Lucky Break by J. Minter Page B

in forsuch a tight squeeze. “What are you doing here?” I asked his shoulder, since that was what my face was mashed into.
    â€œLooking for you,” he said, giving me a super-cheesy wink. “No, really, I’m just stopping though on my back from Sydney, hanging with Patch, but I didn’t know I was going to going to have the pleasure of buying the most beautiful of all the Floods a drink.”
    I laughed, rolling my eyes. “I was just in Italy, and the men there can get away with saying stuff like that, but aren’t you supposed to be an icy cool Manhattanite?”
    It was good to see Arno. It was just his personality to be forward, so I could give him a hard time without worrying that it meant anything.
    â€œYou’re right, that was embarrassing,” he said, putting his arm around me. “Why don’t I buy you a drink and you can tell me all about Italy … and whether you’re finally single so I can ask you out.”
    My face fell. It was completely involuntary and instantaneous, but Arno picked up on it in a second.
    â€œUh-oh. That’s a boy-trouble face if I’ve ever seen one. What’s his name?”
    â€œActually,” I said, pushing him away, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œAlex.” I sighed at last. “Alex Altfest.”
    Arno crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head at me. “Please tell me you’re not all broken up over
Alex Altfest
.”
    â€œWhy not?” I blurted out. “You know him?”
    â€œI know the kid. And let me tell you, Flan, he ain’t worth one pretty little tear of yours.”
    The mention of my tears must have had some sort of physical response, because I could feel them welling up. Who did Arno think he was, saying Alex wasn’t worth it?
    â€œIf he’s not worth it, then why am I—” I cut myself off.
    â€œFlan, come on.” He reached for my shoulder, but I pulled away. His fingers snagged on the chain of my amulet and I felt the sharp tug of it catching around my neck. A second later, it snapped off. The glossy stone Buddha cracked in two clean pieces on the floor.
    â€œCrap,” Arno muttered. “Where’d you get that? I’ll buy you another one.”
    â€œYou can’t
buy
me another one Arno. That’s the point of the amulet—it’s not replaceable. It’s valuable because of who gives it to you and why. And I don’t want one from you.” I knew it was unfair to go off onhim, but at this point, I couldn’t stop. “I don’t need the necklace anyway, just as much as I don’t need you telling me who or what to cry over. What I need …” What did I need? “What I need is to get out of here,” I said, nearly tripping over the line of Thai-riffic orderers and rushing out of the bar.
    This party was a disaster, and if I didn’t find a bathroom quickly, I was going to cry in front of the still-giggling elevator girls.
    I ducked behind a Buddha statue and collapsed on a bench out of view from the partygoers. I wanted to call my friends, but I didn’t know if I could bear to be reminded that they were all having a blast with their boys. I already felt so far away from them. I pulled out my phone to find two text messages, one from Camille and one from SBB.
    Camille’s said:
    THINKING OF YOU FROM THE TOP OF THE CENTRE POMPIDOU. XANDER SAYS ALEX IS AT THE KNICKS GAME TONIGHT—NOT THAT YOU SHOULD WASTE YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT HIM. JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT HE’S STILL IN THE CITY, AND YOU’RE OFF SEEING THE WORLD!
    I guess it was sweet of Camille to put it like that, but all her text did was fill me with questions. We used to go to Knicks games together. We’d sit in his family’sbox seats and order oysters from the Grand Central Oyster Bar and try to shoot oysters every time LeBron James shot a