Real Live Boyfriends Read online

  He kissed me and sat with me at lunch and listened to me without checking his texts. Wrote me e-mails and called me and made me laugh.

  Noel DuBoise was my real, live boyfriend.

  An e-mail from early in the summer:

  Hi Roo.

  Tomorrow, your presence is requested at a meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society. Time: 4 p.m. Location: the Harvard Exit movie theater.

  Do not go online and check what they are playing. Show up with faith in the Society’s good intentions and taste in cinematic entertainment.

  Also: bring Fruit Roll-Ups and Toblerone. The Society’s only other member will bring drinks and spring for popcorn and movie tickets.

  Confirm your attendance at your earliest convenience.

  Noel

  Another e-mail:

  Roo,

  I just dropped you off and came home to find the house dark. Parents asleep, little girls asleep, everyone in bed before my curfew.

  I banged on Mom’s door so she knew I was home, then climbed out on the porch roof outside my bedroom window. Tried to stealth it down the rose trellis. Figured I’d sneak back out and see you again because: all of a sudden I missed you like a complete sap. Even though I just saw you.

  Planned the grand romantic gesture.

  Nearly died trying to climb down rose trellis.

  Really. Nearly died.

  Seriously.

  Okay, didn’t nearly die. But did scrape my arm on some thorns.

  The need for Band-Aids trumped my plan to sneak up to your bedroom window and throw pebbles until you saw me standing there in the moonlight.

  Grand romantic gesture crashes and burns.

  Bright side: I did use the bacon Band-Aids you got me. There are three on my arm with actual blood soaking through.

  In the moonlight,

  Noel

  Even though I know there is no such thing as a happy ending7, a little part of me thought I had found one.

  Even though some people hated Noel and me being together.

  Even though having a real live boyfriend didn’t solve my mental problems or fix my family.

  Even though life wasn’t a movie.

  It still felt like a happy ending. It did.

  Until eight weeks later.

  1 Scamming mate: You fool around, but you don’t hang out. Ever.

  2 Friend with benefits: You fool around, and you do hang out, but you are not going out.

  3 Kind-of, sort-of, it’s-all-very-confusing boyfriend: Self-explanatory.

  4 Polka-dot is a harlequin Great Dane, spotted like a dalmatian. He is not a reasonable dog to have living with me, my mom and my dad in a tiny houseboat.

  But then, nothing about my life is reasonable.

  5 Greg is my dad’s friend who has panic attacks so bad he never leaves his home. Which is completely what will happen to me if I don’t get a handle on the panic badness that happens to me ever since the debacles of sophomore year. If you want to see Greg, you have to go over to his garbage-y, plant-filled apartment and bring him Chinese food. It is deeply pitiful.

  6 “Keep On Loving You”: Retro power ballad by REO Speedwagon. Dad is obsessed with retro metal. I think it makes him feel like he’s still seventeen. Though why anyone would want to feel like they’re seventeen I have no idea.

  7 You can’t have an ending. It’s impossible. Because unlike in the movies, life goes on. You’re never at the end until you die.

  Panic Attacks and Rabbit Fever!

  an unedited video clip:

  Blurry images. Green stuff. Flowers. The focus locks on a very small greenhouse filled with rare blooms grown in containers.

  Outside the glass walls, a warm July drizzle over the lake.

  Inside, Roo and Noel sit together on a wooden crate too small to hold both their butts.

  Roo wears her new rhinestone-studded glasses and a T-shirt of Noel’s that reads DEATH: OUR NATION’S NUMBER ONE KILLER. The gap between her two front teeth keeps showing because she’s smiling so much. Noel’s hair has too much gel in it and his arms look scrawny. His eyes are laughing.

  Roo: The inauguration of my digital video camera.

  Noel: (doesn’t say anything; looks at his hands)

  Roo: I bought it this morning with money I made mucking out stalls at the zoo and selling Birkenstocks to people with disgusting feet.

  Noel: (stares like a deer at the camera)

  Roo: (turning) Are you going to say something?

  Noel: I feel dumb. The camera makes everything seem fake, suddenly.

  Roo: I feel dumb too. But let’s shoot some footage so I can practice editing.

  Noel: Okay.

  Roo: Just get past the dumb.

  Noel: You got it.

  Roo: Today is July eighteenth, I think. We’re sitting in my dad’s greenhouse and …

  Noel: (starts kissing Roo on the neck)

  Roo: (laughing) What are you doing?

  Noel: You said ignore the dumb.

  Roo: Yeah, but—

  Noel: And you said you wanted to practice editing.

  Roo: So?

  Noel: (still kissing) So I’m ignoring the dumb and giving you something to edit out.

  I spent a lot of time at Noel’s place that summer. He lived with his mom and stepdad in a Victorian-style house in Madrona. He had two little half sisters and his folks were always around, cooking or scolding or complaining about the clutter. It was a nice place to be. Mrs. DuBoise told me flat out I could stay for dinner any night I wanted.

  Noel didn’t have a summer job1, but he was expected to take charge of his little sisters two days a week. He’d bring them to the zoo while I was working for the landscape gardener there. They would bring spearmint jelly candies and feed them to me ’cause my hands would be covered in soil. Then when I got off work I’d take them to the Family Farm area and lift the little girls up to pet the llamas and feed the goats.

  One day, when Noel went off to buy juice for us all, I helped the girls write notes on zoo stationery to Robespierre, my favorite pygmy goat. We stuck our letters in the bright blue box marked WRITE TO OUR FARM ANIMALS.

  Dear Robespierre,

  You are a nice goat. I did not know goats were so hairy as you. I thought you would have more like fur.

  Love, Sydonie

  Dear Robespierre,

  Why am I not allowed to feed you my apple? I want to feed you my apple and see you eat it up.

  From, Marie

  Dear Robespierre,

  That was my real live boyfriend, Noel!

  Did you see him? Did you?

  Don’t be jealous. You are a pygmy goat and I am a human. It could never have progressed beyond ear scratching, you and me. Besides, you have Imelda and Mata Hari, both of whom obviously prefer you to that scraggly little pretender of a goat, Kaczynski.

  When you write back, please tell me: Do you think it’s all going to come crashing down? Do you think this is real life? Can I be this happy?

  Love, Ruby

  After my shift ended, Noel would usually drive me back to his place. I’d take a shower there and change into normal clothes.

  Like I belonged in his house.

  With him.

  And it was just right.

  I was in love.

  In love. Yes.

  It wasn’t anything we said to each other, but it was how I felt.

  And how I thought he felt.

  I even told my shrink.

  Just in case you haven’t familiarized yourself with the painful chronicles of my high school career, I have a shrink because sophomore year—after Jackson broke my heart and Kim and all my other friends ditched me—I nearly went insane. I have managed to reach my senior year alive only because it turns out you can’t actually die from embarrassment and misery. You just start having these awful, can’t-breathe, heart-exploding episodes. Panic attacks.2

  Now I have to go to therapy once a week.3

  “Love is a big word,” said Doctor Z when I told her
about Noel. She popped a piece of Nicorette and waggled her Birkenstock off the end of her foot.

  I played with the frayed hem of my jeans and didn’t answer.

  “This is the same Noel who hid his asthma from you, am I right?” she went on.

  “Not his asthma. The fact that he hadn’t been taking care of his asthma.”

  “And the same guy who wouldn’t let you explain about the incident in the library? You two weren’t speaking for a while?”

  I sighed. “Same guy.”

  I hate it when Doctor Z asks questions that roundabout way. It’s so shrinky-shrinky.

  What she really meant was: Do you honestly think this Noel is going to be a good boyfriend? Because he already has an iffy track record. And you, Ruby Oliver, can hardly afford to risk your precarious mental health for a guy who might turn out to be a jerk.

  “It’s the same guy who gave me his hoodie when my clothes got soaked in chemistry class,” I told her. “Same guy who took me home from the Spring Fling when no one else would give me a ride. Same guy who made me a valentine. And baked me chocolate croissants. And said he knew all the gossip about me wasn’t true.”

  Doctor Z didn’t answer. She just blinked her big brown eyes at me.

  “You’re thinking I’m too defensive now,” I said.

  Again, no answer.

  “Now you’re thinking I’m getting all cranked over a silly high school thing, making it sound important, like some big romance, when in the larger scheme of my whole entire life, none of this will really matter,” I said.

  More silence.

  “And you’re gonna say I’m too boy-oriented, and I should be focusing on developing my friendships and not have Rabbit Fever all the time.”4

  Doctor Z recrossed her legs and straightened her orange chenille poncho. But still, she said nothing.

  “I’ve been in therapy a year and a half now,” I told her. “I know how it works. I know what you’re going to say before you say it.”

  “I’m not saying anything, Ruby.”

  “You’re thinking it.”

  Doctor Z paused. “Maybe you are thinking it,” she offered.

  Here’s Doctor Z: African American. Fortysomething. Seriously fashion-challenged to the point of wearing horrible crocheted ponchos and patchwork skirts. Cozy office in a generic office building. Mistress of the shrinky silence. Nicotine fiend.

  Here’s me: Caucasian. Nearly seventeen. Vintage dresses, fishnet stockings and Converse. Suffering from panic attacks and Rabbit Fever. Plus a general inability to relate to other human beings in a way that leads to happiness.

  Here’s what we have in common: We both wear glasses. We both live in Seattle. And we sit in this room together every week, discussing my problems.

  Therapy is deeply weird. You talk and talk and someone else listens. This grown-up your parents pay money to, who has never met your friends, never been to your house, never seen your school—in other words, a person who’s had no contact whatsoever with any of the things that are giving you angst.

  You tell that person everything. And she listens.

  “I ran into Nora the other day at Pagliacci’s,” I said, to change the subject.

  “Oh?”

  “Ever since I supposedly stole Noel from her, we just avoid one another. But two days ago I saw her and her brother getting pizza.”

  “Her brother Gideon?”

  Doctor Z knows all about Gideon. He is superhot in a bohemian, necklace-wearing way, and I used to love him in sixth grade. Also, last spring his leg touched mine when we were watching a movie at Nora’s house. And once, inexplicably, he came over to my house and helped me make doughnuts.

  “That’s the only brother she has,” I said.

  “What happened at Pagliacci’s?”

  “I was standing in line to pay for my pizza and the two of them came up behind me.”

  “Did you talk to them?”

  “Gideon said hi. He’s obviously ignorant that Nora now considers me a backstabbing, Noel-stealing slut. Or he pretended to be ignorant.”

  “What did Nora do?”

  “She acted really, really interested in some Chap Stick she found in her bag.”

  “What did you do?” asked Doctor Z.

  “I kept talking.”

  “What about?”

  “Canned mushrooms: Are they a valid topping with a flavor of their own, like canned black olives? Or are they just rubbery disgustingness? Blah blah blah. Finally the guy in front of me paid, and I asked to get my food to go just so I wouldn’t have to sit in the same restaurant with Nora. I can’t eat with someone hating me.”

  Doctor Z didn’t say anything in response. She just looked at me in her gentle way.

  “I wish I could forget about Nora and how she won’t forgive me when I abject begged her to,” I went on. “The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m with Noel.”

  “How so?”

  I paused, looking for the right words. “When Noel’s voice is on the phone,” I said, “or his name is in my e-mail, or his hand is holding mine—I feel this full out, flat-on happiness. It’s like he cancels out all the badness from the past two years at school, like he cancels out all my hateful thoughts and neuroses, like he’s my flashlight in a dark city.”

  Doctor Z chewed her Nicorette thoughtfully. “I’m glad he makes you happy,” she finally said. “But I do have a concern about your flashlight metaphor.”

  “How come?”

  “Well,” she asked, “what happens if your flashlight goes out?”

  1 No summer job: Most of the kids who go to Tate Prep don’t need jobs because their parents are loaded. I go there on scholarship.

  2 Panic attacks: Episodes of heart palpitations and the feeling that there’s just not enough air in the universe to fill my lungs.

  I sweat.

  I shake.

  It’s just complete badness and I feel like I’m going to die every time it happens.

  3 P.S. About the panic attacks. If you get these too, you should tell your doctor to rule out any physical crap that might be going on. Then if it’s only mental, the doctor can send you to the shrink.

  4 Rabbit Fever: My name for the kind of inadvertent sex mania I suffer from.

  Like, sometimes I think about people undressed whom I would never, ever want to see undressed in real life. I mean, if I saw them undressed in real life I would run screaming from the room, either because they’re way old and inappropriate (my swim coach, Mr. Wallace) or because they’re deeply unattractive as human beings (Neanderthal Darcy), or both (the headmaster).

  The Revelation About Gay Chinese Penguins!

  What to Do with Your Real Live Boyfriend in the Dark: for those moments when you’re alone, you want to make out or you don’t want to make out, or you’ve just made out and now you don’t know what to say, or the whole making-out thing is going too fast—or not fast enough.

  (Instructions given by Meghan, Queen of Real Live Boyfriends, and transcribed by Roo for future use)

  Just wait. Don’t talk. Don’t leap out of the car, the room, whatever. Don’t start kissing him like a kissing maniac, either, just to fill the time. Be there in the moment. See what happens next.

  Alternatively, attack him like a kissing maniac. It is a fair bet that he will not think this is a bad idea.

  Put your hand on his leg. Just leave it there. This will probably make him attack you like a kissing maniac.

  If his hand is going where you don’t want it to go, just move it. This is perfectly good manners in a horizontal situation. If you have to move it more than twice, you can interrupt whatever’s going on and say: “Hello. I am moving your hand for a reason, you big dodo,” or something of that nature that is flirtatious and firm at the same time.

  If you’re there in the dark together and it’s more of a talking situation, don’t ask: “What are you thinking?” For some reason, most guys are moronically incapable of answering this simple question. Instead, say something
like: “I’ve always wanted to go to India.” Or “I want to bungee jump someday.” And see what he says.

  In the dark is a good place to talk about your dreams. Or his.

  If you are getting to the upper or nether regions, there will be buttons and zippers and suchlike to negotiate. Do not just let him fumble around with your bra clasp or your shirt button for like six hours. He is not enjoying it. He is feeling superawkward that he cannot manage a simple button like a normal person.

  Just undo them yourself, if you want them undone. Trust me, the guy will be seriously relieved.

  Likewise, you can just ask him to deal with his own buttons—so you don’t have to. Really, everyone will be so much happier.

  If it gets to the nether regions once, every single time after that, have protection in your bag. Just in case. Even if you think there’s no way it’s going to get that far. Because it is way better to be all, “Oh, wait, I have something in my bag for just this situation,” than to end up pregnant or with some nasty disease. Believe me, your real live boyfriend will not think you are suddenly a famous slut. He will be majorly glad you came prepared and the whole experience will be like a gazillion times nicer if you are not feeling worried and guilty for being so lame as to be doing what you’re doing without protection.

  And remember: every single time. Every single single time. Have it in your bag.

  —dictated by Meghan and written by me into The Girl Book, my sporadically updated journal.

  in the middle of the summer, before everything went bad with Noel, my grandma Suzette died. She was Dad’s mother, and she lived nearby in Bothell. She wasn’t that old—seventy-two—but she had this foot surgery a while ago that kept getting infected and somehow her blood got toxic and blah blah blah I don’t really understand it, but eventually it killed her.

  She was a good grandma to me. Always had peppermints in her bag and bought me monogrammed stationery. She liked to take me shopping at Laura Ashley until I got old enough to put my foot down about that business. When I was younger I used to sleep over at her place when my parents went away for the weekend, and we’d rent old movies together and make popcorn in the microwave. It was Grandma Suzette who introduced me to movies like The Piano and Crimes and Misdemeanors. And before that, to musicals like My Fair Lady and comedies like The Seven Year Itch.