The Boy Book Page 6

  “This is not all about you, Elaine,” scolded Dad. “Let’s put the focus back on Roo.”

  “I don’t want the focus,” I said. “You can have it all, Mom, really.”

  “I am fine with it if you’re a lesbian, Roo,” announced my mom. “I have lots of gay friends.”3

  “Do you think the falling-out with Kim and those guys was because of that?” my dad wondered aloud. “Ruby, do you want to share with us any problems you’re having with your friends?”

  Ag! Ag! Ag!

  I threw myself on the couch and pulled a pillow down on top of my head. “I just want to do something good for November Week!” I shouted. “I said I’d pay for it myself!”

  Silence, for a moment.

  My dad pulled out a chair and sat down. “You don’t have to make such a fuss,” he said finally. “All you have to do is ask.”

  Choosing a November Week activity, though, proved harder than I thought.

  Meghan was doing Canyonlands, which didn’t thrill me. It had only sounded good when I thought of going with Jackson. And besides, my parents would seriously object to buying me a hardcore backpack and the other paraphernalia I’d need.

  No way was I doing whatever Katarina, Ariel and Heidi were doing. That would be a social nightmare. But I also had no way of finding out what their plans were so I could avoid them.

  Part of me wanted to do whatever Jackson did, to see what would happen between us. But he was sure to be traveling in a posse with Kyle and Matt, and I could end up spending the whole time being ignored while he was manly-manly with the guys.

  Anything involving a tent was out of the question. Unless I did Canyonlands with Meghan, I’d have no one to share with. And it didn’t seem like Noel and I were at the point where we’d make our November Week plans together.

  My best bet was Nora. But if Nora was with Cricket, as she probably would be, then she’d barely speak to me. Unless Cricket could be convinced to come around and be friends with me again.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted Cricket to come around anymore. We hadn’t spoken in five months.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Doctor Z at our session on Tuesday.

  “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know.”

  She was silent.

  “You mean, what would I want to do if none of this social stuff existed?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I thought. “The social stuff exists. I’m a leper. We lepers have to make carefully calculated decisions.”

  “You fought hard to go on one of these trips, Ruby,” she said. “What are you hoping you’ll get out of it?”

  Part of me just wanted to be like the other kids at Tate. To not have money be such an obstacle. To just go, and not have to save and work and argue with my parents. To just have a group of friends, and all plan to go together, like it was nothing that had to be negotiated.

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Let me put it another way,” said Doctor Z. “What do you think of when you picture going on the Mount Saint Helens trip?”

  “Being alone on the edge of a volcano, with no one to talk to.”

  “What about river rafting?”

  “No one to sit with at lunch.”

  “Mount Rainier?”

  “People talking crap about me.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Katarina. Whoever’s there.”

  “Kayaking?”

  “Sounds cold.”

  “All right. So that one’s out. Be the Ball?”

  “No way.”

  Doctor Z sighed. “What do you like to do? That’s what I’m asking. What activity do you like to do?”

  “I like to swim,” I said. “And read. And watch movies. But can you imagine a catalog description for that? ‘Exploring the Shallow Life: Students will enjoy a double feature of Love Actually and Bridget Jones’s Diary, wallowing in the hotness of Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, followed by thrift-store shopping, intensive reading of mystery novels, and a dip in the pool. Evenings will be spent consuming Popsicles and experimenting with cosmetics.’”

  Doctor Z smiled. “Very funny. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  I sighed. “If there was a nonbird wildlife one, I’d want to do that. But overall, I’m not really a nature lady.”

  “Yet you’re telling me you want to go.”

  “Yeah.”

  She went silent again, and I changed the subject. We talked about how annoying my mother was for the rest of the session.

  In Am Lit on Wednesday, Mr. Wallace stopped our discussion ten minutes before the end of class to talk about November Week. “I’m doing something new this year,” he announced. “Running my own show. As some of you know,” he said, nodding at Cricket and Nora and a few others, “I assisted on the rafting expeditions the past two years. But this year, Mrs. Glass and I are doing a course called Canoe Island, and I hope you will all come join us.”

  I had seen Canoe Island listed in the catalog. All it said was “Expand your mind. Nourish your soul. $375.”

  I hadn’t given it any thought.

  Mr. Wallace went on to explain that the project involved going to a retreat on a tiny island in the San Juans, off the Seattle coast, where we’d read and discuss meaningful philosophical stuff in the mornings; then, in the afternoon, we’d swim in the pool, hike around the island and take turns making dinner. Evenings, we’d watch important movies from the history of cinema that would continue to spur our thought processes about the philosophical issues in the readings.

  Movies. And swimming.

  It was Exploring the Shallow Life, only deep.

  So I told Wallace after class that I wanted to do it. Before I could chicken out.

  He looked relieved and said I was the first person to sign up.

  “Your catalog copy is too mysterious,” I told him. “You have a PR problem.”

  Wallace laughed. “You can work on your flip turns while you’re there if you want. It looks like Imari from the boys’ team might come, so I’ll coach in the afternoons.”

  That evening, I got my parents to write the check, and promised to pay them back three hundred dollars of it.

  “I hope you have a real bonding experience with your peer group,” said my father, squeezing me around the shoulders.

  “I’m just relieved we don’t have to buy her a backpack,” said my mother.

  Angelo Martinez called me that night, and our conversation went like this:

  Him: Hey, Roo. It’s Angelo.

  Me: What’s up?

  Him: Not a lot. Just got in from playing basketball.

  Me: Cool.

  Him: Um. Listen.

  Me: Yeah?

  Him: I, ah, I wanted to say I had a good time the other day. The other night. It was nice.

  Me: Oh, yeah. Sorry about squashing your dog.

  Him: De nada. He can take it.

  Me: At least it wasn’t little Skipperdee.

  Him: No. If you squashed her, she’d have bit you.

  Me: Oh.

  Him: I’m serious.

  Me: Actually, I meant if I squashed her I might have killed her. She’s so small.

  Him: You don’t know her like I do. She can take care of herself. Once I sat on this Yorkie we used to have called Stinky, and I broke her foot. I felt so bad.

  Me: So. Hey.

  Him: Hey.

  Me: Nice of you to call.

  Him: Yeah. Well. I didn’t want to be, like, not calling after what happened.

  Me: Oh, you didn’t have to.

  Him: But I did.

  Me: Don’t angst. You’re quite the gentleman.

  Him: Not if you ask my mom.

  Me: I’m hardly your mom.

  Him: No. (laughs under his breath) You are hardly my mom. (Silence. For too long.)

  Me: Do you want to go for a drive?

  Him: What, now?

  Me: My parents are in all night. I can take the Honda for an hour or so, but I have to be
back by ten.

  Him: You mean go on a drive, and park?

  Me: Exactly.

  Him: I’m going out to the porch right now, with the portable.

  Me: You’re what?

  Him: I’m on the porch now. Waiting.

  And he clicked off.

  I told my parents I was meeting Meghan at the B&O and drove to Angelo’s. He got in the car.

  We drove two blocks down to a parking lot next to a playground and made out for an hour, listening to stupid songs on the radio oldies station.

  It was great.

  Then I drove Angelo home. He kissed me goodbye.

  “Don’t say you’ll call me,” I said. “I don’t want to have a calling/not-calling thing going on between us.”

  “Okay. I won’t say it. But Roo?” He was halfway out the car door, silhouetted by a streetlamp.

  “What?”

  “You can call me.”

  Levels of Boyfriends

  1. Friend-Boy. The two of you are just friends.

  2. Friend-Boy plus Unwanted Crush. You are just friends, but you can tell he likes you. It is highly annoying.

  3. Friend-Boy plus Crush. You have a crush on him, but you’re just friends. Sigh. (Note: You are probably being highly annoying.)

  4. Hopeless Crush. You long for him from afar. He doesn’t know you exist.

  5. Friend-Boy plus Mutual Attraction. You are just friends, but maybe there is something more in the air.

  6. Flirtation. But you are not friends.

  7. Scamming Mate. You fool around, but you don’t hang out. Ever.

  8. Friends with Benefits. You fool around, and you do hang out, but you are not going out.

  9. Boyfriend. You are going out!

  10. Serious Boyfriend. You can see a future. The two of you are getting horizontal on a regular basis. You borrow his T-shirts.

  —written in my handwriting, with some additions by Kim. Approximate date: September of sophomore year.

  when I got home from being with Angelo, my parents were asleep in front of the television. I went straight to my room, dug out The Boy Book and read all our old entries. Because I had no one to talk to.

  I remembered holing up with Kim, lying on our stomachs on her big double bed, writing and laughing. And the time we brought The Boy Book over to Cricket’s house, and Nora made chocolate chip cookies, and I burned my hand taking them out of the oven, then had to dictate my contributions to the book because my fingers were too sore to hold a pen. And the time Cricket had the weird interaction with Billy Alexander and demanded that I bring the book to school so she could add an entry the next morning. And when Kim left it out on my parents’ coffee table, and my dad was just picking it up to look at it when we came back in the room, and we grabbed it and ran away squealing.

  I fell asleep with my face on the page dedicated to Levels of Boyfriends. I drooled a little and smudged the ink. At two a.m., I woke up, brushed my teeth and changed into pajamas, then went back to bed.

  So Angelo. He was, at that moment, an SM. Scamming Mate. Possibly to be elevated to Friend with Benefits, possibly to be elevated to Boyfriend. Or possibly not.

  It might be too strained, with our parents being friends. Or too weird, with our lives being so different. Hanging out with him had never been easy, the way it was with Jackson (my only real boyfriend, ever). Angelo and I usually watched TV for a bit and then ate dinner while tolerating boring grown-up conversation. I didn’t even know that much about him, besides that he was a summer camp counselor, and liked reality TV, and was an expert in the boob-groping department.

  I had been to his house a million times and had never seen his room.

  So Noel. What was he?

  Because I had to admit, we were flirting. Or at least, I felt something very close to disappointment when he didn’t kiss me and used his asthma puffer instead.

  Maybe he was FBMA, Friend-Boy plus Mutual Attraction. Or maybe FBC, Friend-Boy plus Crush. Me with a crush on him. Or maybe just a Friend-Boy.

  It didn’t feel like the crushes I’d had before, when I I had radar and could sense where the guy was from across a crowded room. Like when I had that crush on Nora’s brother, Gideon, and I felt like I was always saying the wrong thing when I talked to him, and wondered what to wear every morning in case he suddenly noticed me.

  But I did think about Noel a lot. I tried to think of ways to amuse him. And I appreciated the way he walked, like his limbs were put together loosely.

  I noticed things in Noel that I didn’t notice about guys who didn’t interest me.

  So Jackson. We didn’t include ex-boyfriends on the list of levels. What can I say? We were naïve and unheart-broken back then.

  I felt, if I had to give Jackson a type, like he was a Flirtation. Although we didn’t speak, besides hello.

  Sometimes I hated him. He had betrayed me and dumped me, and he wasn’t the guy I’d thought he was back when we were going out. I felt like I was a better person than he was.

  At those times, I decided that the notes he had written me since we broke up (just the two) were some attempt to rid his conscience of guilt. Like if Jackson could get me to be nice to him, then he could feel that what he’d done to me last year was really okay.

  Other times, I felt like he and I had had this great relationship, and then someone (Kim) had interfered at a vulnerable moment when we had to decide whether to break up or say “love” or rip off all our clothes and do it.

  If she hadn’t interfered, Jackson and I would have stayed together and worked it out, and everything would have been wonderful.

  Wouldn’t it be good to have a happy ending now, after all that drama, with me and Jackson riding off into the sunset in his Dodge Dart Swinger?

  Yes, it would.

  The rest of the time, I thought, He has a girlfriend. He doesn’t like me. So don’t even think about it.

  But I did think about it.

  Jackson was there in my mind, all the time. Like a tumor.

  In a surprise move, Cabbie brought his photos to school on Thursday. Nearly two weeks after Kim’s party. I guess he hadn’t finished the roll that night. Or he was drunk and forgot about the camera in his jacket pocket. Or something.

  Anyway, he finally got them developed, and Darcy Andrews, this annoying guy I’ve never liked, had them when I got to Precal in the morning. He and a bunch of other boys were huddled over a desk, ogling.

  I went to see what they were looking at, poking my head over someone’s shoulder.

  There was Nora, sitting on the steps of the pool, her enormous hooters highlighted by a flashbulb. She looked hot, except for her face, which was a picture of mortification. Her hands were over her chest but completely failed to cover anything, really. One nipple was sticking out, and the rest of the boobage looked sexily squashed.

  The second picture was less flattering—she was running up the hill toward Kim’s house, and the top of her head was cut off, but you could see her hooters from a side angle, her soggy panties drooping at the butt, and some mud on her legs as she stumbled across the grass.

  There were other shots too, spread out on Darcy’s desk. Guys with their arms around each other, laughing. Cricket and her gone-to-college boyfriend, Billy Alexander, lying on the grass. Katarina and Ariel, holding up pieces of sushi and waving. Kim, her hair cut shorter than the last time I’d seen her, giggling as Jackson kissed her neck.

  Ag.

  I did not need to see that. I wanted to run out of the class and be sick in the bathroom. My hands started shaking and the room was suddenly hot and stuffy.

  But Nora was due in Precal any minute. And everyone could see her boobs.

  Now was not the time to have a panic thing.

  “Where did you get those?” I asked Darcy.

  “They’re from Yamamoto’s party,” he said. “Cabbie made double prints.”

  “He knew we’d all be grateful,” laughed one of the guys.

  “Van Deusen has a lot on deck,” another
said. “She should get out more.”

  “Ooh,” I said, all innocent. “Can I see? Let me look!”

  “I don’t know,” said Darcy.

  “Please,” I coaxed, scooting in next to him and leaning over flirtatiously. “Just for a sec. I love pictures.”

  He pulled them into a stack and handed them over. As soon as I got them, I yanked the Nora pictures from the bottom of the pile, dropped the others on the floor and ripped the ones of Nora into tiny pieces.

  “Oliver!” barked Darcy. “What’d you go and do that for?”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Don’t go all feminist on me,” he muttered. “Geez.”

  “I wouldn’t need to be feminist if you weren’t such a pig.”

  “Why jump on me? Cabbie’s the one who took them.”

  “You don’t have to show them around,” I answered. “That’s so completely mean.”

  “She looks hot,” he said. “What’s the big deal? Lots of girls were going topless. If they didn’t want us to look, they shouldn’t have taken their shirts off.”

  “Not true,” I said. “What if I showed pictures of your dick around school?”

  One of the other guys laughed. “You have pictures of Darcy’s dick? Darcy, Ruby, I never knew.”

  “Do you have lots of dick pictures, Ruby?” someone else asked.

  “Maybe she does,” muttered this guy Josh—a big luggy redheaded guy. (Recall my überslut reputation.)

  “A whole collection, you moron,” I spat back.

  “She doesn’t have mine,” said Darcy, trying to laugh it off. “It’s too big to fit in a photo.”

  “It takes a certain kind of girl to take dick pictures,” Josh said. “Ruby, you want to photograph this?” He grabbed his crotch on the outside of his pants.

  “Please. I couldn’t find it if I tried.”

  “Oh, you’d find it, all right,” said Josh. “I know you know where to look.”

  “How ’bout I send a team of explorers down there with infrared goggles and pickaxes, and give them a decade or two to hunt. See if they come up with anything,” I said.