Pass It On

by J. Minter

  Liesel stood up. She yanked off her tiny black top and threw it at Arno. She was wearing a white silk bra studded with what looked like rubies.

  She threw herself across the table, into his arms.

  “Don’t think about it,” Liesel said. “Just, um—well… okay, think about it for a sec.”

  Arno tried to smile. If he just kind of clouded his brain a lot, he could see how they were perfect for each other, even though they couldn’t agree on who the vice president of the United States was, or where Canada is.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Arno knew his voice was weak. He wondered where the hell Jonathan was, because he needed someone to talk some sense into him like only Jonathan could.

  “Eew!”

  “What?” Arno asked.

  “Look at that really hairy guy! He looks like Bigfoot!”

  “Where?”

  Arno looked around. Liesel was pointing at a busboy. But he wasn’t Bigfoot. He just had a beard.

  “Hair like that freaks me out! I feel like he’s going to crawl all over my body and do disgusting things!”

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “Okay, you want to go back to my house? My parents are in Bermuda with Governor Bloomberg for the weekend.”

  “He’s the mayor.”

  “Whatever.”

  They began to walk through the club. The busboys and just about all of the rest of the waitstaff glared at Liesel. It occurred to Arno that, among other things, Liesel was kind of a pig.

  “I’m definitely going to break up with you, the moment we get a cab,” Arno said.

  “What? Arno, I can’t concentrate on you right now. I need to make sure that Sasquatch doesn’t touch me. And I have to pee but now I only like to go in my house—we just had new toilets installed. I love them. They’re the only ones that get me truly clean.”

  “I’ll break up with you again right when we get out on the street,” Arno said. “I’m glad we spent this extra time together so we could be absolutely sure we’re doing the right thing.”

  why would my happiness grate on the group?

  The four of us were together in Patch’s room, passing blankets and pillows back and forth, trying to get comfortable. Arno had taken the cleanest bed, and Mickey snagged the other one.

  “Here, you take the beanbag chair,” David said. “I’m good with the floor.” I raised an eyebrow at David. Then I shrugged and took the chair.

  “It’s so good to see you guys,” I said. “And since we’re all together, I have an announcement to make.” I tried to perch in the beanbag chair, which of course was impossible, so I fell backwards, which forced me to stand up.

  It was strange, but I could feel everyone stiffen a little.

  “I’m finally on the same wavelength as the rest of you. I am completely, totally, in love.”

  Mickey started laughing first.

  “Actually, as of tonight, I’m definitely, absolutely single,” Mickey said.

  “Me too. I’m as single as I’ve ever been since fourth grade,” Arno said.

  The three of them turned to David.

  “Me too,” David shrugged. He was trying to get comfortable in a corner of the room, where Patch had thrown some skiing stuff from the winter before. “I’m taking some time off from girls, just like you told me to. Remember?”

  And that’s when I remembered about Amanda and Froggy. David looked so depressed he must’ve discovered it himself, and I was thankful that I didn’t have to be the one to tell him.

  “So I’m the only one with a girlfriend?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “It’s nice that you at least shared that you have a girlfriend with us. Now there’s this other thing we’ve been wondering about,” Mickey began.

  But I sort of shook my head, like no, there is no other thing. Of course there were two other huge things—I still had to choose which friend was coming, and my dad had stolen my friends’ families’ money.

  “I’m practically falling asleep here,” I said. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “But—”

  “Dude, some other time,” I said. And I molded myself into the beanbag chair and closed my eyes.

  “Okay,” I heard Arno say, and he sounded angry. “But I’m going to say one thing. Tomorrow we’re going to Greenwich, but by the time we get back, I think you should tell us who you’re bringing to the Caribbean. That’s what we all thought you were going to announce just now, and we think it’s about time.”

  I heard a “yeah” and an “amen” from David and Mickey and I nodded once. “Okay. I guess that’s fair,” I said.

  Everybody was quiet. Nobody talked about how we hadn’t had a straight-up sleepover like this since we were in middle school. I lay with my eyes closed in what I hoped was the dark. I’d thought possibly being in love with Ruth was going to sail me through this weird thing that was happening with my dad, but of course I was wrong.

  Then there was a crash, as a snowboard fell where it’d been leaning. It had landed on David and I could hear him wrestling with it.

  a sunny saturday in old greenwich

  david gets shotgun

  “Holy shit! Slow down!” David screamed. “You’re going to kill us all.”

  “Shut up you little bitch,” February Flood laughed. “You’re the one who called shotgun.”

  Then she reached across the front seat and grabbed David’s hood and yanked it over his head, just like she’d been doing since she was nine and he was five years old.

  “You’re looking pretty hot now that you’re single, you know that David? Maybe we can get it on.”

  “Cut it out.” David pulled the hood farther down over his stiff hair.

  February snickered and turned up her Liars CD. She was best friends with Jane from the band and she sang along with herself, because she was in the background on the track.

  They were blasting up the Merritt Parkway, doing ninety in her dad’s canary yellow Mercedes 380SL convertible. The car was an ’85, with a reconditioned engine originally built for a cargo airplane, and it could haul ass.

  Arno, Mickey, and Jonathan were in the back seat, gritting their teeth. They were slowly getting their eyebrows blown off by the speed and by February’s willingness to accelerate through the Merritt’s frightening twists and turns.

  “This isn’t relaxing,” Jonathan muttered, to himself.

  “You all better pray that Patch shows up at the house while we’re there,” February said. “My parents have been at encounter sessions all week with Mr. Cult Leader Grobart about how to keep track of their son. He was the one who suggested that you all come up this weekend.”

  “The puppet master,” Arno said.

  “I heard that,” David said, from the front seat.

  “So what? Your dad is wacked out!”

  “So is yours!” David said. “Just ask Jonathan—I bet he could tell us some stories about staying at your house!”

  Everyone turned then, to look at Jonathan. This was unfortunate, because February turned too, and steered them into the breakdown lane, which had recently been graded.

  The car rocked and Jonathan could only say, “Gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu…”

  February got them back on the road and cut off a few limousines and chauffeured SUVs.

  “I think I bit my tongue,” Jonathan said.

  “Tough shit,” everybody in the back seat said.

  “Screw it,” February said. “I think it’d probably be more effective for each of you to prove to Jonathan why you’re the guy he should take on his dad’s honeymoon, rather than just acting all pissy at him for inviting too many of you.”

  Arno said, “You know Feb, you have this amazing quality—”

  “Of saying exactly what needs to be said?” February asked. “No kidding! Somebody’s got to do it and you four stooges certainly don’t seem up to the job.”

  She shot into the fast lane and gave a state trooper “the can opener,” where she used one hand to w
ind down the fingers around her middle finger, while David grabbed the wheel.

  She winked and the trooper winked back and she kept going at ninety, blowing by the Round Hill Road exit, so they had to spend twenty minutes backtracking to the Floods’ estate.

  “Freaking pigs,” she said.

  i take a moment to enjoy flan flood’s sweet lap of luxury

  Even though we’d all been trotted off to the Floods’ place in Greenwich since we were about eight, when we pulled off the access road, drove down the quarter mile path lined with evergreen trees on both sides, and came up to the circular driveway, I was still awed.

  The thing about the Floods that I always forgot was that they had a ton of money. The house was four stories high and had a middle section and two gigantic wings. What it reminded me of more than anything was when you see one of those VH1 or MTV shows where they have, like, Keith Richards or one of the old guys from Pink Floyd on their estate in England and they’re driving around on a golf cart in front of this huge mansion, talking about shooting pheasant. That’s what it was like.

  It was around two on Saturday when February shot the Mercedes into the six car garage. She got out, slammed the door, and immediately disappeared.

  “I got Patch’s bedroom,” Mickey said, and raced off. The rest of us shook our heads. The Flood kids had the whole west wing of the house, and there were at least five bedrooms over there, so we all ended up sleeping wherever we wanted. So while it made sense to call Patch’s, since it was the best bedroom, it didn’t really matter. Between now and bedtime, it was anybody’s guess where we were going to end up. The only thing that was for sure was that we wouldn’t see the grown-up Floods. Frederick would be puttering away at his projects at his studio-on-stilts in a cleared wood about a quarter mile from the house. And Fiona would be at the club, exercising or swimming in the indoor pool, even though they had a perfectly good workout room and a big indoor pool connected to the house.

  Arno and Mickey immediately headed toward the kitchen. There was a staff here, and they always kept the place stocked with tons of stuff for heros. Mickey and Arno only had ultra-gourmet food at their houses, so they liked to fill up on bologna and salami and American cheese whenever we came to Greenwich. I heard David call from the kitchen, “Want a sandwich, dude?”

  “Nah, but, um, thanks.” Weird. That was so un-David.

  “Hey.”

  I looked up. Flan Flood. Nobody’d said anything about her being here. She was, as was typical lately, in her riding outfit. There was a deep-green grass smear on the side of her thigh.

  “You wipe out?”

  “Yeah. Sancho bucked me.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she opened the door to the house, and I followed her in. She seemed to know that the guys were in the kitchen, so she headed toward the great room in the middle of the house, which got used officially four times a year, during benefits that the Floods threw for their favorite charities. We used it far more often—we liked to party in there. The room was about as big as a hockey rink, and the walls were all brown wood, and there were five different areas for sitting. There was a grand piano in one corner and fifty feet of glass doors that opened onto a stone patio. And beyond that were the English gardens. I know they’re English because they’re all very well organized and once when I was high Fiona gave me a lecture on them while everybody else raided the fridge.

  Flan threw herself down on a dark leather couch and sighed.

  “I miss you, Jonathan.”

  As usual when I was with Flan, I had one thought. She’s adorable and awesome and I really like her but she’s in eighth grade. But this time, I had something to add: Whatever. I’m really into someone else.

  I sat down across from her on a zebra-striped chair that was actually made of zebra.

  “Well. I’ve missed you, too. Ever since we didn’t get together—I mean, it was such a surprise—and, well, I’m glad you’re with Adam now.” I pulled at the collar of a new Lacoste polo shirt that I’d picked up because it definitely seemed like the kind of thing you were supposed to wear on a yacht.

  “Are you?”

  “Everyone says he’s cool.”

  Flan curled up on the couch. There was a big brown cashmere blanket thrown over the back and she wrapped herself up in it.

  “He’s okay.”

  “He’s like the only freshman everybody knows about—there’s one every year, and he’s it.”

  “I guess. You know, Jonathan …”

  “What?”

  I had on new Tods loafers that were orange and I was still figuring out if I liked them. Lately I’d been buying so much colorful stuff I was starting to think that I might O.D. on color by the time this trip actually came around, and then I’d be by the gorgeous turquoise Caribbean water and not even appreciate it. I made a mental note to buy some more white things.

  “It’s warmer outside than it is in here. I’m cold. Come and sit next to me.”

  So just like that, I did. She was cold. I got right up next to her and rubbed her shoulders through the blanket.

  “I’m still pissed at you for not going out with me,” Flan said.

  Then her arms were around me. She was easily as big as me, if not bigger. And she kissed me. And I let her. And of course it was incredible and something I had known I wanted to do with her for a long, long time. The thing about Flan was that she tasted sweet, just like she always seemed, and I kind of felt like if I didn’t stop right then I’d never stop kissing her because it was just so nice.

  “Um, this doesn’t feel right,” I finally said. As gently as I could, I pulled us apart.

  “Why not?” She’d dug her hand under my shirt and was rubbing my chest. I glanced around the room. There were so many entrances and exits—more than I could count.

  “What about you and Adam?”

  “He’s not here. You are.”

  “But you two are going out. I mean, I think you should stay with Adam.”

  “I don’t want to.” Her voice was like a warm wind. “I want to fool around with you.”

  “You’re growing up too fast, Flan.” I knew the moment the words came out that I’d pissed her off. Her eyes changed colors, from blue-green to green-black. “Look Flan, on any other weekend I’d be jumping all over you like, I dunno—the New York Times on last year’s trend. But I’m going through something heavy right now.”

  “The stuff about your dad, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, so what? Every grown-up I know seems like they do some really bad stuff, and I don’t think it’s such a big deal what your dad did.”

  I tried to smile, but it was hard, because it was too a big deal. Her perspective was just limited because, even though she had a big family, she was basically alone all the time, knocking around in overpriced real estate, trying to keep herself entertained, or centered, or something.

  Because I wasn’t saying anything, Flan stood up. There were some fresh flowers in a marble vase in the middle of the room. She walked over there—it was about half a city block—and rearranged them. When I could see she wasn’t coming back, I followed her.

  “Look Flan, the truth is I’m worried like crazy about it, but nobody’s saying anything. And they’re acting kind of pissed about this trip and putting all this pressure on me to decide who I’m going to bring, but I think maybe it’s about more than that. David knows everything, but you’re the only one I’ve told. You and Ruth.”

  “Who’s Ruth?”

  I stared at Flan. It was now or later, and later might be never, and I’d gotten in enough trouble with that tactic already in the last week.

  “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend!” She turned around quickly, grabbed some roses and threw them at my chest, then ran from the room. I shook my head. I picked up the roses and the thorns pricked my palm. There were little beads of blood there, of course.
/>   who goes sailing in november?

  Around three or so, Arno and Mickey found me up in the common room that the Flood kids shared, which was similar to the one they shared in the city except a whole lot bigger and even more full of sports equipment. But, because the staff here was in the house more often than the Floods were, it was all very well arranged. I found it relaxing and I was leafing through an old copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that someone had left under the cushion of a chair.

  “Hey.” Mickey was swaying and clearly a little wrecked. He must’ve eaten a lot, and drunk more. “Let’s go sailing.”

  “Aye aye, Captain Drunky.”

  “I’m going to show you exactly why you should bring me on this trip.”

  “Dude …” But I could see it was to late to reason with Mickey and he was about to begin a forced-fun rampage.

  “I’ll drive down there,” Arno said. “Because I can drive anything, like even in a place where they drive on the wrong side of the road, like St. Thomas or St. John.”

  David wandered into the room. He was carrying a basketball and looked a bit sweaty, so we knew he must’ve been playing basketball on the indoor court that the Floods had down in the old gymnasium, a couple of hundred yards from the house.

  “What’s up?” David began to spin the ball on one finger. Mickey tossed him a beer and he caught it and drank from it, still spinning the basketball.

  “Sailing,” I said.

  “Uh-oh.” David lost control of the ball. Neither of us had ever been any good at sailing, which of course made this honeymoon thing more than a little ironic.

  We got into one of the Mercedes and Arno drove us the quarter mile down to the cove where the Floods kept their boat. This was definitely private land, since we were weaving all over the road and nobody stopped us, but there was always this sense that other super-rich types were lurking around. At least six other sailboats bobbed from moorings in the cove, and there was one old guy, in stained red pants and a yellow slicker, dousing his boat with water.

  It was strangely warm out, which was one good thing. Only Mickey was shivering, since he was apparently determined to go through the fall without putting on long pants. Arno and I had put on khakis and button-downs so we were okay. David was fine too, since he immediately put his hood over his head and he was wearing a pair of those Carhartt workpants that can stop a bullet.