happened to Jonathan and Ted â¦â He twisted his head around to make sure that they werenât somewhere in the crowd, and was met instead with the sightof a very large, fratish-looking dude with a flashlight and a plastic badge. He was also yelling.
âHey!â he shouted at them. âLetâs see those armbands!â
âUm, armbands?â Patch looked at him coolly, like a person who has just been spit on and is trying not to be irritated about it.
âYeah, kiddo, thereâs no drinking in here if you donât got an armband. And you canât get an armband if youâre under twenty-one.â
âWell,â Patch frowned, âIâm over twenty-one, and I donât have an armband.â
This seemed to confuse the guy for a few beats, but then he returned to the idea that an armband equaled ability to drink. âMy job is to kick out anyone out who has a beer but doesnât have an armband. And thatâs just what Iâm gonna do,â he grunted. Then he grabbed Patch by the wrist and seemed about to pull him out of the bar when a blond girl in converse high-tops and a sleeveless dress that looked like it could also have been a tube-top came skidding up next to them.
âLou,â she squealed excitedly, âyou caught him!â
âWho?â asked Lou. He was confused again.
âThe
real
Hottest Private School Boy. Can I have him, please?â
âHeâs underage,â Lou said, âAt least, I think he is.â
âOf
course
he is. Heâs the HPSB. Heâs still in high school, duh!â She sighed in exasperation, and turned toward Patch. âI see that youâre trying to hide underneath that old baseball hat, but I would have recognized you in a paper bag.â The blond grabbed Patch by the hand and pulled him into the crowd on the dance floor. Arno looked up at Lou disgustedly, and realized instantly that he wasnât going to get any sympathy there.
As he was being dragged toward the door, âRebel Rebelâ started up, so Patch couldnât even hear his friend calling for him. Arno felt his mood sink and rise at once. Getting kicked outâthat made him an outsider, didnât it? And all outsiders had depth, didnât they?
i am now known as â¦
âTedâs brother!?â squealed the pretty, neo-boho girl my brother had just introduced me to. She had a wide, genuine smile on her face, and she twisted her head left and right so I could give her the double-cheek-kiss treatment. âI canât believe there are
two
of you.â
âNaw,â Ted said, and to my embarrassment he seemed to be blushing. But then I realized that this was different blushingânot the full-on, please-shoot-me blushing of high school. It was more like his face had just gotten some flattering coloring. âIâm like a paler, very unexciting version of J.â
This was the kind of thing Iâd been angling to hear by coming to visit my brother, but hearing it now, I was filled with a queasy suspicion that it just wasnât true anymore. I smiled weakly at the girl, trying to show her that I did have some humility. She patted the lush patch of grass next to her.
âIâm Zelda,â she said as I sat down in the spotshe had indicated. There were a bunch of other people sitting around on the field, too, smoking cigarettes and looking pretty relaxed for college students at the end of a semester. They were all dressed like Zelda, in loose-fitting peasant gear that looked kind of comfy and expensive at once.
We had been slowly making our way from Lathrop to this campus bar, where everyone supposedly hangs out, but weâd been stopped on the way by a lot of people who wanted to talk to Ted, a surprising number of them hoping he could tell them what was happening that weekend.
So we were running a little late.
Ted sank down on the lawn, and I sat down, tooâhesitantly, because grass