Real Live Boyfriends

by E. Lockhart

  Meghan: Well, I was upset at first, but then I realized. I had been to all these other parties, all year, but no one had ever invited me. I just went. Because Bick was invited. In fact, not one of those people I ate lunch with every day ever called me. Or e-mailed me. Or put a note in my mail cubby. I never saw them if Bick wasn’t around.

  Roo: Ag.

  Meghan: I know. Then you and Nora started actually calling me, and we were like, friends for real and went to the B&O and wrote in your notebook and hung around on the weekends. I thought—Oh. Those people, all those seniors, they aren’t my friends. They were never my friends. So actually I’m more popular now than I was when I went to all those parties.

  Roo: You feel popular now?

  Meghan: Sure.

  Roo: But I’m a complete roly-poly. Being friends with me is like the opposite of popularity.

  Meghan: Get over it, Roo. If you have friends who actually like you, you’re popular enough.

  When school started, Mom was barely speaking to me. Since her Snappy Dragon duck temptation, she had started buying and eating cooked food—not to please me, but because she had practically been starving herself for a year eating only things like celery juice and peanut goulash. She was probably ten pounds under her natural weight and had a serious hunger buildup. I came home one day to find her heating up barbecued ribs in the oven and mashing potatoes.

  After that, one of the ways she punished me for speaking my mind was by continually cooking meat. I’m a vegetarian, not because I think humans shouldn’t ever eat meat so much as because freshman year I read an article in the Sunday magazine about the way these big meat companies treat the animals, penning them up so they can’t even turn around or lie down, feeding them foods that aren’t natural to their bodies, injecting them with massive amounts of hormones and antibiotics, just horrible stuff. I couldn’t stand it, so I stopped eating meat.1

  Anyway, Mom bought an enormous book on charcuterie and a cookbook claiming to be the ultimate American barbecue bible. She started talking about buying a grass-fed cow, having it professionally slaughtered, and smoking and curing the meat herself. She was reading a lot of blogs on the subject, subscribed to a publication called Meat Paper, and researched jumbo-sized freezers that might fit on our northern deck.

  Most nights of the week, she was roasting something sizable and dead in the oven and planning to serve it with nothing but a green vegetable. So I was still getting nothing but vegetables for dinner, though at least they were cooked, and I had to stare at a large hunk of dead animal on the table every evening.

  My father, however, ate like he’d just been released from prison, shoveling chicken legs into his mouth and sucking all the meat off them.

  “You’ll crack eventually, Ruby,” said my mother. “Tomorrow I’m making Swedish-style meatballs with veal, beef and pork. All three! I’ll serve them over rice.”

  “I’m not going to crack for veal,” I told her. “Veal is the most unethical meat you can eat. Besides, are you really interested in being a carnivore, or is this all about making me crack?”

  “It’s not all about making you crack,” said Mom smugly. “I just think you will.”

  Back to the first day of school. It was weird to be a senior. The new herd of freshmen looked like frightened deer. The junior boys were taller than before summer. Meghan and I sat at the senior tables near the big windows of the refectory, just like all the seniors had for countless years before us. It felt surreal and powerful.

  The strangest thing was being at school without Jackson. Ever since he’d come back from Japan my sophomore year, even before we’d started going out and long after we’d broken up, I’d had Jackson radar. I’d known where he was standing, noticed what he was wearing and wondered what he was talking about, every single day.

  Now Jackson was at Cornell, three thousand miles away, and I would never have to wonder if he was looking at me, or not looking at me, or ignoring me, or hating me, or lusting after me. Not ever again.

  Nora had her camera slung around her neck and was snapping first-day pictures of all her friends. She took one of me standing outside the main building and told me to have a good first day of school. I was glad to see her, and felt more relaxed since Gideon had told me she told him we’d made up—but nothing felt the same as it had before we argued. We weren’t starting senior year together.

  Kim had a supershort haircut that made her look mod and adult. Cricket’s summer at drama school had led her to go heavy on the eye makeup and black clothes. Ariel Olivieri, who made out with Noel last year and was therefore another person I was destined to have plugged into my radar, had spent the summer perfecting her tan.

  I wondered if I looked different to them after a couple of months away. I had on jeans, Converse and a vintage bowling shirt. I didn’t dress up because I was trying to look like I didn’t care—you know, about the first day of school, how I looked, what people might be saying about me—but when I looked in the bathroom mirror I thought maybe I was trying too hard. To not care.

  I put on lip gloss.

  Then rubbed it off.

  I shouldn’t have trimmed my bangs myself.

  Varsha and Spencer from swim team ran up to me by the mail cubbies. I hadn’t seen them all summer, except once when I’d run into them at Pike Place Market and we all got cinnamon rolls. They weren’t my real friends. They were swim team friends. They were Future Doctors of America. I didn’t find them fantastically amusing, but they were neither catty nor golden and at least they didn’t seem to hate me or think I was a slut. “We’re counting on you for the relay,” Varsha told me. “Now that Angelica graduated, you’ll swim backstroke. Sound good?”

  “Spankin’,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Excellent. If Wallace says okay,” I told them. “Though Laura’s faster than me.”

  “Nah,” said Spencer. “She’s got a boyfriend. She barely worked out all summer. You worked out, right?”

  “In August. But I was pretty out of shape when I started. I didn’t even play lacrosse last spring.”

  “Why not?” Varsha asked.

  “No way I’d make varsity goalie with Chelsea Lefferts still here, so I bailed. Spring was a complete slugfest.”

  “Slugfest!” laughed Spencer. “You say the strangest things, Ruby. Doesn’t she, Varsha? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to be the hottest relay team.”

  That was how conversations with Varsha and Spencer went, and they kind of filled me with ennui. Still, I was grateful they were so nice, because I had been angsting about lunch. Now I knew I could eat with the swim team girls. Meghan was likely to spend lunch at Finn’s table of soccer muffins2 (who were all about Dude Time and therefore made me uncomfortable and also bored), Hutch was in Paris and Nora was pretty certain to be at Cricket and Kim’s table this year.

  And Noel. He was the sort of person who was welcome anywhere. A floater. Last year, before we were going out, he sometimes sat with guys from the cross-country team, sometimes with a bunch of sophomore girls, sometimes with us and sometimes with people he knew from art class or November Week. It was hard to say where he’d be for sure, and if he was with people I didn’t know that well, I wasn’t sure how it would feel to just go and sit down next to him.

  Oh.

  Ag.

  I had just wondered whether or not I’d be welcome to sit with Noel in the refectory.

  He was absolutely not my real live boyfriend anymore.

  I mean, I knew that. But this was proof upon proof.

  What was wrong?

  How had we gone from love to this?

  I was thinking all through first-period Calc, second-period Physics and third-period Women Writers. Each time I had to walk from class to class, I wondered if I’d run into Noel and how things would be between us since I’d jumped out of the car last night.

  Was he mad?

  Was I mad?

  Could we talk about it, or would it just be a replay of the same
conversation, where he insisted nothing was wrong?

  Maybe I should just pretend everything was perfect. That seemed to be what he wanted.

  But everything wasn’t perfect.

  It wasn’t.

  Did I really want to be fake with Noel, of all people?

  After Women Writers, I went to the top of the math building for my College Application Process Workshop—CAP. All seniors had this on their schedule once a week in the fall. It was supposed to be an information-sharing process where we met in groups of ten to give each other support on our applications, recommend schools we’d researched and so on.

  Dittmar (the college admissions guy) had cleared space on the rug in his office and was sitting on it cross-legged. His madras pants hiked up in this position to reveal hairy pink legs and sweat socks. “Ruby, sit down,” he said, smiling and tapping his clipboard happily.

  Noel, Kim and Cricket were there already, sitting across from each other. So was Ariel Olivieri (who had kissed Noel), Darcy the Neanderthal and several Future Doctors of America.

  I hadn’t known Noel would be there.

  He met my eyes, so I sat by him.

  I mean, to not sit by him when he was my boyfriend would have been weird. Plus if I didn’t sit by him, I’d be sitting close to Kim and Cricket, which was impossible. “Hi,” I whispered as I eased myself down onto the carpet. “Sorry I freaked out yesterday.”

  Noel nodded, but he didn’t answer. He was looking at some Xerox the Ditz had handed out.

  It would have been nice if he’d said, “That’s okay, Ruby. I understand. I don’t mind if you freak out on me every now and then”—but I wasn’t going to push it.

  The sleeves of Noel’s canvas jacket were frayed and his fingernails were bitten and red. I could hear him wheezing slightly and wondered if he had his puffer in his pocket, and whether he’d have to leave class to use it.

  Dittmar handed me a stack of papers. Tate Prep College Advisement Wants to Know All About YOU! it said on the top. From your parents, from your friends and from Y-O-U YOU! Please take the time to fill out the questionnaire below so we can best assist YOU in finding the right colleges to which you should apply.

  As the rest of the students came in and sat down, I flipped through the pages. Inside were the expected questions about extracurricular activities, religious activities, awards, honors, sports. Dittmar wanted to know our favorite book and our proposed field of study. Also things about whether we wanted to go to an urban or rural school, a college or a university, large or small, private or state, blah blah blah.

  After that was a parent questionnaire.

  How do you see your child?

  What kind of education do you want for your child?

  What are your child’s strengths and weaknesses?

  As if we were four years old.

  Last was a sheet that Dittmar explained we were supposed to give to a peer. “Sometimes a friend will come up with ideas for what you can put on your application that you never would think of,” he enthused. “So pick a friend and have him or her write some answers. You’ll be surprised what insights your pals have that can help you in your pursuit of higher education!”

  I passed the friend questionnaire to Noel. Like a peace offering, after what had happened last night. He took it, and while the Ditz rambled on, I stared at him. Noel’s profile was sharp and beautiful, like he’d been drawn with a single fluid line of ink. I looked at his pale, white skin and the slight line of chapping underneath his bottom lip and felt so, so lucky to have touched them.

  We had to fix things. Somehow.

  We had to.

  I loved him.

  But I didn’t know what to do.

  Noel wrote a note on the back of his questionnaire packet. I have something to ask you.

  I wrote back. What?

  Did he finally want to know why I’d been upset last night?

  Did he want—

  “Take a moment and close your eyes,” said Dittmar. “Picture yourself at college. Picture the dining hall. Picture the grounds. Picture the dorm rooms. Picture yourself in the library. Picture you, doing the extracurricular activities of your choice.”

  I opened my eyes midspeech. The Ditz was reading from a piece of paper.

  “Ruby, please close your eyes,” he scolded. “It’s essential to fully visualize yourself at college for this to work.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Cricket,” said the Ditz. “Now your eyes are open. Didn’t you hear what I just said to Ruby?”

  “No,” said Cricket. “I was visualizing.”

  “Well, visualize some more,” said Dittmar. “We’re visualizing for two minutes. And there are forty-three seconds left. Now forty. Now—There. Thank you, Cricket.”

  I opened my eyes. With great stealth. And looked at what Noel had written.

  Did you go out with Nora’s brother Gideon? it said on the paper.

  Ag! Ag and more ag!

  Ag ag ag ag.

  Noel was angry at me.

  I could see that now. I could see it in the set of his mouth.

  How did he find out?

  Why hadn’t I told him?

  Why had I set foot on that boat?

  Stupid, stupid me.

  What had I done?

  “Time’s up!” said Dittmar.

  “No,” I told Noel out loud.

  It was true.

  But it was also not true.

  Noel wrote some more as Dittmar began speaking. I was in line this morning to fix my schedule with the registrar. Nora and Heidi were in front of me, he scribbled. Dittmar was going around the circle asking people what they’d seen with their eyes shut. I was a few people back and they were talking so they didn’t see me, wrote Noel. Nora told Heidi that Gideon came down to Seattle from Evergreen in order to take you out.

  I read the paper with a sinking feeling in my chest. Not true, I wrote.

  Then why would Nora say that? She didn’t even know I was behind her.

  The girl next to me had just finished describing herself riding horses and doing some mad partying at college.

  “You’ll want a rural school,” said the Ditz. “Are you considering an agricultural program?”

  The girl looked at him blankly. “I just like to ride.”

  Dittmar sighed. “Okay. I’ll make a note of that. Now, Ruby. What’s on your mind?”

  “Noel, why are you jealous all the time?” I cried.

  I didn’t mean to say that. I meant to answer Dittmar about New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles—living in a big city and making movies. I felt my face burn.

  “What?” Noel looked shocked.

  “You were jealous of me and Jackson last spring, now you’re jealous of me and Gideon.”

  He looked startled.

  Dittmar intervened. “Ruby, let’s leave our personal issues outside my office, shall we?”

  “Ugh,” jeered Cricket. “She’s always making a scene of some kind. Like any of us is interested in your dramas, Ruby.”

  I didn’t think she was interested in my dramas. I just couldn’t myself be interested in anything else at the moment. “Why don’t you just believe that you’re the one I want and trust me?” I asked Noel. I had to have it out with him—whatever it was that had gone all wrong between us.

  Noel didn’t answer.

  “Ruby!” Dittmar’s voice was sharp. “Are you ready to share your college visualization with us? Or shall I come back to you when you’ve collected your temper?”

  “Is it because of all the stuff written on the bathroom walls about me?” I asked. “The things people whisper behind my back? Because I know what they say. ‘Slut.’ ‘Tart.’ ‘I hear she goes on her knees behind the gymnasium.’ I’ve heard all of it since sophomore year, but I thought you didn’t believe it.”

  “I don’t,” said Noel quietly. But I wasn’t sure he was telling the truth.

  “Listen,” I said. “You would never, ever have anything to worry about if yo
u would just call me, and come over to my house for no reason like you used to, or else have a real conversation and tell me why everything’s changed. You’d never have to worry about Gideon or anyone else. If you’d just look at me the way you used to, so I could talk to you—”

  Noel tossed his head. “If. That’s the word there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If. You said if I’d do x, y, whatever it is you want, then I could trust you. But apparently I haven’t done those things to your satisfaction, so then what? I can’t trust you?”

  I wanted to tell him he could.

  I wanted to be the girl who had never flirted with Gideon, never thought he’d make a better boyfriend than Noel.

  But I wasn’t. I had done those things.

  “You’re so suspicious,” I said. “The only reason I even went anywhere with Gideon was because you didn’t call me back. You hadn’t called me in three days when he came over.”

  “So you did go out with him.”

  “He wanted to go wakeboarding. He pulled up at my dock. It wasn’t a plan.”

  “Nora said he came down specially.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. He made it sound like one of his friends had bailed on him or something and he needed a driver.”

  Noel shook his head. “I can’t believe you, Ruby.”

  “It wasn’t anything. He taught me to wakeboard and we ate cheese puffs.”

  “Then why wouldn’t you tell me about it?” Noel asked. “Why would you not tell me you learned to wakeboard if you didn’t feel guilty about it? It’s not like that’s a completely uneventful part of your day.”

  He had a point.

  Of course I had felt guilty.

  Of course that was why I hadn’t told him.

  Suddenly, I looked around me. I was standing in the center of Dittmar’s office, revealing my ugly, unfaithful heart to everyone there. Confirming every rotten thing anyone had ever said or thought about me.

  “Ruby!” It was Kim. “We’re trying to deal with our college applications. This is really important to everyone here but you. So will you please leave?”

  Dittmar scribbled something on a sheet of paper. “To the headmaster, both of you. Go, now. And don’t bring this personal agony back into my office. Ever. Again.”