The Boyfriend List Read online

  8. Sky (but he had someone else.)

  Doctor Z thinks I have panic attacks because I don’t express myself. Like I’m repressing how I really feel, and all this repression triggers anxiety. Blah blah blah.

  To take it out of therapy-speak, Doctor Z thinks I’m lying way too much of the time. She thinks I lie to my parents. She thinks I lied to Jackson.

  She thinks I lie to myself, mainly. Not about truths or facts. About feelings.

  And all that lying makes me not be able to breathe, because the horror that’s inside me pretty much has to express itself somehow, so it starts my heart up like a jack-hammer and turns off my lungs.

  I never thought of myself as someone who lies at all. Actually, I think I’m pretty truthful. But maybe she was right. “How can I be honest with anyone when everyone is lying to me?” I said to Doctor Z.

  “Who’s lying to you?”

  “Jackson.”

  “Who else?”

  “Kim.”

  “Who else?”

  I felt like there were hundreds of people. But I couldn’t think of anyone.

  We were silent.

  “Who is it that you’re not honest with?” asked Doctor Z.

  “No one.”

  “No one?”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “I’m asking if there are times when you don’t tell the truth about how you feel.”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “Ruby, that’s not what I asked you. I asked if you were honest about your feelings.”

  Ag. Therapy is such a pain in the ass. I told her I wanted to change the subject and talked about how annoying my mother was for the rest of the hour.1 But then I went home and I made a list of all the lies I told to Jackson.

  I didn’t mind that he never came to my swim meets.

  Watching the cross-country team run was interesting.

  Japanese anime movies were interesting.

  I liked his friend Matt.

  I liked the half carnation.

  I liked his new haircut.

  I liked his mom.

  I didn’t mind the frogs ending.

  I didn’t mind him playing tennis with Heidi.

  I didn’t mind when he said he’d call, but then forgot.

  I didn’t mind him making friends with Kim.

  When I got to eleven, I realized I could very easily get to twenty. Or thirty. Or forty. I put my pen down.

  I was obviously a big huge liar and didn’t even know it.2

  I actually never thought of myself as lying to Jackson. Well, some of them were lies I told to make him feel good. The haircut. His mom. But most of the others are actually lies that I told myself, and didn’t even know were lies, until I made that list. I would be bored watching cross-country, but I’d somehow tell myself I was learning about the sport. I hated the Japanese animation films he always wanted to rent, but I told myself I was getting a taste for them. His friend Matt isn’t awful, just kind of lunkheaded and boring—but I spent time with him every single week, and never stopped to think that I’d rather not. If Jackson asked him along with us, I never objected.

  Jackson made friends with Kim around Thanksgiving. He and I went over to her house the morning of the holiday, and we all sat on her front porch, shucking corn and peeling apples for Mae Yamamoto, who seemed to view us as hired labor.

  We were joking around and talking about Madame Long, the French teacher, and how she collected stuffed pigs, and how does one get started collecting such a thing? And Jackson said something to Kim in Japanese.

  She said something back.

  Then him.

  Then her.

  I shucked corn.

  Kim squeezed my knee. “You didn’t tell me Jackson was fluent!”

  “He was in Tokyo for a year,” I said.

  “Really?” cried Kim, although I know she knew already. “I’m applying to go on an exchange program. Where were you hanging out?”

  More Japanese going on. Back and forth. “Sorry, Roo,” they both said, at one time or another.

  And I shucked corn.

  From then on, they were friends. They did things together and talked on the phone. Jackson was a big proponent of boy/girl friendship, which in theory I appreciated. Yes! It’s important to be friends with the opposite sex, I thought. I was friends with Noel, wasn’t I? We should all be comfortable with everyone, and we shouldn’t be jealous and possessive, and it’s good for boys and girls to hang out together and not only see each other as sexual objects.

  But I did feel strange when I saw Kim’s handwriting on a note, half in Japanese and half in English, sticking out of Jackson’s back pocket. Or the one time he left my house on Sunday afternoon and I found out the next day he’d gone over to her place after, to study for a test in the Asian History Elective they were both taking. Or the time he was taking me to a restaurant to eat Japanese food for the first time, and he invited Kim to come too, without even checking with me. It turned out we had a great time, but I was also a little disappointed because Jackson and I had never gone out to eat anywhere fancy before, and I had dressed up for a romantic date.

  Not once did the two of them flirt in front of me.

  No extra smiles, no longing looks, no secret jokes.

  Never did Jackson talk about Kim being pretty. Never did Kim change how she acted when I told her stuff about Jackson. She knew every detail of what went on, and the only thing she ever said was that she knew he liked me and that his intentions were good—the way she did when I was upset about the half carnation. Never did Jackson stop kissing me the way he kissed me, like it mattered hugely, putting his hands on my face. Never did he stop coming over to my house, rooting around in our (macrobiotic) refrigerator, pulling me into my bedroom the minute my parents went outside on the deck so we could make out on the bed and feel the warm bare skin up each other’s shirts.

  When I called, he always said, “Oh, I’m glad it’s you.”

  When we watched a movie, he always held my hand.

  He still put notes in my mail cubby almost every day, with jokes and little stories about stuff he’d been thinking about.3

  He was my boyfriend, I was his girlfriend. Whatever else went wrong, that seemed completely clear.

  Until seven days before the Spring Fling dance.

  Friday night, Jackson and I went to a movie. He didn’t reach over and hold my hand, like usual, but when I reached over to take his, he stroked my palm. After, we got ice cream at a place in the mall, but the lights were fluorescent-bright and the movie had been something sad with people dying in it, and somehow the mood was dead. Neither of us talked too much.

  He dropped me off at the edge of our dock without coming in, though we kissed for a long time and even got in the backseat of the car so we could lie down.

  The next morning, he called around eleven. “Roo, we have to talk.”4

  “What about?” I asked.

  “Not on the phone.”

  “Want to come over?”

  “I can’t come till after the ball game. Matt and Kyle are due here any minute to watch it on TV.”

  “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Can I just come over at six?”

  “Sure. Are you staying for dinner?”

  “I can’t. I have something to do at seven.”

  “What?”

  “Um. This thing with my mom.”

  “Okay. What is this about?”

  Jackson paused. “I’ll see you at six, Ruby. We can talk then.”

  Any idiot would probably know he was going to break up with me, and part of me knew it too. What else does “We have to talk” mean? and why else would he come all the way over to my house when he had to be somewhere else an hour later? But the Spring Fling was coming up, this big event Tate has every year on a miniyacht, and I had saved my money and bought a vintage dress from the 1970s. Jackson was taking me out for dinner and then to the dance. Afterward, a bunch of kids were actually coming over to my pl
ace to hang out, since the dock for the miniyacht was a short way over from our houseboat.

  So it didn’t seem like we could possibly be breaking up. Things were happening. We had plans. We were together.

  But even with all that, the day was like torture. I called Kim six times.

  She was out. Her cell was off. I figured she was with Finn. I left messages, and she didn’t ring back.

  I called Nora. “It must be sex,” she said. “You were lying down in the car together last night, now he’s all overexcited. He wants to go all the way. Or at least to third base.”

  I called Cricket. “It must be the whole spending-time-with-the guys-thing. He needs to go out and do manly things with his manly man friends. Pete’s like that. Did I tell you what he said to me last night?” And then blah blah on about Pete and his adorable machismo.

  I tried not to deal with my parents. It was a pretty day, so I took my homework out to the end of our dock and did it out there. I was reading Great Expectations for Brit Lit. Then I went back into the house and used my dad’s computer to write up my science lab for Bio/Sex Ed. Then I took a long shower and blew out my hair and put on makeup and my favorite jeans and tried on six shirts. My stomach was sticking out, all of a sudden, and everything I wore looked funny. I tried a different bra. I took the makeup off. I put some of it back on. I put on perfume and it smelled like too much. Finally I put on my old swim team sweatshirt and figured at least it would look like I didn’t care what I was wearing.

  Jackson was on time. He looked gorgeous, his hair curling at the back of his neck and an old T-shirt untucked at the waist. He came in and made small talk with my father for ten minutes. Then he asked if I wanted to take a walk down the dock.

  I had just spent most of the day down at the end of it, but I said okay.

  When we got there, he broke up with me. Only, he kept saying it like I wanted it, too.

  “We haven’t been getting along,” he said. “We want different things.”

  “I don’t think I’m the one for you,” he said. “I don’t think I make you happy.”

  “We need time to think things over,” he said. “You need someone different from me.”

  This is Jackson Clarke, I thought, who used to really like me.

  This is Jackson Clarke, who used to be mine.

  This is Jackson Clarke, who kissed me last night.

  This is Jackson Clarke.

  This is Jackson Clarke.

  This is Jackson Clarke.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “We just need to think it out.”

  “Was there something I did?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be so sensitive.”

  “You’re breaking up with me and you want me not to be sensitive?”

  “You blow things up, Roo. I’m not breaking up with you. It’s not like that. I’m just saying we should have some time apart. We both know that’s true.”5 He looked at his watch. “I gotta go. I have to be at that thing at seven. I’m sorry.”

  I sniffed. “Can’t you call and be late?”

  “I really can’t,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer. “We’ll be friends, right?”

  I nodded.

  “That would mean a lot to me. I do like you, Roo.”6

  He kissed me quickly on the cheek, and stood up to leave.

  I started to cry.

  He was already walking up the dock. I heard his car door slam. The engine turned over, and he drove a way.

  I called Kim three more times that nigh t, but I couldn’t reach her. Cricket and Nora had gone to the movies, but at nine o’clock they answered Nora’s cell together. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry,” said Nora, over and over, but she kept interrupting everything I was saying to explain the situation to Cricket, who was sitting right next to her saying “What? What is it?” all the time.

  “I’d kill Pete if he ever did that to me,” said Cricket, when she finally grabbed the phone. “Did I tell you what he said about the Spring Fling?” Then we lost the connection because they were in Nora’s dad’s car and he was driving over the bridge.

  I told my parents about the breakup on Sunday at dinner. I had to explain because my mom asked why my eyes were all puffy.

  Mom: “Oh, I never liked him anyway. He’s a horrible boy.

  Dad: “Elaine, she needs to come to a place of forgiveness. Otherwise she’ll never move on.”

  Mom: “It just happened. She needs to vent. She needs to express her anger.”

  Me: “Mom, I—”

  Mom: “Roo, be quiet. She needs to raise her voice and be heard!”

  Dad: “I wonder how Jackson is feeling right now. Roo, can you think about his perspective, come to an understanding of his position? Because that’s the way you’ll truly transcend the negativity of this experience.”

  Mom: “I never liked the way he’d honk the horn for you without coming in.”

  Monday at school, I felt lost. The beat of every day had been Jackson. Early morning, he’d be in the refectory drinking tea. After third period, quick kiss in the main hallway. We’d usually eat lunch together; I’d see him crossing the quad after fifth; and he’d be waiting for me after lacrosse practice (swim season is over). Now, I spent the day half avoiding him and half hoping he’d see me in one of our usual spots and have a change of heart. But when I finally did see him in the refectory at lunch, he was sitting with Matt and a bunch of the guys. “Hey, Roo,” he said, “what’s up?”—and turned away, before I could even answer.

  Kim was shocked and sweet when I saw her in first period and finally told her what had happened, although she said a few things that in retrospect seem evil: “You were kind of expecting it, though, weren’t you?”

  No.

  “But things had been getting weird for a while.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” I said. “It’s like he turned a switch off inside himself. Just since Friday. He liked me on Friday, and on Saturday he didn’t care.”

  “You’ll be happier without him, though,” said Kim, patting my arm. “If you ask me, he was never the one for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You two are mismatched,” said Kim. “It wasn’t going to work out.”

  “Mismatched how?”

  “You know, you want different things,” she said.

  “Like what? Was he talking to you about me?”

  “No, that’s not it,” said Kim. “I’m trying to cheer you up, Roo.”

  “I can’t be cheered up,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t mean to snap at you,” I said. “It’s just the most frogless of all frogless days.”

  “Let me buy you an ice cream,” she said, putting her arm around me. And she did. I had a toasted almond from the refectory, right after first period.

  That was on Monday. T hat afternoon I went over to Cricket’s and we all made chocolate chip cookies and ate them with our feet in the hot tub. Tuesday was the same living hell as Monday, only it was clear the entire school knew that Jackson had broken up with me, and people like Katarina and Ariel said, “Ruby, how are you feeling?” in a know-it-all sympathetic way, and people like Matt and Kyle said “Hey” in the hallway but didn’t stop to talk like they used to.

  Tuesday after lacrosse I went with Cricket and Nora to the B&O. Kim didn’t want to come; she said she had a lot of homework.

  Finn Murphy was there behind the counter. He was moping around, like a muffin with all the blueberries picked out, Cricket said. Finally, he came over to our table and sat down for a minute. Hey, what was Kim up to? he wanted to know. Where was she? Did we know whether she’d been busy lately, or something?

  She wasn’t picking up her cell. He actually hadn’t seen her all weekend.

  None of us knew, but when he left to go back to work behind the counter we concluded that Kim had definitely lost interest in the stud-muffin. Poor little muffin. Mini-mu
ffin. Mopey muffin. We left him a big tip and a funny note on a paper napkin.

  Wednesday morning, Kim announced she’d broken up with Finn. He wasn’t “the one,” and she felt like she was wasting her time. She was a little shattered, though, she said. He was such a nice guy.

  The rest of the day was normal, aside from my broken heart.

  Wednesday night, Kim called me at home. “Roo, I wanted you to hear it from me,” she said.

  “Hear what?” She had called during dinner. My mother and father were eating steamed mushrooms, tofu and brown rice, listening to every word I was saying.

  “Please don’t be mad.”

  “I won’t,” I said. I couldn’t imagine what I’d be mad about.

  “Promise?”

  “Okay, okay. What is it?”

  A pause. “Jackson and I are going out now.”

  I couldn’t even say anything. I just breathed into the phone.

  “We’re such good friends,” she said. “He was talking to me about all the problems you two were having, trying to work stuff out, and that brought us really close together.”

  “What problems?” I didn’t even know Jackson thought we had problems.

  “It wasn’t like he was saying anything bad,” said Kim. “It was like he needed support. He needed someone who’d be there for him.”

  “I wasn’t there for him?”

  “Please, Ruby,” Kim said. “Don’t be too upset. It just happened. We didn’t mean it to. And I’d never do this to you, except the thing with you was never working out anyway—and I really think Jackson and me are meant to be.”

  “What do you mean, never working out anyway?”

  “Well, not for a long time between you two,” she said. “You know that as well as I do.”

  “When did it start?” I asked.

  “Only yesterday, I swear. We never acted on our feelings before. I hope you’ll believe me about that. I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  “Um-hum.”