Pass It On (11 page)

“Calm down now dear, you can't charge anyone for this session.” Hilary Grobart pried her husband off Jonathan.

“I forgive, and I share secrets.”

“I wish you wouldn't,” Jonathan said.

“Boys, don't leave,” Sam went on. “There's more pizza and goodwill where this all came from—have
another Coke.”

But David and Jonathan were already out the door and into the elevator.

“I'm sorry.” David looked wide-eyed at Jonathan. “I wish he hadn't …you know… done that.”

“I guess my dad took some money from your dad, huh?” Jonathan wiped at a spot on his coat that Sam Grobart had put there with his greasy hands.

“I don't entirely get what he was talking about, so who can say for sure? My dad can get pretty crazy. I think he's starting some kind of forgiveness sessions. He already has people signing up. I hear Arno's parents are interested.”

“That makes sense.” Jonathan sighed. They went out of the lobby, and stepped into the windy street. They walked west on Jane, with no particular direction in mind.

“Jonathan?”

“What?”

“Could you not tell anyone that my dad is kind of insane?”

“Okay. But could you not tell anyone that my dad probably did something really awful with your family's money?”

“Okay.” David looked away. “Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“Who are you really taking on this sailing trip? 'Cause I think everyone—well, maybe not Patch, because we can't find him again—but everyone else thinks they're going, but I know you said you could only bring one guy, so…”

Jonathan sighed. “Yeah, I kind of made a mess with all that.”

“And none of us were going to say anything, but I think you need to be honest with us, you know?”

“You sound like your dad.”

“I know. It's creepy.” David shuddered.

“I can't believe I'm going to stay at your house tonight,” Jonathan said. “Do you have a lock on your door?”

“Not really. But we can always prop a chair.”

After school on Thursday I banged on home for a sec to grab some clothes and check to see how much damage had been done. I was basically feeling okay right then, since David had called me out on some stuff, knew about my dad, and obviously didn't completely hate me since he still wanted to come on this vacation. And really, after how cool he'd been, I really wanted him to come, too. But I held myself back from saying it at the time because wasn't that exactly how I'd gotten in that part of this predicament in the first place?

I went to grab a cab outside school, but then I decided that I was still thinking about this hot green corduroy blazer that I'd seen in the window at the Ralph Lauren store at lunch. I was pretty sure that Arno was right and that he couldn't pull off that kind of bright green, but it got me thinking about who could, which made me think, why
not me? So I shot up there and bought the very-green blazer that I was pretty sure would look great at a fancy dinner in St. Barth's, but knew I'd never hear the end of from whichever friend I decided would join me on this trip. Except maybe Patch, who was the one guy who didn't really make fun of me and the one guy I hadn't already invited, so go figure.

I got home around four and asked Richard the elevator guy what was up.

“A painter paints.” He shrugged his thick shoulders in his uniform and wouldn't look at me. “A painter paints and disasters lurk behind every corner.”

“I don't like that.”

“Not me either.” He let me out at my floor. The door was closed, but unlocked. When I got inside I smelled oil paint and heard laughter. The voice was familiar. A woman. I froze. I knew her.
Oh no
. It was somebody's mom. I turned, slowly, and figured I'd go. But I wanted my clothes. I needed them. There was a pair of pants I'd been thinking about, these good corduroy Polo purple labels that'd get me through tomorrow at least. That laughter: high, trilling, Latin. Mickey's mom, Lucy.

“Hello?” It was the painter, Billy Shanlon, calling out.

“Hi,” I said. “I'm just here for a minute.” I moved quickly down the corridor to my room, desperate not to deal with them,
in my house
.

“Ey Jonathan!” Lucy Pardo trilled at me. I'd made it to the spot where the corridor opened into our living room and had to stop.

“Look at the fun this Billy is having, eh?” She was basically blocking my way and pointing at the painter, who stood in the middle of the room. Of all the mothers of friends I had to deal with, she was without question the only one who was remotely good-looking. She was forty,
maybe,
with long black hair and easily five-eleven, with heels that made her even taller than that. She towered over me and Billy. I smiled because she was smiling so widely at me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her smile like that. At home, with Ricardo and Mickey always sparring over some nonsense, she tended to look kind of unhappy.

Then I looked at the baseboards in my living room. At first I saw only a bunch of abstract patterns.

“Kneel down,” Billy said. He clapped me on
the back. I kneeled down, being careful not to get my clothes too near any paint.

There, around the baseboards, Billy had painted slightly abstracted cubist representations of woodland creatures who were alternately running, or playing, or sleeping, or … fucking each other. Bizarre.

“My mother asked for this?”

“She said to have fun with the baseboards.”

“And this Billy,” Lucy said. “He's very good at fun.”

I stood up. Billy had a boom box plugged into the wall and he was playing Latin music: Joao Gilberto. Lucy had her arms up and she was dancing.

“Have you talked to my mom?” I heard myself ask. But Billy and Lucy Pardo had wandered out of the room, headed toward the kitchen. They kept knocking against each other. And then it looked as if they were holding hands.

I left the living room, with its pornographic animals, and went into my bedroom to find pants and shirts and jackets and whatever else might remind me of me and set things right. Billy hadn't even started in here yet, but somehow the room still reeked of paint.

“Hey.” Billy had come in behind me. “Listen Jonathan, it is and isn't what you think. But come by later in the week and we can have a talk.”

“I think I'll skip that.”

Billy smiled. He clapped me on the shoulder. He said, “Sure you are, but you might want to stop by and hang out anyway.”

“I just wish you'd stop painting pictures of animals fucking on our baseboards.”

“Don't worry. Once you get comfortable with it, it'll seem really cool.”

After he was gone I tossed my clothes around for a while, like a salad. I concentrated on Ruth, and her face did the thing in my mind where I couldn't fully see it, which I knew meant I had a huge crush on her, and I couldn't wait to see her in the flesh again.

But the peals of laughter coming from Mickey's mom in my kitchen snapped me back to attention. The idea that I knew where Mickey's mom was and Mickey didn't …
oh man
. And the hand holding and what it would no doubt lead to the moment I got out of there—that made me really sick.

“Thanks for meeting me.” Amanda stood with David on the corner of West Broadway and Thomas, across from Odeon. It was quiet, and the trees on the street formed a canopy over them. Amanda stared up at David, and hot gusts of breath escaped her lips.

“Of course.” David used a sweet voice, and he smiled at Amanda, who was wearing one of her awesome short skirts and white leggings, which she knew he liked. He touched her cheek.

“Have you thought about what I suggested the other night?” Amanda asked. She blinked up at David. She rubbed his arms. She said, “Wow, you're getting so strong.”

“Um, yeah, I've thought about it,” David said. Of course he had, but he hadn't figured out what to do about it.

“So, we're going to do it?” Amanda said. She glanced at the Odeon, as if someone were waiting for her there. “Look, I really need to know that we are. Because…”

“Because why?”

Amanda didn't speak. Expensive cars sped past them on West Broadway, and women walked by carrying tiny yipping dogs. One of the women smiled at David, and Amanda saw. Her eyes went wide.

“You're becoming quite a catch. It's hard to keep up with you,” she said.

“Don't say that,” David said.

“I need to be in Odeon in a few minutes. I'm meeting my SAT tutor there. I was going to blow off the session, but if you're not going to ask me the thing I asked you to ask me, I guess I'd better go get smart instead.”

“Uh, you're taking private tutoring in addition to Princeton Review?”

“Yeah, this is better, he's some guy who really went to Princeton. He works for my dad. There he is.”

They watched as a handsome young man in a suit got out of a cab and dashed into the restaurant.

“I'm late.” Amanda's voice seemed small, and nervous. “And if you're not going to like, up the stakes with us, I've got to go.”

“But don't you think what you're asking for seems kind of unreal?” David asked.

“Sure it is. But David…it's like everybody wants you. It's getting hard for me to handle.” She took a few steps back from him.

David stared. He waved his hands around, as if he were trying to erase something.

Amanda turned. The light was green. She walked across the street.

“I love you, David,” she yelled.

“Wait!”

She didn't look back, though, so David followed her. They reached the front of Odeon, which was Art Deco with lots of warm red light and an overall feel that was not exactly inviting to guys in hoodies and the new And Ones.

“Stop me,” she said, as she put her hand on the big brass doorknob.

“Wait,” was all David could say. In the back of his mind he couldn't help thinking how bizarre it was that she thought he was so sought-after and confident when he was so totally not.

The Princeton guy must have seen Amanda, because he came to the door and opened it for her. He wasn't a big guy, but he looked about twenty-three and extremely eager to please. David noticed that the guy didn't even bother to glare at him.

“Hello Liam.” Amanda passed into the quiet restaurant. David didn't go in. Liam let the door close behind Amanda, and she was gone.

David stood on the street for a few minutes, letting
the cool wind blow his hair around. He couldn't believe Amanda. She was in a restaurant with some junior executive, drinking cosmos and talking about the SATs—all because she thought he was getting too hot. It didn't make sense.

He got out his phone and called Risa, quickly, without thinking.

“I think Amanda doesn't want me anymore,” he said, as soon as she answered the phone. There was noise in the background. She was obviously still at school.

“I'm at basketball practice,” she said.

“I think I should see you.”

David could hear other girls. They were laughing. There was the sound of a ball bouncing.

“Listen, David, I'm not sure about this.”

“Why? What about yesterday, with me and you—”

“We were fooling around.”

“Well, I know that, but it was pretty good, wasn't it?”

“Yeah, but it wasn't real,” Risa said, and it sounded as if this made her happy.

“It wasn't?”

David heard Risa stop, and then whisper into the phone. “Actually, David, I liked being the other woman. It made me feel like a girl. You're the only guy
so far who has been gutsy enough to make me feel like a girl.”

“But—”

“You and Amanda will get your thing going again. You guys break up all the time.”

“No.”

“Yes, call me when you get back together with her. Then you can treat me like the other woman again.” And Risa was gone.

By then David had made it to Canal Street. From there, it would take him another half hour at least to walk to his house.

Jonathan was in David's room when he got upstairs, listening to his iPod and reading
The Sun Also Rises.
He dropped the book when David came in.

“‘We always pay for the mistakes made by others who came before us,'” Jonathan said, and laughed weakly. “Your dad's been in here to see me.”

“Not now.” David got into bed and threw his pillow over his head.

“What happened?”

David told him, in a voice muffled by the pillow. Jonathan shook his head when David was finished. “I've heard it before. You took on one too many and now you've got two too few.”

“Could you not speak in riddles?”

Jonathan was quiet for a moment. David pulled the pillow off and sat up and stared at him. It was seven and the house was quiet. The Grobart parents had just left for a psychoanalytic awards dinner, and they wouldn't be home for hours.

“Come on,” David said.

“Maybe you should take some time off from girls.”

“Are you kidding? I spent the last fifteen years ‘off' from girls. I don't want to take any more time off.”

“But you kind of overdid it, don't you think?”

“I'm going to bed.” David threw the blanket over himself and turned to face the wall.

“It's seven-thirty on a Thursday night!”

“I don't care.”

“I guess you don't want to hear about what your dad said about my dad,” Jonathan said.

David listened to him fiddle with his iPod.

“I want my girlfriend,” David said.

“Which one?”

“Shut up.”

Then David's cell rang. He looked at the screen. “It's Amanda!”

“See?” Jonathan sighed. “Your problems are totally mundane.”