I met David at his house on Saturday morning and we caught a cab to Barneys.
“This is crazy,” he said, but it was the fifth time he’d said it, so I ignored him. He kept staring out the window as if he were seeing Manhattan for the first time.
We got up to Barneys and of course I had to keep reminding myself that this shopping trip wasn’t for me. It was for David. He’d called me around nine on Saturday morning. I was planning not to move till at least noon, but then he’d said he needed to get some cool clothes. That perked me up, I’ll admit, but I still went back to sleep for a while. I was fairly sure that Kelli hadn’t arrived home yet. Our mothers were away again, staying with old family friends, the Caufields, at their estate in Westchester.
“What you’re looking for,” I said to David, “are clothes that give a nod to what a terrific, all-American basketball-playing guy with a sensitive streak you are, but still say hey, I know how to put on a pair of pants. Do you see that?”
“The thing that I realized last night,” David said, “is that I’m still in love with Amanda.”
“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t even remember when I’d last seen Amanda. Who had she gone off with? I could ask Liza, but no. Was Liza even my friend anymore? And Arno? My foot began to shake uncontrollably.
“I know that, deep inside. I didn’t know it when I was fooling around with your cousin, but later, when I was fooling around with that girl at the club, I knew it. And she did, too.”
“What about Arno?” I asked.
“He’s in love with Kelli, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He was last night, anyway.”
“Then maybe he’s suffered enough.”
We were up at Barneys by then and we both hopped out, but we didn’t go around the corner to the doors to the men’s side. I like to go through all the women’s stuff on the ground floor, because a lot of those women who offer you perfume and stuff are hot.
“How’d the girl at the club know you were in love with someone else?”
“We were kissing, and she said, ‘I can feel that you’re thinking about someone else.’”
“Maybe you’re just a lousy kisser,” I said, because we’d arrived at men’s sweaters and I was suddenly distracted. It smelled like fall in there, of cashmere, of deep browns and leafy reds. The glass cases glittered at me like great chunks of rock candy.
“Shut up, dude. I need to change for Amanda. It’s like, I can’t always be brooding all the time and acting so, so self-indulgent.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. We were passing some new John Varvatos jackets and I couldn’t listen to David anymore right then.
“So that’s why we’re here. So I can change.”
“I see.” I drifted onto the third floor, and we checked out the sneakers. David chose a pair of Miu-Miu slip-ons and asked for his size. We sat down on the squishy leather and rubber chairs and waited.
“You’ve really helped me to discover who I am,” David said. “Thanks for that.”
“Honest?” I asked. I squinted at him. I couldn’t remember doing anything like that. I’d actually been sitting there wondering if I could slip away from him and go down and check out the new Crockett and Jones slip-ons in the loafer area. But I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea—considering I’d bought a pair of shoes yesterday.
“What about Kelli?” I asked as I stood up. “You didn’t have sex with her, did you?”
“No—we didn’t get very far either. She told me I was in love with Amanda, too.”
“Wow,” I said. “You are awfully sensitive.”
A guy was coming over with his sneakers and I left David then. I was pretty well amazed at what a good mood he was in, but fooling around with two girls in one night and waking up in love with your ex-girlfriend can have that effect. It was a very cake-and-eat-it-too kind of feeling, I imagine.
I went over to the Crockett and Jones display. So expensive. But also so cool. I shook my head and went for my credit card.
“Can I help you with that?”
I looked up from the display and there was this girl there. She was probably nineteen—and was clearly one of those girls who went to Barnard and worked two or three shifts at Barneys during the week, because the commissions are outrageous, and she was pretty in a pink-sweater-with-pink-cardigan-over-it kind of way. “Really, can I help you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. She was shorter than me, and she had these great bangs, cut high over her wide almond eyes. I had this weird thing happen to my head then, as if somehow I was not just discovering this girl, but had always known her.
“I’ve seen you here before,” she said. “I’m Fernanda.”
“I’m Jonathan,” I said. We shook hands. She smelled of something really good involving daisies. The store got real quiet then, and I think the noise I was hearing was like a harp or a mandolin. At that moment, David moon-walked by us in his new shoes.
“I love these!” he yelled. The salesman who was helping him was clapping and doing a human beat box routine. But I was completely focused on Fernanda.
“You like shoes,” she said.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Sometimes after the store closes for the day, or early, before we open the doors, I like to come over to the men’s section and just hang out. I bet you’d enjoy that.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I really would.”
We were totally grinning at each other like idiots. Soul mate. And then, while David picked out a couple more pairs of cool shoes, Fernanda and I exchanged numbers.
“There’s a party tonight,” she said. “I’ll call you and let you know where it is.”
“Thanks,” I said.
David and I left, and went down to check out khakis for him.
My phone rang. Mickey.
“I know where Patch is,” Mickey said.
“You do? Did you just find out?”
“No, it was this morning, really early.”
“So why’d you wait till now to tell us?” I asked. David pulled on my shirt. I pointed at the phone and crossed my eyes.
“Because he’s in a good place,” Mickey said. “And I just woke up. Why don’t you guys come over here around six or so and we’ll have some drinks and then go get him.”
“What about your dad?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s in Montauk.”
“You want anything?” I asked, because I was suddenly feeling really happy. “We’re at Barneys.”
“No, you freakish clothes-hound, I don’t want anything from Barneys,” Mickey said, and ended the call.
“Mickey found Patch!”
“That’s good news,” David said. He held up a pinstripe running suit from Marc Jacobs. “I’m going to get the sneakers, but I don’t think I’m going to buy this. If I do, they’ll never let me back on the basketball team.”