by J. Minter
“Sweet, thanks Sandra,” Mickey was saying. “I’m so glad you want to do it. I’m going to put you down for a four-top, but you can fit five. You plus four, right? Awesome. See you there.”
Mickey jumped up from the bed and tackled me.
“Hey, man, I missed you, too,” I said when he stood up.
“Yup,” Mickey said, grinning. “Thanks for coming over, man. I have, like, eighty confirmation calls to make for the Fresh project Thursday night, and I was sort of hoping you could do it with me.”
“Totally,” I said. I love making phone calls. I still didn’t know all the Philippa details, but I thought that if Mickey was hurting, then a distraction was probably good. I couldn’t help but add, “Although I wish you’d called me back, at least once, last week.”
“I know,” Mickey said. “I was really distracted by shit with Philippa. I think it’s really over between us, you know?”
“I know,” I said.
Then we hustled through the list. It was actually a pretty impressive roster of people, not boldfaced names or anything, but cool kids that we knew from being around so long. And everyone I talked to sounded really excited. I still didn’t completely believe he could pull it off, but he certainly had taken this whole thing further than I thought he would.
When I looked at the seating chart, I noticed that the table next to us was populated by girls from Florence, including Mimi Rathbone and her sidekicks. I had seen Mimi making out with Danny Abraham on Saturday, and I wasn’t sure Arno would want to be sitting near her. But I decided Mickey probably didn’t need more shit to worry about, and didn’t say anything.
When we were done, Mickey said, “Thanks, dude. Don’t know how I could have done that without you. Don’t know how we did anything without you, actually.”
I didn’t know quite how to respond to that, but it made me feel like some of my dignity might be recovered. “You wanna go get a beer or something?”
“Nah, I gotta keep a low profile, make sure I don’t mess this thing up. But I set up a table for you, Arno, Patch, and David. And we should all hang out afterward. I had a beer with David yesterday, and Arno showed up pretty messed-looking. I think it would be pretty important, you feel me?”
“Yeah,” I said, and I did.
“And that Rob guy? We talked about that, too. He was bad news.”
“Yeah,” I said, but I hadn’t even told them the worst of it. “Anyway, I guess I better get going. But I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“You know it.” Mickey and I knocked our fists together lightly and said bye. As I headed out the door, he called out, “Oh, should I put Flan at your table?”
I was once again flushed with panic. Moral quandary: Can you take your fourteen-year-old girlfriend to participate in an event where you and all your closest guy friends are going to be wearing absolutely nothing? Does the situation change if your last interaction was a big blowup fight? And what if she was very right about you and your insecurity, and underneath it all, you’re afraid your guys might all look better naked than you?
but i do have to expose myself
sometimes. emotionally speaking
After I left Mickey’s, I wandered down Perry Street in the Manhattan night. It was misty and pungent, and you could really sense that a whole lot of people were living big, bright lives all around you. I didn’t really know where any of this—Flan, my crew, the Rob fallout—was going, and for once that really didn’t bother me.
I went to the Floods’ and knocked on the door. A few minutes later, Flan poked her head out. When she saw me, she smiled sadly and came out and put her arms around my waist. We kind of swayed like that for a minute, not feeling the need to say anything. Flan was wearing flip-flops and a strapless cotton dress that looked like it was made from terry cloth. After we did our slow, funny little dance, we sat down on her stoop.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Saturday night,” she said.
“Yeah, me too.”
“And I’m really sorry I made such a fuss in front of so many people.”
“I’m not mad about that. You were right, I was being a gigantic narcissist. I mean, I was just being freakishly insecure. And I’m sorry.” We were both talking really slowly, like we knew where this was headed but neither of us was quite ready to go there. The night was such a warm, get-crazy kind of night, too, and that made the sad talk all the more poignant.
Flan puffed out her cheeks, so that she looked kind of like the cutest monkey ever. Saddest and cutest.
“We have to break up, Jonathan,” she said, blowing the air out of her mouth. She sounded very calm, like a person far older than she actually was. I had kind of been expecting that, but that doesn’t mean it felt good. “It’s not that I don’t like you, because I really like you. But you know what? Our lives are really different right now.”
“Like, how?” I said. I wasn’t really sure why I was arguing this—she was obviously right. “I like going to parties, you like going to parties. We both like French films and ice cream. We both have great friends.”
“I know, but…” Flan threw her arms up in exasperation with herself this time. I think. Her eyes were glistening a little bit, too; at least, I think they were. “It’s just that, when I’m with you, everything has to be so jaded all the time. I know it’s kind of dumb, but I just want to do fun, silly stuff with my friends, and not be so worried about looking cool all the time.”
“I’m totally over being cool,” I said defensively.
“You are not, and besides, that’s not what I mean. You’ve done all the things I want to do now, and I just want to do it and be excited about it and not be so knowing all the time. I don’t want to miss the feeling of doing something for the first time, just because I’m with some cool older guy.”
“Yeah…,” I said, because there really isn’t any way to argue with a speech like that.
“I know that’s dorky, but…”
“That’s not dorky,” I said, even though it hurt me to say so. “That actually makes a lot of sense. You should have fun, and be with your friends. They adore you, you know.”
“I know.”
“There’s never been anything between you and David, has there?”
“No. In fact, I think Rob was maybe just trying to make you think there was.”
“Oh.” Rob was turning out to be pretty convenient, actually. I wondered what else I could blame on him. I picked Flan’s hand up and said, “I’m always going to think you’re pretty special.”
“Yeah, you, too,” she said, and smiled the sad, calm smile. I couldn’t believe that after all this time I was going to lose Flan, and my insides felt heavy.
We stood up and kissed—a long, slow good-bye kind of kiss—on the stoop, and then I jumped down to the street and waved and turned toward home. My lungs got all full of that warm city air, and as I walked and thought about it, suddenly this news didn’t seem so crushing after all. There was still the city, after all, and my friends. I started to feel really light and open.
And, I should admit, it didn’t hurt to know that I wouldn’t be hanging out with Flan—and all of my closest friends—in the nude tomorrow night.
mickey has a thing or two
left to learn about girls
“Don’t get me wrong, I understand being attracted to chicks and all,” Mickey said. “What I don’t get is why, if you’re, like, gay and shit, you were with a dude like me all this time.”
Philippa rolled her eyes at Mickey, but it was a loving kind of eye roll. It was the day they were supposed to have their afternoon therapy session, but since they’d broken up they didn’t have to go anymore. Which they both thought was awesome. They’d decided to celebrate with tea and cookies at Doma, this café down the street from where they both lived.
“Maybe I was too much, like, I turned you off men?” he went on.
“That is so something a man would say,” she laughed. “As though my liking a girl or not liking a girl could only be understood through my p
revious relationship with a man. Yeah, right. It’s not like I wasn’t attracted to you. And it’s not like I wasn’t your match, so don’t pretend like I should have been going out with some girly man all this time. I just realized that I feel more myself with another girl. Does that make sense to you?”
“Not really. But I’m trying.”
Philippa took a sip of her tea. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah!” Mickey said facetiously. “I mean, come on, it’s going to take me a while to get over a girl like you. But I’ll be all right. How ’bout you? You told your folks yet?”
“No,” Philippa said, grinning. “But I can’t wait. Can you imagine? They are going to be so goddamn mad.”
They both cracked up at that.
“Steam’s gonna come out of your dad’s ears!”
“I know!” Philippa cried, practically choking on her tea. “And can’t you just picture my mom? She’s going to sob.”
“She’s going to break down!” Mickey hooted. He calmed himself down somewhat and said, “You’re not just doing this so that you can find bigger and better ways to make your parents suffer, are you?”
“No! Mickey, please believe me. I am a lesbian. Nothing to do with you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now tell me, how’s this nude thing going?”
Mickey shrugged. “I don’t know if people are going to go for it. It might just be me and the waitstaff, you know?”
“Well, I’ll be there,” Philippa said.
“Really?”
“You bet.”
i reach out
The day of the big nude art event, I decided I had to make that call. I sat down at my desk and looked out my window and dialed David’s number.
He picked up after two rings. “Hey, man.”
“Hey, David?” I said. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ve been a real dickhead.”
“No you haven’t… er, I mean, I’ve been out of touch, too.”
“C’mon David, I don’t mean out of touch. Every time we’ve seen each other over the last week I’ve been downright nasty,” I said. This was surprisingly not that hard to say.
“Yeah, but I knew Rob was trying to make you jealous over me, and I really didn’t try hard enough to stop it.”
“David, would you shut up and let me apologize like a man?”
“Okay.”
“I am really and truly sorry for all the mean things I’ve said, and all the dumb ways I’ve acted over the week. I hope you still want to be friends with me.” I pounded my fist on the windowsill when I was done.
“Yeah, man. I still want to be friends with you,” David said.
“So, you wanna come over and have some beers before we go to this event of Mickey’s?” I asked.
“Shit, is that tonight already? I guess I was sort of hoping it wouldn’t come up so soon.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is tonight. And believe me, man, I hear you.”
mickey wants to see what you’ve got
under all that hot, restrictive clothing
“You brought a good crowd,” Philippa said, leaning her elbow against Mickey’s shoulder and surveying the room. Everyone was surprised and pleased by the chummy, platonic way in which Mickey and Philippa were already getting along.
“Crazy, right?” Mickey was still sort of incredulous that all these people had shown up. “Thanks for coming,” he added.
“Wouldn’t miss it. I better go find my group,” Philippa said, pointing to a table of well-put-together, if slightly tough-looking, lesbians. Mickey waved at Sadie, who seemed to have found a new crew to run with, and she waved back.
There were a few hours yet before the dinner rush, but the staff of Fresh was already darting in between tables and refilling carafes of water anxiously. It was naked night, and none of them really knew what to expect.
But Mickey Pardo, who was standing at his post by the entrance, seemed to be looking at exactly what he’d expected. The spare room, with its shiny black bamboo floors and chrome-and-mirror walls, was filled with kids searching for their name cards, shouting hellos and blowing kisses. Mickey crossed his arms over his chest and grinned.
“Hello, beautiful people!” he called out. “Let’s all take a seat, please.”
At a table right and center of him, he saw David, Arno, and Jonathan taking their places. They’d come in together, and seemed to be getting along just fine. There was no Patch yet, though. David and Arno were dressed casually, but Jonathan was wearing the same camel suit he’d worn to the MoMA party. He looked pretty dressed up, and Mickey wondered briefly if he was going to have trouble taking the thing off. Mostly he was just glad Jonathan was there.
His assembled friends and acquaintances took their seats, giggling and talking as they did.
The manager of the restaurant came up to Mickey. His names was Yves, and he was nervously rubbing the round protrusion of his belly. “It’s already six-thirty,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” Mickey said. He didn’t actually know, of course. Mickey almost never knew the exact time. But the fact that it was six-thirty didn’t worry him.
“Well, you know the dinner people are coming soon,” Yves said. “This thing doesn’t seem to be moving along very fast. Nobody is naked yet.”
“Yeah,” Mickey said. “You’re right.” He thought about this for a moment, and then he called out to the assembled room, “Take yer clothes off!”
The room burst into excited laughter, but nobody moved to disrobe. Then they all went back to talking. Mickey looked at Yves, who looked distressed.
“It has to be kind of like a party, you know what I mean?” Mickey said.
Yves nodded. He motioned to the head waiter. A few minutes later, the waiters moved about the room pouring flutes of champagne and serving little dishes of cold black rice and radish appetizers. This seemed to make everybody happy.
“Great,” Mickey bellowed to the crowd. “Now, show me what you got.”
The crowd was still resisting his commands, so Mickey pulled off his shirt and dropped his camouflage pants to the ground. He did a little naked spin for the crowd, which cheered him. There were catcalls, especially from the lesbians.
Amidst the excitement that followed, a few people stripped down to their underwear (Philippa and her friends were part of this advanced guard), but pretty soon the guys were just staring at the panty-clad girls, and all disrobing came to a halt.
Besides Mickey, the nakedest dude in there was David, who was a loyal-enough friend that he’d stripped down to his boxers in solidarity.
Mickey was beginning to think that Luc Vogel did actually have it rough. How did he do this, year after year? How was Mickey ever going to get all these people to take their clothes off?
is david the new arno?
“Can I just say that you look amazing in your undies?”
David instinctively distrusted this statement, and not only because it was the first time he’d heard it. He was an athlete, after all—he had the broad shoulders and long muscled legs of a guy who played basketball every day of his life—so he was going to hear something like that sooner or later. No, it was the sickeningly sweet voice of the speaker, sitting over to his right, that made him narrow his eyes.
“Thanks,” he said, turning warily to see whom it was.
“Hey, David,” Lizzie said, smiling. It certainly wasn’t Modigliani, whom he’d been looking for all night. In fact, he had been so focused on looking for her that he had somehow not noticed when everyone else stopped taking their clothes off, and now he was the only guy in the room down to his boxers.
He could feel her looking at his crotch, and he was very relieved that he’d been paying enough attention not to go completely buck naked. “Oh, hi, Lizzie,” he said grudgingly.
The It Girls had stripped down to their bras and jeans, and he could see that her breasts looked kind of swollen—abnormally spherical, almost. A girl he was pretty sure was Mimi ran her eyes up and down D
avid’s body approvingly. Who knew if it was really her, though—they still all looked really similar to him, and after several days sans It Girls, he could no longer tell them apart.
“Yo, Lizzie,” Arno called from over his shoulder.
She looked over at Arno, and then quickly turned away.
“Lizzie, it’s Arno,” he continued. “I guess Monday didn’t work out, huh? Sorry I haven’t called, but I guess I programmed your number into my phone wrong.”
“Uh… bummer. Remind me to give it to you before we leave,” she called over her shoulder, before burying her face in Mimi’s shoulder and bursting out in giggles.
David was pissed that they were laughing at his friend, and he was about to say something when he was distracted by a stray imperfection in the crew of plastic girls seated next to them. It was a large, dark mole at the narrowest part of a girl’s back.
The Modigliani! She was right there! Sitting with the It Girls, her dark hair twisted over her shoulder, and she seemed to be laughing. She had taken off her shirt and was now wearing a bra and super low-rise jeans. David stood up, and walked over so that he was standing right behind her.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said. She turned around very slowly, and all her blond friends looked with her. Their faces were full of admiration.
“I’ve been looking for you, too,” she said. She was smiling a perfect, blindingly white smile.
The only thing David could think to say was “Sorry, I thought you were somebody else,” but he couldn’t even get that out. He was completely speechless, because it was her, but she didn’t look anything like before. Now she was just so… bland.
“Do you like it?” she said. He could only assume that she was talking about the perfect ski jump that her once unique nose had been converted to. And he didn’t have anything to say about that. “I got it done the day after we met, and I haven’t been out until now because I was waiting for the swelling to go down. What do you think?”
