” Kelli said, and smiled.

Just then a valet showed up in front of them with the white Cadillac. Arno hadn't called for it. But here it was, and it had the keys in it.

“Thanks,” Arno said to the valet, and hopped in. He beckoned to Kelli, who shrugged and got in the passenger side.

“Let's drive back to the house,” Arno said.

“Wait!” someone behind them screamed. Arno saw the gallery manager who owned the Cadillac screaming and waving, but he just turned up the radio.

At a stoplight, Arno turned to Kelli. She was smiling, so he kissed her, first on the neck and then on the lips. Her skin was hot from a day in the sun, and she laughed a little and kissed him back.
Finally
, Arno thought. This was by far the most work he'd ever done for a girl. A driver behind him honked his horn.

A few minutes later they pulled into the white pebble drive at his house. It was quiet there, and he took Kelli's hand and led her around the side of the house, to the pool.

“Let's go for that swim now,” he said.

Kelli didn't speak. They crept around the corner and
there were candles set out near the swimming pool. A bottle of champagne was in an ice bucket that was bobbing up and down in the middle of a life preserver. Music played, a light samba rhythm. Arno sniffed the air: incense. He hadn't planned any of this. He was instantly furious, and wondered if Randall had somehow gotten out of the opening and arrived before them. Where the hell was he? Arno gripped Kelli's hand tighter, and looked around him. How had Randall moved so fast?

“Oh my God,” Kelli said.

That's when Arno saw his parents come through the glass doors wearing nothing but towels. Like him and Kelli, they were holding hands.

“Oh no,” Arno said. The towels dropped. His parents were making out. They were naked.

He felt Kelli wrestle her hand away from his.

“Gross,” she whispered. Arno's parents started to kiss more intensely. Kelli and Arno watched, momentarily stunned, like witnesses to a car crash.

“Too gross!” Kelli said, and quickly ran back to the car.

“No, Kelli, wait—” Arno said. He ran after her. He'd never been so confused in his life.

“Please take me back to the gallery,” Kelli said. She sat in the passenger seat, with both her hands over her eyes.

Arno pulled the big white car out of the driveway as quietly as possible, and he didn't open his mouth, or look at Kelli, who was loudly chewing what looked like Blue Blowout Bubblicious and examining her nails. Arno drove slowly and did everything he could to delete from his brain the image of his parents embracing naked by candlelight in front of the family pool.

On Wednesday morning, Mickey Pardo decided to go to school. He'd convinced himself that he was finally coming down from his painkiller cloud, and anyway he'd been sort of missing the place. So he showed up for second-period physics class and really enjoyed listening to Mrs. Alsadir go on about a load of trippy shit involving quarks. He couldn't follow much of it, but it was all kind of cool anyway.

“Are there any questions?” Mrs. Alsadir asked.

“I just want to say I am totally loving this trippy shit!” Mickey called out.

Mrs. Alsadir just smiled uncomfortably and went on with the lesson. Mickey didn't have a textbook or a notebook or a pen. He sat in the back row, alone. And after a while he climbed up on the lab station in front of him and lay on his side. Still Mrs. Alsadir said nothing.

Then he got a call from Jonathan, so he decided to take it, and shuffled out into the hall. He was wearing
a brown jumpsuit, his combat boots, and he had some old necklaces strewn around his neck, along with a pair of black aviator glasses. His cast was huge and gleaming and white, except for the places where he'd spilled coffee and food on it.

“Will you be returning?” Mrs. Alsadir called out. He ignored her.

“Dude?” Mickey said to the phone.

“Anything interesting happening?” Jonathan asked. “I've been looking for Arno—he should be back. Can you believe he went down to Florida with my cousin?”

“Huh,” Mickey said. He smelled something good, like bacon, and looked around.

“She had a day between her NYU interview and her Sarah Lawrence interview, so she went down to South Beach. I don't even want to think about what they did down there. And I had to cover for her, and now she's back. But Arno didn't come in today. Have you seen David?”

“He goes to Potterton, remember?” Mickey said. “I'm at Talbot.”

“Oh yeah. Listen, I'll check you later.”

“Sounds good.” Mickey looked up and down the corridor. What was that good smell? A small eighth grader came down the corridor then, and he was eating something. A BLT. Mickey looked at it. Mmm.

“Mickey Pardo,” a stern male voice said. But Mickey didn't hear. He dropped the phone. The kid with the BLT kept coming.

“Actually, why don't I come by your house after school,” Jonathan said, to air. “We'll go find Arno together.”