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  Mickey raised his eyebrows at one dude, a new guy called Howie, who had a Triumph motorcycle that he let Mickey use sometimes. But Caselli, Mickey’s dad’s foreman and Mickey’s involuntary caretaker, didn’t like this. And Mickey was afraid of Caselli, because he had more or less crowned himself the king of Mickey’s many caretakers. It was sort of like having a gigantic, bald, male nanny. So in Mickey’s mind, Caselli existed in opposition to his parents, who could be strict enough, but generally weren’t around often enough to keep track of what Mickey was doing wrong. So Mickey had had to figure out a code language to use with Howie.

  “Will you sell me some pot?” Mickey asked, as loud as he could.

  Howie looked around. Caselli was watching.

  “Yeah, I will. Here you go,” and Howie handed over the keys, but he cupped his hand. Mickey thrust a twenty at him.

  “Thanks,” Mickey said.

  “You’re not borrowing his motorcycle, are you?”

  “No, I only sold him pot,” Howie said, as Mickey scrambled out of there.

  “Well, pot’s not great, but I guess it’s okay,” Caselli said. “So long as Mickey stays away from anything with an engine. I mean, someone’s got to draw the line somewhere.”

  Caselli scratched his bald head. All of Ricardo Pardo’s assistants wore white overalls and they looked both forbidding and a little futuristic. Mickey looked back at them and nodded a thank-you to Howie.

  Outside, he leaped on the old Triumph, gunned the engine, and shot onto West Street. It was only once he was going pretty fast toward Philippa’s house that he realized he was only in white shorts and an open pajama top that had fire hydrants and dogs on it. He shook his head. It was barely forty degrees out, and if he hadn’t remembered his goggles, he’d be really cold.

  When he got to Philippa’s block he popped onto the sidewalk and parked in front of her house. A guy in a suit made a snorting noise and Mickey snorted right back at him. Then he ran up the stairs three at a time and leaned on the buzzer. After a while, Philippa came out. She was in a white cashmere bathrobe.

  “I was napping,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I was thinking of going out tonight, and I’m tired because you came by at four a.m. last night after you got done at Man Ray so we could discuss our relationship, remember?”

  “Oh, right.” But Mickey didn’t really remember. He tried to smile at her. She didn’t invite him in.

  “Listen, I need to talk to you about this Jonathan problem.”

  “Oh, Lordy. Jonathan is not the problem.”

  “He’s not? I thought he was.” Mickey shivered. Philippa still hadn’t invited him in.

  “No. Your mom is. And your Dad. And my parents. And us. We’ve got problems. We broke up last night. It all started when I called you at eleven and you didn’t answer. You don’t remember any of this, do you?”

  “No—wait. It was so late. Didn’t you come back to Man Ray and we did tequila slammers? Didn’t everyone leave and we locked up?”

  “No, you jerk! That must’ve been Diane the waitress! I went home and called you and then I went to bed! Don’t you remember when you called me at four in the morning and I came out and sat on the stoop with you and we agreed that the reason we’re breaking up is that I’m basically a conservative person and you’re basically a complete nutball?”

  “No. Come on Philippa. I can’t be held responsible for what I say when it’s practically dawn. It’s how I feel now that matters!” Mickey jumped up and down, as if were trying to readjust whatever was going on in his head.

  And then a quiet moment enveloped them. The wind whipped down Perry Street and Mickey looked back at the Triumph, which seemed to shiver. He felt, suddenly, kind of goofy.

  “I’m tired of all this wacky shit,” Philippa said. “It’s over.”

  “But, I love you.”

  “I know.” She reached out quickly and kissed him hard. And then she stepped inside and shut the door.

  patch has the stupidest outgoing message on his cell phone

  Whup, crinkle, this is Patch, yeh. Leave me a— beeep.

  Hey man it’s Mickey. Where the hell are you? Oh, man. I’m in my room man and I just got in trouble all over again for blowing around town on that dude’s Triumph. My dad is pissed. But I got bigger problems. Philippa broke up with me and I was thinking that we all need to get together, you know? And we need to figure out this thing with Jonathan, like where we stand. Did he invite you on his dad’s honeymoon, too? Anyway, I’m around. I need to find my mom and grab some cash off her, ’cause I haven’t seen her in like, days. But I’ll have my phone with me and I’m not going to lose it. Did you lose yours? If you didn’t, call me, would you? You know the number.

  Whup, crinkle, this is Patch, yeh. Leave me a— beeep.

  It’s David. Where are you? Me and—um, Amanda. And Risa. I don’t have a girlfriend anymore…And I’m thinking about buying a ring for Amanda, but I don’t know who Jonathan’s gonna bring on this trip, so I could use your advice, you know? And there’s some other stuff going on with him, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to tell you about that. Anyway, let’s hang out, okay?

  Whup, crinkle, this is Patch, yeh. Leave me a— beeep.

  Dude, it’s Arno. I’m like a fugitive from Liesel, man. I need to hole up at your house and do some homework, okay? That girl is out of her fucking mind! I know I should know better than to mess with uptown girls, but this girl is whoppingly nuts, man. I mean I like fun, but this girl only likes fun. Anyway, let’s hang out. And oh yeah, we need to do something about Jonathan.

  Whup, crinkle, this is Patch, yeh. Leave me a— beeep.

  Hey Patch, this is Jonathan. I need to stay at your house this weekend—or actually, starting tonight. It’s a long story and if I can find you I’ll explain it to you. But I’m going to come over and bunk in your room, or maybe in the library. If I see anybody in your family when I come there I’ll let them know I’m around. And yeah, check in with me. Thanks for letting me stay, man. Even when you’re not actually around, it’s like, I know I can count on you. There’s some weird stuff going on, but, whatever, I’ll tell you about it when I see you.

  a few fateful nights at the floods

  who is nicer than little flan flood?

  “Patch isn’t home,” Flan said when she answered the door at nearly one in the morning on Thursday.

  “Really? He said he’d meet me here,” I said.

  Flan eyed my schoolbag, which was looking very heavy, and then she glanced at the garment bag I had slung over my shoulder. It was bulging with all the new stuff I’d been buying for the trip and if I was being totally honest, yeah, I was also shopping to keep my spirits up and, for the most part, it was working.

  “What’s the story?” Flan asked.

  Since Flan and I did have an awful lot of history together, part of me was desperate to share now, to go with her right up to the library, turn the lights down low, play her dad’s old Neil Young records and talk about whatever was bugging both of us. And I have to say, being with Flan, even in the doorway, was a whole lot more relaxing than being with Ruth, who I realized just then, for just a moment, felt somehow a little too cool, especially during moments when I wasn’t feeling cool at all.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. We hadn’t spoken much since I’d gotten involved with that shoe salesgirl from Barneys and admitted to myself and anyone else who might ask that Flan was in eighth grade and hanging with her wasn’t cool. Even though that was like, less than a month ago, it felt like a whole lot longer than that.

  “That’s nice.”

  Something felt odd. Flan’s voice had a pertness to it, a wariness. That’s when I saw Adam Rickenbacher behind her. He was the ninth grader who’d swooped in when I wasn’t looking and started going out with Flan. But I’d figured it was just a passing thing. And now here he was, inside her house and it was really late at night. And I was still out on the street, holding my bags.

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nbsp; “Look, can I come in? I’m freezing and I’m supposed to meet Patch here later.”

  “He didn’t say that.”

  “He never says anything. You know your brother.”

  “Fine, come on in.” Flan stepped aside and I went in and nodded to Adam. I kind of hated that guy. He’d made me look really stupid, and he was only a freshman at Potterton.

  “We’re in the kitchen if you need anything,” Flan said. “There’s some food and stuff down there.”

  And they disappeared. Which meant I had no choice but to go upstairs on my own and figure out where to sleep. I got up to the third floor bedrooms and stopped.

  “Patch?”

  Silence. Of course he wasn’t around. I’d seen him when? Three or four days ago. It was nothing for him to disappear for that long. Frederick and Fiona Flood lived up on a big estate in Greenwich most of the time and let their kids fend for themselves in the city. The big question was whether his parents just straight-up knew about Patch’s disappearances and had been deceiving themselves or, even more bizarre, they totally didn’t know and assumed everything was fine.

  I wandered into his bedroom. A half-eaten blueberry Pop-Tart was on his desk, along with a couple of empty bottles of Yoo-hoo, which Patch drank like it was water. There were clothes and stuff strewn around the floor, mostly dirty jeans and khakis, and no posters or anything like that on the walls. Patch couldn’t be bothered with decorating. He was using the spare bed against the wall as a workbench for his skateboards, so there were ball-bearings and trucks and stuff like that thrown all over the greasy comforter. I didn’t want to sleep there.

  I backed out, into the hallway toward February’s room, where I wouldn’t be sleeping, since she tended to show up unexpectedly and then she’d terrorize whoever was around. Next was Flan’s room, where I’d spent so much time. Not there, either. Patch’s big brother Zed’s room was pretty much off-limits, since the whole family knew he could be flipping out at Vassar and headed back at any second.

  As I wandered down to the second floor, I thought of my brother, up at school with Zed. I’d called him a few times and he hadn’t called back. My mom said she’d gotten in touch with him, but who knew the truth. My brother was really into sports and was going to be a biology major. We didn’t connect that well.

  I stepped into the library, which was really Patch’s dad’s domain. It was a big room with plenty of leather, books, and all these light-up globes on heavy wooden stands that lit up and rotated if you knew the right switch, which I did. So I got them going and sat down in what felt like a mini Milky Way, and immediately went to work on thinking about Ruth, whom I’d left with Liesel and Arno just a few hours ago. I tried to think about nothing else, not my dad, or who I was going to bring with me on this trip, or that maybe it was a little weird that I’d been spending all this money on my dad’s credit card when he’d stolen a lot of that money from my friends’ families.

  “You okay?”

  I looked up. The shiny glimmer in the doorway was Flan. I tried to smile at her, but it’s hard to fake anything with Flan. She’s thirteen, and very earnest. To me, it always seemed like she was in pajamas. But that was totally wrong. She was in the short gray skirt she had to wear to Chapin, and a black T-shirt she must’ve pulled on when she got home.

  She came in and curled up on the other end of the couch, which put her around five feet from me.

  “Where’s Adam?”

  “Still downstairs. He’s playing xBox.”

  “He seems like a nice guy.” I was trying to sound very mature.

  “Yeah. I guess he’s my boyfriend.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I heard about what happened to you.”

  Have I mentioned that little Flan has this silvery-sweet voice that’s way more special than you’d think a kid could have? Then again, she’s also around five foot ten.

  “What happened to me?”

  “My parents talked about it and I overheard. Your dad got remarried and he’s finally coming clean about all the money he stole.”

  My heart kind of stopped for a second. Of course the fact that Flan knew made the whole thing all the more terribly, horribly real.

  “Does Patch know?”

  “Nah,” she tittered. “You know he doesn’t pay attention to my parents.”

  “Oh, man. I’m probably going to have to leave Gissing. I’m going to move to Brooklyn to hide my face from everyone, I just know it. I’ll be one of those dorky kids from Park Slope who spends half their life on the subway.” I stood then, and went and concentrated on just one country, Greenland, as it rotated around the top of one of the globes.

  “You shouldn’t worry so much.” Flan stood up.

  “Why not?” Underneath my fingers, the Arctic felt smooth and glassy.

  “Your friends will take care of you.”

  “Doubtful. I invited them all, well, except your brother, on this crazy sailing trip with my dad over winter vacation, but I can only bring one of them. Now they’re all acting cool enough, but I know it’s kind of tense, them waiting for me to choose who I like the best and all.”

  “Why didn’t you ask my brother?”

  “Only ‘cause I haven’t seen him.”

  “Flan?” It was Adam, calling out. Neither one of us said anything. Then we heard him pad back down the stairs.

  “Well, you all have made it this far. And I know you saved my brother. So I bet you can count on them.”

  “But what if I can’t?”

  “You have to trust them,” she said.

  “Why? They’re going to hate me when they find out that not only did I overextend my invites, but I’m buying all this new shit with money my dad probably stole from their families.”

  “Well, Patch once told me that they’d be nothing without you. They need you. That’s how groups work. You just need to be totally honest with them.”

  “Totally honest? I’m not sure I can handle that.”

  “Don’t you know you have no choice?” Flan smiled and got up to leave the room. “If you lose your friends over this, well, you’re an idiot and I’m going to forget I ever had a crush on you.”

  I watched her, there in the doorway, with the globes between us, all lit up and rotating and valuable and geographically dated and wrong.

  “So you’re saying I’m acting like an idiot?”

  “If you really believe you can’t trust your friends,” Flan said, “then the answer is yes.”

  arno has to make a sudden choice between friends and lovers

  “I think Mickey’s going to meet us there,” Arno said.

  It was Thursday night and he was with Liesel. They were headed to a party at Spice Market, on Thirteenth Street. There’d been an opening at Arno’s parents’ gallery for a new artist called Bolander Berkman, who Arno liked, but Liesel had nixed going. She’d said she wasn’t into art, probably because her parents were.

  “Mickey?”

  “Yeah, my friend. You didn’t meet him yet. He just broke up with his girlfriend again last night, and he’s pretty upset.”

  “Oh. Well I hope he doesn’t make the whole night mopey.”

  Arno had taken to wearing a long black cashmere trenchcoat and he had his hands stuffed down low in the pockets. They walked in front of a huge poster for a new play at The Public Theater and Liesel glanced at it without seeming to comprehend what it was.

  “I saw Topdog/Underdog at The Public with my parents,” Arno said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A play.”

  “Oh. I hope Nina Katchadorian is here tonight. She’s awesome.”

  “What’s awesome about her?”

  “You have to meet her. She’s so funny.”

  “Why?”

  “OH, SHUT UP!”

  Arno stared at Liesel. He wasn’t shocked at all—she loved to yell in the middle of the street. She loved it when people stared at her. She started laughing hysterically, and ran ahead of him. God she was annoying
. And then Arno opened his eyes wide—he’d never quite put it to himself like that before. Uh-oh. In a flash he realized that here he was, headed in girlfriend direction with someone he kind of couldn’t stand.

  “Hurry,” she yelled. So they ran ahead. When they got to Spice Market, Mickey was in front of the restaurant straddling a motorcycle. Even though it was freezing out, he was wearing nothing but a black Joy Division T-shirt, torn white shorts, and white combat boots.

  “Dude,” Mickey wailed, and threw his arms around Arno. Liesel watched from a few feet away.

  “I’m Liesel,” she said. Then louder, “I’m Liesel.” But nobody was paying attention to her.

  “I blew it with Philippa.”

  “Oh man, I’m sorry.” Arno kept an arm around Mickey. “Let’s get you a drink.”

  Then Liesel said, “I’m not sure you can get in here dressed like that.”

  The two boys stared at her.

  “It’s like, winter and nighttime,” Liesel said. “And you’re dressed for summer and daytime.”

  “So?”

  “You look like one of the guys who fixes my parents’ mopeds at our estate in Jamaica.”

  Mickey turned to Arno. Mickey was bleary-eyed and at the point of crying. Arno tried to shake his head, to convey, like, stop, no. I know she’s annoying. But I only figured it out about a minute and a half ago.

  “I mean, I’m not sure I want to be seen with you,” Liesel said.

  “Let’s just go in,” Arno said. Liesel shrugged and glared. A doorman swept them inside. They were immediately plied with champagne and little crackers with chunks of raw tuna on top, covered with caviar. Arno and Mickey stood there, munching.

  “NINA!” Liesel yelled and ran across the room and embraced a short girl who was wearing sunglasses that almost entirely hid her face.