Break Every Rule Read online

  break every rule

  * * *

  an insiders novel

  by j. minter

  Contents

  how annoying can one stepbrother be?

  meet the it girls

  mickey always takes a dare

  everybody wants a piece of patch

  i get a whiff of that ol’ fame and glory

  girls confuse david

  there can be only one hottest private school boy …

  patch overhears something he definitely shouldn’t

  i skip a great party for a good cause

  the boys leave messages all weekend long

  my mood gets seriously killed

  arno had no idea he could be any hotter than he already was

  mickey goes on a treasure hunt. sort of

  i save face all night long

  david was so not made for this

  arno gets some depth

  rob means well. doesn’t he?

  mickey visits the love doctor

  i get jealous about something way important

  arno makes fabulousness look so easy

  sometimes new york is just way too small

  another long night comes to an end for david

  rob is an awesome intern

  i have never found parties this unattractive

  rob keeps up the good work

  mickey gets some advice from his friendly neighborhood bartender

  patch and flan have a heart-to-heart

  david grows an obsession

  i try and reclaim the old days, when i was still hot

  this is no time to get lost

  rob’s on fire

  but i’m always on the list

  arno doesn’t even know how wild his party is

  david and party don’t mix

  i can’t believe people are having fun at this thing

  something’s all wrong with arno’s star

  farewell, my stepbrother

  patch finds a savior

  david’s full of forgiveness

  i start picking up the pieces

  but i do have to expose myself sometimes. emotionally speaking

  mickey has a thing or two left to learn about girls

  i reach out

  mickey wants to see what you’ve got under all that hot, restrictive clothing

  is david the new arno?

  the naked crowd and me

  Also in this series

  for TMB

  how annoying can one stepbrother be?

  “Flan and Jonathan, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes…”

  You know the rest.

  That’s what my stepbrother, Rob, singsonged when he walked in on me and Flan making out in the bathroom. I didn’t know that people in Spain learned the exact same songs in second grade. How educational.

  Flan was sitting on the sink with her left leg draped around my waist, and I was standing in front of her with my hands at the small of her back. We’d been getting ready to go out, and we’d had a little fight, and we’d made up. We were make-up fooling around, and it was tender and hot in that particular, forgiving way.

  You’re probably wondering how this romantic moment got interrupted by my eurotrash stepbrother, who should have been at least an ocean away but now wouldn’t leave the bathroom. To answer that, we’re going to have to back up a little bit, to…

  Last Winter: That’s when my dad married a woman named Penelope Isquierdo Santana Suttwilley, who had a son, just my age, named Rob. We met on Dad’s honeymoon, which was also when I realized that my new stepbrother was annoying and prone to fashion disasters. Then my mom—acting very “I’m bigger than all of this”—said Rob could stay in our apartment, in my older brother Ted’s room.

  Ted’s room and my room have an adjoining bathroom.

  Then, post-Honeymoon: I went on this educational cruise through the Mediterranean with the guys I’ve been friends with since fifth grade—Arno, Mickey, Patch, David and me, Jonathan. (Sometimes people call us the Insiders, although none of us ever would.) And while we were getting lost and mad at each other over there, Rob was worming his way into my life back in Manhattan. See, David got kicked off the boat, and when he got shipped back home, all of us pretty much ignored him. Not on purpose, but Arno and Mickey were sparring over this girl named Suki, and then they were sparring over this girl named Greta. And then Patch started going out with Greta, and I kind of made out with Suki. Anyway…all of that is pretty much forgotten.

  Except the part about David. That’s when he started spending a lot of time with Rob, and the friendship stuck. I think he might have that illness where you start to love your captors—Stockholm Syndrome, or whatever that’s called. Rob started going out with Patch’s older sister, February, and David spent some time with Patch’s little sister, Flan—my Flan—thinking he might maybe have a crush on her. And so you can see how things have gotten a little bit complicated.

  So, Back In New York: There’s been some splintering of my crew. This is mostly on me. I’m usually the one who keeps us all together and hanging out, but since I started going out with Flan for real, I haven’t been playing that role so well. And I feel bad about that, but what can you do? If David’s still pissed about not getting enough e-mails while he was home alone, and the fact that Flan chose me, it’s not my fault. He’s not helping matters any by pretending he’s something he’s not, either.

  See, David and Rob started spending a lot of time with Arno, and now they’re like a mini side clique. They’re all rocking the same hair, too: a sort of mod style with their bangs in their eyes. They look like the wannabe Beatles, minus a drummer.

  Which brings us to tonight: Thursday, opening night of the big Luc Vogel retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and everyone’s going to be there.

  I told Flan to be at my house at six-thirty, but she showed up at quarter of eight. That turned out to be perfect timing, though, because I’d just finished putting on my new Duncan Quinn suit and was checking it out in the bathroom mirror. I needed a second opinion because it was British khaki, and I wasn’t sure how the color was going to go over. When she walked through the door I popped my collar and said, “Hey gorgeous. How do I look?”

  She sat down on the edge of the tub and crossed her legs.

  “You look good,” she said, smiling sort of faintly at me. “The Duncan Quinn really suits you.” Then she took one of the magazines out of the magazine rack, and started looking over it like she was bored.

  The last couple of weeks have been like this: full of the exquisite agony of a thousand little fights and misunderstandings, the kind that get forgotten quickly with a lot of making out. It was the beginning of spring, and all the white buds were opening on the trees. All the girls were out in their new dresses, and showing off the tans they got during winter weekend getaways to St. Bart’s. After months of winter, it seemed like everything was new and warm, and everybody was in love. Or maybe that was just us. Flan and I just had our three-month anniversary.

  I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. She was wearing a pink Zac Posen cocktail dress—which her older sister, February, got to keep after she modeled it in his spring fashion show last winter—and white Marc Jacobs cowboy boots. She smelled all roselike and clean, and her hair was perfectly brushed, almost like no two strands were overlapping, and pulled into a low ponytail.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, turning a page. “It just seems like sometimes you are, like, obsessed.”

  I pushed the hair back from her ear, and kissed it softly. “Hey, you look beautiful. If sometimes I don’t tell you that right away, it’s because it’s so obvious to me, and it would be, you know, redundant to say it again
.”

  She tossed the magazine over her head and smiled wide. “Okay, you’re forgiven. Now kiss me for real,” she said, and put her long, slender arms around my neck.

  I lifted her up and put her on the sink, and we started kissing.

  That brings us to Right Now: Rob just walked into the bathroom, where he stayed, clapping and whistling, for way longer than was necessary.

  “Flan,” he said, “you are del fuego in that dress!”

  “Rob, what are you doing in here?” I was irritated, and I tried to let it show.

  “Can I use your Sebastian hair mold?” Rob said, brushing past us toward the mirror. I had to move fast and lift Flan out of his way. I sat down on the edge of the tub, and Flan sat on my lap. We stared at Rob in disbelief. He was looking at himself intently in the mirror, making virtually imperceptible changes to his carefully messed-up hair. Then he moved on to untucking his floral, button-down shirt ever so slightly from one side of his leather pants.

  “So this night, it’s going to be wild, no?” he said, still without looking at us. “I’ve never even been to the MAMI,” he added. Rob is part Venezuelan, part French, entirely international party boy, and not exactly the best speaker of English. Flan and I tried to stifle our laughter.

  “I believe the correct pronunciation is MoMA,” I said.

  “Whatever,” he said. “I’m audi. The Wildenburgers invited me to a cocktail party at their house before the MAMI thing. All the famous artists to be there. I’m sure Arno would have invited you, but he only was allowed two of his friends, and that was David and moi. Ciao.”

  And that’s when my stepbrother, thankfully, left the bathroom.

  “I can’t believe your sister went out with that eurotrash loser,” I said.

  “Yeah, neither can she,” Flan giggled.

  I was quiet for a minute, and then Flan snuggled into my neck and said, “Hey, are you okay? You didn’t want to go to that party at the Wildenburgers’, did you?”

  “Nah,” I said. “It’s going to be all boring old art collectors and smelly cheeses.”

  Flan stood up and started brushing the wrinkles out of her dress. I stood up, too, and put my arms around her waist so that I could pull her close to me.

  “Hey, I’ve got a great idea,” I said. She looked up at me with those big, wide eyes. Sometimes I forget that Flan is still only in eighth grade, but when she looks at me like that, I remember. “Why don’t we blow off the beginning of the party and go over to the Corner Bistro for burgers. It’ll be like a great high culture–low culture contrast, and then we can show up fashionably late and everyone will wonder where we’ve been.”

  “Okay,” Flan said, smiling indulgently at me. “That sounds like fun.”

  Then we started making out, and it was another half hour before we made it down to lower Fifth Ave, where my apartment is, and hailed a cab.

  It was the perfect night for a party; there had been rain earlier in the day, and everything seemed fresh and bright and springlike. It felt good to be alone with Flan before throwing myself back into the big Manhattan night with its many social obligations.

  I had a feeling I might enjoy this night a little too much.

  meet the it girls

  “Yo, Davey, get me another hit of champagne,” Arno Wildenburger yelled out, way too loud. Arno was six-one, half Brazilian and half German, and (everybody agreed) stunningly gorgeous. He was hard to miss, even when he wasn’t bringing extra attention to himself.

  The well-heeled art world crowd, mingling in the vast white-walled lobby of the MoMA, looked at him for a long, disapproving moment, and then the tinkling piano and light chatter resumed. Arno saw his mother whisper something into the ear of whatever socialite dowager she’d been talking up, and then whisk her to another side of the room. David Grobart took two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and moved over to where Arno was standing.

  “Thanks, man,” Arno said, smiling to himself. David nodded and looked out at the crowd like it scared him.

  It was the opening night of the big Luc Vogel retrospective, and pretty much everyone Arno knew was there. His parents were the famous Wildenburger art dealers, and Luc Vogel was one of their most famous clients. All of his parents’ friends and enemies had turned out. A lot of kids that Arno knew were there, too, because his parents had enlisted his help in getting more of a “youthful crowd.” Suited art world types were now mixing with beautiful young people in ripped designer clothes.

  The Wildenburgers had thrown a pre-opening cocktail party for business associates and friends of the artist at their Chelsea town house, so Arno had already done his requisite mingling and was feeling a little restless. In fact, he was feeling more than restless. He was feeling like stirring up some trouble. It was a big night for his parents, and they were doing their power couple routine, in spite of the fact that they’d recently (and very publicly) decided to separate. It was annoying, really.

  “Your mom looks different,” David said absently. “Did she get something done?”

  “Yeah, probably. Whatever,” Arno said. “Let’s find Rob and turn this party up a notch.”

  Arno gave a nod to the girl he’d been talking to, and he and David wandered through the lobby and up the great stone steps to the second floor mezzanine. The Luc Vogel stuff was all in the galleries up there, although nobody seemed to be bothering to look at it. Arno shrugged at David, and they moved from one huge print to another: a crowd of naked people lying in a field, a crowd of naked people crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, a crowd of naked people lying around the Wildenburger gallery.

  “Do you think these people model professionally?” David asked.

  Arno gave him a look. “Does it look like they do? I don’t think so, David.”

  All that flesh looked very pink against the austere backgrounds, and there was something more hippy and childlike than adult and sexy about the people in the pictures. David nodded to show Arno that he got it.

  “Eh, my brothers!” David and Arno turned and saw Rob coming toward them. His voice sounded even louder in the massive gallery with its soaring ceilings and monumental art.

  Rob disappeared momentarily behind a gigantic, obelisk-like sculpture in the middle of the gallery, and then reappeared on the other side. He had a big smile on his face, and a blonde under each arm. Trailing behind them was a third, equally blond, girl. Arno recognized them from parties and around; they were that sleek, Upper East Side breed of girls, the kind who spent their weekends at charity balls or in East Hampton. They showed up in the society pages, too, either for being very reckless or for being very well-dressed, but Arno was pretty sure he’d met these girls in person at least a couple of times. They all had perfect ski jump noses, and long, slightly bleached out, straightened hair. “David Grobart, Arno Wildenburger, meet Mimi, Lizzie, and Sadie. They are so wild!”

  Arno kissed each girl on the cheek. David nodded at them awkwardly.

  “You girls having a good time?” Arno asked.

  They all nodded at once.

  “I’ve been a Luc Vogel fan since I was, like, eleven,” Mimi said with a sigh. She had one of those little girl voices that were kind of creepy and kind of hot at once. “That’s when my parents bought me #65/The Mall for my bedroom in Jackson Hole. I love what his work says about the human body.”

  “Isn’t she del fuego?” Rob cried.

  Arno smiled rakishly. “You know, my parents represent Luc. I could, you know, introduce you to him if you want…”

  “Really? That would be such an honor.”

  “Sure.” Arno shrugged. “Should we go downstairs and mingle?”

  “Yes! Let’s go party,” Rob said animatedly, “and drink more champagne.”

  They looked over the glass railing and down on the crowd in the lobby. The DJ had started, and the tinkling piano had finally been replaced by Old Dirty Bastard. The crowd had swelled, and people were starting to dance. Arno felt Mimi kind of swaying next to him, like she felt like dancing,
too. He’d sworn off uptown girls after this very, very uptown girl named Liesel had turned out to be a total nightmare of a person last fall, but he had to admit that he kind of liked the way Mimi was moving.

  Mimi was the tallest of the girls, and she seemed to be in charge. She was one of these girls with a permanent tan, an impossibly thin physique, and the confidence of a thirty-year-old. Mimi Rathbone—that was her name. Arno remembered reading something about her in Page Six recently. He was trying to think of what it had been, but looking at her in that incredibly low-cut dress right then, he was having trouble remembering much of anything….

  Rob put his arm around the waist of the girl with the high ponytail—her name was Lizzie—and headed for the stairs, and Arno kept his hand near the small of Mimi’s back as they followed. David was left to figure out how best to negotiate Sadie. Arno wasn’t sure why he thought Sadie was best for David, but she did seem like the least likely to bite. Maybe because of her cutesy Betty Page bangs? As they came down into the lobby, people turned their heads to look. Arno reflected, for a moment, what good backup guys Rob and David made. They were both as tall and dark-haired as he was, and he could tell by the way people were staring that they looked frighteningly good with the uptown girls on their arms.

  They moved into the crowd and started dancing. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, Arno thought, giving himself a little inward thumbs-up. Even David was admirably trying to dance, if you could call his shuffle that. Mimi had her arms draped around Arno’s waist, and she was dancing pretty close to him. As a rule, Arno was never surprised when girls were into him, but girls like Mimi, as a rule, never went with guys who were actually still in high school. He was a little bit surprised in spite of himself. He kept dancing with her until someone got up to make a speech, shushing the DJ and the crowd in the process.

  It was his father, Alec Wildenburger. He was standing on a raised part of the floor, and behind him you could see the outdoor sculpture garden through big, glass windows, looking magical in the glow of the orange street lights. In his hands were a champagne glass and a knife, which he was tapping together.