The Boyfriend List Read online

  “Me and almost everyone, actually.”

  “She wrote me something like that in an e-mail. But Nora misses you. I know she does.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “She didn’t say anything directly,” Gideon admitted. “She’s just home a lot, lounging around. Messing with her Instamatic. Shooting baskets in the driveway by herself. Kim and Cricket are all in love, you know. Always out with the boys.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I had honestly never thought about what Nora was doing when the rest of us were out with our boyfriends.

  “You should call her.”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged.

  We sat there for a minute. I fiddled with the zipper on my backpack.

  “I was in Big Sur last month,” Gideon said, finally. “You know where that is? South of San Francisco, along the coast. They have hot springs there, hot water bubbling up from underground, and you go in without any clothes, men and women together, lounging around naked with steam rising up.2 And I’m learning to surf.”

  “Cool.”

  “You need a wet suit that far north. It’s cold. But I kept at it and now I can stand up and catch a wave pretty damn good, if I say so myself.”

  “Wow.”

  “You would love it. You’re a swimmer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’d be good at it. You have that upper-body strength. Then I drove up to San Francisco,” he went on. “And I heard some awesome bands. You been there?”

  “No.”

  “It’s amazing. The wildest people walking through the streets. Men in drag. I did an open-mike night with my guitar at this coffeehouse. I pretty much sucked, but I got out in front of people and actually sang, can you believe it?”

  “Good for you, rock star.”

  “Well.” He laughed. “I felt like a goofball. But hey, I’m never seeing any of those people again, so what the hell?”

  “Exactly.” It was very un-Tommy Hazard, getting up and singing badly in front of a crowd, but somehow it made me like Gideon even more.

  “I never would have done something like that at Tate,” he said. “When I was here, my whole world was just sports, and parties, and refectory gossip. The Tate universe.”

  “Yeah.” I knew all about the Tate universe.

  “I’m serious,” Gideon said. “Chinese food like you’ve never eaten. Architecture. Landscapes. Before I came west, I was in the desert in Arizona. I saw the Great Lakes. I hiked some of the Appalachian Trail.”

  Mr. Wallace cracked his door and stuck his head out into the hallway. “Van Deusen!” he cried, his face lighting up. “Slumming, are you?” He ushered Gideon in.

  I was late for my next class, but I walked there slowly. Thinking about Gideon, naked in the hot spring.

  And about San Francisco.

  People in general are bad apologizers. Even my dad is—for all his talk about forgiveness. He doesn’t say sorry. He grabs my mom from behind and starts kissing her neck.

  “Kevin, I’m still mad at you,” she complains.

  “Oh, but you smell good,” he whispers into her throat.

  “Kevin!”

  “No one smells as good as you,” he moans, or some other ridiculousness, and before long she says, “Fine. Come look at this thing I bought today,” or something like that.

  Mom is even worse. She sulks and pouts and storms around the house banging pots and pans, and then after a couple of hours she starts acting like everything’s okay again, and Dad and I are supposed to know that she’s over whatever it was and not to mention it again.

  Other people apologize and don’t mean it. “Sorry, but you shouldn’t have …” or “Sorry, but I just didn’t…” They apologize while telling you that they were right all along, which is the opposite of an actual apology.

  I am definitely a bad apologizer. I talk too much. I leave the whole thing until way too late, and then I babble on, and end up not saying what I mean and starting whatever argument it was over again. It never comes out right.

  Well, truth be told, I usually still think the other person was wrong, and that’s probably why.

  The next Thursday, Doctor Z looked down at the list and asked me about Noel. “It was only a rumor,” I said. “About me and him. One of forty-eight rumors, by this point.”

  “He’s the one you held hands with at the party?”

  “Yeah. He stands on the other side of the studio in Painting Elective now. I never even talk to him.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even think he likes girls.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a mystery.”

  “You don’t have feelings for him?”

  “It doesn’t matter, even if I did. I told him to fuck off. It’s not like he’d ever talk to me again.”

  Doctor Z paused in her know-it-all way, like she was waiting for me to say something. I didn’t. “Why is he on your list?” she finally asked.

  “Do we even need the list anymore?” I asked back. “I mean, what are we going to talk about once it’s finished?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I knew you’d say that.”

  Silence.

  “So why is he on your list?” she finally asked.

  The thing is, I liked Noel. He was interesting. He was different. He was outside the Tate universe, at least a little bit. When he took me home after the Spring Fling and held my hand at the party, it felt good. I liked talking to him.

  The Sunday after Meghan and I went to the Woody Allen festival,3 I dug my watercolor paints out of the very bottom of my desk drawer. I don’t think I had used them on my own since seventh grade. I got a piece of white paper and folded it in half. “How am I sorry?” I wrote in purple watercolor. “Let me count the ways …”

  And inside, I wrote:

  Like a shark who ate a license plate by mistake.

  Like a movie star caught without her makeup.

  Like a lady with a fancy hairdo, in the rain without an umbrella.

  Like a cat who rolled in jam.

  Like a hungry raccoon that ate its young by mistake.

  Like a neurotic teenage girl, traumatized by recent social debacles, who doesn’t know a friend when he looks her in the eye, and gives her a ride home, and offers to ruin his reputation for her.

  I painted a tiny picture of each person/animal with deep remorse on its face. The last one was me, down in the bottom corner.

  It took me a couple of hours, but it looked pretty good when I was done—although the raccoon and the cat were pretty similar, and the rain didn’t seem very rainy. I blew off my Bio/Sex Ed lab, Geometry worksheet and Brit Lit reading to finish it.

  The next morning, I put it in Noel’s mail cubby, feeling embarrassed, but also rather well adjusted, if I do say so myself.

  I figured I wouldn’t see him until Painting in the afternoon, and I had no idea what to say to him when I did, or whether I should try to put my easel next to his, or what. But I actually got in line right behind him at lunchtime,4 and he was in the middle of negotiating with the lunch lady about whether she’d be willing to put his slice of pizza in the microwave (she was claiming it was hot enough; he was saying it was cold), and he barely even looked at me, and I almost turned around and snuck back out the door of the refectory—but then he reached out and grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and held it all the while he was doing this monologue about the difference in texture between cold mozzarella and hot, while the lunch lady looked at him with murder in her eyes.

  He lost the argument, let go of my hand with a final squeeze, took his chilly pizza and went out into the dining hall to sit with a table of freshman girls I’d never noticed before.

  I felt like I was walking on air.

  1 The part about Noel is at the end of the chapter. I have to write down this other important stuff first.

  2 The next minute of the conversation is not written down with any accuracy. I wasn’t paying attention, because I was too bus
y picturing Gideon naked in a hot spring full of steam.

  3 The movie we saw, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, involves a superenormous breast chasing people across the countryside. They finally capture it in a giant bra.

  4 I’d been lying low, generally. No fishnets. No wild clothes. At lunch, I was sitting with Meghan and the seniors. Most of the older kids ignored me, except for Bick, who was pretty cool. But I was definitely still a leper. Hutch and I did say hi in the halls now, and the girls from lacrosse were perfectly civil, like if I had a question about schoolwork, or practice or something. But that was it.

  15. Cabbie (but I’m undecided.)

  It seems weird to me now that Cabbie is even on the Boyfriend List, although it’s true we went on an actual date and there was even physical contact of a strangely advanced nature.

  I’ve already pretty much forgotten about him. I’m certainly not undecided about him anymore. Shep Cabot is out, finished, kaput—and the heading of this chapter should more accurately read: “Cabbie (but it was just a grope.)”

  Cabbie is a junior. He plays rugby and he’s cute in a meaty sort of way. He’s not my type. Too big. Too manly manly. He caught up with me after a lacrosse game a couple of days after the Spring Fling and asked me to the movies. Out of the blue. Right before my first appointment with Doctor Z. My guess is, he’d heard I was easy1 thanks to Mr. Wallace’s well-publicized antislut lecture in H&P, and he figured he could get some if he paid for my movie ticket.2

  I didn’t much care why he was asking me out.

  I didn’t want to sit home on Friday night.

  I wanted Jackson to see me with someone else—like he had with Angelo—and feel jealous, and want me back.

  I wanted not to care if Jackson wanted me back or not, because I had a new guy who was bigger and more popular and played rugby.

  And once I didn’t care and was off with the new guy, Jackson would suddenly love me—wouldn’t he?

  And then I could care again and we’d live happily ever after.3

  I said yes, and Cabbie picked me up in a BMW around seven p.m. on Friday night. He came in, briefly, and shook my dad’s hand and called him sir. We drove to the University District, where there are a couple of movie theaters, and parked in an expensive lot. “Can’t leave this baby on the street,” said Cabbie, chuckling, as he locked the doors. We walked a couple of blocks in the chilly air, talking about lacrosse and rugby.

  “We’re playing Sullivan on Tuesday,” said Cabbie. “You should come to the game.”

  “That could be cool.”

  “Coach is such a hard-ass. He’s making us run three miles before practice.”

  “We run three for lacrosse, too.”

  “Really, the girls?”

  “Really.”

  “I’m starting this season, which is cool.”

  “Awesome.”

  We went into the theater. He bought the tickets. I paid for popcorn and pop. It was some action special-effects movie, not my thing, but all right.

  About a quarter into it, Cabbie put his arm around me, and seconds later, he dangled his right hand down over my shoulder and squeezed my boob! We hadn’t held hands, or kissed, or anything. We’d hardly even had a conversation before that night—but he went straight for the boob squeeze as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  I was in shock. I sat there, letting him squeeze it.

  It felt kind of good.

  He was watching the movie like it wasn’t even happening, but also moving his fingers around every now and then, stroking my boob absentmindedly.

  Should I shift my body so his hand was more shoulder height? Or take his hand and hold it so it couldn’t go roaming around my chest? Or actively move his arm back to his lap? Or get up to go to the bathroom and hope the gropefest wouldn’t start up again when I got back? Or pitch a fit and get all indignant?

  It really did feel kind of good. He seemed to know what he was doing in the boob department. The longer I sat there and thought about it, the longer it seemed weird to start objecting.

  He ended up feeling my boob for the whole movie! He ate popcorn with his left hand and got lucky with his right. It started to feel kind of lopsided, for the right one to get literally an hour and a half’s worth of attention and the left one to be all on its lonesome. I barely knew what the movie was about, because I was thinking about my boob the whole time. My boob, being stroked by a near-complete stranger, a big meaty rugby player.

  When eight days before, it had been all Jackson’s.

  Was I really a slut, like Kim said? This made four boys within one week I’d had some kind of physical contact with.4

  Or did I actually like Cabbie? Could this be the start of a new thing?

  Maybe not.

  And then again, maybe.

  The movie ended. Cabbie stretched, took his hand off me and stood up. “Wanna get some pizza?”

  “Sure.”

  We went to a place up the street. We split a cheese pie. He told me he doesn’t eat vegetables, ever. He talked about his “buddies” from rugby and how he wants to go to Penn and be a lawyer, like his dad. He asked me about my family, and I did my usual riff. He said his mother likes to garden.

  Cabbie had everything a girl is supposed to look for in a boy. He was sporty, cute, popular, friendly, rich. He might even have been smart, though I couldn’t tell for sure.

  But I was bored. Just making conversation, not really talking.

  I think I want a guy who eats vegetables.

  And who isn’t so normal.

  He was just a muffin, you know?

  The check took forever to come, and when it finally did, I insisted on paying half, even though I was still broke from buying that silver dress.

  He drove me home and I hopped out of the car like a jackrabbit. If he thought I was a slut, who knows what he was expecting in a dark BMW, late on a Friday night? Especially after all that boob squeezing. “That was fun,” I lied, slamming the car door. “You don’t have to walk me in.”

  “Later,” he said, looking surprised.

  Sunday evening I called him up. “Hey, Cabbie,” I said, when he got to the phone. “I want to tell you, um, I can’t go to that rugby game on Tuesday.”

  “That’s cool. We play all the time. There’s another game on Friday.”

  “Yeah, well. I mean, I’m kind of still getting over Jackson.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s cool.”

  “All right. Well, sorry about that.”

  “No big deal. See you around.”

  “See you.”

  We hung up. I felt relieved. Although if I could have had a purely boob-squeezing relationship with him, maybe I would have done that. You know, like sitting in movie theaters once or twice a week having my boobs groped, with no obligation to kiss his meaty face or have boring conversations with the guy.

  But that was impossible, so we were better off apart.

  The next day was the day Kim Xeroxed the Boyfriend List and put it in everyone’s mail cubbies. My life was sucking in all the ways I’ve already detailed, and on top of it all I heard Cabbie saying to Billy Alexander, “Yeah, I felt her up. But I don’t know, she’s kind of skanky. I’m not so interested. What about you?”

  “Don’t look at me, man,” Billy said.

  “Come on, you can tell me.”

  “I’m serious man, I didn’t touch her.”

  “Nice tits, though, am I right?”5

  “Sure.”

  “Was it Billy Krespin, then, do you think?” asked Cabbie.

  “Could be. Why don’t you ask him?”

  And that was that. You know the rest.

  The good thing about the whole Cabbie episode was that I realized I might actually like having my body touched by somebody other than Jackson. I mean, being felt up6 is pretty intimate, and before going out with Cabbie I thought I’d never want to do anything like that with anyone ever again.

  It did feel good
, I can’t lie about that.

  Maybe I won’t be heartbroken forever.

  Doctor Z and I are done with the list. Now we just have conversations. She gave me another homework assignment, which was to make a drawing of my family, and I ended up making this little diorama of our houseboat, using an old shoe box. It came out pretty cool. I had this little cutout of my mom waving her arms, and one of my dad hugging a peony bush, and one of me, wearing fishnets.

  I’ve started wearing the fishnets again.

  Doctor Z thinks it’s a healthy expression of my sexuality.

  I just think they look good.

  Other than that, I tell her about my life. I haven’t had any more panic attacks, although sometimes my heart races and I do a little deep breathing. “Do I get a clean bill of health now?” I asked her.

  “What do you think?” Ag. She really does make me insane with that kind of question.

  “Um. I don’t know.”

  “Would you like a clean bill of health?”

  I sighed. “I don’t want to be a mental patient forever.”

  “Are you saying you’d like to stop therapy, Ruby?”

  “Um.”

  “You don’t have to stop until you want to. We can do this as long as you like.”

  “Don’t you get bored, listening to my problems?”

  “No.”

  “You probably have a bunch of anorexics and sex addicts who are a lot more interesting.”

  “It’s not your job to entertain me, Ruby.”

  True enough. That’s why therapists are different from friends. You don’t have to make them like you.

  So I kept going.

  I guess I like it.

  School is over now. Jackson and Kim are still together. He doesn’t seem to have realized he loves me. In fact, he seems to have forgotten everything that happened. Neither of them spoke to me the rest of the year except for Jackson saying hello when absolutely necessary—and I still had the Beth-Ann-Courtney-Heidi-Kim radar all through the very last day of finals, stupid as that is. People still whispered about me in the hall, but no one wrote anything more on the bathroom wall. I kept my head down. I hung out with Noel in Painting Elective and ate lunch with Meghan. Once, after a game, I went for ice cream with a crowd of girls from the lacrosse team. I haven’t been back to the B&O.