Take It Off

by J. Minter

  Her bosom? Who they hell was this guy? My anxiety level increased, of course, and I considered asking the stewardess if she could speed the plane up. I opened up the e-mail from David.

  From: grobman@hotmail.com

  To: jonathanm@gissing.edu

  Hey man. I found Rob, but your mom’s still out of town and no one can figure out the number to reach her. Sorry. I haven’t heard from you in a while. You OK? When are you coming home? We should talk about some things. I’ve been talking to my dad a lot since I came home early from the trip. I know he’s kind of a kook about feelings and stuff but I had a lot of issues after that. And I sort of talked to him about the thing you asked me about with Flan and Rob, just to see if it was like normal. And my dad made me see a lot of things. Anyway don’t worry—I’m pretty sure that Rob isn’t, like, interested in Flan. But maybe you shouldn’t be either, you know what I mean? See you, David

  I shut down my e-mail account and slipped Suki’s bank card back into her bag. I was almost woozy trying to figure out what those e-mails meant. Clearly David was just trying to make me feel better: Rob had seduced my perfect little Flan. I rang the stewardess for another Bloody Mary. Suki was still sleeping peacefully beside me, and as I looked at her I realized the one thing I wasn’t going to do until I was back in New York: sleep peacefully.

  A few last moments suspended in air

  The stewardesses in first class had finally gotten wise and cut Sara-Beth off. Luckily for them, it was right around the time that she fell into a champagne coma and began softly humming the Mike’s Princesses theme song in her sleep.

  In the two seats next to and opposite her, her former Ocean Term classmates were being served liqueurs. As they sipped them, Mickey talked about Angelina and the house in Barcelona, and the Lober-Luccis and how creepy it was that they had known Barker in college. And Greta told them how boring and uneventful the rest of the trip was, and how she had gotten sick and she and Patch had been excused from all the papers and tests they were supposed to have in the final week. She skipped over the part about them hooking up, though, and avoided entirely the nasty scene with Stephanie. The stewardess brought a second round, and then Arno said, “So, I guess Jonathan and Suki never made it back to the boat?”

  “Yeah, it was weird,” Patch said. “I mean, weird because they didn’t figure out to show up back at the boat. And weird because … well, I guess because it’s Jonathan.”

  “Yeah. He’ll be fine, though,” Mickey said. “I mean, he probably just got his mom or his dad or PISS to wire him money, right? I mean, he’s probably in New York already, buying back-to-school clothes or some shit.”

  They all laughed a little bit and then fell silent. After a few beats, Arno said, “Oh, Mickey forgot to tell you this weird thing about Angelina’s. We met this guy, who was, like, a performance artist supposedly, and he was wearing a watch just like Jonathan’s.” Arno reached into his pocket and took it out so that they could all see. “I mean, isn’t it just like J’s?” he asked Patch.

  “I guess …”

  “Anyway, we took it as a souvenir. You never know, maybe it really is J’s.”

  Patch took the watch out of Arno’s hand and turned it over. “Well, it does have his initials engraved on the back.”

  “Oh …,” they all said at once, and then fell silent again.

  Outside their windows, the sky and the Atlantic Ocean had gone dark. They all sunk back into the big, comfy, shark-gray leather first-class seats, and drifted into their own thoughts. All the way up there in the air, at the mercy of stewardesses and weather, it was pretty hard to stave off thoughts of homecoming and what that meant. Patch wondered about that e-mail from David about Selina Trieff, and if he was even interested in her anymore now that he’d been with Greta. Arno wondered if he and Mickey were going to be able to maintain the closeness they’d developed over the last two days. Also, he wondered if his appeal to girls was totally gone, and what life would be like without that. Mickey wondered if Arno was going to be able to keep being decent to him, or if the rest of their friendship was going to be spent sparring over chicks. They all thought about Jonathan, and where he could be, and if they would all still be friends if something terrible had happened.

  Greta wondered if Patch really liked her, and Sara-Beth twisted in her sleep and hoped in her dreams that, someday, she would have a career again.

  They were heading back to New York, and for the moment none of them really knew what that meant.

  Everything moves roughly in the direction of normal

  As the plane began to come down through the atmosphere for landing, I checked the weather and my seat belt and whatever else I could to be busy. I was landing on home turf, but I had no idea what to expect. Plus, at this point I was pretty sure Suki and I were both feeling a little sheepish about our night in Mallorca. When the taxiing was done, and the lights were back on, I picked up Suki’s bag and mine. It took us a long time to get out because we were all the way at the back of the plane.

  Once we’d made our way out of the airport, I saw that the little screen in the plane had told the truth. It was a cold and crisp evening in New York. The sky was already dark, and the cars made orange streaks in the purple night.

  “How is it possible that during the warmest winter on record in Europe, it is so freaking cold in New York?” I asked.

  “Global warming,” Suki said brightly. “It’s a really huge problem, and nobody pays any attention. I mean, if you only knew how—”

  “C’mon, let’s get a cab,” I said, interrupting her and dragging her by the arm to the taxi line.

  “But aren’t we out of money again?” She seemed thankfully to have forgotten about her global warming speech.

  “Yeah, but the doorman will front me. I’ve known him since I was five.”

  We got in line and were sort of silent and introverted for a while, wrapping ourselves up in the coats that PISS’s butler had lent us. They were too big, and they made us look like hobos, but I guess it was good that we had them because, according to the little screen, it was in the mid-thirties. That was when I heard some familiar voices up ahead.

  A girl was saying, “… I’m really glad you asked me to extend the layover and stay. I mean, thank you, I …”

  And then this guy’s voice, which was kind of hoarse and slow, said, “Hey, stop worrying. It’s going to be fun.”

  Very near them, someone was talking into a cell phone and saying, “Okay, Mom, love you, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he hung up and said, “You’ll never believe it, but I don’t think they know. I don’t think Caselli ever told them. And if they don’t know now, they ain’t never findin’ out. Woooohhhhooooo!!!” That was definitely Mickey, and although I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about, the context of Mickey sort of explained it all. And beside him, Patch and Greta and Arno.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Hey, it’s Jonathan. And Suki.”

  Everyone in line between me and my friends turned to look at us. “Don’t think there’s any cutting, because there isn’t,” the woman in front of me said, wagging her finger.

  “What are you, in kindergarten?” I snarled. I grabbed Suki’s hand, and we hurried past the ten or so people in line between us and them. Everybody grumbled, but nobody did anything, which is totally typical New Yorker behavior.

  When we got to Mickey and Arno and Greta and Patch, we all just stared at each other for a minute because it was way too weird. Then Arno raised his eyes slowly and strangely to mine, because Suki and I were holding hands again. I let go. To break the silence I said, “So … you guys want to, like, share a cab?” And whatever the awkwardness was, that ended it. We started hugging and yelling questions at each other and everyone was talking at once. If there were people still pissed at us back in the line, we couldn’t hear them now.

  Suki and Greta sort of withdrew to the side and were whispering to each other. I looked at the guys and said, “Someone explain to me how we brought these two
back with us …?”

  “Oh, Greta had a layover,” Patch said, as if that explained it. Then he added, “And I, you know, asked her to stay.”

  “Bitch, you’re the one with explainin’ to do,” Mickey said, although I had a feeling this wasn’t entirely true.

  We got one of those minivan cabs and put our stuff in and crowded into the seats. Just as I was about to close the door, I heard somebody calling out to us. I looked up and saw Sara-Beth Benny standing next to a limo, looking very fashionably wintry. She was blowing us kisses. We all waved, and she waved and got into her car and was gone. It was surreal, but pretty much everything seemed surreal right then.

  Then I slammed the door, and somebody told the driver how to get to Patch’s. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. As we rode through Queens I started telling them all the things that had happened to us since that day in Mallorca. For the first time, it started to seem kind of funny.

  By the time we drove across the Williamsburg Bridge, and on to Delancey, we all knew how we had spent our days apart. “Thank God we’re back in Manhattan,” I said. “I feel like never leaving again. And none of you are allowed to, either.” Everyone murmured in agreement. And even though Greta and Suki were in the car, and even though that was pretty much cool with us, my guys knew who I was talking about.

  Arno goes after what he likes

  “Sounds like we’re approaching the Flood residence,” Arno said dryly.

  As the cab turned the corner onto Perry Street, they heard music coming out of the Floods’ town house. It sounded like The Detroit Cobras, or something else that February would play. It was definitely a February party.

  Arno, who had been sitting in the front seat, said “I’ll get it,” and began looking around for his wallet. He was feeling sort of low. Whatever was up with his relative non-attractiveness to girls, he didn’t like it. The Greta thing, he had to admit, was mostly a continuation of his competition with Mickey. But Suki he was actually into, and seeing her holding hands with Jonathan stung. Maybe she was just the hand-holding type—it wasn’t a type he was really familiar with. Paying for the car gave him an edge, though, and as he followed the rest of them up to the door, he started to feel back in his game.

  They all stood there for a minute, and then Arno said, “Hey, Patch, wanna let us in?”

  “I forgot my key.” Patch shrugged. He rang the doorbell, but nobody could hear it because the music was too loud. Patch threw his head back and yelled, “Flan! Feb! Let us in!”

  For a while, it didn’t look like anyone was coming. But then the door swung back and February Flood stood in the doorway. Her hair was wild and her mascara was smudged all around her eyes. She was wearing a black slip that was much too big for her and lace-up high-heeled ankle boots without the laces, and she was smoking a cigarette. It was hard to tell if she had just gotten laid, or if she was just dressed that way. “Oh goody,” she said flatly, looking at Patch, “you’re home.”

  Everyone trooped into the front room, where it was very dark and very loud. It sounded like there were a lot of people in the living room and in the rooms beyond.

  “I got in a fight with Mom and Dad,” February was saying as the guys hung up their coats and shoved their luggage into one of the hallway closets. “I don’t even remember what it was about, but they were being total assholes and they went to vacation, to this place called Mallorca. Heard of it?”

  Jonathan looked like he was about to be hysterical, and Suki actually did laugh. “You mean, in Spain?”

  “Yeah, Spain. Who the hell are you?”

  “That’s just really funny because—” Suki started to say, but February interrupted with a terse, “Whatever. So I decided to have a party. Hope you don’t, you know, mind.”

  Patch introduced Greta and Suki to February, who looked like she was probably going to forget their names as soon as they were gone.

  Just then David and Rob came down the stairs. February turned to them and said, “Where’s Flan?”

  Jonathan’s face went pale and his jaw dropped as his friend and stepbrother descended from the direction of Flan’s room. David’s face was all twisted up, like he didn’t know whether to be happy or sad that all his friends were back. But Rob looked euphoric. He was wearing a suit vest, a tie, Diesel jeans, and nothing else. As he came down the stairs he held up a bottle and cried, “Welcome,” as though it were his house.

  To everyone’s surprise, Jonathan ran at him with his fist clenched. Rob didn’t seem to register what was going on, as though he couldn’t comprehend why anyone would be mad at him. Luckily for Rob, the swing went slightly to the right of his head, although Jonathan had gotten enough momentum going that when they collided, they went crashing to the floor.

  “You asshole!” Jonathan was shouting as he Rob rolled on the floor pummeling each other. By this time, Rob seemed to have caught on and was hitting back. “How could you move in on my life like that? How could you corrupt my little Flan?”

  Everyone gasped, although they basically all knew how Jonathan felt about her. It was more just hearing him call her “my Flan” loudly and front of everyone while he was tussling with his new stepbrother.

  David, who had been inching along the wall, finally reached Arno. They said “what’s up” and hugged awkwardly without taking their eyes off of Jonathan. “What the fuck’s happening here?” Arno asked.

  David shook his head, sort of unconvincingly. “I dunno.”

  Finally February, who had been clapping her hands and enjoying the whole melee, had had enough. She reached in and grabbed Jonathan by the collar and pulled him up on his feet.

  “Okay, cowboy,” she said, “get off my date.” Everyone gasped again. February hissed at them, hauling Jonathan over toward David and Arno. She grabbed David’s collar with her other hand, which looked especially ridiculous, since David was so tall. “And you, loverboy,” she said to David, “time for you two good old buddies to have a nice little chat.”

  David turned to Arno, with a plaintive help-me expression. Arno smirked. Whatever was going on here was too good to stop. As David was being pulled away, though, Arno reached into his pocket and pulled out Jonathan’s watch. He put it in the hand that David was reaching out toward him, and said, “This might help you.” Then February pushed them down the stairs and into the kitchen and kicked all the random people there out. When she came back into the hallway, she helped Rob up, and they disappeared up the stairs.

  “That is seriously weird,” Arno said to Mickey. They looked over to where Greta and Suki were whispering, and they knew that by then Suki knew everything about the survival test. Patch walked over to them and took Greta by the hand and led her up the stairs. “Why don’t you guys come to the roof?” he called down to them.

  Arno looked at Suki, then back at Mickey. “Hey dude, I don’t want to fight with you. But I think I like her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Mickey said. “Go on. She picked you anyway.”

  Once Mickey had gone up to the roof, Arno went over to where Suki was standing by herself. “Hey,” he said, “sorry all this craziness got in the way. But I think something was going to finally happen between us that day on Mallorca …”

  “Yeah, I thought so, too,” Suki said, smiling. “You keep on having a face like that, and it just might.”

  Now that I’m in Flan’s house, I’m further away from her than ever

  February had cleared everybody out of the kitchen, and now it was just me and David sitting across from each other at the big, industrial-looking table. I rubbed my shoulder, which was hurting because I’d fallen on it, and stared at David. He was hanging his head.

  “What’s up with you, man? Your e-mails got really weird, and like, sort of mean. Are you mad at me?” I said, because even though I urgently wanted to know where Flan was, and what was going on, part of me just wanted all the bad feelings to go away and for Flan to be pure and safe. At least I knew she wasn’t with Rob, who February was obviously, if very b
izarrely, into. And that meant he definitely was not and had never seriously been interested in her little sister.

  David raised his eyes to me. “Not really anymore. I mean, I was. Not at you, but at all of you guys. It’s probably not really fair, but I feel like you guys were really shitty after I got kicked off the boat.”

  “But I was the only one who e-mailed you!”

  “I know. My dad says I have shoot-the-messenger syndrome, or some shit.” We both laughed at that, even though it really wasn’t funny. “Anyway, Rob’s not interested in Flan—”

  “I can see that—”

  “—I am.”

  “Oh,” I said. The room sort of went blurry, and if someone had asked me my name I’m not sure I could have told them. I said, “Oh,” again, although I’m not sure I got the whole word out.

  “I just … After you asked me to ‘keep an eye on her for you,’ I started hanging around her a lot. And since Rob was my only friend in New York, and he was hanging out with Feb, it made sense. Flan was, like, really comforting. She’s sharp, and she said all these really smart things about our dynamic as a group and it … made me feel okay.”

  “Oh.” I felt like my insides had been pulled out. These were all things I knew about Flan already. My Flan. If I’d wanted to beat Rob to a pulp, now all I wanted to do was not be. This was so infinitely worse.

  “My dad told me this story about how he met my mom in college. He said the same thing happened. This buddy of his was going out with Mom, and he went abroad for his junior year, and when he came back my dad and mom were engaged. It made me feel like it might be kind of romantic if …”

  “Oh,” I said, because whatever he was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it.

  “But then I realized that that’s my parents, and that’s fucking gross. Anyway, I didn’t do anything with Flan. I just thought about it. And that’s not so hard to believe, right? Flan’s a really cool kid. In fact, she’s not really a kid at all. She’s fucking hot, and if you want to be with her you should tell her and stop saying one thing and doing another.”