The Insiders (3 page)

“Oh, great,” Amanda said, stooping over to gather her clothes. “I hate it when you guys stick together. Jonathan, would you get out of here? Can you not see that I'm practically naked?”

“It looks like you're waiting for something,” Kelli said.

“Me? No,” David said. “You want anything? I wish I could tell you where Jonathan went.”

“I don't care. I think he was happy to get rid of me.”

“Oh, I'm sure that's not true,” David said. He tried a smile. He was sitting with Kelli in the breakfast nook, a big windowed room off the Floods' kitchen. David had a similar room up at his country house in Saddle River, only his parents called it the greenhouse and had spider plants in all the spots where a person might want to sit.

They were drinking Heineken from little keg-shaped cans and picking at a bowl of dried Chinese peas. David could never figure out the arrangement that the Floods had with their kids—did they know that there were blowouts every weekend? David's parents would barely let his friends in the door. And considering that they were both therapists he found that pretty uncivilized, though he'd never exactly felt free enough to say so. They treated him like he was their age and wouldn't want a
bunch of hell-raisers around all their old psychology books and stuff either. He somehow managed to talk to them constantly without ever saying anything meaningful to either of them. He was an only child.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Kelli asked.

David looked up. His can was full. He realized he was barely drinking at all. Amanda. Where was she?

“Yes.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don't know,” David mumbled. He could hardly get the words out.

“I wish I could talk to that guy Arno again,” Kelli said. “He left me in the middle of a sentence. He seems like a pretty nice guy.” She kept clacking her fingernails against the cream-colored table. She was chewing Savage Sour Apple Bubblicious and she gave David a piece.

“Nice?” David asked. “You think Arno is nice?”

“Sure. Don't you think he's nice?”

“No.” But David couldn't figure out how to pinpoint why, exactly, he didn't think Arno was nice. Of the five friends, Arno and David were the furthest apart, partly because they'd been the closest back in lower school. Now David trusted Arno the least of any of them. But whenever they were alone, Arno always redeemed himself. He'd been the one who taught David not to walk away when girls said to, and how to lightly brush hair off
a girl's forehead and not turn purple at the same time. But lately David had been so obsessed with Amanda that he'd forgotten all those lessons.

“What about you?” Kelli asked. David glanced at her. Now she was blowing huge green bubbles, popping them, and licking the gum into her mouth. Her eye makeup was much, much thicker and darker than he was used to on a girl. David suddenly wanted to reach out and pop one of the bubbles for her, but when he looked at his hands, they just stayed at his side.

“What about me?” David asked, and took a long sip of his beer.

“You play ball?”

“That's basically what I do, yeah.”

“You'd fit right in in St. Louis,” she said. “I—”

Kelli was cut off by a gigantic roar from the staircase above. It was a tearing sound, as if someone were trying to rip apart a couch using an electric saw. David and Kelli and a few others who had been getting beer went upstairs to see what it was. When they got to the parlor floor, they saw Mickey Pardo on a white Vespa.

He'd driven the scooter up the front steps, through the door, and into the living room, ripping apart a small entryway rug that was now lodged between the Vespa's back tire and the fender and currently catching fire.

“Wow,” Kelli said.

David winced. After that “nice” comment about Arno, he could perfectly well imagine what was coming next. She'd walk over to Mickey. And it was right then that David felt the headlock of self-pity and attraction to girls that had pretty much defined every minute of the last several years of his life, save when he was playing ball. He didn't like Kelli. He missed Amanda, who was clearly avoiding him and he was freaking out, hard, about where she was. But when Kelli walked away from him, twitching her tight butt in that stupid skirt and sort of half-clenching her fingers, he thought,
she's hot
. And as usual, he felt bad and told himself that she'd only been killing time with him until a cooler guy came along.

“You're here,” Mickey yelled to David. “Now where the hell is the rest of us?”

But David just ignored his old friend and yanked the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. Then he went and sat on a couch. He had another Heineken in his kangaroo pocket, and he got it out and opened it, found a straw and put it in. He sipped the beer through the straw and became invisible.

“Hi,” Kelli said to Mickey. “What's your name?”

“Call me Stuntman Jack,” Mickey yelled, and laughed. He stepped off the scooter, handed it to a freshman who'd been ogling it, and put his hands on Kelli's hips.

She said, “Ooh.”

“Ooh?” Mickey asked. “Is that your name?”

“Keep making entrances like that and you can call me whatever you want,” Kelli said. “Won't this kid's parents be upset that you drove a scooter into his house and set fire to the rug?”

The freshman, whose name was Adam, leaned Mickey's scooter against the wall. Then he threw beer on the flames until the fire went out and the rug began to smolder.

“Thanks,” Mickey said, and nodded approvingly. An odor came up from it, something resembling burnt peanut-butter cookies.

“Nah, they won't care,” he said. “Patch's parents are my dad and mom's oldest friends. They buy all my dad's art and stuff …”

Mickey looked down at the damage he'd done. He wasn't tall, and he was a little squat, like his father, Ricardo Pardo, the famous sculptor. He was wearing a green jumpsuit and black motorcycle boots. There were
goggles and a whole bunch of Carnevale beads around his neck. A friend of his mom's had bleached his black hair blond, and now it had grown out all spiky, so his skull looked like it had sprouted match heads.

“Actually, yeah,” Mickey said. “They might be annoyed. Have you seen Philippa?”

“I don't keep track of girls,” Kelli said. “I came here with Jonathan.” She followed Mickey as he made his way down to the kitchen. On his way, Mickey stopped for a second in front of David.

“You good?” Mickey asked, and tried to pull David's hood off. David slapped Mickey's hand.

“I can't find Amanda,” David said.

“I'll take care of it,” Mickey said. And that made David feel a little better, even though he knew Mickey would probably forget his promise in the next few minutes.

Meanwhile, other kids came up the steps and into the house, so what had been only twenty people was quickly becoming forty. They all carefully stepped around Mickey's stinking Vespa.

“Well, Ooh. Where did Jonathan find you?” Mickey asked. He slapped hands with guys and kissed girls on cheeks as they moved along, but he didn't try to lose Kelli for two simple reasons that floated through his mind: 1) she was a friend of Jonathan's, and 2) he could
overlook certain aspects of her, like her ugly pink sweater, and feel the heat-seeking center of her, which was easy, because she was gripping his hand.

“We're cousins,” Kelli said. “But he brought me here and ditched me the moment we walked in the door. Now I have no idea where he went. But that's okay, 'cause I've got you now.”

“What'd you do to David Grobart?”

“Who's that?” Kelli asked.

“Damn,” Mickey said. “I need to work with my man on how to make a better first impression.”

“The hooded ballplayer? He's just like the kids back home.”

Mickey didn't bother to ask where that was. He snagged a couple of del Sols from someone's six-pack on the counter and began drinking them. Kelli took one for herself.

“Listen, Ooh. I'm going to the roof for a sec. I can see my girlfriend Philippa's house from there and I want to try and figure out if I can like climb over there or something, since her parents are having a dinner party and I can't just go through the front door. So I'm thinking I'm going to go rooftop to rooftop. You want to come?”

“Sure,” Kelli said. “You want to get some rope?”

“Nah, I won't need it,” Mickey said. And he turned
and raced up the stairs. On the way, he knocked up against a girl with big dark eyes and black hair in a ponytail. A cool girl. Liza Komansky. Liza was with Jane Hamilton, whom she always took to parties. Jane was a wispy blond girl, tall, quiet, and widely known to be gay.

“Hey, Mickey, seen Jonathan?” Liza asked.

“Nah,” Mickey said. “But this is his cousin, Ooh.”

“Cousin It?” Liza said, and raised an eyebrow. Mickey saw Kelli slow down as she heard this.

“Ooh,” Mickey said, and ran up the stairs.

Kelli stopped on the stairs to shake hands with Liza and Jane. The two girls gave Kelli the once-over. Liza was wearing black Gucci boots, a black Marc Jacobs knee-length skirt, and a matching black silk turtleneck. Jane was wearing blue jeans, engineer's boots, and a wifebeater T.

“I'm Kelli,” Kelli said. “I think Jonathan went upstairs, but I can't find him.” Kelli kept staring at Liza. Liza stared back. “Hey,” Kelli said, “I really like your skirt.”

“Thanks,” Liza said.

“It's cool, but like in a really conservative, non-sexy way. Definitely wouldn't attract the wrong kind of attention, or any attention. Huh?”

“I hadn't thought of it that way,” Liza said.

“If I wore something like that back where I'm from I'd practically disappear. But I guess people are more understated here in the city. I mean, I wouldn't be, but I can see how some girls might choose that road.”

“Well, I suppose I did,” Liza said.

“Yeah, that's what I'm saying.” Kelli tugged her sweater up, so more of her belly was visible. And then she shrugged and smiled at Liza and Jane. “It's like I already forgot you,” she said, and raced up the stairs after Mickey.

Liza Komansky watched Kelli go. From Liza's vantage point, the lines of Kelli's purple thong were visible. Kelli wobbled once and Liza stared at her cheap red pumps.

“That was unpleasant,” Liza said to Jane as they watched Kelli go. They could just hear her make a whooping noise as she arrived at the top floor.

Jane looked contemplative. “She definitely has that cat eye thing going for her though.”

“Sure,” Liza said. “You know that completely overblown sexiness they taught Christina Aguilera in the Mickey Mouse Club? She's got it, too.”

“I see you're not a fan.” Jane stared after Kelli.

“I'm over it,” Liza said. “Let's go find Jonathan.”

“I'll see you later,” I said.

“I'll be asleep later,” said Flan.

I stroked her hair, just for a second, and then I said, “Oh, right.” I tried to laugh. I absolutely would not call what I had on Flan a crush. I tried not to stroke her hair again but I couldn't help it. She smelled like clean sheets and flowers and cinnamon-flavored lip gloss.

“And I was having fun hanging out with you,” Flan said. “So what if Arno saw us? Wasn't he fooling around with David's girlfriend? David needs to chill with her anyway. She's way too snarky for him.”

“I know. But David shouldn't find out that they were together, not till he can handle it, anyway. Promise me you won't tell anybody about that.”

“How will you know when he can handle it?” Flan asked. Her eyes were big and round and
blue, like when you look at the earth from really far away. I sighed.

I tried to stand up and walk out of the room, but I was still stroking her hair. At that moment, although she was built like a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit model, she had on a pair of floppy green-striped boy's pajamas that had probably belonged to Zed and slippers that had rubber-duck heads on the toes. She'd grown up so fast that her chest was about to burst the big white buttons off the front of her pajamas. And she didn't look tremendously upset about that.

“You two dressed yet?” I called out, low, to Arno and Amanda.

“No,” they said back. There was the sound of clothes getting adjusted and then Amanda said, “I'm going down first.”

Arno said, “I'm coming in there, and you better not have your hands on our best friend's little sister.”

“Whatever, Arno,” I said. “Let's get downstairs and figure out what's going on.”

Arno came into the room. I'd been sitting in a sky-blue velvet chair that Flan had by the side of her bed, and I got up. Flan had been curled in bed, and she got up, too.

She said, “Can I get a beer?”

And Arno started laughing and I kind of did, too.

“No way,” Arno said. “Bad enough we can't ever find your brother. We don't want to lose you, too.”

“My sister lets me have beers.”

“Yeah,” Arno said. “Somebody should talk to February about that.”

I gave Flan a quick kiss on the cheek and she sort of rubbed her nose on my nose in this heartbreaking sweet way she has and then me and Arno got out of there. We slid down the stairs fast, like we were on skis.

“Dude, you cannot fool around with an eighth grader,” Arno said.

“I
wasn't
. I was just taking a break from all the craziness.”

“Do not shovel me that bullshit,” Arno said. “You're not new to me.”

“I would bet anything I own that your universe is more morally fucked up than my universe,” I said.