“You are not the most sensitive guy in the world!” Mickey said to David. They stared at each other for one very sober moment and then Mickey started laughing. It was Tuesday night and they were standing in front of Philippa Frady’s house.
“I mean, that’s pretty funny when you think about it,” Mickey said. “There’s people that’d kill for that title, probably. So if you see it in a certain way, it’s cool.”
“What are we doing out here anyway?” David asked miserably.
“Philippa said she’d show me a sign from her room if she wasn’t in trouble anymore.”
“What’s the sign?” David asked.
“Her, without her shirt on.”
“What about me seeing?”
“Cover your eyes.”
Then the two of them were very quiet, staring up at the windows on the third floor. David had his hands over his eyes and he was peeking through his fingers. Mickey knew he was doing this, but it didn’t bother him. Mickey and Philippa didn’t care if people saw them naked.
“What happened with Amanda?” Mickey asked.
“Jonathan told me to break up with her, so I did it.”
“If he told you to—”
“To jump off a building? No, dude, I’d call you and you’d do it.”
“You totally love her, don’t you.”
“Yeah,” David said. “And now she’s not speaking to me.”
“How long?”
David checked his watch. Mickey kept his eyes on the window. He’d never cared much for Amanda anyway. She was too full of it. That’s why he was with Philippa. They had a primal thing going.
“Thirty hours now,” David said. He looked over at Mickey, who hadn’t been in school for two days and was now looking incredibly bonged out, as if happy aliens had just taken over his body.
“What happened to you?” David asked.
“I got the sign.”
David jerked his head up quickly, but he’d missed it.
“I’ll see you later,” Mickey said.
“Where are you going?”
“Over there,” Mickey said. He began to go up her steps. “I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
“We don’t go to the same school.”
“Sounds good,” Mickey said. The door opened and there was Philippa Frady, wearing nothing but a bathrobe.
“Hi, baby,” Mickey said. “I missed you.”
“You big dummy,” Philippa said. “Last night my dad said if I ever see you again he’s going to send me to one of those schools they have on boats in the Caribbean.” And she threw her arms around him.
“Where are your parents?”
“Having dinner up at Bolo. I’m supposed to meet them there, but I think I forgot.”
They moved back into Philippa’s house, which rivaled the Flood house for hugeness. But because Philippa was an only child, and she wasn’t allowed to have parties, the whole place was incredibly clean, almost like a museum.
“What do you want to do instead?” Mickey asked.
“I want us to be the most romantic couple in the whole world,” Philippa said. “We can be like Romeo and Juliet.”
They crept upstairs to her room.
“Let’s just be us,” Mickey said.