I don’t want to call this a Friday ritual. It’s not that at all. It’s just that every once in a while, and usually it’s on Fridays, I head up to Madison Avenue and buy a new pair of loafers. Today it was a black leather pair with ridged rubber bottoms from Prada and they were pretty hot. They looked like little Porsche Carreras or something, so I went sockless, with some old khakis and a black hooded Penguin sweatshirt over a black polo. I blew two hours before I got myself over to the Flood house, because I had to stop at home and ditch the shoe box, since I didn’t want to show up with some extra shoes and have to change—I’d never hear the end of it if I did that. When I got up the stairs and rang the bell, I felt nervous about David and Arno seeing each other, and knowing that I hadn’t handled Flan well wasn’t helping either. At least she wasn’t supposed to be around. She was going to the movies and then staying at Dylan’s house. And I hoped she wasn’t just doing that on account of me being around.
