Real Live Boyfriends

by E. Lockhart

  Noel didn’t walk out of the party.

  Gideon and I spent the rest of the evening strolling the Ave and looking at people in costume. Lots of college kids spilling out of bars and on their way to parties, girls in sexy nurse costumes, sexy cowgirl, sexy devil. We got smoothies from a stand, blackberry for me and strawberry-peach for him. We talked about movies, and Gideon’s travels in Egypt.

  I told him this stuff I heard at Woodland Park Zoo: how in China they’ve started breeding pandas to save them from extinction and now there are all these baby pandas in a care center. It’s kind of like an orphanage, only they’re not orphans. You can see videos of them on YouTube: a whole pile of baby bears crawling on each other and squinting out of half-opened eyes. “They’re artificially inseminated, though, because pandas are pretty much uninterested in sex, especially when they live in zoos,” I said. “In fact, a few years ago these zoologists made panda porno to get the young male pandas interested and explain to them what to do.”

  “What?”

  “Other animals, you put a male and a female together and they figure it out—but apparently pandas really cannot get the hang of it without help. So they made dirty movies. It was the audio component that made the most difference, the scientists found. The panda heavy breathing. If they didn’t have the audio on, the pandas just got bored.”

  Gideon laughed. I mean, it’s funny. But I couldn’t help thinking how Noel would have riffed on the whole panda thing. He would have on-the-spot made up silly rhymes about the pandas, or sketched some completely risqué panda on a paper napkin, or made up a business plan for renting X-rated videos out to various zoos to help endangered species, probably the only possible career path that would combine porno and ecology. Something.

  Gideon asked me serious questions about pandas. Like, did I know how many there were left in the world? And did they eat anything besides bamboo?

  I didn’t know the answers. Because I love animals and learning stuff about them, but the truth is, I like amusing and strange animal stories much more than I like factoids about their everyday lives. I like gay egg-stealing penguins better than straight, socially responsible penguins, and I like porn-watching panda bears and piles of itty-bitty pandas in an orphanage better than just regular old pandas doing their thing in the wild.

  But I didn’t quite want to admit that to Gideon.

  So I kissed him again and he seemed to forget about the questions he was asking.

  1 The Sex Pistols: A British retro punk band known for the song “Anarchy in the UK.”

  The Mysterious Disappearance of Kevin!

  gideon sits on a bench outside his dorm at Evergreen College. He’s wearing a knit cap and a sleeveless parka over a chamois shirt. Birkenstocks and socks.

  Roo: (behind the camera) What’s your definition of popularity?

  Gideon: Popularity? Nora said you were making a documentary about friendship and love.

  Roo: And popularity.

  Gideon: I haven’t thought about that since maybe ninth grade.

  Roo: Really?

  Gideon: Really.

  Roo: Maybe that’s because you’re popular. You’re so popular you’ve never had to think about it.

  Gideon: I don’t think so.

  Roo: Trust me. You were golden in high school.

  Gideon: (ducking his head) I had friends.

  Roo: Popular!

  Gideon: Hardly.

  Roo: If you had ever been unpopular, you would be concerned with it in one way or another.

  Gideon: That seems warped.

  Roo: I mean, even if you rejected the idea of popularity, you’d have at least thought about it.

  Gideon: If you say so.

  Roo: Here’s a test: when was the last time you spent a Saturday night home alone?

  Gideon: I don’t know.

  Roo: Exactly.

  Gideon: But that’s not because I’m popular. That’s ’cause if I don’t have something to do, I call someone up and go out.

  Roo: But you have someone to call up.

  Gideon: Yeah. Of course.

  Roo: That’s my point.

  When I returned home on Halloween, my mother was still out at Juana’s party. Before I woke up the next morning, she was gone, presumably to Oregon with Juana.

  She didn’t leave a note and she didn’t call.

  Dad was still lying on the floor when I got up, and he grunted at me when I told him Mom was gone, but didn’t answer any of my questions.

  For the next ten days I tried to forget about Noel and the sexy college vampire girl, forget about the disappearance of my mother (who didn’t answer her cell) and forget that my father was eating nothing but Doritos, Cheese Nips, Cheez-Its, Cheetos and other bright orange cheese-flavored snack foods, sitting on the couch and watching bad television. He even slept there at night, drooling orange drool onto the front of the same sweatshirt he’d been wearing for days.

  I pretended everything was normal and excellent. I shot videos for my college application film, did my schoolwork, baked cupcakes for Meghan’s birthday and went out with Gideon.

  He took me out to the movies a couple of nights, and to dinner. He was acting like a real live boyfriend right away. Calling me, showing up on time, holding my hand. He was very easy to be around, though I didn’t let him in the house or tell him what was going on with my parents. Instead, I treated being with him like an escape from the realities of my life and the things in my heart.

  Gideon almost always had a paperback book in his pocket, philosophy or history, in which he underlined enthusiastically and which he pulled out to read if he ever had to wait for anything. Like if I went to the bathroom at a restaurant, he’d be reading when I came back. He was also studying Spanish and he had this funny instructional CD in his car. He wanted to learn Spanish because he planned to travel to South America with this charity organization to build latrines and help with immunizations and stuff.

  So he was basically an awesome human, and yet periodically I’d think: Is there something secretly wrong with him that he wants to go out with a high school girl? And a neurotic high school girl, at that?

  Maybe he seems like a normal guy but he’ll turn out to be an absolute psycho like Edward Norton in Primal Fear. Or Edward Norton in Fight Club. Or Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk.

  Then I’d remind myself that I’d flushed my self-loathing down with all the poo, and tell myself I was a smart and pretty person and there was no reason why a hot college guy who wanted to go out with me was automatically a secret lunatic.

  Truthfully, the only thing I could find wrong with Gideon was that he wasn’t the greatest kisser. He was slobbery and overly sex-tongue-y about it. And he smelled like patchouli, which isn’t bad per se but reminded me of my boss at the Birkenstock store, which was a very unromantic association.

  One Saturday he drove me up to Evergreen for the day to show me around the campus. It was lush and green and had bicycles parked all over and leaflets posted up about open-mike nights and art shows and bands. I had never been on a college campus besides the UW, which is right in the middle of Seattle, and that’s so large and manicured and full of graduate-student future lawyers and stuff that it doesn’t seem like college college.

  “I don’t think I realized until now that this time next year I’ll not only be out of the Tate Universe, I’ll be out of my parents’ house,” I told Doctor Z later that week. “I’ll be living alone. In like, New York City or Philadelphia or Los Angeles.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’ll have to take care of myself.”

  She just looked at me.

  “What?”

  More looking.

  “I’m pretty much taking care of myself right now, since Mom left. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “It crossed my mind,” she admitted.

  “Well, I just bring home take-out pizza and eat cereal for breakfast. It’s not like I’ve scrubbed the oven or anything.”

  She nodded.


  “Although I did clean the bathroom yesterday,” I admitted. “And I made Dad change his clothes and take a shower.”

  “How did that feel?” Doctor Z asked me.

  I hate it when she says shrinky things like that.

  “I am trying not to have feelings about it at all,” I said. “And I’m succeeding pretty well.”

  “Are you getting support from your friends? From Nora or Meghan?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t said anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m sick of being Neurotic Ruby whose life is always in a crisis. I’m sick of self-loathing and self-pity. So I’m flushing it down,” I told her. “Crazy dad drooling Cheeto juice. Flush! Disappearing act by Mom. Flush! Dead Grandma. Flush! Noel with someone else. Flush! And then it’s like magic: no feelings!”

  Doctor Z leaned forward. “I didn’t mean for you to pretend difficult situations don’t exist,” she said. “There are some things you can’t flush.”

  Yeah, well.

  “There’s a difference between letting something go,” Doctor Z continued, “releasing yourself of tension or a negative way of thinking—”

  “You told me to flush and I flushed!” I protested.

  “There’s a difference between stopping an obsessive thought pattern,” she said, “and denying your feelings or stuffing them down.”

  Ag again. “You want me to do Reginald,” I said. “But I don’t want to do Reginald. I want to flush it all down and have a lobotomy.”

  She smiled. “Those aren’t the same thing,” she said. “Flushing is setting yourself free of negativity, and the lobotomy is denial.”

  “Fine.”

  “Didn’t you use that word lobotomy about Noel?” Doctor Z asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Remind me what you said.”

  “He was acting like he’d had one. I told him that and he got mad.”

  Doctor Z nodded. “So what’s the similarity between Noel’s lobotomy and the lobotomy you want to have?”

  I just didn’t want to feel the things I felt. I wanted to go out with Gideon and dream about college and just ignore the badness so completely that it wouldn’t affect me.

  Oh.

  Could that be what Noel was doing too?

  Ignoring some badness so completely he was lobotomized?

  “This isn’t making me happy,” he had said. “I came back from New York and I thought you would make me happy but I’m not happy.”

  “But is that really a girlfriend’s job?” I asked Doctor Z, out of context. “To make someone happy who’s unhappy to start with?”

  She just went with my change of subject. “What do you think?”

  I shifted in my seat. “I think maybe it’s impossible to cheer people up when they’re really sad. I think they just have to be sad and all you can do is hang out with them because you love them.”

  Doctor Z nodded.

  “But then again,” I said, “if they’re drooling Cheeto drool out their mouths and watching daytime television for days and days on end, forgetting to shower, you may stop wanting to hang around them.”

  Doctor Z leaned forward. “Are we talking about Noel or your father?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Dad wasn’t there when I came home from therapy on the bus.

  He didn’t come back at dinnertime—not that there was dinner, really, but I did order pizza.

  I got worried around ten o’clock and called his cell.

  It rang on his desk. He didn’t have it with him.

  At one in the morning, when he still wasn’t home, I called Mom’s cell, but she didn’t pick up. I hadn’t talked to her in the ten days since she left, but I’d been too mad to call more than twice.

  In the morning, I called her again. No answer.

  So I called Meghan.

  “You’re calling early,” she chirped.

  “My dad’s gone missing,” I told her. “And he took the car.”

  “What?”

  As soon as I heard the concern in her voice, it all spilled out. How Mom left in a huff for an extended vacation. Dad drooling on the couch and sleeping on the floor, depression over Grandma Suzette and more depression over Mom leaving.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Meghan said.

  “You were busy with Finn,” I said. “And I was trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.”

  “I’m coming over,” said Meghan.

  When she saw the state of our houseboat, she cringed. Old pizza boxes, dog food spilled on the floor, empty cans of pop piled on top of the fridge. Kitchen sink stacked with dishes, garbage cans overflowing. “Denial isn’t working for you, sweetie,” she said. “I’m calling Nora and we’re going to clean this place up.”

  “We have to find my dad first,” I said. “He might be dead.”

  Meghan laughed. Until she realized I was serious. “Let’s check his e-mail.”

  So we did. It was already downloaded and the program open on his computer. We didn’t have to enter a password or anything.

  He had been reading his mail, apparently, despite appearances to the contrary. Nearly every message was open, and a few had reply marks next to them.

  “There are notes from your mom here,” Meghan said.

  “Really?” As far as I knew, Dad hadn’t heard from her since Halloween.

  “Yeah.” Meghan opened the most recent one.

  Kevin,

  The coast is gorgeous.

  Miss you.

  I have an idea for a new show that Juana is helping me outline. It’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve been onstage, and I think that’s why I’ve been miserable.

  You know I hate copyediting, and if I don’t perform anymore, my whole life will be copyediting when Ruby goes off to college. Do you see?

  The women’s retreat has got me writing again.

  Also, I bought a red negligee. I’ll show it to you when I get back.

  Love,

  Elaine

  “Ag,” I said. “I did not need to read that last bit.”

  “Your parents are so cute together,” Meghan said. “They’re in love.”

  “They’re insane and neglectful,” I said.

  “But in a cute way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s on the seashore. She’s finding herself,” said Meghan. “She needed a break from him, but now she misses him.”

  “At least they’re not getting divorced,” I said. “I thought they were probably getting divorced.”

  “They’re not getting divorced if she wants to show him her red negligee.”

  I shook my head to get the bad image out. “We need to find my dad,” I reminded Meghan.

  “He’s probably not dead,” she said consolingly. “He’d stay alive for the negligee.”

  We looked at the e-mails again. Lots of questions about container gardening, a note from Hutch about working again when he returned in December, more container gardening. Then there was one from Greg, Dad’s neurotic friend with the panic disorder, dated yesterday. He said he’d sprained his ankle in the shower and was in the “slough of despond.”

  I called Greg, even though it was eight a.m. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Hi. Um. Sorry to call so early. It’s Ruby, Kevin’s daughter.”

  “Hello, Ruby.”

  “Dad never came home last night and I’m wondering if maybe he came to visit you?”

  “He’s passed out on the couch,” said Greg.

  Meghan and I drove to Greg’s place. We banged on the door for ten minutes before I heard Greg shuffling behind it. “Who’s there?” he said. He’s so messed up with the panic attacks he’s afraid to open the door.

  “It’s Ruby!” I called.

  Greg’s voice was defensive. “I don’t receive until after noon.”

  “I know you’re up. I just talked to you on the phone,” I told him.

  Greg cracked
the door, then walked back into the apartment without greeting us. Meghan and I followed him. He was limping.

  There were stacks and stacks of old newspapers and magazines lining the walls, and huge windows filled with plants. The desk was buried under old food cartons and paper, but out of it surged a large computer monitor Greg used for writing software. In one corner was an enormous flat-screen TV. In another was a Habitrail filled with wood chips and gerbils.

  “This is my friend Meghan,” I told Greg.

  He flinched but held out his hand to her.

  Dad was asleep in his boxer shorts on Greg’s hairy brown couch. Greg shook him awake.

  “Hey, Ruby,” Dad said, groggy.

  “Are you okay?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m fine. It just got late, so I crashed.” He sat up and pulled an afghan over his lap.

  “You’re really okay?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Then I am so mad at you, Dad!” I yelled. “How could you not call? Or leave a note, or anything? I was all alone in the house! I couldn’t reach Mom. I had no idea what had happened to you! I thought you jumped off a bridge!”

  “I know, I know,” he said.

  “You don’t know,” I grouched. “You don’t know I thought you jumped off a bridge. You don’t know I called Mom.”

  He shook his head. “I would never jump off a bridge.”

  “How am I supposed to know that when you lie on the floor all the time drooling Cheeto juice like a complete madman?”

  Dad smiled. “Wow, you paint a pretty picture.”

  “Seriously!”

  Dad stood up and put on his pants, looking infuriatingly cheerful and not all that apologetic. “I know I was wrong not to call, Ruby,” he said.

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Three little words.”

  “What words?”

  “Guitar. Hero. Metallica.” Dad pointed at the Wii on the coffee table. “We stayed up till four in the morning.”

  “Let me make sure I understand,” I said flatly. “I thought you were dead and you were having Dude Time playing Guitar Hero.”

  “He kicked my butt,” Greg chirped. “But he made up for it by running out for Chinese and an Ace bandage. I messed my ankle up the other day,” he explained.