Break Every Rule Page 5

  Every single issue of New York had the same cover, the same table of contents, and worse yet, the same cover story complete with photographs of Arno, Rob, and David partying. One particularly unjust caption read, “Wildenburger and his friends get down at Lotus, where they are always on the list.” What was this, Star? It was like pure fiction.

  I got them on that list.

  I mean, we’re talking about Arno Wildenburger here. I’ve known the guy since I was, what, eight? He’s good-looking, and girls trample all over each other to get a little attention from him, and the guy can dress. (I should know.) But the guy isn’t a taste maker, and he’s not the brightest bulb. (I should know that, too.)

  I sipped my coffee and wished I could go back half an hour, to the person I was before I learned of this huge cosmic mistake. I decided there was no way I could handle school today, at least not until after noon. Then I called Patch. I guess I wanted sympathy, but when I heard his voice on the line I realized that he was not the person to understand about Hottest Private School Boy.

  “What’s up, J?” he said. He sounded a little down, too.

  “I just wanted to see if you were cool,” I said. “I mean, good. You went MIA this weekend, and that hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  Patch didn’t say anything for a minute, and then he thanked someone who wasn’t me. “What? Jonathan? I’m fine. I’m just on the way to school, can I call you later?”

  “Sure,” I said. “We should hang out,” I added, before clicking off.

  I sat in the H&R coffee shop all morning, reading every word of that Justine Gray person’s crappy article, and grew more and more jealous of Arno, with all his connections and the life that he was now assured. The life that, when I woke up this morning, I was sure was mine.

  When there were no more words to read, I looked at the pictures. There was Arno in a club, and Arno in his parents’ living room with the huge Rothko in the background. Arno on the corner hailing a cab and looking very brooding, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth (and the dude doesn’t even smoke). Then there were Rob and David, partying with him in various clubs and some kids’ houses that I recognized. They looked like three of a kind, and for a minute I was almost more sad at the way our crew was drifting than the fact that Arno had been named Hottest Private School Boy instead of me.

  Then I started looking at the pictures of David, and he wasn’t the David that I knew. At least, there was something different about him. He didn’t look like the slightly awkward, super tall basketball player I’d always known. He looked almost cool.

  Was I jealous of David? That was weird. And weirder still: Was David cooler than me now? And then I remembered that he was the only one of my guys I hadn’t invited to the party tonight. Instead of wondering what was up with that—and it was pretty weird that I would exclude David in any way—I started remembering something else:

  I was having a party that night, in honor of being named the Hottest Private School Boy, which of course hadn’t happened. I was going to have to get busy, and fast, if I was going to cover up the fact that I’d thought it was going to be me, and not one of my best friends, being celebrated.

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

  The phone was ringing.

  Arno sat up, and after a moment realized that he was himself, in his own bed, and that the weekend was definitely over. The phone was still ringing, too.

  “Talk to me,” he said, jerking the phone off its charger and sinking back into his pillows.

  “Arno? Arno Wildenburger?”

  “Ye-es?” Arno was not in the mood for guessing games. The voice on the other line giggled rapturously, and then Arno knew who it was. “Mimi? I didn’t know you got up this early.”

  “Only on special occasions. But today is kind of a special occasion.”

  “Oh yeah?” Arno had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed to bode well for him.

  “Uh-huh. I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you. And tell you that you look incredibly hot on the Hottest Private School Boy cover.”

  “Whoa, is that out already?”

  “Yes, it is, hot stuff.”

  Why do some girls think it’s cool to be all sugary like that? This was a thought that Arno had, and then forgot very quickly. “Thanks for telling me. What have you got going on this week?”

  “Oh, the usual. I think Eugenie Danner is having a party tonight, and there’s some other parties tomorrow. Oh, and I guess everyone has started going to Wednesdays at Marquee these days. Why, do you want to hook up?”

  “Yeah,” Arno said. He was examining his shoulder definition in the mirror now and hadn’t really been listening. “Will you call me?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And Mimi?” he said, remembering how she looked in that befuddlingly low-cut dress, “You looked amazing the other night.”

  Arno hung up and dialed Rob.

  “Santana,” he said when the ringing stopped and a groggy voice began making nonsensical noises at the other end of the line.

  “Ees eet juh, Vildenbuhgah?” Rob said, and burst out laughing. Arno wasn’t sure if it was his new status as HPSB or what, but his patience level was definitely low.

  “Cut that dumb-ass shit,” Arno said, “and meet me at the Grey Dog Coffee Shop in forty-five, okay?”

  He hung up, showered, dressed, and called David to tell him there would be no school today. David protested initially, but there was no saying no to Arno this morning. He was on a roll.

  In the foyer, he found a small collection of things for him: a note from his father, on his ecru personal stationery note cards, congratulating Arno and asking if he would like to have a family dinner at Pastis that night; a hand-delivered stack of issues of New York, each with his face on the cover, and a note from Justine Gray that read: “Thanks for the wild night Thursday, and all your hot hot help. Best wishes, J.G.”; and a huge bouquet of white chrysanthemums.

  Arno flipped through the pages of one of the issues. He thought that the cover photo made him look good, but some of the ones inside made him and his guys look stupid, kind of like the Backstreet Boys or something. Arno told himself, Whatever, get over it, and then he wondered who in the world would have sent him flowers.

  He picked the note off the bouquet and read it:

  “Congratulations on making the cover. Can’t wait to see you. Xo Xo Lizzie.”

  Arno smiled to himself. Yup, he thought, getting chicks just got that much easier. He still had a grin on his face when the doorbell rang, and he wasn’t able to wipe the damn thing off by the time he got to the door and opened it.

  There was Mimi’s friend Sadie, all wrapped up in a sable coat that the weather definitely didn’t call for. Arno was confused for a minute: It had been Mimi he’d been flirting with all Thursday night, right? Mimi Rathbone, in the absurdly low-cut dress? Of course, he’d confused these things before.

  “Hi, Arno,” Sadie said, letting her coat fall open enough to indicate that she wasn’t wearing a whole lot underneath. That cleared Arno’s head right up. Luckily, he was still holding his cell phone. He called Rob and told him he was going to be a tiny bit late, and he told him to call David and give him the message, too.

  mickey goes on a treasure hunt. sort of

  Mickey spent all of Monday at school, just to see what that would be like.

  It was sort of a letdown.

  When the final bell rang, he ran to his locker to deposit the cumbersome books he had accumulated throughout the day, but when he got there he realized that he didn’t know his combination. He was pretty sure he had used it once, back in September, or maybe in October, to store a skateboard or something, and he wondered if it was still in there and how he would ever get it out.

  There was a note on the door, though.

  Mickey picked it up and ripped it open. It was pink, with a red rose design on it, and it looked sort of like a Valentine’s card or something. Mickey wasn’t usual
ly all that cognizant of dates and major holidays, but he knew that Valentine’s Day had already passed. He knew because he and Philippa had gone to Bao 111 for a romantic dinner, and they had gotten into a fight about something. It had been quite a scene, and not only Mickey but all Pardos were now banned from Bao 111. That had caused an even bigger scene.

  The card proved to be un-Valentine’s-Day-related. It just told him to be at French Roast on Broadway as soon as possible. Both the card and the location were what Mickey’s mother would call middlebrow; they certainly weren’t things that Philippa would have picked out.

  But Mickey was in a mood (he was usually in a mood of some sort), and he set off for French Roast a little buzzed by the mystery. He waved at a few of the kids who were hanging around on the steps of Adele Biggs, but no one really noticed. It was a school full of rich kids who had blown it at other schools, and while they were all very “nurtured,” none of them were with it, exactly.

  At French Roast, the hostess called him by name and led him to a private table. There were two bowls of hot chocolate on the table, and Philippa was sitting behind one of them.

  “I hope this isn’t your way of apologizing for the MoMA party, because it really isn’t going to cut it,” she said. She was holding up a pink card in her small hand. It was identical to the one Mickey had found on his locker.

  “When have I ever bought anything pink?” Mickey asked, sitting down and drinking up the hot chocolate. “Or a card, come to think of it. And why didn’t you call me back this weekend? I’ve been going crazy.”

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Thanks for freaking my parents out. So why are we here, if you didn’t arrange it?” she asked, adding, “Those hot chocolates were here when I got here, you know.”

  “Maybe someone’s trying to kill us,” Mickey said. He thought that would be pretty romantic.

  Philippa rolled her eyes. “Well, I’ve got homework,” she said, signaling for the waitress, who came over and dropped a silver tray on their table. Instead of a bill, there was another pink card. It instructed them to go to the Excelsior Hotel on West 81st street.

  Philippa kept her arms crossed over her chest as they walked down Broadway.

  “This had better not be some sort of romantic surprise,” Philippa said. “I am not getting in trouble for staying in a hotel room with you at this point in my life.”

  “Phil, how many times do I have to tell you. I didn’t arrange this, okay? Would you chill, please?”

  She glared at him, but Mickey raised his shades over his eyes, pumped his eyebrows, and gave her the wild-eyed smile that always melted her, at least a little bit. And it did. She almost smiled.

  “C’mon,” Mickey continued. “Just think of this as a treasure hunt or something.”

  When they walked through the brass revolving doors of the Excelsior, the concierge approached them and addressed them by name. “You’ll want to hurry on up to the tenth floor,” he said, before ushering them into the old fashioned elevator. “Room ten E!” he called as the door closed.

  Mickey loved surprises, and he was almost having fun. He thought Philippa might feel that way, too. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but it had been a long time since Philippa and he had had an adventure, and it felt good. When they got to 10E, they saw that the door was open. They stepped into a waiting room, which had a few chairs and lots of magazines. There were two doors, both of them closed, one with a pink note on the door. Mickey peeked into the other one.

  “Bathroom,” he hissed. Philippa giggled.

  Mickey went to the other door, and plucked the pink note.

  “It says we should come in,” he whispered.

  “Should we?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Mickey. “But whatever happens, I just want you to know that I love you.”

  “Aw!” said Philippa. She kissed Mickey, and for a moment he re-remembered how warm and sweet she was.

  Then she opened the door, and they saw that most frightening of things:

  Their parents. Both sets. Together.

  They were sitting in big, comfy-looking chairs on either side of a ginormous white desk. Behind the desk was a small man with glasses.

  There was a long, awkward moment, and then the man behind the desk said, “I am Dr. Chivers, and this is a relationship intervention.”

  “A what?!” asked Mickey.

  “Your parents,” said Dr. Chivers, forming a triangle with his fingers, “think that your relationship has perhaps … gone too far. We are here to stop it in its tracks and make it right, or say good-bye to it forever. We call it… an intervention.”

  Above the little man with the glasses were large framed posters of hearts. In fact, the whole office was in the color scheme of the Valentine’s-esque cards that he and Philippa had received.

  “You got that, mijo?” Mickey’s mother said. She was tapping her long fingernails against the white desk and arching a dramatic black eyebrow.

  Mrs. Frady, who was the biggest pushover of the group, tried to smile reassuringly at the couple. “We’ve all been seeing Dr. Chivers, and it’s just done wonders for our marriages,” she said. “Not all four of us at once, of course,” she added hastily.

  “Gross,” Mickey said aloud. As usual, he had been unable to stop himself.

  “You see, you are going to listen to us tell you about how this relationship has wounded yourselves and the people who love you…,” Dr. Chivers said. “And when the intervention portion of your treatment is over, we will begin twice-weekly and—when I deem you ready—weekly sessions to see what we can do to fix the union.”

  “And if you aren’t up to it,” said Mr. Frady, who had pretty much always had it in for Mickey and was most definitely not a pushover, “it’s real simple: You can stop seeing each other right now.”

  Mickey’s usual feeling that the world and the people that filled it sucked and had to be stopped had just been confirmed about two thousand times over. He looked over at Philippa so they could share this hugely lame moment.

  Her face was contorted with disgust. And when she met Mickey’s gaze, it looked like she maybe didn’t think this relationship was worth the humiliation.

  i save face all night long

  Eight hours later, I was still more or less in a state of shock.

  For those of you who have inexplicably forgotten, my crew of guys was falling apart, Arno was named Hottest Private School Boy by New York magazine, and I had to make a party that was supposed to be for me look like a party for Arno.

  Around four, when I had read every word of the Hottest Private School Boy issue about four times over, I decided it was time to get into host mode. I left H&R and went back to my apartment.

  Along the way, I called Mickey. I wanted to see if he was coming to the party tonight—in fact, I wanted to be sure of it. The phone rang three times, and then Mickey picked up and said some loud garbled word that sounded like a combination of “Hello” and “What the fuck.”

  “Hi, Mickey,” I said.

  “Jonathan?” he said my name sort of desperately, like we hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.

  “Hey, man I just…,” I started to say. Then I think I heard someone in the background going, “No cell phones allowed during intervention.” That sounded pretty weird, so I stopped saying what I was saying. Then Mickey told me he had to go.

  If I wasn’t feeling so sorry for myself, I would have been worried about Mickey. But I was feeling sorry for myself, and worrying about Mickey is a losing game. So I figured I could count Mickey out for tonight.

  I stopped in at the market and got the makings for caipirinhas. Maybe I could pull that off as a nod to Arno’s Brazilian heritage. Plus, caipirinhas were, or at least had been until recently, one of those hot drinks, so it made sense.

  My mom was going to be out for the evening, so I turned down the lights in the living room and put the new Doves album on. I made a practice run of drinks, which required a lot of crushing of lime and sugar. The
n I took my practice drink and went and sat in the living room to read New York and wonder if anyone would even come, and if they did, how I was going to cover up the fact that all this time I’d been imagining a party for me.

  I was almost surprised when I heard Flan “Yoo-hoo” as she opened the door. Then she came in looking—and I know this sounds cheesy—like an angel. She was wearing boxy chino shorts that made her legs look even more long and girlish, and a red-and-white-striped Petit Bateau shirt that showed off her long neck, and high-heeled jellies.

  “How was school?” I asked.

  She shrugged and sat down next to me. “I have a lot of homework this week. It kinda sucks, I guess,” she said. She seemed a little glum. “And I had a fight with Daria today. She was mad that I was ditching the sleepover.”

  “That’s too bad. Did you see this?” I asked, handing her the New York, which had come out of the bookstore with me, in my back pocket. Who would pay good money for lies like that? Although I did feel a little bad because I’d never shoplifted before.

  Flan made a noise like mmm-hmmm. She didn’t seem appropriately shocked to me, but I was probably being sensitive.

  “But can you believe that Arno was the one they wanted?”

  “Yeah, that’s weird,” Flan said unconvincingly.

  “Weird is one way of putting it. Perverse might be another.”

  “So, who’s coming tonight?” she asked.

  “I dunno, probably nobody,” I said.

  “No, I’m sure people will come,” Flan said sweetly.

  “I’d actually rather be alone at this particular moment in time. But if people do come, can we just pretend that the party was for Arno being named HPSB all along? It’s all kind of … you know … embarrassing.”

  To my relief, people did come. And they all seemed to be under the impression that they’d been coming to Arno’s party all along, so it wasn’t too hard to fake it. Pretty soon my relief mutated into irritation, though—I mean, why would they just assume that? The first thing out of everyone’s mouth was, “This is so exciting. How long have you known about Arno being HPSB?”