Night Kites by M.E.Kerr Erick is a high school senior whose biggest problem is his mediocre SAT score. He's got a girlfriend whom he's been dating since the first day of high school, he's got a best friend with whom he is "like peas in a pod", and he's got a nice family, although his father is a workaholic with an apartment in the city that he lives in during the week.
But life starts to unravel when his best friend, Jack, starts to date a girl, Nicki, who is totally out of his league, and who seems to have a crush on Erick. Nicki asks Erick to get the four of them tickets to see a Bruce Springsteen(this is set in the '80s) concert in NYC. While they are there, they plan to stay in Erick's father's apartment. While they are there, Erick's girlfriend gets upset about the way that Nicki flirts with Erick. Erick doesn't have much time to worry about that, though; his father suprises them and comes to the apartment. Erick thinks that he'll get in trouble for inviting the girls to the apartment, but his father is too distracted to care. He tells Erick, very confidentially, that Erick's older brother, Pete, whom he idolizes, is in the hospital, and he has AIDS. Pete is gay, and had only notified his mother before his hospitaliztion. Erick's father is trying to be supportive of his son, but does not want it known that Pete has AIDS. Erick is mad that his brother never told him, and somewhat confused.
Nicki breaks up with Jack and Jack is heartbroken. He had believed himself to be in love with her. When Erick puts an arm around Jack to console him, his father comes in, and thinks that Erick is also gay, which makes Erick mad. Erick makes the unpopular decision to go out with Nicki, and so his ex-girlfriend and Jack both stop talking to him. Eventually, Nicki finds out that Pete has AIDS, and then she also dumps Erick. Erick is left with only Pete, who is dying.
The book ends with a discussion between Erick and Pete, where Pete is talking about his idea, that he wants to make into a book, about a world where the only scent was that which a dying person emmitted.
Happy reading.
