I got off the phone with Arno, who clearly knew nothing about my new predicament, which was a big relief. I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to tell my guys that my dad had stolen money from their families, and I definitely wasn’t looking forward to it. Obviously my mom was right and there was no way Arno’s parents knew the whole story about my dad, since Arno’s dad was supposedly going to be his best man. I mean, you wouldn’t be best man for a guy who’d stolen your money, right?
After one of the kitchen staff had let me into the apartment, I went straight to Arno’s room, since I definitely couldn’t deal with sussing out who knew what right then. Sitting at Arno’s desk, I heard Alec Wildenburger say he was going off somewhere and Mrs. Wildenburger, Allie, tell someone she’d be in her bedroom if they needed her.
When everything seemed quiet and I figured the coast was clear, I wandered down the long hall that separated Arno’s bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the house. I was famished and wanted to grab some of the food that was inevitably leftover from whatever event the Wildenburgers had hosted lately. Arno’s parents were always hosting events since they lived in a double-wide town house on Eighteenth Street near Tenth Avenue and liked to show it off. For some reason, I kept hoping there’d be leftover chicken legs.
The hall was dark, even though it was just eight o’clock. I crept by the Wildenburgers’ bedroom. I knew that Allie was dressing to go out for the evening and that Arno had been wrong—there was no big Sunday meal planned at the Wildenburger house.
“Oh, Ricardo,” she said, in her high, wheedling voice. “Stop it.”
I stopped. Ricardo was probably Ricardo Pardo, Mickey’s father.
“Yes, of course I’m alone.”
Weird. I had been over at the Pardos’ a million times and never seen Ricardo on the phone. Sometimes he’d throw a phone on the floor to kick it, but I’d never seen him put one to his ear and talk into it. Maybe this was some other Ricardo.
“I can’t wait till you’re on top of me,” Allie said, “you magnificently hot, bearded man!”
Nope. That was Mickey’s dad all right. My eyes rolled up in my head. I stepped to my left. The floorboard creaked. I went still.
“Don’t talk about Alec,” Allie said. “It is impossible being married to a man who won’t admit he’s gay. He’s going to dinner with some man from the Department of Justice—goodness knows why.”
I heard the front door lock jangle, fifty feet to my right. I moved quickly, but not before I’d heard more.
“Oh, Ricardo, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish he’d find a man and leave me already. And then you and I can finally be really, truly together.”
The front door banged open and there was an explosion of bright light down the hall.
“Hello!” Arno screamed out.
I was at the door before Arno could turn his head to look for me.
“What’s up?” Arno sounded beat, but happy to see me. “I always scream hello when I come in so the monsters will know I’m here.”
“Why?”
“If I don’t, they’ll just keep yelling at each other and I’ll have to hear some ugly shit I’d be more than happy to not know about, you know?”
“Yes. I know exactly what you mean.”
We went into the kitchen. Arno flipped the lights on. He threw his jacket on a chair and went over to the fridge. The room was huge, with loads of gleaming copper pots on hooks and glass-paned cabinets lit from within.
“I think there’s some leftover chicken legs.” Arno started to push around some white cardboard containers in the fridge.
“You must be reading my mind. How’s Liesel?”
“What’s all that stuff you like to call somebody when you figure they’re probably crazy?” Arno was always asking me for language that way—he could never be bothered to make up his own slang.
“Gingko-biloba? Totally wacked? Nutballs? Whoppers with a side of poppers?”
“Yeah. All that is what she is. She’s absolutely incredible, but there’s no way I can keep up this thing with her. It’s exhausting.” Arno sighed happily. He snagged a bottle of Stella Artois from the fridge and cracked it. He said, “I guess I could have worse problems.” He paused and took a long sip from his Stella, eyeing me. “What’s going on with you, man? You seem, you know, spooked.”
I looked down for a minute at the old-school Adidas sneakers I’d put on before I left my house. There was a lot I needed to say, and I knew that right then was the time to say it. “Well, a lot of shit is going on all of a sudden.”
“Yeah, I kind of heard that. What’s up?”
I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of Stella, too. “I just found out my dad’s getting remarried to a woman named PISS—Penelope Isquierdo something, something.”
Arno’s mom walked in and looked at our beers but didn’t say anything. “Were you just saying something about Penelope Isquierdo Santana Suttwilley, Jonathan?”
“Um, yeah. She’s marrying my dad, but I guess you knew that?”
“Oh, it’s hard to keep track of Penelope. But your father is a lucky man, Jonathan. Penelope makes the rest of us look like paupers.” She said this while motioning around at their house, which was as big as a mansion in the suburbs and probably worth ten times as much.
“My dad invited me to go on their honeymoon with them through the Caribbean on her two-hundred-fifty-foot sailboat.” I looked at Arno and tried to think how I could possibly segue this conversation into by the way, my dad stole a bunch of money from your family. And then, maybe because I felt so guilty, I said, “Maybe you can come, too. I think I can bring one friend.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Arno smiled his big handsome smile and I knew I’d just done something really stupid. What about my other guys?
“Language, Arno,” said Allie, but she was already on her way back to her room, so he hardly looked up.
I paused for a second, since I could feel already that these secrets were starting to snowball. I had to tell him.
“Arno, I’ve got to tell you some—” but instead of going on, I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I mean, what if he never had to know? If Penelope was so rich, then maybe this really would just all go away, and I could go on this trip with my dad, and he’d quietly give the money back, and I’d pretend I never knew about all this awful stuff …
“If you were going to tell me I should go to a party Liesel’s hosting uptown tomorrow night even though she makes me crazy, then I should tell you that you’re right, because that’s what’s happening.”
“I wasn’t—”
“What?”
“Wasn’t I—nothing,” I said.
“Apparently her friends think Monday night is party night.”
“Well, so do we.”