“Are you sure you didn’t have sex with her?” Amanda Harrison Deutschmann asked. She had her arms folded over her chest and was leaning against the windowsill in David’s bedroom, which didn’t look a lot different than it did when David was thirteen—he still had the Nakamichi stereo he’d bought with his bar mitzvah money and old posters of Alan Iverson and Latrell Sprewell. Other than that the room was messy, with schoolbooks and sports clothes on the floor and a corner devoted to sneakers that Jonathan had said weren’t cool.
“Yes,” David said.
“Yes, what?”
Night had fallen, but the sky was still bright, as it always was with all the lights in Manhattan. Amanda was wearing impossibly tight low-cut jeans, black suede high heels, and a black silk turtleneck.
David was slowly putting on the new sneakers he’d gotten with Jonathan. It was nearly seven and David knew he had to go find his friends, but Amanda was having trouble believing that he’d done nothing with Kelli. This made sense to David. He was having trouble saying it.
“Yes, baby. I’m sure we didn’t have sex.”
“Since when did you start calling me ‘baby’?”
“You don’t like it?”
“No,” Amanda said, “I guess I do. It’s just … there’s something different about you. And if it’s not because you fooled around with that skeez from wherever, it’s for some other reason. Tell me the truth, David, what’d you do with her?”
“We talked. That’s all. Ask her yourself.”
David sat back. He thought, this is called lying. Like what Arno and everybody else did. Maybe they’d fooled around. And maybe he’d fooled around with that other girl, too, for a second. But they were the first girls he’d ever, ever cheated on Amanda with, and now he was even with her, right? Assuming they really were getting back together. And he was feeling so cool that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. But after all, she’d called him.
“I’m so sorry for the way I treated you,” Amanda said. He wanted her to say that again, but he knew better than to ask. “Really, David. There’s something … it’s like … um, I want you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“David?” His mother opened his door and came in. Amanda glared at her.
“Oh, hello, Amanda.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Then nobody spoke. David slowly took the pins out of his new Paul Smith button-down shirt. He held it up, but at the last minute he decided not to put it on.
“Well, your dad and I are going out,” Mrs. Grobart said. “You understand, don’t you? You won’t feel that we’re leaving you here alone, without guidance? Because we can stay in if you do feel that way.”
“We’ll be fine,” Amanda said.
“Mmm,” Mrs. Grobart said. “We’re having dinner with the Fradys.”
Nobody said anything. Hilary Grobart stood in the doorway, biting her lip.
“Have you two eaten anything?”
“We’re okay,” David and Amanda said, nearly in unison.
Mrs. Grobart closed the door behind her and Amanda and David looked at each other.
“We’re alone now,” Amanda said. She went over to David’s stereo and put in a mix she’d been carrying around. It was mostly instrumental stuff and a bunch of Radiohead and Rufus Wainright songs that were guaranteed to bring tears to just about anybody’s eyes. The music got going and for a full minute, Amanda didn’t turn around. David stared at her back and felt the prickly edge that he’d gained the night before soften. He wanted her.
“Amanda,” he said.
She looked at him. Her eyes were glistening. She walked over to where he was sitting on his bed and sat down next to him.
“I love you,” she said.
David took off his new shoes. They pushed the scratchy blanket off the bed and lay down. Later, after they’d dozed for a little while instead of really talking about anything, she said, “You need to go find your friends. I heard you’re all going to look for Patch.”
“I know. I’m going to get up in a second.” It was nearly eight. His phone had rung a couple of times. They lay in his bed for a while longer, kissing. And he thought about all the crazy stuff that had happened the night before and all the crazy stuff that was going to happen as soon as he met up with his friends. He squeezed his eyes shut. He held her.
“You weren’t nice to me,” he said.
“I was afraid of being vulnerable with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so unembarrassed to be in love. It’s weird.”
“I’m sorry,” David said.
“No. I guess it’s not that big of a problem.”
And then they got dressed and slipped out of his apartment. David raced over to Mickey’s place, and Amanda went to find Liza. She was becoming a different person, David thought. He felt so incredibly lucky that he hadn’t lost her. Not to Arno, and not to all the stuff he’d done the night before.