Before going out, Arno put on a black suit even though he normally never wore that sort of thing. He thought it would make him feel better. It was a Ralph Lauren purple label suit and he was basically stealing it from his father, who was still down in Florida. Arno was in his room, getting ready to go over to the Flood house. He played Bright Eyes and sang along. It wasn’t that he liked Kelli. It was just that she kept saying no. And that was making him feel extremely weird.
“Which one of us would be the foolish one?” he sang out. “Which one of us’d be the fool? Could you please start explaining? You know I need some understanding!”
And then he threw himself on his bed, bawling, without having a clue why.
Then the phone rang. Jonathan.
“Where the hell are you, dude?”
“I’m coming. I’m just …” But he couldn’t even think of the word. After he got off the phone, he just stood there in his dad’s suit and a ripped white Oxford shirt, and he wished he had someone to talk to. Finally he had the idea to call Liza Komansky. She’d always been nice to him. She would understand.
“Aren’t you over at the Floods? Finding Patch?” Liza asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m on my way there. I’m on the street, but I was thinking it’d be great to see you first.”
“Well you’ll probably see me later,” she said, “when the whole thing turns into a party.”
“But I need to see you now.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“Well,” she said. “Okay.”
They made a plan to meet for a very quick burger at the Corner Bistro, where Arno never got carded.
Arno grabbed a booth in the back where you could practically set off M-80s and no one would notice. Liza came in a few minutes later. It had started to rain. Liza’s black hair was dewy and wet and when she sat down, she tried to lick a drop of water off the tip of her nose and Arno reached out and flicked it out of the way. Then they looked at each other. Liza pulled back to the wall and smiled at Arno.
“Thanks for seeing me.”
“No problem,” Liza said.
They ordered burgers and some two-dollar Rheingold, which tasted like colored soda water.
“It’s just—” Arno said. But then he couldn’t say it. How could he? He was Arno. So he sulked, and he pouted, and he was weirdly unable to do anything but scratch his black crocodile loafer, which was nowhere near as bizarre as what Jonathan wore on his feet. Finally, Liza came over to his side of the bench.
“Do you want me to say it?” Liza asked.
Arno was literally pouting. He was thinking about Kelli, the lopsided grin, the white-blond hair and the dark eyebrows, the way she looked like she was naked and daydreaming about sex even when she was dressed and probably thinking about the next important New York person she could make like her. And now she was somewhere with Randall Oddy and who knew who else, doing some underhanded art stuff, or worse, posing for him or something. Man.
“Do you know that story about Courtney Love?” Arno asked. “How when she was fifteen she made a list of what she wanted to do and number three after make a hit record and be an actor in Hollywood was ‘Make friends with Michael Stipe’?”
“Yeah,” Liza said. “That kind of climbing is gross. But you’re off the subject.”
“What subject?” Arno asked.
“The thing that you want me to say.”
“Oh, right,” Arno said miserably. “Say it.”
“You’ve always been really attracted to me and you didn’t want to say anything because of Jonathan.”
“Um.”
Liza rubbed Arno’s cheek with the back of her hand. She sipped her beer. Their burgers arrived and were placed on the other side of the table. And they both knew that if they didn’t eat them in the next five minutes, they’d shrivel and taste like cold rocks.
“But the thing is, Arno, I’m done with Jonathan. I can’t wait for him anymore, and who knows what he’s up to with Patch’s little sister, which is completely batty and disturbing, and anyway … I think about you, too.”
“You do?” Arno looked at his food. He knew he wouldn’t get a chance to eat it. Why hadn’t he just fooled around with Kelli right when he met her? Then he could forget about her now.
“Yeah,” Liza said. “A lot.”
So Arno leaned over and kissed her, before she said more embarrassing stuff. They ended up making out for ten minutes, then twenty. Liza was pretty hot in an extremely understated way and it was kind of true, he’d always thought she was supposed to be with Jonathan. But it wasn’t like he wanted this. In fact, he didn’t.
“Let’s not tell anybody about this.”
“That’s a really good idea.”
“Not till we’re ready.”
“I’m with you on that,” Arno said. “Let’s keep it a secret for a long time.”
And after they’d kissed good-bye and he took off down the block, his head went back to the same place it had been since last Friday night, right after he’d stopped fooling around with Amanda and had seen Kelli. Kelli. He wished she’d leave so he could forget her. And what about David? Did David know that he had fooled around with Amanda? Would Amanda have said something? He hoped not. Arno shrugged to himself.
When it came to all this emotional stuff and not hurting people, he really didn’t have a clue.