Break Every Rule by J. Minter

Author:J. Minter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2005-10-11T16:00:00+00:00

sometimes new york is just way too small

“They don’t take reservations here,” I said, after about half an hour of being jostled in the entryway of Freeman’s. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have to wait like this.”

Flan shrugged to let me know she didn’t mind all that much. Freeman’s is this quasi-secret restaurant at the end of an alley off the Bowery. Like all quasi-secret venues, it got hot immediately, and now it is overrun by celebrities and party kids and plenty of grown-ups trying to reclaim their youth. It’s decorated in a sort of neo-hunting lodge style, with taxidermied animal heads and things like that on the walls. I’m basically against this kind of ostentatious cruelty to animals, but then I do own many, many pairs of leather shoes, so who am I to talk? As usual, the restaurant was full of people getting happy and loud and confessing all the horror stories of their busy days.

“Jonathan for two?!” the visibly stressed-out hostess called, and when I nodded she waved me over to a table in the corner. It was dimly lit over there, in a kind of romantic, hidden way, and I couldn’t help but say, as we took our seats, “See, even if we have to wait, they still always save me the best table.”

Flan nodded and looked around, almost like she’d never seen so many people in one place before. Which of course she had. In New York even someone kind of innocent-seeming like Flan grows up quick.

I leaned back, thinking maybe things were finally looking up, when I realized they definitely were not.

The table across from us was filled with a particularly raucous party. It was Arno Wildenburger’s crew. Arno himself was nowhere to be seen, but there were Rob and David, and Mimi Rathbone and her girlfriends, and some other people I didn’t recognize, but who looked very, very hot. David was wearing the saffron Perry Ellis blazer I had contemplated buying that afternoon, and a faded black T-shirt that gave it a very downtown feel. That outfit was cooler than anything I’d ever seen him wear. He had his arm draped around that Sadie girl, and he looked hip and confident. He looked… Arno-ish.

“David looks a little out of his element, doesn’t he?” I said dryly.

“He looks like he’s having fun,” Flan replied.

I decided I better go to the men’s room and make sure I looked sufficiently cool. I kissed Flan on the cheek and told her I’d be right back. Then I stood waiting in front of the men’s room, which was locked. After about five minutes, I pounded on the door and called out, “You want me to call an ambulance?”

The door cracked, and I saw Mimi Rathbone’s friend Lizzie looking angry and a little flushed. “What the hell do you want?” she said.

Then Arno peaked his head over her. In spite of the fact that I’d just interrupted him and a girl, he seemed happy to see me. “Hey, J!” he said, pushing past Lizzie and doing the guy handclasp thing with me.

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