Pass It On

by J. Minter

  “Well, here I am,” Liza said. She kept her coat on and sat down next to Philippa, who immediately started whispering to her. Mickey shrugged at both of them and started drinking Philippa’s beer, since he’d finished his own.

  “Can I get you anything?” Diane asked Liza. Everyone looked at Liza. The only thing colorful about her were her eyes, which were red and puffy. She just shook her head and sniffled.

  “You’re tearing yourself apart over Jonathan, aren’t you?” Philippa asked, and stood up. “Mickey, I love you, but I’ve got to go take care of Liza.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Finish your dinner and go home and do your homework,” Philippa said. Liza helped Philippa with her coat. “And don’t let me hear that you stayed here all night flirting with the waitress.” Philippa leaned in and kissed him, and then she put a protective arm around Liza. Even Mickey could see that Liza was upset. Everyone knew her thing for Jonathan was quite real.

  “I’ll miss you,” Mickey said.

  “I’ll call you at eleven and tuck you in over the phone,” Philippa said. She straightened her cream-colored cashmere coat, swept back her hair, and followed her friend out of the restaurant.

  Mickey smiled at Diane, who still stood there looking at Mickey, now alone in the booth.

  “Well, it looks like someone needs to finish up their dinner and go home and do whatever homework gets assigned to boys in their junior year,” Diane said. She reached out and pushed her hand through Mickey’s thicket of messy hair.

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Mickey said, nodding vigorously. “But first could you get me a double shot of tequila? I’ll have it with a piece of warm apple pie and then I’ll go straight home and do my schoolwork.”

  “That’s my little Mickey,” Diane said, and went away to put in his order.

  the psychologically convoluted interior world of the grobart family

  a portrait of the grobart clan in repose

  “We’re not going out to dinner?” David asked his mom. It was nearly eight o’clock on Wednesday evening, but Jonathan hadn’t arrived at the Grobart’s yet.

  Hilary Grobart looked up quickly from the New York Times crossword puzzle she was completing. The radio was tuned to a classical music station, and choral music surrounded them. Both Hilary and Sam Grobart were in their big leather easy chairs with their feet up; Hilary with the puzzle, Sam totally absorbed by The New England Journal of Medicine. The corners of David’s thick lips pointed down. If he could have freeze-framed his childhood, this would be the picture.

  “Why, no. Why would we?” she asked.

  David tried to remember the last time she’d ever answered a question without asking a question. He couldn’t. Her book Always Ask First was still hovering in the top one hundred on the New York Times’ extended list.

  “Because Jonathan is coming over.”

  “All the more reason to have a nice warm dinner at home, don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  “David.” His mother raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you’d like to share with us?”

  “No.”

  The intercom buzzed and the doorman said he was sending Jonathan up. A moment later there was a knock on the door.

  David’s dad leapt to attention. He ruffled himself like a pigeon and his eyes seemed to brighten. David watched his dad and a shiver shot through him.

  “Hello, Jonathan, dear boy!” Sam Grobart grabbed the door and opened it wide for Jonathan. Johathan put his bulging garment bag and an extra RL bag right by the door, as if he wanted easy access should he need to make a quick escape.

  “What the hell?” Jonathan mouthed to David. David shrugged.

  “We’re very glad to have you here,” Sam said. The buzzer rang again, and everyone jumped as if an electric current had shot through the air.

  “What the hell is that?” Hilary asked.

  “It’s the pizza man!” Sam tripped over Jonathan’s bag and kicked it as he ran to open the door. A short man in a white apron stood there with two large pizza boxes. “Molto grazie,” Sam said. “Everybody loves Lombardi’s!”

  Sam thrust three twenties at the pizza man, grabbed the pies from him, and shut the door.

  “Let’s eat here in the living room, it’ll be fun!”

  “Why?”

  “Not now, Hilary. Go get some Cokes.”

  “You know perfectly well we don’t keep soda in the house. Don’t you?”

  “Oh, right.” Sam stood suddenly and ran back to the door. The short man was still there. He handed Sam a six-pack of Coke and Sam slammed the door again.

  “Plates, napkins, no forks. This is fun, right?” Sam opened one of the boxes and the smell of mushroom and onion pizza filled the room.

  “Don’t ask me what’s going on,” David mumbled to Jonathan.

  “I think I can guess,” Jonathan whispered.

  “Everyone in a circle.” Sam dragged chairs around the coffee table and Hilary distributed plates and paper towels. Soon they were all eating loudly. It was really good pizza: thin crust, with fresh mozzarella and basil and garlic you could actually taste.

  “Thanks,” Jonathan said, between bites. “This is good.”

  “What life is about,” Sam Grobart announced and stood suddenly, wiping his mouth with a paper towel.

  “Oh no,” David said.

  “Life is about forgiveness. It’s about embracing your enemies.”

  “While we’re eating?” Hilary Grobart said, closing her eyes.

  “It’s about breaking bread with those who’ve hurt you.”

  “Um,” Jonathan said.

  “We’re okay with the past,” Sam waved a limp pizza crust at this audience of three. “But I think we should all be able to wrestle with the fact that your father is a thief, because nothing, nothing, is more important than honesty. I mean really, would we be decent people if we cared that your father stole our money? I for one, think not.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Be quiet now, Jonathan. We love you, see? We are beating our swords into ploughshares!” Like some crazed cartoon maestro, Sam Grobart whipped the air with his pizza crust.

  “Dad?”

  “Some people keep secrets hidden, but not me. I’m totally against secrecy, which is the enemy of honesty!”

  “Is this insanity really some misplaced jealousy of the success of my book?” Hilary asked her husband. “Because we both know I’m having a lot of trouble with the second one and that must be some consolation to you.”

  But Sam Grobart, potbellied and bald, with the wild eyes of a street-corner preacher, was beyond hearing.

  “The sins of the father are not reflected on the son. Not at all! And we are here, breaking pizza with the son! He shall sleep under our very roof.”

  “I think I better go,” Jonathan said.

  “Not without me,” David said.

  The two boys stood up and made for the door.

  “We know everything about you, and we’re okay with it! That’s what you need to know.” Sam Grobart rushed at Jonathan and hugged him. “We want you to stay here for as long as you like. I’ve been your mother’s therapist since before you were born and this is where I’ve arrived, at a place of complete forgiveness—a place where we all can live in harmony!”

  “Calm down now dear, you can’t charge anyone for this session.” Hilary Grobart pried her husband off Jonathan.

  “I forgive, and I share secrets.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Jonathan said.

  “Boys, don’t leave,” Sam went on. “There’s more pizza and goodwill where this all came from—have another Coke.”

  But David and Jonathan were already out the door and into the elevator.

  “I’m sorry.” David looked wide-eyed at Jonathan. “I wish he hadn’t …you know… done that.”

  “I guess my dad took some money from your dad, huh?” Jonathan wiped at a spot on his coat that Sam Grobart had put there
with his greasy hands.

  “I don’t entirely get what he was talking about, so who can say for sure? My dad can get pretty crazy. I think he’s starting some kind of forgiveness sessions. He already has people signing up. I hear Arno’s parents are interested.”

  “That makes sense.” Jonathan sighed. They went out of the lobby, and stepped into the windy street. They walked west on Jane, with no particular direction in mind.

  “Jonathan?”

  “What?”

  “Could you not tell anyone that my dad is kind of insane?”

  “Okay. But could you not tell anyone that my dad probably did something really awful with your family’s money?”

  “Okay.” David looked away. “Dude?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who are you really taking on this sailing trip? ’Cause I think everyone—well, maybe not Patch, because we can’t find him again—but everyone else thinks they’re going, but I know you said you could only bring one guy, so…”

  Jonathan sighed. “Yeah, I kind of made a mess with all that.”

  “And none of us were going to say anything, but I think you need to be honest with us, you know?”

  “You sound like your dad.”

  “I know. It’s creepy.” David shuddered.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to stay at your house tonight,” Jonathan said. “Do you have a lock on your door?”

  “Not really. But we can always prop a chair.”

  what the hell is happening in my apartment?

  After school on Thursday I banged on home for a sec to grab some clothes and check to see how much damage had been done. I was basically feeling okay right then, since David had called me out on some stuff, knew about my dad, and obviously didn’t completely hate me since he still wanted to come on this vacation. And really, after how cool he’d been, I really wanted him to come, too. But I held myself back from saying it at the time because wasn’t that exactly how I’d gotten in that part of this predicament in the first place?

  I went to grab a cab outside school, but then I decided that I was still thinking about this hot green corduroy blazer that I’d seen in the window at the Ralph Lauren store at lunch. I was pretty sure that Arno was right and that he couldn’t pull off that kind of bright green, but it got me thinking about who could, which made me think, why not me? So I shot up there and bought the very-green blazer that I was pretty sure would look great at a fancy dinner in St. Barth’s, but knew I’d never hear the end of from whichever friend I decided would join me on this trip. Except maybe Patch, who was the one guy who didn’t really make fun of me and the one guy I hadn’t already invited, so go figure.

  I got home around four and asked Richard the elevator guy what was up.

  “A painter paints.” He shrugged his thick shoulders in his uniform and wouldn’t look at me. “A painter paints and disasters lurk behind every corner.”

  “I don’t like that.”

  “Not me either.” He let me out at my floor. The door was closed, but unlocked. When I got inside I smelled oil paint and heard laughter. The voice was familiar. A woman. I froze. I knew her. Oh no. It was somebody’s mom. I turned, slowly, and figured I’d go. But I wanted my clothes. I needed them. There was a pair of pants I’d been thinking about, these good corduroy Polo purple labels that’d get me through tomorrow at least. That laughter: high, trilling, Latin. Mickey’s mom, Lucy.

  “Hello?” It was the painter, Billy Shanlon, calling out.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m just here for a minute.” I moved quickly down the corridor to my room, desperate not to deal with them, in my house.

  “Ey Jonathan!” Lucy Pardo trilled at me. I’d made it to the spot where the corridor opened into our living room and had to stop.

  “Look at the fun this Billy is having, eh?” She was basically blocking my way and pointing at the painter, who stood in the middle of the room. Of all the mothers of friends I had to deal with, she was without question the only one who was remotely good-looking. She was forty, maybe, with long black hair and easily five-eleven, with heels that made her even taller than that. She towered over me and Billy. I smiled because she was smiling so widely at me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her smile like that. At home, with Ricardo and Mickey always sparring over some nonsense, she tended to look kind of unhappy.

  Then I looked at the baseboards in my living room. At first I saw only a bunch of abstract patterns.

  “Kneel down,” Billy said. He clapped me on the back. I kneeled down, being careful not to get my clothes too near any paint.

  There, around the baseboards, Billy had painted slightly abstracted cubist representations of woodland creatures who were alternately running, or playing, or sleeping, or … fucking each other. Bizarre.

  “My mother asked for this?”

  “She said to have fun with the baseboards.”

  “And this Billy,” Lucy said. “He’s very good at fun.”

  I stood up. Billy had a boom box plugged into the wall and he was playing Latin music: Joao Gilberto. Lucy had her arms up and she was dancing.

  “Have you talked to my mom?” I heard myself ask. But Billy and Lucy Pardo had wandered out of the room, headed toward the kitchen. They kept knocking against each other. And then it looked as if they were holding hands.

  I left the living room, with its pornographic animals, and went into my bedroom to find pants and shirts and jackets and whatever else might remind me of me and set things right. Billy hadn’t even started in here yet, but somehow the room still reeked of paint.

  “Hey.” Billy had come in behind me. “Listen Jonathan, it is and isn’t what you think. But come by later in the week and we can have a talk.”

  “I think I’ll skip that.”

  Billy smiled. He clapped me on the shoulder. He said, “Sure you are, but you might want to stop by and hang out anyway.”

  “I just wish you’d stop painting pictures of animals fucking on our baseboards.”

  “Don’t worry. Once you get comfortable with it, it’ll seem really cool.”

  After he was gone I tossed my clothes around for a while, like a salad. I concentrated on Ruth, and her face did the thing in my mind where I couldn’t fully see it, which I knew meant I had a huge crush on her, and I couldn’t wait to see her in the flesh again.

  But the peals of laughter coming from Mickey’s mom in my kitchen snapped me back to attention. The idea that I knew where Mickey’s mom was and Mickey didn’t …oh man. And the hand holding and what it would no doubt lead to the moment I got out of there—that made me really sick.

  david shouldn’t be surprised

  “Thanks for meeting me.” Amanda stood with David on the corner of West Broadway and Thomas, across from Odeon. It was quiet, and the trees on the street formed a canopy over them. Amanda stared up at David, and hot gusts of breath escaped her lips.

  “Of course.” David used a sweet voice, and he smiled at Amanda, who was wearing one of her awesome short skirts and white leggings, which she knew he liked. He touched her cheek.

  “Have you thought about what I suggested the other night?” Amanda asked. She blinked up at David. She rubbed his arms. She said, “Wow, you’re getting so strong.”

  “Um, yeah, I’ve thought about it,” David said. Of course he had, but he hadn’t figured out what to do about it.

  “So, we’re going to do it?” Amanda said. She glanced at the Odeon, as if someone were waiting for her there. “Look, I really need to know that we are. Because…”

  “Because why?”

  Amanda didn’t speak. Expensive cars sped past them on West Broadway, and women walked by carrying tiny yipping dogs. One of the women smiled at David, and Amanda saw. Her eyes went wide.

  “You’re becoming quite a catch. It’s hard to keep up with you,” she said.

  “Don’t say that,” David said.

  “I need to be in Odeon in a few minutes. I’m meeting my SAT tutor there. I was going to blow off the
session, but if you’re not going to ask me the thing I asked you to ask me, I guess I’d better go get smart instead.”

  “Uh, you’re taking private tutoring in addition to Princeton Review?”

  “Yeah, this is better, he’s some guy who really went to Princeton. He works for my dad. There he is.”

  They watched as a handsome young man in a suit got out of a cab and dashed into the restaurant.

  “I’m late.” Amanda’s voice seemed small, and nervous. “And if you’re not going to like, up the stakes with us, I’ve got to go.”

  “But don’t you think what you’re asking for seems kind of unreal?” David asked.

  “Sure it is. But David…it’s like everybody wants you. It’s getting hard for me to handle.” She took a few steps back from him.

  David stared. He waved his hands around, as if he were trying to erase something.

  Amanda turned. The light was green. She walked across the street.

  “I love you, David,” she yelled.

  “Wait!”

  She didn’t look back, though, so David followed her. They reached the front of Odeon, which was Art Deco with lots of warm red light and an overall feel that was not exactly inviting to guys in hoodies and the new And Ones.

  “Stop me,” she said, as she put her hand on the big brass doorknob.

  “Wait,” was all David could say. In the back of his mind he couldn’t help thinking how bizarre it was that she thought he was so sought-after and confident when he was so totally not.

  The Princeton guy must have seen Amanda, because he came to the door and opened it for her. He wasn’t a big guy, but he looked about twenty-three and extremely eager to please. David noticed that the guy didn’t even bother to glare at him.