Read The Insiders for Free Online

staring at the ceiling and wondering how everyone was going to handle the night without me, and sort of filling in the blanks of who was going to do what and who was thinking what, like I always do, when Flan peeked into the room. I pretended to be asleep, so she came in and stared down at me.
    â€œYou want me to take off your shoes?” Flan had asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, I don’t think my parents would want them on their bed.”
    â€œThese are pretty good shoes,” I said. Ipropped myself up on one elbow and looked at Flan. “I got them at Barneys. They’re Jasper Fords, from London.”
    â€œAre you gay?” Flan asked.
    â€œNo. I’m just really into shoes. My friends are cool with it.”
    â€œBecause they’re gay.” Flan sat down in a big white chair on what seemed to be her mother’s side of the bed and she laughed.
    â€œNo they’re not,” I said. “Liza’s friend Jane is. But I’m not, and neither is your brother or Mickey or David or Arno.”
    â€œThe Insiders.”
    â€œYeah, in fifth grade that’s what I thought we were.” I couldn’t help sounding kind of nostalgic.
    We ended up talking about how her clique wasn’t a whole lot different from my clique. And then we heard people headed for the roof and I got nervous that they’d come in, but they didn’t. So I tickled her for a while and then got out of there. But not before we kissed. Just once.
    Back in the hospital, Liza finished her game. David had gone home a while ago. We’d called Mickey’s parents, but they were out in Montauk at the farm where Mickey’s dad made all his really big art. Nobody could remember thenumber out there, and I’d gone ahead and signed Mickey’s bill onto my credit card, so we didn’t have to worry about insurance or any of that complicated stuff.
    Liza and I walked out into the night. It was nearly four and the air was cool, now that the rain had ended. The only cars on the streets were cabs and weaving sedans full of club goers headed down Seventh Avenue to the Holland Tunnel and back to New Jersey. I had to go east to my mom’s place on Fifth and Eleventh Street, and Liza had to walk west, to her mom and dad’s town house on Cornelia Street.
    â€œI wonder how Kelli dealt with the party,” I said.
    â€œWhen we left, she was with Arno.”
    â€œI can imagine how that’s going.”
    â€œJonathan,” Liza said. She was staring straight forward, into the street. We were a normal distance apart, but I could feel how she wouldn’t have minded being closer to me. So I did get closer, but I didn’t put my arms around her. We hadn’t fooled around in six months or something. And when we did fool around it had just felt too appropriate, like that was something everybody expected us to do. I knew I wasn’texcited enough to keep doing it. But I’d never said that. We’d just stopped fooling around, but we never stopped hanging out.
    â€œWhat?” I asked. Maybe it’s a double negative, when you know someone wants to say something, but you’re too preoccupied with something else to deal with it. So you kind of … don’t let them.
    â€œNothing,” she said. “I hope you find your cousin.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that, but it was too late to do anything, so I hugged Liza good-bye, told her I’d be in touch about tomorrow night, changed directions, and walked back to the Flood house to get Kelli.

arno turns on the charm
    â€œWhat’d Mickey call you?” Arno asked.
    â€œOoh,” Kelli said. “I guess he thought that was funny.”
    There was a mirror above the mantel and Kelli looked at herself. She moved her white-blond hair around. Arno watched her do this, and then he checked out his own hair. “Like falling off a building for no reason is funny.”
    Kelli laughed. They locked eyes in