“I’ll admit,” Arno said, “this is not my regular beat.”
Arno stood with Jonathan and David on Central Park West and Sixty-second Street, looking up at a glistening white Art Deco building. They were on the park side of the street. The only light came from yellow street lamps, which made the street feel very retro and otherworldly and nothing like downtown. Up on the eighth floor, they could see kids moving back and forth in silhouette.
“She’s meeting you in there, right?” David asked.
“I hope so,” Arno said.
“I’m psyched for this party, actually,” David said. “A lot of Potterton kids live up here. Most of them, actually, if you think about it. And I barely ever talk to any of them.”
“Well, good,” Arno agreed.
“Speaking of new people,” Jonathan turned to David, “I haven’t told you that my dad’s getting remarried and I’m getting a stepbrother.”
“Yeah, my dad said your mom said some stuff was going on with your family. That’s kind of weird, huh?” David said. “You all right with all that?”
“It’s cool, I guess,” Jonathan said.
“It’s more than cool,” Arno interjected. “His dad is marrying some unbelievably rich woman named PISS who is taking us sailing through the Caribbean on a three-hundred-foot yacht!”
“Yeah?” David looked hopeful.
“Yeah,” Jonathan said, but then he wrinkled his nose and started looking flustered. “But ‘we’ is actually…” he trailed off. “C’mon, let’s just go up.”
The three of them went across the street. They’d called Patch earlier, but he wasn’t around. And Mickey and Philippa had said they were staying home to study, which everyone agreed was a total lie.
“You think Liesel will talk with us this time, before you and her go somewhere and make out?” Jonathan asked in the elevator.
“Hard to say.” Arno smiled. He didn’t bother to pretend as if he knew what Liesel would do. He still felt like he hardly knew her—and he was beginning to realize that was part of what made her so exciting. Arno sniffed the air. “You smell like paint,” he said.
“So what? You still smell like a girl.”
When they walked in, the birthday party was in full swing.
“Awww-no!” a girl yelled.
“Ready, set, go,” Arno said as Liesel enveloped him in a nutcracker hug. He hugged her back. She picked him up. He picked her up.
“We’re going to have to pry them off the ceiling,” Jonathan said to David.
“These are your awesome friends,” Liesel said.
She kissed them both on the cheek three times while Arno watched. She stood there in a gold cropped V-neck T-shirt and a black skirt that was about nine inches long. Arno smiled. He thought, maybe she’s charming—maybe I’m really into how brash she is. But he felt like he was looking at her through blurry eyes—he couldn’t be sure about anything about her. He followed Liesel into the kitchen, which was old-fashioned and huge, with a maid’s room and a pantry. The surfaces of antique cabinets were reflected in the aluminum faces of twenty-first-century appliances.
“Whose house is this, anyway?”
“Alan Ebershoff’s,” Liesel said. “He’s my cousin. You should call him Froggy.” She yanked over a heavyset boy with long blond hair that covered his eyes. He was wearing baggy red corduroys, no shoes, and a blue turtleneck.
“You guys want drinks?” Ebershoff had a voice like a bullfrog.
“Sure we do,” Arno said.
In the middle of the white marble counter was a gigantic piece of dry ice that was giving off puffs of smoke. Several kids stood around watching it, as if the ice were going to start to talk or move. There was a carved-out area in the center of the dry ice that held several bottles of vodka.
“Here ya go,” the bullfrog croaked. Arno accepted a glass of vodka, lemon, and ice.
“Thanks, man.”
Jonathan and David got drinks and quickly went into the living room. Arno watched them go.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” Liesel said, pressing into Arno’s back. He leaned against her and thought she smelled of alcohol and a different perfume than he’d had on earlier, perhaps Chanel No. 9, which Arno realized he recognized because his mother wore it. Gross. He tried to forget the connection.
“Let’s get you into a bedroom,” Liesel said.
“Um, good idea.”
They took their drinks and disappeared down a hallway. Arno watched her small, twitchy butt as she walked. He slowed down, but only because he wasn’t smiling and smirking the way he usually did before hooking up, and he couldn’t understand why.
“Hurry up!” Liesel yelled. Several other guys jumped to attention when she yelled, but she was only looking at Arno. So he got his face in order, tried to close his nose, and hurried.